DeLonge, A Missing Major General & The Unknown UFO Footage Tom Calls "Real"

Written by UAP Files - Jimmy

Ordinarily, the fact that a celebrity shares a UFO video wouldn’t deserve much attention. In this case, however, Tom DeLonge isn’t simply another public figure with an interest in UFOs. Over the past decade he has occupied a genuinely unusual position within the disclosure conversation, finding himself in contact with current and former intelligence officials, senior military figures and government advisers while building what would become To The Stars Academy.

That isn’t speculation. It is well documented that DeLonge communicated extensively with John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff and counsellor to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The Man who (apparently) wanted to disclose the reality of UFOs via Hillary Clinton, had she won the Presidency.

Those conversations became public following the release of the Podesta emails by WikiLeaks, revealing that DeLonge wasn’t merely discussing UFOs with enthusiasts on internet forums, or bis buddies on celebrity podcasts, but was engaging directly with senior political and national security figures.

Which is kinda weird, right?

He was emailing back and forth with Podesta about disclosure, his growing network of contacts inside government, and the team he was assembling to help bring the subject into the public domain.

That team would eventually become To The Stars Academy, whose founding members included former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) Luis Elizondo, former CIA operations officer Jim Semivan, and several respected scientists and engineers. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the organisation, the calibre of people willing to publicly associate themselves with DeLonge was unlike anything the UFO community had seen before. Way before they all hit the Congressional hearings, or featured in The Age of Disclosure.

The emails also revealed repeated references to the now missing Major General William Neil McCasland, formerly commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory. McCasland oversaw the organisation responsible for advanced Air Force science and technology programmes, making him one of the most senior research officials in the United States Air Force. Within UFO circles, he has long been rumoured to have been connected to, or at the very least knowledgeable about, the alleged reverse-engineering effort surrounding recovered unidentified craft. If such a programme existed, many researchers have argued that someone in McCasland’s position would almost certainly have been aware of it.

One email is particularly interesting because it records DeLonge telling Podesta that McCasland had helped assemble his advisory team and was “very, very aware” of what DeLonge was attempting to achieve. DeLonge also made the much more extraordinary claim that McCasland had previously overseen the laboratory where material recovered from the Roswell incident had supposedly been taken after the 1947 crash. That allegation has never been substantiated with independent evidence, but it is significant because it demonstrates the level of trust DeLonge believed existed between himself and senior defence figures, and the level of access he believed he had been granted.

Wikileaks, John Podesta emails

Whether DeLonge’s understanding of McCasland’s knowledge was accurate remains open to debate. Nevertheless, what cannot be disputed is that he was communicating with individuals at the highest levels of the defence and intelligence establishment, including people who had held positions with access to some of the United States’ most sensitive aerospace programmes. He wasn’t simply talking to retired officials looking for publicity. His network included people who had served at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the intelligence community and advanced defence research. That context is important because it means his public endorsement of an obscure UFO video carried considerably more weight than if it had come from an ordinary social media account.

Does that make the footage genuine? Well, no. An endorsement is not evidence. By itself it proves absolutely nothing. But it does make the question worth asking: what did Tom DeLonge believe he was looking at when he decided to show this footage to millions of people?

It’s also worth noting that DeLonge didn’t make a habit of publicly endorsing random UFO videos very often or encouraging people to pay attention to specific details within them. When he shared this footage, he specifically drew attention to the unusual swirling sound captured during the encounter and stated that he believed the video was genuine. That makes this case stand out from the thousands of clips that circulate online every year.

Someone convinced him this footage was real and deserved attention.

Tom’s post on Instagram (Tom/Lue/Chris overlay added by me)

Whether that person was a witness, a researcher, or someone from within the circles DeLonge had spent years cultivating remains unknown. We simply don’t know. But given the people he was communicating with at the time—including former and serving defence and intelligence officials—it is difficult to dismiss his endorsement as being based on something trivial.

That, perhaps more than anything else, is what makes this case worth revisiting today.

Screengrab from original footage

Upscaled version

The original video didn’t come from a well-known UFO researcher, filmmaker or media outlet. It appeared on an obscure YouTube channel called ResearchForTruth12, belonging to someone identifying themselves only as “Bob.” The account uploaded just two videos, both showing unusual aerial objects, before disappearing completely. No further uploads. No interviews. No social media presence. No attempts to build a community. More than a decade later, the channel remains exactly as it was left.

Then something remarkable happened.

Years after the upload, Tom DeLonge shared the footage with his audience of well over a million followers, instantly exposing Bob’s forgotten video to one of the largest UFO audiences on the internet. For most YouTube creators, that kind of endorsement would be life-changing. It could have launched an entire channel, generated thousands of pounds in advertising revenue and opened the door to interviews, documentaries and media attention.

But none of that happened.

The channel was not monetised. Bob never returned to acknowledge the sudden interest. He never answered questions, never uploaded another video and never appeared to capitalise on the attention in any way. The account simply fell silent, leaving behind two intriguing videos and a great many unanswered questions.

That behaviour is difficult to ignore because it runs completely against the way viral internet hoaxes normally unfold. People seeking fame usually continue posting. People seeking money monetise. People seeking attention tend to embrace the spotlight. Bob did none of those things. Instead, he walked away from what could have become one of the most talked-about UFO channels on YouTube almost overnight.

There is another strange coincidence. Long-time UFO researchers will immediately recognise the name Bob from the infamous Skinny Bob footage, another anonymous upload that appeared online before its creator vanished without explanation. The similarities almost certainly end there, but it’s an interesting parallel nonetheless. Once again, an anonymous uploader, a couple of mysterious videos, and then complete silence.

ResearchForTruth12 remains one of the more unusual YouTube channels in UFO history.

Watch the full episode, case analysis and footage enhancement below.

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