To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) is the private organization directly responsible for triggering the entire modern UAP disclosure movement. Founded in 2017 by Tom DeLonge (Blink-182), parapsychologist Harold Puthoff (formerly of Stanford Research Institute), and CIA veteran Jim Semivan, TTSA assembled the most consequential insider team in UAP history: Lou Elizondo (former director of the Pentagon’s AATIP program who resigned specifically to join TTSA), Christopher Mellon (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence), and Steve Justice (former Head of Advanced Systems at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works — the man who built the F-117 and B-2).
December 16, 2017 — the day that changed everything: TTSA, working with Elizondo and Mellon, provided three classified Navy videos to New York Times journalists Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean. The NYT published the story revealing AATIP and releasing the FLIR1 (Nimitz/Tic Tac, 2004), Gimbal, and GoFast (Theodore Roosevelt, 2015) videos to the public. Before this story, the US government had officially denied any UAP program existed since Project Blue Book closed in 1969. After this story, nothing was the same. Elizondo had resigned from the Pentagon to force this disclosure because internal channels had been shut down. The US Navy confirmed the videos were authentic in September 2019. The Pentagon officially declassified and released them in April 2020. TTSA did what 50 years of researchers couldn’t: got the US government to confirm UAPs are real on the record.
The Army contract — the buried lead: In October 2019, TTSA signed a 5-year cooperative research and development agreement with the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. The contract specified that TTSA would provide the Army with: metamaterials from its possession, data on vehicles using beamed energy propulsion, and information on active camouflage technology — for testing on Army ground vehicles. The Army provided $750,000 in support and resources. The implication is unambiguous: a branch of the US military signed a contract to study materials TTSA claimed came from UAP. Steve Justice, describing TTSA’s exotic materials: “The structure and composition of these materials are not from any known existing military or commercial application.” From the man who ran Lockheed’s most classified division, that statement carries weight.
DeLonge’s real contacts — WikiLeaks 2015-2016: Emails between DeLonge and John Podesta (Clinton campaign chairman) released by WikiLeaks in 2016 show that DeLonge had been cultivating genuine high-level intelligence community contacts for years before TTSA. His contacts included individuals inside compartmented UAP programs. This was not celebrity cosplay — it was a coordinated strategy, years in the making, to create a civilian vehicle through which insiders could force disclosure without violating classification laws.
Current status: TTSA rebranded to “To The Stars” in 2022 after Elizondo departed in late 2020. The company now focuses primarily on entertainment (Sekret Machines franchise, Tom DeLonge films). Its UAP research legacy remains: the three videos, the Army contract, the congressional briefings Mellon arranged, and the cascade of hearings and legislation that followed.
TAGS: TTSA · NYT DECEMBER 2017 · ELIZONDO RESIGNED PENTAGON · ARMY CONTRACT · FLIR1 GIMBAL GOFAST · CHRIS MELLON · SKUNKWORKS JUSTICE