Tom DeLonge once claimed his phone had been tapped due to his knowledge of top-secret government information regarding aliens, UFOs and the extraterrestrial like. Now, he’s ready to divulge some of his insight in his forthcoming book Chasing Shadows.

The former Blink-182 guitarist has penned 700-plus pages with mystery novelist A.J. Hartley on the subject. To be clear: This is a work of fiction. However, DeLonge says it’s based in reality. DeLonge has crafted fictive characters as vessels for allegedly true stories in order to gradually introduce the public into the wild ideas he outlines in Chasing Shadows. “The enormity of what’s being told might hit people in a weird way if it was just laid on their lap all at once,” DeLonge told GQ.

But just how did DeLonge come to be the person hiding confidential documents in his house, flipping the bill for top scientists’ air travel and ultimately a source of all of this covert intel? And, bear with us, how did DeLonge’s trusted sources come to agree for him to detail it in a quasi-tell-all?

“I took very strategic steps to earn their trust and to explain what this project could do and how I would unravel it,” DeLonge said. “I mean, I did four-hour presentations in front of very high-ranking officers about how I was going to do all this. Then I would present my views of what the phenomenon is and what’s it’s doing.”

DeLonge anticipates readers might not be prepared to buy into all of this quite yet. “I think there are going to be a lot of people who aren’t going to believe,” he conceded. “They won’t take a minute to read some of the material. They’ll hear, ‘Oh, Tom’s doing some alien, flying saucer thing. That’s not what this is. This is a big deal.”

Chasing Shadows is due out April 5. It’s part of a larger Sekret Machines multimedia project that will include a new Angels & Airwaves EP and a documentary. You can pre-order it all right here.

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