What Happened to Tom DeLonge? UFOs and a Blink Reunion in 2026

If you owned a skateboard, a pair of baggy shorts, or a CD of Enema of the State at the turn of the millennium, Tom DeLonge was the voice in your headphones — that nasal, bratty, weirdly lovable snarl on “All the Small Things.” Then he did the least pop-punk thing imaginable: he quit one of the biggest bands on the planet to research UFOs. Full-time. Seriously. For years people weren’t sure whether to laugh or worry. So whatever happened to the kid who mooned arenas for a living? The short version is that he got the band back, got vindicated on the alien stuff, and somehow came out looking like the smartest guy in the room. Here’s where Tom DeLonge is in 2026.

01Profile

Full name

Thomas Matthew DeLonge

Born

December 13, 1975 (50 years old)

Birthplace

Poway, California, USA

Occupation

Musician, songwriter, author, filmmaker, UAP researcher

Best known for

Co-founder of Blink-182; "All the Small Things" (1999)

Other bands

Angels & Airwaves, Box Car Racer

Ventures

To The Stars (entertainment and aerospace/UAP research)

Yes, the guy who sang about being a dog in a music video full of boy-band parodies is now cited in conversations about national security and unidentified aerial phenomena. If that sentence gives you whiplash, good — it’s the whole point of his story.

02The Rise: Pop-Punk’s Class Clown

Three kids from Southern California

Blink-182 started in 1992 when DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and original drummer Scott Raynor began bashing out fast, funny, hook-heavy songs in the San Diego suburbs. They were loud, crude, and completely allergic to taking themselves seriously — and that turned out to be a winning formula for a generation of kids who found the angsty grunge era a little too gloomy.

Their 1997 album Dude Ranch built a following, but it was 1999’s Enema of the State that turned them into superstars. Powered by “What’s My Age Again?,” “Adam’s Song,” and the inescapable “All the Small Things,” the record sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. With Travis Barker now on drums, the trio became the defining pop-punk band of the era.

The funniest band in the world

Part of Blink’s appeal was that they were genuinely hilarious. The “All the Small Things” video skewered boy-band clichés; their live banter was relentlessly juvenile; and DeLonge’s between-song jokes became as much a draw as the music. Albums like Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001) and the more mature, experimental self-titled Blink-182 (2003) showed the band could grow up without losing the grin. By the mid-2000s they were one of the biggest rock acts in the world — which made what came next so jarring.

03Walking Away to Chase the Aliens

DeLonge has always had two obsessions that sat oddly next to the dick jokes: ambitious, cinematic music, and a lifelong fascination with UFOs. Both eventually pulled him out of Blink-182 — twice.

• 2002Forms the side project Box Car Racer, hinting that he wanted to make bigger, moodier music than Blink allowed.
• 2005Blink-182 goes on "indefinite hiatus" amid tension and burnout. DeLonge launches Angels & Airwaves, his self-described "art project."
• 2009The band reunites and tours again, releasing the album "Neighborhoods" in 2011.
• 2015DeLonge departs Blink-182 a second time. The split is publicly messy, and he says he wants to focus on his UFO and media work through To The Stars.
• 2017Launches To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, devoted to aerospace research, entertainment, and the serious study of unidentified aerial phenomena.

To a lot of fans and headline writers, this read as a cautionary tale: rock star loses the plot, leaves his hit band, and disappears down a conspiracy rabbit hole. For a stretch, “Tom DeLonge believes in aliens” was a punchline. The reality was that he was building something — and betting his reputation that the joke would eventually be on everyone else.

04From Punchline to Disclosure

To The Stars and the Pentagon videos

In late 2017, To The Stars was involved in releasing now-famous U.S. Navy footage of unidentified objects, and a New York Times report that year revealed a secret Pentagon program that had been studying such sightings. Suddenly the conversation around DeLonge shifted. He wasn’t just a musician with a hobby — he had positioned himself at the center of a story that mainstream outlets, and eventually the U.S. government, were taking seriously.

In the years since, congressional hearings on UAPs, official Pentagon offices dedicated to the subject, and public testimony from former intelligence officials have made the topic mainstream news. DeLonge, who spent years being mocked for it, was repeatedly name-checked as someone who had been ahead of the curve.

“I’m trying to change the way the world thinks about one of the biggest, most important subjects of all time. I knew it would take a while.” — Tom DeLonge, paraphrasing his long-stated mission around UAP disclosure in interviews

The music never stopped

Through all of it, DeLonge kept making music with Angels & Airwaves, releasing the album Lifeforms in 2021 and touring behind it. He also expanded To The Stars into film and books, directing and co-writing the 2023 coming-of-age sci-fi movie Monsters of California, which folded his real-life fascinations — conspiracy theories, strange sightings, teenage misadventure — into a single project.

05What He Is Doing Now

Blink-182 is back — and bigger than ever

The biggest news for longtime fans came in October 2022, when DeLonge officially rejoined Blink-182, reuniting the classic Hoppus-DeLonge-Barker lineup. The comeback single “Edging” arrived almost immediately, and in October 2023 the trio released One More Time…, their first album with all three original members in over a decade. Critics and fans treated it as a genuine, emotional reunion rather than a cash grab — partly because Hoppus had recently come through a cancer battle, which reminded everyone how fragile these things are.

Stadiums, festivals, and a victory lap

Blink-182 spent 2024 and 2025 on a massive run of shows. In 2025 they headlined the U.S. “Missionary Impossible” tour, which kicked off in Hollywood, Florida, in late August and wrapped in Las Vegas on October 19, 2025, with Alkaline Trio along for the ride. Heading into 2026, the band has kept their schedule lighter — they were announced as headliners for the Innings Festival in Tempe, Arizona, in February 2026 — but the reunion that once seemed impossible is now simply the status quo.

Still the UFO guy, and proud of it

DeLonge continues his UAP advocacy through To The Stars, and as government disclosure efforts have ramped up, he’s enjoyed a long-overdue vindication lap. The man who left a hit band to be taken seriously about aliens now gets to be both: a touring rock star and a credited voice in one of the strangest, most fascinating public conversations of the decade.

06Summary

Tom DeLonge’s career looks chaotic from the outside — quit the band, chase UFOs, quit again, come back — but it tracks a guy who simply refused to be only one thing. He wanted to make ridiculous pop-punk and serious art and change the conversation about the unexplained, and against all odds, he’s pulled off all three.

The kid who mooned the camera grew into the rare celebrity who got the last laugh on his own punchline. Whether you’re here for the power chords or the flying saucers, Tom DeLonge in 2026 is exactly where he always insisted he’d end up — and somehow, that’s the most punk thing about him.