How is Tom DeLonge’s UFO research company doing? Financially, I mean.

Tom DeLonge has been spending is post-blink-182 years working on his To the Stars Academy, an organization dedicated to uncovering the vast government coverup of unidentified aerial phenomenon. The project includes all manner of research along with publishing fiction and non-fiction books on the subject.

To the Stars has some pretty heavy-hitters on its staff (scientists, engineers, ex-spooks, ex-government contractors). These people don’t come cheap. Add in expenses like travel and research and overhead must be pretty high. And if I’m honest, outside of book publishing, donations and the sale of shares, I’m not sure where the revenue is coming from.

So how is To the Stars doing? Financially, I mean. Ars Technica reports on the company’s financial report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The accompanying financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis, which contemplates the realization of assets and the satisfaction of liabilities in the normal course of business. The Company has incurred losses from operations and has an accumulated deficit at June 30, 2018 of $37,432,000. These factors raise doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.

Oh. A deficit of $37.5 million can’t be good. Tom, though, had this response.

 

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BLATENT LIE — APPARENTLY, THIS WRITER CAN’T READ. BTW- TTSA never even raised $37m!!? So how in the hell did we spend it?! Lord. I ask all of you that believe in the @tothestarsacademy mission to go write a complaint on their website RIGHT NOW for trying to hurt an admirable effort to help humanity by using negative attacks and—-> lies. OUR LETTER TO THEM: Dear Ars Technica— I am writing you regarding the article posted to Ars Technica this morning titled ‘All the dumb things? Blink 182 front man’s UFO project $37 million in debt’ by Eric Berger. We were surprised Ars Technica would allow Mr. Berger to post such an article without asking either Mr. DeLonge or To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science for comment. This article is highly misleading and grossly mischaracterizes statements in an SEC filing. Had Mr. Berger bothered to reach out to us for comment this could have been prevented. Mr. Berger apparently did not EVEN READ the filing in its entirety, and clearly did not understand the excerpt of the SEC filing he quotes. The approximate $37 million stockholders’ deficit is NOT DEBT as he characterized it but is attributable to stock-based compensation expense. IT IS NOT RELATED TO THE OPERATIONAL RESULTS OF THE COMPANY. The Consolidated Balance Sheets of To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science in the SEC filing quoted by your author clearly shows the approximately $37 million deficit is attributed to Stockholders’ Equity (Deficit). The filing goes on to explain the mechanism for calculating stock-based compensation and details the various grants of stock options by the company. Mr. Berger’s characterizations of this as debt implies that it stems from traditional borrowings. Had Mr. Berger bothered to email or call us we could have directed him to these portions of the SEC filing and walked him through it. For Mr. Berger to make the conclusions he did on incomplete research and his own interpretations without contacting Mr. DeLonge or the company is inexcusable. We request that you print this letter in full within the article as our statement.

A post shared by Official Tom DeLonge (@tomdelonge) on Oct 15, 2018 at 2:10pm PDT

I, for one, want Tom to succeed in all of his goals. Let’s hope this can all get sorted out.