A couple of years ago, I received a review copy of a book titled Sekret Machines: Gods, which was billed as an “investigation of the UFO phenomenon.” The lead author was Tom DeLonge, a founder of the rock band Blink 182 and its former long-time lead singer.

I’d been a fan of the irreverent band in my younger days, and my now-wife and I had attended a few concerts and enjoyed ourselves. It was difficult for me to imagine that the former lead singer of a band with an album titled Take Off Your Pants and Jacket had engaged in any kind of serious scholarship or research. Queen guitarist Brian May, however, went on to earn a PhD in astrophysics, so you never know.

I made it about half way through the book before I gave up. The authors, DeLonge and Peter Levenda, spent most of the pages I slogged through cherry-picking ancient cultures and religion to find curious or unexplained things. Then, they attribute these experiences to mysterious alien influences.