  The Thick Target Inverse Kinematic (TTIK) approach was used to measure
excitation functions for the elastic 17O ({\alpha}, {\alpha}) scattering at the
initial 17O beam energy of 54.4 MeV. We observed strong peaks corresponding to
highly excited {\alpha}-cluster states in the 21Ne excitation energy region of
8-16 MeV, which have never been investigated before. Additional tests were done
at a 17O beam energy of 56.4 MeV to estimate a possible contribution of
resonance inelastic scattering.
