Gary McKinnon
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | November 2002 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Government programs (topic) |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 151 |
| Year | 2002 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2002 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
Gary McKinnon (born February 1966) is a Scottish systems administrator who, between February 2001 and March 2002, broke into 97 U.S. military and NASA computers looking for evidence of UFOs and suppressed technology. U.S. prosecutors called it the biggest military computer hack of all time; after a decade-long extradition battle he was never prosecuted.[1][2]
The hacking
Using the name "Solo" and working from a house in London, McKinnon found systems with weak or blank passwords. U.S. authorities said he deleted files that shut down a U.S. Army network of about 2,000 computers for 24 hours and deleted logs at the Earle Naval Weapons Station after the 11 September 2001 attacks, and put the cost of the damage at over $700,000. He admitted the unauthorised access, saying he was looking for evidence of UFOs, anti-gravity and suppressed "free energy", inspired by the Disclosure Project's 2001 press conference.[1]
His claims
McKinnon said he had seen a spreadsheet listing "non-terrestrial officers" and ship-to-ship transfers, which he took as evidence of a secret space fleet, and an image of a cigar-shaped craft in a NASA Johnson Space Center file that he could not download. These claims rest only on his own account.[2][3]
The extradition battle
McKinnon was first interviewed by British police in March 2002 and indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in Virginia in November 2002 on seven computer-crime counts. He fought extradition for a decade, losing appeals in the House of Lords in 2008 and the High Court in 2009. His case drew wide public support, including from musicians Sting and David Gilmour, and his diagnosis of Asperger syndrome and the risk of suicide became central to the campaign.[1]
Outcome
On 16 October 2012 Home Secretary Theresa May blocked his extradition on health grounds, and on 14 December 2012 British prosecutors announced that he would not be prosecuted in the UK.[1]
People and topics
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- NASA — The U.S. civilian space agency, created in 1958.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- Nevada weapons storage orb (2002) (October 2002) — A three-foot orb is reported moving along fences at a Nevada nuclear weapons storage area.
- Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry (27 November 2002) — A federal commission on the aerospace industry delivers its final report to Congress.
See every 2002 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Gary McKinnon — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "'UFO hacker' tells what he found", Wired (2006), via ISN · attrition.org · archived copy
- "Gary McKinnon reveals detail on NASA data breach and extraterrestrial life", WeLiveSecurity (2015) · welivesecurity.com · archived copy
- Hacker Gary McKinnon interviewed (BBC World Service) — Slashdot · it.slashdot.org · archived copy
- web.archive.org · web.archive.org · archived copy
- web.archive.org · web.archive.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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