Julian Assange isn’t the first whistle-blower to seek protection from extradition to the U.S. from Britain. Gary McKinnon, a now 45-year-old Scottish computer hacker, in 2001 and early 2002 hacked into Pentagon computers searching for UFO and ET material and found it. Accused of mounting the largest ever hack of United States government computer networks — including Army, Air Force, Navy and NASA systems, he has been fighting extradition ever since. Now, according to an article in openminds.tv, “No Mercy for UFO Hacker Gary McKinnon,”
“. . .There were hopes than an upcoming visit to the UK by U.S. president Barack Obama later this month would result in a breakthrough for McKinnon’s case. But according to the Daily Mail, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder vowed last week to take all necessary steps to extradite Gary.
“McKinnon’s mother, Janis Sharp, has been fighting non-stop on behalf of her son. She even wrote an open letter to President Obama, “Pleading with him to end ten years of torment.” She told the Daily Mail that she was “shocked by the response of the U.S. Attorney General.”
“Prior to their election, both Nick Clegg, UK’s deputy prime minister, and prime minister David Cameron both said that “Gary can and must be tried in the UK.” But in light of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent comments, McKinnon’s chances of remaining in the UK are slim.”
Here’s an interview from Wired magazine from 2006, where he talks about what he did and what he found. I especially enjoyed the reference to “non-terrestrial officers”. . .
UFO Hacker’ Tells What He Found
06.21.06The search for proof of the existence of UFOs landed Gary McKinnon in a world of trouble.
After allegedly hacking into NASA websites — where he says he found images of what looked like extraterrestrial spaceships — the 40-year-old Briton faces extradition to the United States from his North London home. If convicted, McKinnon could receive a 70-year prison term and up to $2 million in fines.
Final paperwork in the case is due this week, after which the British home secretary will rule on the extradition request.
McKinnon, whose extensive search through U.S. computer networks was allegedly conducted between February 2001 and March 2002, picked a particularly poor time to expose U.S. national security failings in light of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
McKinnon tells what he found and discusses the motivation behind his online adventures in this exclusive phone interview with Wired News.
Wired News: What was your motive or inspiration for carrying out your computer hacking? Was it the War Games movie?
Gary McKinnon: This is a bit of a red herring. I have seen it but I wasn’t inspired by it. My main inspiration was The Hacker’s Handbook by Hugo Cornwall. The first edition that I read was too full of information…. It had to be banned, and it was reissued without the sensitive stuff in it.
WN: Without this book would you have been able to do it?
McKinnon: I would have done it anyway because I used the internet to get useful information. The book just kick-started me. Hacking for me was just a means to an end.
WN: In what way?
McKinnon: I knew that governments suppressed antigravity, UFO-related technologies, free energy or what they call zero-point energy. This should not be kept hidden from the public when pensioners can’t pay their fuel bills.
WN: Did you find anything in your search for evidence of UFOs?
McKinnon: Certainly did. There is The Disclosure Project. This is a book with 400 testimonials from everyone from air traffic controllers to those responsible for launching nuclear missiles. Very credible witnesses. They talk about reverse-(engineered) technology taken from captured or destroyed alien craft.
WN: Like the Roswell incident of 1947?
McKinnon: I assume that was the first and assume there have been others. These relied-upon people have given solid evidence.
WN: What sort of evidence?
McKinnon: A NASA photographic expert said that there was a Building 8 at Johnson Space Center where they regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging. I logged on to NASA and was able to access this department. They had huge, high-resolution images stored in their picture files. They had filtered and unfiltered, or processed and unprocessed, files.
My dialup 56K connection was very slow trying to download one of these picture files. As this was happening, I had remote control of their desktop, and by adjusting it to 4-bit color and low screen resolution, I was able to briefly see one of these pictures. It was a silvery, cigar-shaped object with geodesic spheres on either side. There were no visible seams or riveting. There was no reference to the size of the object and the picture was taken presumably by a satellite looking down on it. The object didn’t look manmade or anything like what we have created. Because I was using a Java application, I could only get a screenshot of the picture — it did not go into my temporary internet files. At my crowning moment, someone at NASA discovered what I was doing and I was disconnected.
I also got access to Excel spreadsheets. One was titled “Non-Terrestrial Officers.” It contained names and ranks of U.S. Air Force personnel who are not registered anywhere else. It also contained information about ship-to-ship transfers, but I’ve never seen the names of these ships noted anywhere else.
WN: Could this have been some sort of military strategy game or outline of hypothetical situations?
McKinnon: The military want to have military dominance of space. What I found could be a game — it’s hard to know for certain.
