Remember UFO computer hacker Gary McKinnon? He’s the 39-year-old English unemployed computer engineer accused of hacking into as many as 97 U. S. military and NASA computers between 2001 and 2002. He was arrested in England on June 15, 2005 but was released on bail July 1 by a British magistrate. He is scheduled to appear in court for an extradition hearing on July 27th.
According to Paul McNulty, the U. S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, McKinnon (alias SOLO) engaged in the “biggest military computer hack of all time.” Using several off-the-shelf software programs, including one called “Remotely Anywhere," McKinnon allegedly disrupted military and intelligence communications, monitored network traffic and deleted numerous U. S. Army, CIA, and NASA files causing an estimated $700,000 in damages. If extradited to the U. S. and convicted on 22 separate charges, he could spend the next 70 years in jail.
McKinnon, an avowed pacifist, does not deny that he hacked U.S. military and intelligence computer systems over the internet. But through his attorney he claims that the primary purpose of the hack was to “prove the existence of UFOs," an existence that the U.S. (and British) military and intelligence community has continued to steadfastly deny. And friends of McKinnon reportedly have claimed that he found “thousands of UFO photos on U.S. intelligence computers.” Whether any of this is true or will be relevant in the extradition hearing remains to be seen.
The larger and more important issue, of course, that goes beyond the hacking is: Does the U. S. military and intelligence community actually have evidence that UFOs exist and may well be a threat to the national security? Although much has been written on this subject, the most careful and sober treatment of the issue is Richard M. Dolan’s UFOs and the National Security State (Hampton Roads Publishing, 2002).
Dolan argues persuasively that select individuals within the U. S. military and intelligence community, working entirely behind the scenes, accepted the physical existence of the UFO by at least the late 1940’s. Moreover, given the reality of US airspace penetration by UFOs and the distinct possibility of mistaking UFOs for a Soviet air/missile attack, the national security aspects of the subject was treated with absolute seriousness, as they should have been. Even as early as September 23, 1947, General Nathan Twining, Commanding General of Air Material Command, sent a then-secret memorandum to Brigadier General George Schulgen at the Pentagon which stated that:
“The reported phenomenon (the flying disc) is something real and not visionary or fictitious…There are objects the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft…The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and action which must be considered EVASIVE when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically or remotely.”
Evasive? Could mirages, balloons and ball lightening evade fighter planes scrambled to pursue “objects the shape of a disc”? Or be tracked on ground radar at 8,000 mph? Less than a year after the Twining memo, and after several spectacular sightings, the first Air Force special project on UFOs (Project Sign) generated a Top Secret “Estimate of the Situation” which concluded, according to Ed Ruppelt former head of Project Blue Book, that some UFOs were interplanetary machines. And when secret US and Russian aircraft programs were ruled out as the source of the UFO (the Russians and their US counterparts were hardly field-testing exotic air technology over the Hudson Valley or the Florida everglades), the military and intelligence people in charge must have made explicit decisions to move all serious study of the UFO underground for national security reasons. According to Dolan, that policy decision was made more than 50 years ago and despite occasional leaks has continued to the present.
The above scenario explains much. It explains the many silly Blue Book “explanations” of cases – such as the seven reported landings of a huge bright egg-shaped object in Levelland, Texas on November 2, 1957, that stalled automobiles and killed headlights, which Blue Book officially whitewashed as “ball lightning.” It explains, despite continual Air Force disclaimers of “nothing to hide," the public censorship of UFO secrecy critic Major Donald E. Keyhoe on the Armstrong Circle Theater on January 22, 1958. When Keyhoe departed suddenly from the TelePrompTer script and said “And now I’m going to reveal something that has never been disclosed before…” his microphone was abruptly cut off. The live TV audience saw his lips moving but his audio had been zapped by the Air Force and CBS under prior agreement.
It explains the ridiculing and eventual formal muzzling of commercial airline pilots for reporting UFOs to the press. It explains the CIA sponsored Robertson Panel’s recommendations (1953, but kept secret for more than a decade) that the elite media be enlisted in “training and debunking” programs whose “aim would result in (a) reduction in public interest in ‘flying saucers’…” And while the public never did lose interest, the relentless government and media debunking and ridiculing of the subject – and anyone who took it seriously – effectively killed off serious scholarly interest in solving the mystery. UFOs were to be forever associated with the paranormal and with new age irrationalism and, thus, became a kind of third rail in formal science and in academia; those who touched it risked putting their careers in mortal peril. Almost none did.
Yet despite the research and disclosure disincentives, cover-ups (like cartels) always leak and bits and pieces of the government’s actual concern about UFOs have surfaced over the years. Critics using the Freedom of Information Act have shaken loose dozens of important letters, memos and reports relative to UFO reality and secrecy that belie official explanations and public statements made at the time. In addition, many supposed government UFO documents, some with spectacular implications, are in the process of authentication and release.
Now whether computer hacker Gary McKinnon actually accessed secret military UFO files is anyone’s guess. If there is an open trial, perhaps we will finally find out whether the speculations of Richard Dolan and others are correct. But don’t hold your breath.
July 7, 2005
