From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. We've explored the concept of secret space programs in depth, especially of Late. It's been an ongoing bad romance you could say, between NASA and Darva and your fellow conspiracy realis so yeah, oh it's perfect, perfect. Before we before we dive into this, do you guys want to give
a quick recap of our ventures of late. I believe this is the first time the three of us are recording in Atlanta again.
I was about to say state side, but that's not exactly right, but yeah, atl Side. Now, we had a lovely little road trip together. We all went to Los Angeles to do a cool podcast evolution conference panel on how to talk about heavy stuff without being too much of a bummer. The Er and the Heavy you might be able to hear that very panel here one of
these days in the not two distant future. But we also hung out with a friend of the show, Kevin and some of his lovely friends from LA and did music trivia at this place called Permanent Records, and hung out with some of our LA folks, Miles and Jack and the whole gang.
It was really great. We got a great LA crew out there.
Yeah, it was. It was an amazing time. But we are back now and we are headed to space.
Space space.
Yeah, hats off to longtime conspiracy realist. You already know part of our motivation with secrets of space in the Outer Dark if you've tuned into some of our recent collaborations, most notably a particular episode of The Passage, an excellent an excellent fiction series. Well one episode is not fiction. Hoover episode is one hundred percent real. All of these are ep by our own mister Matt Frederick. Tonight, we're exploring a troubling allegation of conspiracy that is somewhat of
a culmination of numerous previous rumors. This case differs in one notable respect. It appears at least some of the allegations may hold water or you know, aliens off mic. We were off air, we were talking a little bit about some of the stuff that troubles us here. And you know, guys, we never did an episode about our one of our protagonists in this story. Our tale begins with one man, a Scottish national named Gary, and Gary, when our story begins,
is troubled by some rumors he's heard online. Here are the facts.
That's right.
In March of two thousand and two, the year of our Lord, Scottish United Kingdom national, Gary McKinnon was arrested at his apartment or a flat as they call it in London, accused under suspicion of successfully hacking into secret and highly classified sensitive US military computers from February two thousand and one to March of two thousand and two. He was twenty two years old at the time.
Kind of a sensitive time to be hacking into government computers, right.
When you had first you had Y two K and then of course now we're right in the thick of Post nine to eleven paranoia and anxiety.
Yeah, it's a it's a strange milieu. It'say bad romance of state survey. The last time I'll say it of state surveillance and lackluster cybersecurity, but also an intense need to make an example of people.
Oh well, yeah, exactly because Gary McKinnon is not the only person who was interested in trying to find you know, secret stuff online at that time. I mean, guys, you probably have memories. I remember as a kid learning some of the tricks I would say of getting into servers that maybe you're not supposed to.
The password is password.
We all had our own personal back doors at one time or another into military intelligence systems.
Am I right, No, that's not what I mean. But using computers to access stuff that you wouldn't be able to access unless you had a computer and you knew how to use it, right.
And he's an early adopter, as Gary, because he gets his first computer around fourteen years old, so he grows up with this as as the ted talkie folks would say, he is native to this environment. And you know, when they first arrest him, he's held in I think Brixton for about six to seven hours, so like drunk tank rules. And while he's held they take his computers, his personal ones, and they also take the He had a side business
repairing people's computers. So they take any basically any computer he touches, and then they release him back into the wild. But the case wends on. Uncle Sam is very mad about this because they kind of he kind of David v. Goliath them, if we're being honest, and he and so it comes to pass that Scotland yard in June or July two thousand and five, they scoop him up and again,
and this is when things get serious. The Dojus Department of Justice indicts him on eight separate accounts of computer or eight separate counts I should say, of computer related crimes. And at first they say, hey, man, you did over five hundred and sixty six thousand US dollars worth of damage to not just our hardware, but to our network,
to the function of US security. And then they come back and they say it was actually over seven hundred thousand, then eight hundred thousand, then nine hundred thousand.
Man, it's like this guy was copy in movies or something LimeWire.
You wouldn't download UFO, would you?
I would?
If I could, I would one hundred percent download a uf I don't.
Think you can.
Did you guys ever get one of those season desist letters from like HBO.
Okay, maybe don't want to Oh, no, fair enough.
Well, I certainly did back in the heyday, which was literally around this time. It was the golden age of peer to peer sharing, and.
You were LimeWire.
I was LimeWire.
I did all of the very kazah various ones. I mean, I was an early napster user back when it was like the bane of record labels.
But that was a long time ago.
Can't come at me now, statute of limitations, just surely. But Ben, I was wondering when they released him. I know this is sort of a thing that intelligence and you know, law enforcement officials will do. Was it a catch and release situation where they were like monitoring what he would do after? I'm just wondering, or is that not necessarily the case.
That's a great question, and I cannot speak with authority here, But based on spidy sense, let's say yes, okay, let's actually based on Spidey sense. While we cannot officially confirm that, let's say one absolutely, you do the same thing.
Well, it seems like smart thing to do if you don't have enough to keep them on, or at least you have enough to grab their stuff, then that probably is best.
For your case if you just keep an eye on them out in the wild.
And Matt's right about the shadow of nine to eleven looming large there.
Oh yeah, oh dude, with all the laws that were being written towards the end of the time that he was performing these activities, right, I mean they are at that time being written right within the confines of the White House and all of the attorneys at work around that structure, I guess. But the other thing is, I'm imagining the interrogation room, right. This is like having an interrogation room across an ocean where somebody on one side is saying, hey, this is what we have on you,
and the person on the other side sweating. I guess what did they say they had.
On him, Well, what they said they had on him in the UK was suspicion of illicit activities that may have This is where it gets money, because the concern was he may have compromised British nationals in the in the beginning, or he may have compromised British government networks, which would be kind of more important, honestly, more important to the UK than the compromise of a foreign nation. Five eyes aside, but shout out to you guys, thanks
for tuning in the idea. Then is immediately to find out what they can get him on.
Right.
If you if you look at his own origin story, he is Gary himself is pretty transparent. He says, you know, I was arrested in March two thousand and two for hacking into networks domains like dot gov, dot mil and the way he breaks it down and Gary, if you're listening, this is brilliant and brilliant. People are always humble. This is brilliant because he says, look, I do CIS admin systems administration. I wasn't doing some crazy sci fi hacking.
I was basically cracking things with very lazy solutions. So when the British release him, I do think it is, to your point, NOL, a catch and release kind of thing. We've taken this guy's toys, right, we've taken his access. Let's see what else he can do when we put him in the wind right. And the problem is that the Department of Justice doesn't like it because they got touched. You know what I mean. They're a goliath who yet again got davided. So they want to make an example.
And they're doing this by the way, you know, history will approve. They make examples of other countries, right, they make examples of terrorist organizations, even if those are not necessarily involved in the events of September eleventh. So the Department of Justice says, we demand that the Kingdom extradites Gary McKinnon. He must face trial in the United States. We have him dead to rights. Originally they said he hacked something like ninety seven different military and NASA computers
over the course of that year. You described Noel. The number would later go up to two hundred, and he had a he had a bit of the theatrical about him. He was using a handle, a pseudonym Solo, and he was Gary McKinnon is again a very very intelligent person. He was smart enough not to do this at his own apartment or flat. He was operating out of his girlfriend's aunts house. But that that didn't help, and Uncle
Sam had a lot of beef. They said, you shut down a network of two thousand computers, mission critical infrastructure for the US, the world's most dangerous military. You shut it down for like more than twenty four hours, and and you had to swing your around a little bit, because if we go on these websites at least at least once, I think multiple times, he a solo would post quote your security as crap. That's funny, oh, classically classic.
It's also the kind of stuff that if he were in the employ of said agency would be welcome.
Right.
They hire like hackers or people like Gary to look for holes in their security.
But in this case it's just a troll.
He's kind of thumbing his nose, you know, Adam poking the eye of the bear, which does not necessarily bode well for his you know, continued anonymity and freedom.
It carries defense. They had over thirty years to develop better you know security for their systems since arpagraded their net right.
Foreshadow in DARPA. Yeah, yeahah, yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt. And they also had more than three decades to change passwords from you know password, but they did not, and McKinnon leveraged that. McKinnon, by the way, he has been diagnosed with asbergers, and he was missing some of the key elements that authorities like when they want to prosecute these sorts of exploits. He was not a terrorist, had no strong extremist ideology, there was no ransomware involved, no
financial gain. He was solely seeking knowledge about UFOs or what we call UAP now in the West. And for that, and he feels like found something, by the way, but for that, the DOJ wanted him in a United States jail in the US penal system for sixty years. Again, he's twenty two at this time, which means he would be eighty two when he's released if he got sixty, and they were pushing for seventy just by the way,
so that would be ninety two. Yeah, in the US penal system, shout out Jason Flaub, this is functionally a death sentence.
Yeah. But then they were like, ah, guys, we cut ourselves a nerd, a really interesting nerd. And I was Matthew, what do you do?
At that point, well, he did say he did come clean. He said, look, I I left that. You know, I left a little graffiti on one computer. Your security is crap. And then in classic McKinnon, he also said, you know, because your security was crap, but I didn't destroy anything. I It's like I just got into the museum after dark. I looked around. I found some stuff that was not
on display for the public, and this tale. I think it's a fascinating parable for state power, secrecy, cybersecurity, and conspiracy. But for tonight's purpose, our main question hinges on motivation. We know what the US government says McKinnon did, but why did he do it? Maybe we talk a little bit about his motivation.
Here, Sure, I mean McKinnon was and remains quite convinced that certain world governments, the US included really in particular, actively suppress technology, a thing we talk about all the time, especially as it pertains to the potential explanation of UAP sightings. You know, we often come back around to the old chestnut of it's likely some kind of craft that is classified and was being tested and essentially was caught in the midst of a test. Certainly not the only explanation
for things like that, but definitely a pretty good one. However, the types of technology and information that he believes are suppressed are gonna be a little bit, maybe more of a head scratcher than what I just described. Some more
skeptical discerning listeners might scoff. Perhaps he believes governments have things like, you know, kind of more sci fi future tech, things that we really don't have any evidence of there being the ability to create at this point in time, just based on the technology that we do know about, things like anti gravity devices, much more you know out there UFO related technologies, things like free energy, another version of that zero point energy, And in many of his
public statements he has declared this to be morally repugnant, given that some of these technologies might actually be helpful in you know, things we talk about all the time, like why are they suppressing things that could actually be
of use to civilization at large? Isn't that a little bit short sighted, perhaps a little selfish of Uncle Sam share with the class, including problems like poverty why yeah, inequality to social and economic and of course a big one that I think will probably be a huge source of any potential future conflicts, things like resources starvation, you know, the biggies all that.
For yeah, But the reasoning behind it is that some of the other kids in the class want to murder the other kids in the class, right, including the ones who developed the technology. So like, I don't know, and it really stinks, but I see the reasoning there for mcinnay at.
Least, Yeah, the idea there being technologies that could improve life for the common for the common good for everybody living, but in doing so they would actually be disruptors to civilization as it stands.
So like clean potentially weaponized right.
Right again, like clean potable water could all that same technology could be dual use, it could be weaponized, right And this is stuff that is at the heart of Gary McKinnon's motivation. His search is not motivated in any way by making money. He doesn't want to publish a book, he doesn't want to, you know, hold a seminar. He's not trying to steal patents or whatever. He's not trying to fight for again some sort of extremist ideology. He
is going back to things like the Disclosure Project. He's thinking in particular of former governmental employees, some academics government employees like Donna Hare who worked for NASA and alleged that NASA held hard evidence of UFO or UAP. In short, Gary McKinnon believed and believes the truth is out there, it's hidden and the public deserves to know. And with that, maybe we pause for I was going to say a
moment of silence. It's not going to be a moment of silence, folks, We're going to pause for some ads, and then we're going to get to the heart of this. What did he claim he actually found, and we've returned it was a spreadsheet basically, yeah.
And.
Several photographs, photographs that, in the interest of transparency, none of us have viewed unedited or in the I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it in the form that he describes.
Well, yeah, he basically found what all of the hackers find nowadays when they get a hold of giant databases that you know, an ISP keeps on somebody or a credit card company, right, a spreadsheet, Well we all know this, right, in an Excel spreadsheet. We've seen these things where there's a name, right, a date perhaps, and then other information. We don't know exactly what other information on individuals was found within that spreadsheet, but it was about something weird.
Right, Yeah, yeah, I like that comparison to credit card records. He found metadata essentially, So he saw these names and information and a couple of phrases stuck out to him. One was non terrestrial officers and then transfers between different fleets for these officers. He then cross references these names with a database of all the publicly available US Navy and military personnel, and surprise, surprise, he's not able to find the names of these non terrestrial officers. So this
is this is umami, right, this is really tasty conspiracy. Umammy, yeah, yeah, yum yum indeed, and he says, look, I've found something far beyond the sadly mundane skullduggery of corruption and coup and cover up. He says, I've found information about the development of a secret outer space fleet. Furthermore, I've found and in it that there is an inexhaustible source of power to your point in all about zero point or
free energy, it exists. That's what powers these ships. And then he says, I've seen the photographs that Hair was talking about. I have seen photographs of UFOs in the files at the Johnson Space Center building. I took a screenshot of one, and it's a cigar shaped UAP in between outer space and Earth's atmosphere. And he also said he found evidence of a secret program called solar Warden. This is the rabbit.
Hole, oh definitely, But it didn't his his fifty six K modem messed up while he was like capturing that screen shot.
Isn't that what he was saying anything? And maybe Bigfoot's just blurry?
You know, well, well, but what I mean. Look, according to Gary McKinnon, he was on a dial up modem. He was downloading an image, basically taking a screenshot, and it messed up or didn't finish completely. But again, this photograph is from a satellite's point of view. Imagine like way above the Earth looking down at the Earth and sees this cigar shape thing. But he described it weirdly right. There was also geodesic spheres on either end of the cigar shape which.
Did not connected or as part of part of the body.
I don't know. That's how he's described it to Wired in other places when he was first talking about it.
I don't know, guys, my mind immediately goes to the like, you know, there's there's a whole kind of school of art called glitch art where you can remove pixels or essentially, I guess, simulate a low quality data transmission, and a lot of that ends up with the result of smeared pixels or things that kind of are stretched or weirdly shaped, you know, of an image, I do tend to wonder if that fifty six K modem glitch may be caused a visual anomaly.
I don't know.
You mentioned already at the top end, and we mentioned the top the idea of some of these claims being something that might be approached with a little skepticism, and I think that's where I'm starting. But this is also a new story to me, so I'm going to keep an open mind.
Yeah, and this is where the rabbit hole begins. We can go in depth on Gary McKinnon, indeed hopefully speak with him in a later installment of stuff they don't want you to know, but for now, for our purposes, tonight, fellow conspiracy realist, what is Operation Solar Warden? Here's where
it gets crazy to the true believers. It is a secret space program leveraging suppressed technology of unknown providence that has been operating in secret since nineteen eighty and Gary McKennon comes with facts in multiple interviews.
Matt.
You cited one of the ones you sided, the Wired interview that he did a while back twosand and six, two thousand and six. So in that one he says the US Naval Network and Space Operations Command or Mumsok is the ultimate head of solar Warden, and he comes with he comes with some specifics that he derives in this hack. He says, they're about three hundred specifically US Army personnel, which I take to mean, given that he's a Scottish national, I take that to mean US military in general.
Yeah, probably doesn't know all right.
The differences in the branches. And then he says, there are eight enormous like cartoonish cigar sized craft or cigar shaped craft, and each of these are about the length of two football fields, and each of these are capable of all that Paul beat me here, all that amazing we hear about in UFO lore turning on a dime, disappearing transmedium actions like from the see to the orbit. You know.
Yeah, this is another really weird thing that he notes. Uh. He says on these objects, quote, there were no visible seams or riveting, which is interesting, right, if it's a man made craft, you've got a bolt together pieces of metal. At least those are the ones we know about.
Right.
Even on the most advanced aircraft or jets, there are seams between pieces, like if you imagine some of these more advanced aircraft that their wings change. Right, we've probably seen these in movies or we've seen images of them. You can see the seams, but this thing is just.
You mean like they fold up, Yes, this position, I.
Say so, Yeah, a lot of the aircraft actually changed position in how their wings look. But he's not seeing any of that stuff on these craft, which to me is I don't know that it doesn't mean anything. Besides, I guess when we think about UAP sightings now, it's leading me down towards you know, the twenty twenties of sightings rather than the early two thousands.
Right, exactly. That's a really great point because even now all acknowledged terrestrial made craft do have seams, like the even the high feluding stealth craft that were initially confused with alien technology and a confusion that the US government was glad to embrace. By the way, even even that stuff, if you look at it, it does have seams. Right. They build and sculpt the metal and wield it, weld it together. But he said, this is way more t one thousand.
Yes, that's exactly the image ben some kind of alloy er metal that is moldable in that way that doesn't require it to be assembled in separate.
Pieces, like actively mouldable, like able to change state.
Right like in the This is a shout out to conspiracy realist of a certain age, but like the spacecraft in the Flight of the Navigator.
Absolutely, or the creature in the Abyss, which is I believe the first James Cameron movie to really use that T one thousand liquid metal thing that was made of water.
But right, I rewatched the Abyss that was held up he does, Yeah, I'd like to see it as well. Have you guys seen Flight of the Navigator.
I know it was a big Disney kid in space movie, Like, isn't that right?
Like the Adventure in the in the Stars.
Yes, and in there they have a craft that is capable of the same sort of thing that McKinnon is describing. However, to be very clear, McKinnon does not claim that he has seen this in person. He's saying he did a hack, he found evidence of this, and he also says, look, it's not just these eight enormous double football field spacecraft.
There is a much larger number of smaller what he calls scoutcraft, and they can do even they can reach even further heights of maneuverability and violation of physics as humans understand it. He says he found records of forty three of these smaller scout ships, and if you think of the way that the US and conventional naval forces at least deploy deploy carrier groups, that it makes sense that you need ancillery craft for the big boys, right for the carriers and so on. He also says he
finds two names. It's implied that two of the two names he finds are the names for two of the big boys, the USS way for it s LeMay and the USS way for it S hillin Kotre. You know, people know that US Navy ships usually only have two s's Gary saw three. Maybe that stands for United States Spaceship unproven.
I mean it could, it legitimately could. In twenty twenty, we got the Space Force, and there's all kinds of weird stuff happening with them right right now in the news. I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit, but usss SA.
Nobody will figure it out right, So in general, we have to be honest folks. Often you can see claims like this in any number of forums and conventions. You can talk to people who say, Hey, I'm convinced I have found something like this already. We see that McKinnon's case differs in one serious respect. The United States government was willing to cross the pond to get this guy and put him in prison for the rest of his life. And when the US won, they don't choose to do that.
Lightly like spoiler, if you want a pirate, If you want a pirate a copy the cinematic masterpiece vibes, the DOJ is not going to come for you. I think I hope that comment ages well as we continue into the future. But there's a second respect in which this is different. In twenty ten, independent journalist investigator UFO researcher named Darren Perks did something that we're quite fortunate to
be able to do in the United States. He filed a Freedom of Information Act requests, commonly called a FOYA in these part in these parts of the Global Woods FOYA. The argument of the FOYA is, if you are paying taxes, you should have a right to request from the US government what they're doing with all that money that everybody
asked to pay. And Perks found some weird, some weird sand that appeared to if not one to one corroborate the claims that Gary McKinnon, it appeared to further differentiate them from the usual disinformation and scuttle butt of UFO lore.
And just a quick aside before we get into it, the response time and let's just say customer service of the Freedom of Information Act request wasn't great.
Left something to be desired.
Yeah, he reached out to the Department of Defense d D. Right, I'm going to read part of this, guys. I think this is fantastic.
And this is from a Huffington Post article or blog written by Perks in twenty twelve.
Yeah, so we have to you know, we have to believe Perks that this is actually what he's what he received, because there was no screenshot of this email. Right, but this is an email from the DoD.
Quote.
About an hour ago, I spoke to a NASA rep who confirmed this was their program and that it was terminated by the president. He also informed me that it was not a joint program with the DoD. The NASA rep informed me that you should be directed to the Johnson Space Center FOIA manager. I have ran your request through one of our space related directories and I'm waiting on one other division with the command to respond back to me. I will contact you once I have a
response from the other division. And then it ends with did NASA refer you to us?
So?
Yeah?
Right, like so yeah, the comparison is something that will be unfortunately unfortunately identifiable and understandable to all of us listening along tonight. Have you ever called a big company with a lot of departments and they say, who are you trying to reach? Let me get you over to that. You get over to them and they're like, oh, who are you trying to reach? Blah blah blah. So this is this purposeful obtuseness or is this just a hazard
of bureaucracy? I would argue the latter, to be quite honest with you.
But yeah, but in the end, DoD at least if this email is real, said yeah, that's a real thing and it's NASAs, so like leave us alone.
Right, Well, that's I mean? Is that what you would say? Like? Yeah, sure, I don't know if I call them.
So the.
Perks concludes from this again, and this is in twenty twelve, says Solar Wharton In Perks's research is allegedly made up of black project contractors Skunkworks basically in the US, and Skunkworks are very real and continue today, and says that there are some parts and components and software that are contributed by Canada, the UK, Italy, Austria, Russia that parted
in age well and Australia. And then also Perks says, quote it is said that the program solar Warden is tested and operated from secret military bases such as Area fifty one in Nevada. Be careful always with the passive voice, folks, it is said, avoids naming the speaker.
Yeah.
Well, and the writer who wrote that, Darren Perks, is citing Gary McKinnon in all of that stuff, like saying, this is information that comes from Gary McKinnon and what he found when he did his hack.
Right, So it verges on tautological, right, tautology, But the narrative divides, you know, in the pursuit of information again, Perks finds himself referred to various government bodies. And if any of this is, if any of this holds up, then these allegations are stunning, world shaking, as the Internet used to say back in the early two thousands. Big.
If true, this means that the us would one have knowledge of suppressed technology, whatever the origin of providence, and then two somehow successfully restricted this knowledge from the public, didn't let its enemies know, even though some of its erstwhile enemies were collaborating with it, and it also hit
it in some part from its allies. And three, at the same time, while keeping all this a secret, it deployed this technology successfully, even if only in a test run like that BMW a T one thousand BMW that we're talking about off air.
Oh, it's made of liquid metal.
Two it's been a fabric with Okay, the.
Actual model number were you referring to?
BMW is not that cool, sorry BMW owners.
But it uses a thing that DARPA has an active research project on. I guess we would call it what do they call it? Active flow control? Being able to change basically the shape of a craft at at will or in certain configurations.
Hmmm, yeah, the idea being that it can adapt in media arrests as needed. Right, And you don't have to you know how, Like you if you want a different sort of airflow control on your typical on your typical fast and furious vehicle, you have to take it into the shop. To put in a spoiler. You can just do that on the road.
Oh yeah, and often with BMW, I think with their model it was to make it cool looking and in different ways. But you know, with DARPA, it's their their program is called Crane, which you know, these acronyms that they're running with a DARPA control of revolutionary aircraft with novel effectors. And then you combine that up with their drag program that's also active drag reducing architected geometries, which is interesting, right.
Yeah, but putting revolutionary in there definitely sounds like a sales pitch.
I don't no, dude. They had to make Crane work, Okay, Ben.
All right, they had to make Cravee work. We've all been there also, you know, shout out to all the all the boffins at BMW who I'm sure working around the clock to institute turn signals in their vehicles. You know what I meant, This struggle is real. You know, check in with DARPA. Science continues on BMW turn signals.
But for real, guys, do you think if DARPA publicly puts on their website a program like that, do you think that that is already something that has been developed and is controlled, and now it's just studying it more, or something that they something that's already patented, or you know, use their abilities to take that patent away and then research it for ten twenty thirty years.
The Invention Act makes it pretty certain to me that for it to be on a publicly available website, the concept or the possibility has been proven. It's just whether or not it can be applicable in a feasible manner. That's my take.
I don't know what you guys think.
I hear you.
It's weird. It's just because you can also find their lunar architecture program that's been going on for a while.
This makes you think, and China's going to mine the Moon and everything's fine on Earth anyway.
This was going to blow up the moon. Let's shine up their mining. Yeah maybe us. I don't know.
Sarah Silverman's so mad. You know, we're Earth lanes. Let's blow up Earth things. I rewatched that after one of our one of our recent episodes. But but there is that there are some troubling truths to McKinnon's claims. First off, McKinnon has always said what he saw, whether or not you agree with it or his interpretation theref. He says what he saw proves above all one thing, the US will, by hook or by crook, seek dominance in outer space. And the pickle of it is that's true. You don't
need alien technology to prove that. The X thirty seven B. If you're hearing this on Earth, that bad boy is flying over you right now. The NRO is all up in your text messages if they want to be.
Space foress and I. The NRO is looking at your phone as you're walking outside at text messages. They're not They're not like that signals intelligence. They're literally looking at your life like they're zooming.
In like all those all those copaganda films you see where or the programs where like there are people working in an office that is way too nice for an law enforcement agency when they're like leaning over the computer with the one person who apparently knows how to use Google, and they're like screens right, and they're like enhance, enhance, enhance that image. Gle enhance that image. The NRO can really do that.
Yeah, they actually have the lenses for it, which is so weird to think about. But guys, there's also things like the new Space Force and Operation Cobra, which is this giant echo. Oh excuse me, Cobra Gold twenty.
Four put some respect on it again.
Seriously, just a huge joint multinational exercise kind of like jade Helm where they are using space and the forces in space that they control, the Space Forces, and they're doing joint military exercises with that, and y'all. This was announced March twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, so just a couple of days ago as we're recording. This Space Force created a thing called Space Scent, which is their central command basically at Space Force.
Sure like Sentcomm or force comm exactly.
They call it Space Scent. And they just deployed this thing called US Space Force Central Combat Detachment three to one, which is for space combat. Guys. It's the first time I've actually heard of, you know, the United States or Space Force. I think they're getting ready to put weapons in space like and do it actively and publicly, because that was a that was a public announcement that they made.
And it will be in reaction to signals sent by the Russian forces. So it's all defense, I'm.
Sure, But I just I guess what I mean, dude. Yes, but it's happening right now and it's real and just what I'm imagining. How far we've come since two thousand and two when Gary was in those servers, right.
Yeah, history proved him to a degree prescient, right in some respects. Again, extra terrestrials have not been proven nor confirmed yet, and solar warden as a concept is again officially unproven. There has been two date, no official confirmation, no statement to the public past that one sort of alighting foy a response of anything like solar warden. But there are troubling things in the wind. They are ripples in the water. The sea is not calm, and what
swims beneath or above it. We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll return with our verdict to maybe an update on Gary. Has anybody talked about Gary? Okay? Yeah, Gary's okay, And we have turn to your earlier point, Matt. Recent events require a new
reassessment part of the alliteration of Gary's claims. In the years or excuse me, decades following two thousand and two, multiple largely credible individuals came forward with claims that something was fishy up there in the skies and in the ink. I mean, that's the question. Did Gary McKinnon succeed in his mission? Did he verify and publicize some sort of long running, obscure above top secret program leveraging bleeding edge technology.
Well, what he didn't understand is that that Excel spreadsheet actually had a list of non human assets within the United States Army or just military or whatever. No, I'm just choking. I'm just choking.
It was a hidden column.
Well yeah, but imagine if there was. It's really funny. Can you imagine if if it was like they just had human names for everybody else's benefit working on the teams.
But instead of like zarg or you know whatever.
Something that you couldn't even pronounce, probably with human mouth.
Man, doctor accula.
That's different.
I don't know, guys, My skeptic brain is still kind of firing off at this point. I don't know that I've been swayed, because we just we've certainly seen evidence of some stuff, and it usually does tie back to these kind of tests of bleeding edge tech, like you said, Ben, but not stuff quite within the realm of what old Gary.
Here is is alleging. So I don't know.
I would love to speak to the man himself. But where where is this this investigation gotten?
You guys too, Yeah, that's a good question. Skeptics may easily and with validity, dismiss the entirety of this tangled stories hogwash. But if we are exercising skepticism and critical thinking, which.
Goes both ways, doesn't just mean that you're negging something, It just means that you thought about it because you're skeptical on the opposite end.
Yeah, I'm really glad. I'm really happy that you point that out, because skepticism, skepticism that shies away from inconvenient questions, is only another zealous ideology and as such does not serve our purposes and is indeed antithetical to critical thinking. I mean, if if okay, so here here are the questions. If any or all of this stuff that mkennan is claiming is false, why did the United States spend so much time pushing for his extradition? Right? They put a
lot of blood, sweat, and treasure into that. You could say they wanted to make of him an example makes sense?
Really, only know they love to do that, and if they've got a big one, They'll probably put a little more resources into it because it would certainly serve their goals of discouraging others from you know, getting into their into their business.
But if you've really found something, wouldn't wouldn't the men in black just give them the old flash of Roos disappear or send him to a black site somewhere.
I mean, yeah, commit suicide by shooting himself twice in the back of his head, or maybe maybe shooting himself with his non dominant hand and then his shit too, and his two children look at m.
Okay, Well, it really makes me think of a show that I've really been enjoying lately that I think we talked about during our travels, an Apple TV or Apple Plus show called Slow Horses, about spy masters, you know in the UK working for their intelligence services, and of course Gary Oldman plays the spy masters in charge of kind of the the bad, the worst spies that sort of did a bad job and got sort of put
in this a place called slough House for punishment. But some of the stuff that it goes into in terms of how far the government will go to silence those that have information that they would rather not get out there. It's pretty chilling stuff and it really does feel like it has the ring of truth.
So I'm with you, guys.
I feel like the secrets suit of the faked suicide or just you know, convenience vanishing would probably be on the table if he really did have the goods.
And then to answer that, to counterpoint to that first question, why did the US spend so much time pushing for his extradition? If any of this stuff is true, not all of it, but any of it, then why did the US, the world's most powerful and dangerous force. Why did they ultimately comply with the United Kingdom's decision to keep McKinnon on their soil? We'll get to that. Why did they push? Push, push? And then give why on Earth? To put this quite bluntly, in a way that you
will not hear in diplomatic conversations, why on Earth? Part in the wordplay? Is Gary McKinnon still alive? It's true at this point, he's alive. He's on UK soil. He did delete his Twitter. I guess that's a casualty of it if.
You want to, because it's an X account.
Now it's an ex account. Now sure, he's big on true social or whatever. But the photos he allegedly obtained were removed from his computer when he was initially popped and put in Brixton right in two thousand and two. He he doesn't have access to these photos as well. Per his most recent conversations, he claims that the UK government used photoshop in specific shout out Adobe to edit out the UFOs from these photos before they were released
or even propagated internally. And that is a tail all too common in the modern narrative cough cough, folklore of disclosure. The proof is there, I saw it, but due to insert reason here, you cannot see it.
Well, yeah, I'm thinking about the Mirage men and some of those discoveries that the US government will use disinformation agents to put false information out there to a UFO enthusiast. Right so, and I'm imagining what what if the security on those servers actually was really great and they watched Gary McKinnon stroll through the door and they went, oh, guys, guys, this guy's sneaking around. Uh you, let's let's get some of those UFO photographs, those like ones that we generated.
Let's get those into a folder. Is anyone really good at excel. Let's make a spreadsheet with quote non terrestrial officers. Let's make sure he sees that. What do you think that's even in the realm of possibility.
Yeah, it's in the realm possibility. You know what's that line the pond mocks the movements of the bishop and never sees the chessboard from above, you know what I mean? Or it's just a cool prank.
Well, well, but in the end, like it's it's part of the propaganda world building that the United States has been involved with for since its inception. Right, Sure, make the story about US big and huge and scary to a lot of points, but also exciting and you know, patriotic and special, and every country does that. And I just wonder if there's something like.
That, there's theater to it. It's quite possible. It's also you know, in in the point or to the pro side of that argument, it is much more likely than the idea that extraterrestrials crashed on the planet Earth in a time of modern civilization and that their technology was understandable and recover and successfully leveraged by primates, you know what I mean, Like put it in that perspective, the grift seems a little bit more plausible.
Yeah, but it took thirty three years, right, nineteen forty seven to nineteen eighty.
Photoshop wasn't where it is now. That's part of it. But I see, I think that's a good example. And you know, folks, we don't have the answers for this. We can tell you that in twenty twelve, under the administration of Teresa May, Gary McKinnon's extradition was blocked, and it was blocked entirely on the basis of human rights, given that the US penal system is a nightmare, and given that McKinnon does have Asberger's, is not affiliated with
any terrorist organization, et cetera, et cetera. They said, we're not going to do it. We're not going to send this guy to the wolves. And ultimately, as we record this evening, McKinnon was neither trialed nor officially the charges against him were dropped in the United Kingdom, and there have been few substantive updates since. Imagine, if you will, Julian Assange over in that Ecuadorian embassy looking on and wonder and envy.
Yeah, no joke, Julian. We're still rooting for you, You're okay, Well, yeah, no.
I mean in the way of an update, what is happening with Julian. He's still just a holding patterns as that has always been.
Is it that time? Is it a Julian songe update time.
I'm just we haven't talked about it in so long. I kind of lost Jack. I just assumed it was sort of the same, much of the same.
But he's got he is still embroiled. I was talking with I was talking briefly with our pals from Zeitgeist, Miles and Jack about this. He is still embroiled in attempting to stave off extradition to the United States. But Uncle Sam wants him very bad, like that poster. I want like that post specifically, But man, he's been fighting that for years.
Oh yeah, And I guess my question is, like, if they really want you, maybe it should give us a little bit of a solace.
It does appear they can't just get you.
There's a lot of red tape that has to be worked through to make things like that happen.
A lot of the operation.
It depends what you did, too, right, That's also true.
It does it does you mess with the future. You mess with the money, you mess with the resource extraction, you get on a different list. It's a much shorter list, and in the consequences of that list are not cool. He got upgraded on the Naughty list, basically, he got naughty plus.
Oh yeah. And with McKinnon they were just like, oh man, he found the pictures of the thing we're going to deploy in twenty twenty four during the solar eclipse. Ah jeez.
Nice.
Oh well, it'll be all right, nice.
This episode may come out around then. Yeah, and right now. As of about three days ago. Last week, as we record, at the end of March, a British court temporarily yet again delayed the extradition of Julian Asonge. So it's still kicking the can down the road and we are going to have I think a full update when that news breaks. Have one last question for you guys. I know we're getting close to our time together this evening, Matt nolefellow conspiracy realist. If there is a real secret afoot, then
riddle me this. Why is the BBC coming out with a feature film called The People Versus Gary McKinnon. Why did the BBC Radio four air a two thousand and seven radio play called the McKinnon Extradition. If you're trying to cover up the truth, I mean, it's the wijiboard question. If a Wiji board actually lets you speak with the dead, why can you buy one at every department store?
I mean, I hear you. Why did they let Ian Douglass write a three part series called Solar Warden. I mean, it's out there. You can find it and guess what it's about.
What's it about?
Very thing? It's a sci fi science fiction three part series. The first one's called Alien Secrets and it came out in June twenty twenty, and the third series came out last April.
Any good, we don't know.
We haven't read it. I'ven't read it.
Well, what about the radio play? Thing that's interesting? Medium for it? Of either of you guys check it out.
I thought the I mean the readio play I thought was interesting is way more, in my opinion's way more focused on the extradition struggle for Gary McKinnon and the BBC film that should be on the way soon is based on a book by Jnas Sharp, who is Gary McKinnon's mother. So Solar Warden the science fiction series is more focused on what we're talking about today.
And it is, by the way, it is about the I think so the Solar Warden fiction series, just to make sure we know what we're talking about here. It does focus on the end of World War two, right around the old roswell crash times, just saying okay, I don't know, whatever I have. The art looks fun to me. And Ian Douglass has definitely written a dang crapload of science fiction and military books.
Yes, quite prolific author, for sure, and there has in recent years been a growing market for stories touching on government cover ups and allegations of unusual things, especially you know, alternate history or revisionist history UFOs UAP. But one thing is for sure, fantasy aside. There is a lot of activity in the air these days, more so now than
at any point in way for modern civilization. A lot of stuff is out in space, and until the public gets some solid answers, a lot of that stuff remains the stuff they don't want you to know. We can't wait to hear your thoughts, folks. We try to be easy to find online.
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