💻Hackers & UFOs
This is the history of hackers looking for evidence of UFOs.
Last updated
This is the history of hackers looking for evidence of UFOs.
Last updated
TL;DR: At least three hackers targeted US military and/or government computer systems between about 1992 and 2002 looking for evidence related to UFOs. According to them, they found it.
Table of Contents: 1992: "Quentin" 1996: Mathew "Kuji" Bevan 2002: Gary "SOLO" McKinnon Further Information 2007: Richard "neuralcowboy" Thieme BBSes & Other Archives
1992 Dateline NBC segment--"Quentin" is interviewed, with other hackers. YouTube video, alternate
"Quentin told us he's...browsed through secret government files on UFOs, and gone snooping in our nation's military computers." - Narrator (2:15)
1993 Project Green Cheese / Project ALF-1 published in Phrack Magazine, Issue 42, File 13.
(Use CTRL+F to find "Text File" for the relevant part.)
The e-zine prints UFO-related search terms and IP addresses of US secret networks, information supplied by "Quentin" and possibly two or more accomplices.
Here's a mailing list that predates the Phrack article. (Archived commentary)
1994 Columns in UFO Magazine by T. Scott Crain, who wrote letters to NBC.
2019 article about the NBC segment by Nick Redfern, who attributes the quote:
"The hacker is aware of the interest his apparent UFO data has provoked, but does not wish to respond." - the late Susan Adams (Dateline NBC producer)
I contacted Chris "Erik Bloodaxe" Goggans, the editor of Phrack. Here are two things he said:
"I know that Quentin had at least two people in the hacker scene that he considered friends and was usually working with on whatever it was he was up to. Don't know much more about them."
"I have no real way to track down authors of the submitted articles at this point, as I don't have the Phrack email archives from 1993."
Quentin's true identity remains unknown.
1994 Mathew "Kuji" Bevan Inspired by the articles in Phrack, (and a rumor about Project Green Cheese being a group of 50 hackers who went missing,) Bevan used a Commodore Amiga 500 and 1200 to penetrate the US Air Force, NASA, and NATO.
1996 Bevan is arrested and considered an accomplice of Richard "Datastream Cowboy" Pryce. However, Bevan is let off 18 months later due to lack of evidence. (The US was unwilling to provide evidence of military digital intrusion to a UK court.)
1997 Times of London article when Bevan was released.
Periodicals, newspapers, and the media covered Bevan's case extensively, along with other sources.
Interview by David Glover: YouTube video
BBC #1: YouTube video
BBC #2: YouTube video
HTV: YouTube video
Wales Tonight: YouTube video
1999 U.S. info-warriors crap out in Crown Court. (Archive)
2003 Hacking U.S. Government Computers from Overseas. (Archive)
“Nearly started a third world war.” - Jim Christy, AFOSI
“Possibly the single biggest threat to world peace since Adolf Hitler.” - a Pentagon source
Technical details about Bevan's hack are discussed in this Twitter thread by @hackerfantastic. He accomplished this over a USR 14.4K dial-up modem.
Of note is that he got into a Wright-Patterson Air Force Base system that took no password and saw plans for an antigravity drive:
In getting into that there was one machine on the network where I read current files and future project proposals. I read documents which gave me the impression that they had an anti-gravity engine which was capable of at least Mach 12 to Mach 15. I don't know how exactly how fast that is but I think that is faster than most aircraft we know of today. Supposedly the aircraft which employs this engine uses a reactor to which there were a lot of detailed numbers and figures for, but I have no idea what all this meant. I can remember that the documents referred to a super heavy element, whatever that means. The element is the main fuel for the reactor. The engine worked by making a disturbance of molecules at the front of the craft so that it was able to stop the inertia or G-force inside the craft. I got the impression that this information was the type of material I was looking for because it was far in advance of our current technology and could be something to do with the Roswell UFO. Finding this threw me because I didn't know if this information was a disinformation exercise and that people were meant to get in and find this stuff or if it was real. I can't be sure and this is the one annoying thing.
Bevan also says,
I like to think what I saw was not misinformation.
"The biggest military computer hack of all time." - US prosecuting attorney Paul McNulty
2001-2002 Gary "SOLO" McKinnon, the most well-known UFO hacker, breaks into US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, Department of Defense, and NASA computers by targeting systems with administrator passwords of "Administrator," "password," or blank. Gary accomplishes this using a Perl program to mass scan a /16 IP space and probe the NetBIOS protocol on port 139. He uses a 56K dial-up modem. On some systems, he installs RemotelyAnywhere for remote desktop. He uses Landsearch software to search through all files on all computers across a domain. On a Navy system, he sees spreadsheet tabs with titles such as "non-terrestrial officers" and "fleet-to-fleet transfers", with names of ships not known to be in the US Navy. Also, following Dr. Steven Greer's Disclosure Project and specifically the testimony of Donna Hare, he targets Building 8 at NASA Johnson Space Center where UFOs are reportedly being airbrushed out of satellite photography before the photos are released to the public. He makes it onto a system and sees a 'raw' photo of a smooth cylindrical craft with domes that has no seams or rivets. However, he miscalculates the time zones and is disconnected by a local computer user before he can take a screenshot. Months later, he is arrested by the UK's National Hi-Tech Crimes Unit (who seized his computer) and he is put under an extradition order from the US. It will be a 10-year legal battle before his extradition is finally blocked by the UK over human rights and UK charges are eventually dropped. Gary still faces US charges.
2005 Interview in The Guardian newspaper: article
2005 Interview with BBC News World Service: audio
2006 interview with Gary for BBC Click Online: YouTube video
2006 interview by Project Camelot: YouTube video, higher resolution video
2006 Interview for WIRED Magazine: article
2006 Interview for .net Magazine: article
2007 "SOLO" interviewed on Hacker's Voice Radio podcast: mp3 audio
2007 talk on Gary at UFO Crash Con by Matthew Williams: YouTube video
Proceedings from this conference include an interview with Gary here.
2009 "Gary McKinnon: Britain's Hacking Hero?": article
2011 "The Autistic Hacker", profile in IEEE Spectrum: article
2015 Interview by Richard D. Hall: YouTube video
2017 Gary spoke via video link at the MUFON Symposium:
I have uploaded the full talk with audience questions here. Just the talk is on Gary's YouTube.
The symposium proceedings include a transcript of Gary's speech, which I have archived here.
2018 Gary is featured on Ancient Aliens: YouTube video
2019 UFO Chronicles podcast: web player, Spotify, mp3 audio
2019 Interview by Richard Dolan: YouTube video
2020 Interview by Richard Medhurst: article
2022 Gary McKinnon's Reddit AMA on /r/UFOs: Reddit thread
2022 interview by Tim Ventura: YouTube video
2023 interview by 'M' Seeker of Truth: YouTube video
2023 interview by Chris Thrall: YouTube video
First, Gary says that he used IPindex.net for reconnaissance. Using the Internet Archive of that site, and comparing it with the specific IPs from his indictment, we can see that the IP ranges in Texas correspond to NASA Johnson Space Center.
Next, Gary says he used RemotelyAnywhere to remotely control the NASA JSC desktop. Looking at the 2002 manual for RemotelyAnywhere, remote installation is documented:
Last, I found this program in an old CD-ROM's contents: About Proxynator screenshot I used these same hacking techniques at around the same time. As seen, the idea is attributed to "SOLO", capitalized the same as Gary's handle.
2012 Gary was unlucky by Peter Warren (how Gary was caught)
2012 BBC Profile: Gary McKinnon (why Gary's extradition was blocked)
2014 From Kuji to Solo by Ryan Sprague (covers both Mathew Bevan and Gary McKinnon)
2016 UFO Hacker Gary McKinnon Story by Joel Hasse (/u/EarthmanJoel's fantastic article)
2016 Hackers Expose Secret Space Missions and Government UFO Research by Gaia Staff (factual errors)
2020 UFO Hackers Pay the Price by Ryan Sprague (almost entirely a repost of his 2014 article)
2024 The Man Who Hacked the U.S. Government by Newsthink (YouTube video)
Reportedy, a TV movie based on Gary McKinnon is in the works. (Deadline)
Richard "neuralcowboy" Thieme, while not a hacker in the traditional sense, is an author and public speaker, who talks on UFOs at the annual DEFCON hacker conference in Las Vegas, and at the MUFON Symposium:
2002 MUFON Symposium - Are There UFOs on Mars?: YouTube video
2006 DEFCON 14 - (clip from the talk - mentions crash retrievals and counterintelligence)
2007 DEFCON 15 - Hacking UFOlogy: Thirty Years in the Wilderness of Mirrors: PDF whitepaper, M4B audio, MP4 video, Internet Archive, YouTube video
2009 DEFCON 17 - Hacking UFOlogy 102: The Implications of UFOs for Life, the Universe, and Everything: M4B audio, MP4 video, YouTube video
2013 Security BSides Las Vegas - Governments and UFOs: A Historical Analysis of Disinformation and Deception: MP4 audio, IronGeek, Internet Archive, YouTube video
2013 DEFCON 21 - The Government and UFOs: A Historical Analysis: PDF slides, TXT resources, MP4 video, SRT subtitles, Internet Archive, YouTube video
These two 2013 talks were in line with a book Thieme co-authored: UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry.
2014 THOTCON 0x5 - UFOs and Government: a Case Study in Disinformation, Deception, and Perception Management (No recording)
2016 MUFON Symposium - Against the Wind: Why People Can't Think Seriously About UFOs: Speaker Profile Video, MUFON TV, Vimeo video
2021 DEFCON 29 - UFOs: Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Basic Truth: PDF slides, MP4 video, SRT subtitles, YouTube video
2022 DEFCON 30 - UFOs, Alien Life, and the Least Untruthful Things I Can Say: Abstract, PDF slides, MP4 video, SRT subtitles, YouTube video
Thieme has given talks on other topics as well, see a more complete index here.
Thieme also wrote a monthly column which was compiled in his book Islands in the Clickstream. In the original version, no longer in print, Chapter 9 "The Dark Side of the Moon and Beyond" contains columns written between 1997 and 2001 regarding UFOs. With Thieme's permission, I have republished five of these columns here.
2022 Reddit AMA with Richard Thieme on /r/UFOs: Reddit thread
Thieme's 2023 fiction book Mobius: Out of Time covers "the deft management of UFO phenomena and research in the intelligence community," among other topics.
While an Episcopal priest, Thieme reports a fighter pilot confided in him regarding UFOs, confirming that in their fastest jets,
We chase them, and we can't catch them.
Source: 2014 "Out of the closet on UFOs" by Richard Thieme - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper
At DEFCON 3 in 1995, the late UFO researcher Glen Campbell gave a talk on Area 51: DEF CON 3 - Glen Campbell - QA of Govermental Activities and Surrounding Area-51
1976-1996 UFO discussion takes place on BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems): TextFiles.com archive, UFOBBS.com archive (file 2850 is "Quentin" again)
1982-1998 Archive kept by Charles McGrew of Rutgers University (hackers is "Quentin" again)
1989-1995 ParaNet-MICAP BBS UFO File Archives (dateline.txt spells his name "Quintin")
1987-2001 Additional zines and texts: HackCanada archive via Internet Archive
1994 alt.alien.visitors Usenet newsgroup FAQ (7 parts): UFOs-and-Aliens FAQ
1995 Plaintext Diskmag: "Project UFO" - 6 Amiga Disk Images (more on diskmaster)
1990's UFO BBS Files archive: Sacred-Texts.com repository of UFO BBS Files
1981+ A trove of historical Usenet newsgroup postings can be found on Google Groups
Unknown A massive and incredible archive found by a friend: PreterHuman.net archive