A British hacker has shared his findings after breaking into NASA files two decades ago.
The US tried to extradite Gary McKinnon after he gained access to NASA files, and threatened the 56-year-old hacker with 60 years behind bars.
Following lengthy appeals, then-home secretary Theresa May blocked McKinnon’s extradition, and he recently opened up about exactly what he found on NASA computers.
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Speaking to The Sun, McKinnon claimed to have unearthed ‘thousands’ of images, one of which showed a cigar-shaped alien spacecraft.
McKinnon gained access to the images between February 2001 and March 2002 and is certain the space agency is ‘covering up evidence of alien life’.
He explained: "It's a fact that there are objects we don't understand flying around in our skies, it's also a fact that there are scientific, intelligence and military departments that study these objects.
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"I was absolutely gobsmacked and those folders had thousands more images.”
At the request of US authorities, McKinnon was arrested in 2002 then again in 2005, and told his hacking had racked up more than $700,000 worth of damage.
When blocking McKinnon’s extradition in 2012, May cited McKinnon’s Asperger's syndrome and Keir Starmer – who was director of public prosecutions at the time – confirmed McKinnon would not face charges in the UK.
McKinnon is certain that evidence of UFOs is being hidden in the US and was inspired to hack into NASA files after Donna Hare, a former NASA employee, claimed that the space agency had been ‘scrubbing images of UFO evidence’.
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In a bid to verify Hare’s claims, McKinnon got access to NASA files and claims to have seen four folders marked: Filtered; Unfiltered; Processed; and Raw.
However, due to his slow internet connection, McKinnon was only able to grab one image from the space agency’s folders – that being the picture of a cigar-shaped spacecraft.
LADbible has approached NASA for comment.
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In May, the space agency announced it would step up its efforts to hunt for UFOs.
NASA confirmed it would assist the US government’s investigations into the search for extraterrestrial life following the first congressional hearings into ‘Unexplained Aerial Phenomena’ (UAPs) in more than 50 years.
During a 90-minute meeting in Washington late last month, officials told those in attendance that reports of UAPs had doubled in the last year.
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It was decided that the US military would start considering unknown aircraft sightings as a matter of national security and an anonymous US government source confirmed the move will see NASA gather evidence from astronauts who claimed to have seen unidentified objects in space.
The source told MailOnline: “I suspect it will be a combination of efforts that will include perhaps firsthand eyewitness testimony of NASA employees and astronauts, and then perhaps a review of old archival footage to assess if there are some findings within the NASA archives that can help [the UAP task force].”
Aisha Nozari