American Alchemy with Jesse Michels
The Man That Hacked NASA and Found UFOs [Interview w/ Gary McKinnon]
01 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What led Gary McKinnon to hack into U.S. military sites?
There's a live arrest warrant out on you now, right? You can't go to the U.S. now. I'm on the Interpol red list.
The biggest military computer hack in all time. We talked about the case of computer hacker Gary McKinnon, on which the prime minister has expressed very clear views. Well, I'm Mr. McKinnon.
We have proceeded through all the processes required under our extradition agreements.
I was just a guy, normal guy, interested in UFOs, happened to have some IT skills, nothing genius level. You hacked into the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and NASA. They wanted to put you in prison for 60 years, so. Yeah, 70. For 70 years. And I bought potassium chloride, and I was just gonna swallow it and have a heart attack and die. Oh my God.
Mr. McKinnon is accused of serious crimes.
The reason that you are here today on this show is because what you found.
He found, he says, photographic proof of alien spacecraft and the names and ranks of something he called non-terrestrial officers.
I was in my dressing gown up to like four in the morning, smoking weed, drinking beer. Ride of my life, really. The first one I looked at was the one where I saw the picture. And so I double clicked this. But it was very, very slow. I was on a 56K dial-up. And I was just thinking, my God, this is my eureka moment. Then there's like slowly a hemisphere started appearing.
I'm thinking, fuck, that's a planet.
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Chapter 2: What methods did Gary use to access sensitive government networks?
What the hell? And then suddenly there's a big straight kind of silvery line. cigar-shaped object. I see the mouse move, and someone else is at the computer themselves. They right-clicked, disconnect, and boom. That was it. I was cut out. What do you think photographed it? Very good question. This spreadsheet was titled Non-Terrestrial Officers. So, not on the Earth. And that was incredible.
I had one very strange experience that I can't explain to this day. I was suddenly woken up by a really sharp pain that immediately I just went, oh. In my left heel, there were two perfectly circular holes. Wow.
Wow.
weird explain what's going on quickly i can't turn my phone off you can see my finger is on the power button and both this is like a hard reset that's never happened before absolutely it's never happened before but you're with gary mckinnon the existence cannot longer be denied
Before we dive into the incredible story of Gary McKinnon, I want to shine a light on one thing his story reminds you of instantly, online privacy. Gary is a brilliant self-taught hacker who pulled off what the Pentagon called the biggest military computer hack of all time, all from a bedroom in London.
In this interview, Gary goes into extreme detail about what he found in some of the world's most sensitive files, and I still can't wrap my head around what you're about to hear. After hearing what he found, you might think he hit the ultimate UFO disclosure jackpot.
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Chapter 3: What shocking discoveries did Gary make during his hacks?
However, the moment he went online, a digital trail started forming. Think about the moments most of us could get exposed. It won't look like Gary's story where he broke into sensitive government systems, saw something truly unbelievable floating in space, and then had his access cut off mid-session.
For most of us, our risk exposure is usually much simpler, like joining hotel Wi-Fi, airport Wi-Fi, or even your office network. Going incognito doesn't hide your browser from the Wi-Fi owner, and your internet service provider can just log what you do online. That's why I use ExpressVPN. It encrypts and reroutes my traffic through secure servers and masks my IP.
I literally turn it on before doing sensitive research for the show. Like looking into whether mid-century scientist Thomas Townsend Brown cracked anti-gravity in the 1950s. That's exactly when I want my browsing to stay private. So if you're like me and you like going down crazy rabbit holes, make sure your research isn't exposed on whatever Wi-Fi you're on. Thanks to our sponsor, ExpressVPN.
You can now get up to four extra months of your ExpressVPN service by clicking the link in the description below at expressvpn.com slash AmericanAlchemy. That's expressvpn.com slash AmericanAlchemy to get the privacy you deserve. Thanks again to ExpressVPN for sponsoring today's historic episode. Because if Gary's story teaches us anything, it's that your online privacy matters.
Legend has it that in 1943, the Navy tried to teleport a ship in what's now known as the Philadelphia Experiment. And it kind of worked. It disappeared, reappeared, and then half the crew got atomically fused into the ship's walls. Others just vanished. No one was where they were supposed to be. Talk about a breakdown in communication. And you know who was leading the whole project?
My favorite, the mid-century anti-gravity inventor Thomas Townsend Brown, who literally had a nervous breakdown that year due to the very poor communication among the team members. You know what that sounds like? Your team, before you had Quo. This year, upgrade your system to a workspace that keeps your team from shattering across dimensions.
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Now back to the show. This is such an honor. I am here with, he's been at the top of my list of people I've wanted to interview for years now. And I'm so lucky to have this opportunity through James Fox, the great documentarian, Gary McKinnon. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I love your channel. I've been a long-term subscriber.
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Chapter 4: How did Gary's actions impact his life and the U.S. government?
Okay, so just, you know, recreational, spice it up down there. Interesting. Make the 9 to 5 less boring. Yeah. And so you're systematically, you're looking for UFOs, you're looking for free energy, any other like, you know, kind of terms that are on your mind in going into this search? No, that was my main focus. And with UFOs, it was particularly the propulsion.
What I was interested in was the energy and the propulsion. Aliens didn't excite me so much because I'm sure they exist because it's a huge universe. But I wanted something that we could use. And I was convinced that it was secret technology, but they knew something about that the populace at large wasn't allowed to have access to. Yeah. Well, I think you were onto something maybe.
In Britain at the time, we had old age pensioners pay their fuel bills and energy was a really sad story for a lot of people. So to have something that was free.
Yeah.
And yeah, it was just too juicy not to have a go at finding. Yeah, I mean, it would be hugely disruptive to establishment institutions. You know, if, you know, our energy prices dropped from, you know, 50 bucks per kilowatt hour to like 50 cents per kilowatt hour, that would be hugely disruptive. It just would. I think it's a control mechanism, isn't it?
Just like water is starting to be, food has been for a while. Yeah. Anything that's scarce and can be accrued at the top, I think, is totally a control mechanism. And anybody who doesn't think that, you know, having access to a critical threshold of oil has not determined American foreign policy over the last 70 years is nuts.
Like, I mean, you see it with Maduro in Venezuela and then, you know, worries about what's going on in Iran vis-a-vis that, you know, and so and like it's all it's all, you know, very, very, you know, obviously interconnected. I mean, Desert Storm in the early 90s was basically pulled off because Saddam Hussein in overtaking Kuwait controlled the fifth of the world's oil supply.
And that was just unacceptable. Yeah. Yeah, and one thing about Venezuela is it wasn't just America's domestic supply. It was what foreign powers could get. China was about to do a deal with Venezuela. That's right. I think it would only amount to like 1% or 2% of China's imports, but it's still something. Yeah, still something. They're sitting on a lot of oil there.
And you see these crazy sort of game theory dynamics vis-a-vis China taking place with Greenland and other places. So it all cuts to these. And if you look at why the U.S. had to back down off this recent... you know, trade agreement deal with China and kind of concede some things. It was due to rare earth refinement being basically a monopoly in China.
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Chapter 5: What strange experiences did Gary McKinnon have after his hacking incident?
That makes less sense. Both of those make less sense. Just don't look at his huge almond shaped eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll crawl out of his skin suit occasionally, but, like, you know, it's like we're stuck between those two options.
Like that or, you know, it's like aliens in, like, you know, military garb or, you know, literally humans that we've sent into, like, super deep space or whatever. I've never believed in any of the stories of alien contact with governments. I think it's just outlandish. Mm-mm-mm, yeah. No, I think a lot of that stuff is pretty ridiculous.
It feels like passage material that like is meant to send people down the wrong trail or something. Yeah, at least it doesn't feel like there's a ton of good evidence. I do think there are a lot of weird abduction cases where people experience things, you know, and, you know, have you ever had anything like that? I had one very strange experience that I can't explain to this day.
It was back in 2006.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, my girlfriend and I are in what we call a bedsit in the UK, tiny flat on the first floor, not the ground floor. And, uh, we'd gone to bed, we'd gone to sleep and I was suddenly woken up by a really sharp pain in my left heel. And it felt like two or 3 AM felt like I'd been, I was in deep sleep. It'd been a few hours. I'm like, what the hell's that?
And I kind of leaned forward to check it out. Like something had bitten me that immediately I just went, oh, I was asleep again.
In the morning, I woke up, and weirdly, I don't know why, I'd gone to bed with my socks on, or at least one sock on, and then I remembered what had happened during the night, and I pulled the sock off, and in my left heel, there were two perfectly circular holes, both about five millimeters in diameter, and one still had a flap of skin hanging off it, like a hole punch used for paper, but about this far apart.
What? I know. And I thought, what the hell? I'm on the first floor. I was trying to think of every possible conventional explanation.
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Chapter 6: What evidence did Gary find about possible alien technology?
Was it a rat with perfectly symmetrical five millimeter teeth had come to my bed and bit me in the lap? I'm on the first floor, you know, not the ground floor where like rodents could be. No explanation whatsoever. Um, I can't say much more than that because, but I did, um, later as I got more into electronics, electromagnetics, I did like scans and stuff. Then it didn't come up?
Couldn't find anything wrong, but a few years later I found out, cause this is some, this is something I'm always researching and looking for an answer cause I still haven't got one. There's a company, I don't know if it was Verisign, there's some chipping, like electronic chipping company and their process was exactly like that. No way. Yeah. Double injection.
And then years later, I've got two bumps that formed where those holes were and then moved around. And I still have those bumps on my hill today. Do you think a human did that? Do you think an alien did it? I'm thinking some kind of government tracking. Government tracking. I feel ridiculous saying it.
Well, do you feel ridiculous saying, cause you had a 20 year, you know, prime ministers were negotiating with American presidents on your behalf because the American government had it out for you.
So I don't think, you know, I think for a normal person being like, you know, they, they wanted to chip me or whatever, like that might be a little paranoid, but I think in your case, I'm not so sure, man. Yeah, but even so I wasn't running away. You know, I was on bail. Everything was safe. I was contained as they would put it. Uh, but yeah, I just can't explain that. It's just weird as hell.
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Chapter 7: How did the extradition saga unfold for Gary McKinnon?
Interesting. And do you still have that in your foot? Still have the bumps. Can I see him? Yeah. I hope no one's got any foot fetishes or the opposite. Maybe you can start an OnlyFans after this. All right. Striptease time. I bet you've not done this before. This is wild. Are we ready? Yeah. Yeah. So this company Veritas. No, I think it was VeriSign or something. VeriSign.
I might've definitely began with a V, but I can't remember. And they do these little chip implants. Yeah.
Chapter 8: What were the implications of the extradition laws on Gary's case?
So when I woke up with the holes, they were kind of round here in the corner. But now they've moved slightly. So one's there. It's a lesser bump. Whoa. And the other one's there. The other one's big. Yeah. Like that's like very easy to spot. Yeah. And that's the other one. Okay. I feel like it's shrunk over time actually. Yeah. It feels smaller. Yeah.
Whoa.
Weird. The company Gary is talking about here isn't called VeriSign. It's called VeriChip. And yes, it's done work in human microchipping. In fact, the company has produced a tiny RFID microchip about the size of a grain of rice that implants under the skin, transmits a unique ID when scanned, and links to a database with personal or medical information.
This chip is essentially a permanent tracking and identification tool.
To think something so small can connect you to everything that matters.
When your life and all you love are on the line. The chip was introduced to the market in 2002, just a few years before Gary's experience in 2005. And according to Gary, the company's double injection method would cause something that looks exactly like the two bumps on his foot. I'll let you decide if that's a coincidence or not.
If you look a little deeper, Verichip's corporate lineage runs through applied digital solutions. And prospectus filings show that the implantable microchips themselves were ultimately sourced from a subsidiary of Raytheon. What we do saves lives. It protects peace and democracy throughout the world. Yes, that Raytheon, one of the largest defense contractors in the world.
deeply embedded in military systems, missile guidance, radar, and classified electronics. By the end of the 2000s, Verichip themselves had secured the rights to technology that would allow the chips to detect viruses from inside the body, including strains like H1N1.
The proposal described an implant that could determine whether a virus was present, what kind it was, and how serious the threat might be. At that point, the device would no longer just be identifying a person. It would be monitoring their unique physiology and biomedical data. Completely dystopian, to say the least.
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