Somewhere in the Skies - A Tale of Two UFO Hackers: Matthew Bevan & Gary McKinnon

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

What if the biggest UFO secrets in history were hiding in plain sight inside government computers? In this episode, we dive into the astonishing true stories of two hackers who risked everything to uncover classified UFO information. From British hacker Gary McKinnon infiltrating NASA and Pentagon networks in search of suppressed technologies to Matthew Bevan’s earlier breach of U.S. Air Force systems while hunting for evidence of anti-gravity propulsion and the legendary Hangar 18, their digital intrusions exposed shocking vulnerabilities in military cybersecurity and ignited international controversy. But these weren’t ordinary cybercrimes. Their pursuit of UFO truth triggered global headlines, extradition battles, and fears of espionage at the highest levels of government. Were they reckless hackers, curious truth-seekers, or accidental whistleblowers who stumbled too close to secrets the world was never meant to see? Join us as we unravel the wild saga of two men, two historic hacks, and the relentless quest to uncover what governments may be hiding about UFOs. Please take a moment to rate and review us on Spotify and Apple. Book Ryan on CAMEO at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] Substack: https://ryansprague.substack.com/ All Socials and Books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Email: [e-mail] SpectreVision Radio: https://www.spectrevision.com/podcasts Opening Theme Song by Septembryo Closing Song by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2026 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #UFOs #UAP #UFODisclosure #AlienLife #UFOCommunity #Conspiracy #CyberSecurity #Hacking #SomewhereInTheSkies #Spies #Spying #UFOHackers #ComputerHackers #GaryMcKinnon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Some field is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. I'm Ryan Spratt, and you are now somewhere in the skies. Two hackers, a decade apart. They've been touted as to the biggest computer hacks of all time into military and government computers. collectively causing millions of dollars in security breaches and damage,

one of which could have seemingly caused a world war. And what were both hackers trying to find? Top secret information on UFOs. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away.

All through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. In 2001, Gary McKinnon, a systems administrator in the UK, made international headlines when it was discovered that he had breached the security defenses of national. NASA, the Defense Department, and several military computer networks. After months and months of hacking, he'd found his way into some of the most secretive databases

in the United States. His goal? To find evidence of suppressed technologies and information about UFOs. With alarmingly weak security, McKinnon sifted through digital data, looking for anything that stood out. Amongst ambiguous images of possible space anomalies and convoluted programs, something caught his attention. It was a spreadsheet that while not directly involving UFOs

proved that some sort of secret space program was being carried out in the most elusive of ways. I found an Excel spreadsheet that was actually called, or at least in the heading of the column, it said non-terrestrial officers. That's like, my, my God. That's just with ranks and names and there are separate sheet with tabs for material transfer between ships. But these ships were called USS, whatever, and USS, that implies Navy. And I think the Navy, the Navy do a lot of space stuff.

Upon viewing the spreadsheet, McKinnon was able to capture an image of it. He continued to dig, but this would perhaps be the most compelling data he'd come across. He logged out and decided to end the night playing a computer game, thinking his actions had gone unnoticed like so many times before. But just as he'd fallen asleep, a knock on the door changed the rest of his life. I've only been asleep for a few hours. And the next thing I know, there's someone saying, Gary McKinnon, Gary McKinnon, reminding me.

And I woke up to find a detective, whatever he was, from the National High Tech Crime Unit, saying you're under arrest for, what, as you said, to Nazak. First thing they did was a massive search. They searched my girlfriend. They searched me. They searched the house. They took away the computers. Not just the hard drives. It took away all the computers. I was fixing computers for people as well. They took away all of those. After a long time, I got back my friends' machines and clients' machines that was fixing. I got them back within a few months. They never gave me back my hard drives because they had evidence on them.

But I got a copy of the non-terrestrial officer spreadsheet, which was encrypted. But I stupidly told them the password. I just fessed up to everything. Because they said, you'll only get six months, so probably not even that, you'll get community service, you'll be fine. But everything wasn't fine. After his arrest in the UK, the United States military and government soon got involved, having been the actual victims of the hacking. They claimed that Gary McKinnon had breached NASA, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense, causing damages of around $700,000.

In one instance, he's alleged to have deleted files at a United States Naval Weapons Station, shortly after the 9-11 attacks, rendering the base's entire network of more than 300 machines inoperable. These claims, which McKinnon and many others have argued, are patently false and ridiculous, and they would cause such a stir that the U.S. didn't only want McKinnon to pay for the damages. They wanted him extradited and to face the U.S. criminal courts. This extradition became the focus of many news outlets, prompting both Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron and former U.S. President Barack Obama to weigh in on the extradition and the issue of cybersecurity. I mean, clearly there's a discussion going on between the British and the

Americans about this, and I don't want to prejudice those discussions. We completely understand that Gary McKinnon stands accused of a very important and significant crime in terms of hacking into vital databases, and nobody denies that that is an important crime that has to be considered. But I have had conversations with the U.S. ambassador, as well as raising it today with the president about this issue, and I hope a way through can be found. One of the things that David and I discussed was the increase of the president, challenge that we're going to face as a consequence of the internet

and the need for us to cooperate extensively on issues of cybersecurity. We had a brief discussion about the fact that although there may still be efforts to send in spies and try to obtain state secrets through

traditional Cold War methods, the truth of the matter is these days where we're going to see enormous amounts of vulnerability when it comes to information is going to be through these kind of breaches in our information systems. So we take this very serious. As a dark cloud loomed over McKinnon's head for over 10 years, it became clear that he wasn't well. In fact, it came to light that McKinnon suffered depression and also from Asperger's

syndrome. Extradition and a long judicial process in the United States would multiply his suffering tenfold for what many considered minor crimes. Many human rights organizations protested the extradition and McKinnon remained in limbo. Soon, a new prime minister, Theresa May, would take office and would finally take a hard stance on the Gary McKinnon extradition process. In 2012, she made a final decision and presented it to the House of Lords. Since I came into office, the sole issue on which I have been required to make a decision is whether Mr. McKinnon's extradition to the United States would breach his human rights. Mr. McKinnon is accused of serious crimes, but there is also no doubt that he is seriously ill. He has Asperger's syndrome and

suffers from depressive illness. The legal question before me is now whether the extent of that illness is sufficient to preclude extradition. As the House would expect, I have very carefully considered the representations made on Mr. McKinnon's behalf, including from a number of clinicians, and I have taken extensive legal advice. After careful consideration of all of the relevant material, I have concluded that Mr. McKinnon's extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life, that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr. McKinnon's human rights. I have therefore withdrawn the extradition order against Mr. McKinnon. After this decision, which the U.S. was clearly not in favor of, all charges against McKinnon were dropped.

An outstanding extradition warrant remains for him in the U.S., but it doesn't seem to bother McKinnon much. He remains safe and secure in the U.K., having founded his own computer company and putting the decade-long nightmare behind him, refusing interviews to speak about the event, and attempting to move on with his life. Although this UFO hack was widely publicized, it's lesser known that it actually wasn't the first major breach of sensitive material by a civilian looking for information on UFOs. For that, we need to look a little over a decade prior to a hacker who, like McKinnon, suffered the slings and arrows of surveillance, threats, and possible persecution for his curious actions. At a young age, British-born Matthew Bevin was perceived as your typical adolescent.

Bullied at times by his peers, he searched to find a community in which to fit with him, and like so many loners, he found the world of computers to be his refuge. He would spend his nights on a Commodore Amiga, 12, tapping into different online forums. This was back in the days of dial-up, so naturally, Bevan's phone bill would have been astronomical. But his first dive into the world of illegal activity came from a friend who offered Bevin a black market program that would use donation to fool the phone companies into believing that no one was using the line. Surfing the net for free, he soon tripped upon several bulletin boards, dealing. with UFOs. As he began making online friends and digging deeper into the UFO topic, he heard rumors of classified

UFO files floating around the different systems. Some of them belonging to NASA and the military. And soon, Bevan went from being an outcast in the real world to being a hacking prodigy in cyberspace. But his hacks would not go unnoticed. and it soon landed him in the public eye. Good evening. A computer hacker who caused a huge security scare in the United States has spoken for the first time about how he did it.

Matthew Bevan from Cardiff was acquitted on Friday of tampering with top secret American Air Force computers, but he's accused the American military of terrifying incompetence. Known by his handle, Coogee, Bevin's first major hack in 1994, was that of a program called Flex, Force Level. Execution. This was at Rome Laboratories, located on Griffith Air Force Base in upstate New York. As he chiseled his way deeper into the system, he realized that with just a few more days, he had the potential to single-handedly launch missiles from the base. Wisely, he decided to veer his focus away from warfare and concentrated solely on trying to find any information

related to highly advanced aircraft. Searching for space-related activity, he first looked at Goddard Space Center. At the time, it was just another machine, and I'm looking through it, and I'm finding all these interesting things about space stations and about artificial intelligence

battle simulators and battle planners, and you're reading things about statistics from accuracy of missiles during the Gulf War. Now, this is at a time when none of that was public, you know, you've got people saying, hey, 80% accuracy, we sent a missiles down and then flew down the streets and took their tongue out. And I'm reading the same, say now 12, 14% accuracy, which I thought of it more at the time.

That would have been very, very useful information to the press. But for me, I'm just a kid, you know, I'm just playing on these systems. I'm going, oh, that's not very interesting to me. And, you know, yeah, there's some cone on here that suggests you can, detonate nuclear weapons with it, but I'm not interested in that either. I'm just looking for stuff about UFOs and any sort of conspiracies. He began to download and copy dozens of files that he had found about space-related technology. But this didn't seem to be enough to satisfy Bevan's appetite.

And he then shifted his focus to a base that held a hefty reputation for supposedly storing the wreckage of a downed UFO. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, located near Dayton, Ohio, contained much lore within the confines of its secretive walls. But this didn't stop Bevin from finding his way in through the digital backdoor. After learning the Project Blue Book was created and housed in Wright-Patterson, Bevan began searching endless files for anything that may have to do with the famous Roswell incident of 1947. As he continued digging, he was surprised to discover that one of the systems accounts wasn't even password protected.

This was almost becoming comical to Bevan as to how simple it was to get in, almost like a game he was now playing to not get caught. What I eventually was charged with was Rome Laboratories in New York and White Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Now, the road labs were their main incidents. They were the ones that the Air Force Information Warfare Center, Office of Special Investigations, you know, they were the ones who were looking at these machines. At the time, I'm breaking into them. They're already, they've got these guys in this building. They're actually sitting around this desk trying to work out who's breaking into these machines. And they see me come in and going. And then they don't see me coming and going. And then they see somebody else coming and going. And there I am. I'm actually looking through the programs they put in place to try and see if they can count. me and I'm gonna look at somebody's put some tracking things in it trying to catch me how I'm using you know and I'm really not thinking of what I know now the real world events you know these guys are supposedly up for 23 hours at a time and they're feeding themselves on burgers and high caffeine coke and you know one of them pulls a gun out on the other one because they're all so stressed and worried about catching these these spies that they're sure and you know the reality is I'm just like tapping away go to bed get up carry on you know and completely oblivious. It's just a game. It is literally just war games. It's all text on a screen. It's not real. You don't see anything. You know, that's where the hacking part of the problem comes into it. It's just text. It's not real. But it was soon to become all too real. As Bevin continued searching the Wright Patterson files, he found emails that different employees were sending back and forth about a certain aircraft that they had been developing. showed a prototype that seemed to use anti-gravity propulsion,

the technology theorized to propel many of the often silent UFOs throughout witness history. With this speculative information, Bevan hastily found his way out of the Wright-Batterson systems and thought he was in the clear, having swooped in and out like a ghost. But what he didn't know was that his actions were being meticulously monitored, much closer than he'd anticipated. This is when his life took a nasty turn, with a little help from both local and governmental authorities. It was now 1996, and Bevin was comfortably employed

at an insurance agency doing computer work in his hometown of Cardiff Wales. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for him, until the day he was called into the office of one of his superiors. But his superiors were nowhere to be found when he arrived. I go open the door, there's like eight, nine guys standing all black suits, and I'm just looking around like, okay, no big deal, you know, this is an insurance company after all. You go into the MD's office of the big company, what do you expect?

And one of them just introduced Matthew Berman, he quite cares. And I'd shake my hand this time now. We're placing under arrest for the suspected hacking of NATO, NASA, various Air Force bases across the world. I'm like, oh gosh, okay. So then they'd take me back out to my office and they start asking me all these questions about my computer system.

These guys, they just introduced themselves to me, tell them, telling me that they're arresting me, they're from SO6, Special Operation 6, Computer Crime Unit, linked to MI6. And they're basically Scotland Yard, But they're, you know, they're quite heavy on the computer crime side of things, you know. And this was their big break. They finally got a big one, you know.

They didn't have a lot of these little cases. They seem to have this knack of losing them. And they finally got this big case that they could really get their teeth into, get their budgets up to prove, you know, the UK's great, you can catch these hackers, you know. Because there was talk about extradition to the states, and there was a lot of political wrangling that was done in the background to ensure, to ensure what was done were, luckily for me, they made the right decision. Hey guys, Ryan Sprague here from Somewhere in the Skies.

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Your style can make you cash. Start selling on D-pop, where taste recognizes taste. To truly understand the complexity of Bevan's arrest, one must look back to 1994 when he first began his hacking activity and how he was identified. The D-I-S-A, or Defense Information Systems Agency, was the first to discover Bevin's hacks. Next came the A-F-I-W-C, or Air Force Information Warfare Center. The hacks were traced to New York City-based internet provider, Mind Fox. When Bevan had infiltrated the systems at Goddard Space Center and Griffiths Air Force Base, the monitoring had begun.

It wasn't until the Wright-Patterson hack that the D-I-S-A and A-F-I-W-C thought that this person could potentially be an informant or hired hacker for a rival nation, specifically Russia or Iraq. Bevin, however, remained elusive. Both agencies failed to positively identify him on their own. Instead, they turned to other hackers. The people whom Bevan had learned from had subsequently become his digital Judas, spilling the beans on Bevan's identity and assuring these agencies that they had finally found Kooji. Now detained, Bevan was thrown into a tornado of interrogations. The authorities questioned his past, his methods, and ultimately his motives. He was bombarded with inquisitions primarily connected to his hacks. within Wright Patterson. Curiously, a secret service agent had been present at the interrogation.

And while many of the other men were asking about war games and danger to weapons Bevin may have gained access to, this man was asking him questions about what he'd found pertaining to a little-known place called Hanger 18. Certain names associated with that computer system and other UFO folklore seem to combine in my... my police interview I was asked about these things that when I said yes I know about that I definitely hacked that one and I saw this anti-gravity engine they said they didn't see anything

and say yeah yeah the anti-gravity engine they went okay and carry on and it's never mentioned again until we get a secret service agent the same person who's come over on another occasion who's talking about yes we know Matthew was never had any malicious intent he was just after the UFOs at Hanger 18. And Hanger 18, a strange thing. Everyone says Area 51 when they talk about UFOs. But, you know, if you take it back, Hanger 18, UFO folklore, Hanger 18, known as Building 18, at a place called Whitefield,

which is where the big Roswell crash is supposed to have been taken to, you start going, hang on a minute, what's going on here? why the police asking me about Hanger 18? Why is the secret service agent mentioning about Hanger 18? Why is all this weird UFO style anti-gravity engine nonsense that's coming from this machine? From the place that's actually named in the main Roswell crash as where the place, pieces were taken to,

you start thinking, that's quite interesting. And it'd be interesting to see where it all ties up. It may be just military testing. It may not. It could be information that's put there deliberately from me or somebody like me to find a good old disinformation exercise. Or it could be that last little crack of evidence that somebody went, oh, we didn't leave it on that machine, did we? You know, you never know.

You never know. As the pressure rained down on Bevin, he gave his honest answers, and he was asked point-blank if he had any political motivations in which he replied he had none. Clearly, this was boiling down to a case of espionage and possible military implication. Bevan remained truthful, explaining that he was simply searching for information pertaining to UFOs. With this, the authorities begin to ease down, their tone becoming a bit more light as they begin to peg this hacker as nothing more than an X-Files idiot. Even if Bevin's motives were far more innocent than the authorities had first inferred, he had still committed illegal activity, and there had to be a decision on how to prosecute him for his crimes. The United States wanted him extradited and put into prison. But in order to do so, the U.K. authorities needed specific information from the Americans about what Bevan had discovered.

Stubborn to give up any evidence, the U.S. government gave a cold shoulder to the prosecution. And because of this, the entire case against Bevin was dropped in 1997. After almost two years of monitoring, tracking down sources, and eventually nabbing their man, the U.S. government hypocritically let him go with nothing more than a stern slap on the wrist. If Bevin ever stepped foot on American soil, he'd be arrested on site. With the case against him swept quietly under the rug for decades, Bevin went on with his life, never forgetting about the detailed chain of events that could, have landed him in prison, perhaps for the rest of his life.

But in the wake of Bevin's case now being in the public eye, cybersecurity had a poster boy who seemingly could have caused immeasurable damage and danger to the world's military defenses and could have even caused nuclear annihilation, all of which Bevin claims was propaganda, exaggerated beyond comprehension, simply to fuel the financial security of cyber crime units in the United States. So, in the end, this wasn't even about UFOs

or anti-gravity propulsion. The threat of prison eventually came down to 15 years, five years per each sentence maximum. None of you've ever been sentenced like that. But, you know, this was government stuff. And there's a good chance that if I could have been the scapegoat or the example, then I would have. I think every opportunity was taken to try and make me that. You know,

reality is I get less for killing somebody. When it comes down to it, you know, if I can get 15 years from breaking into a military system and get 12 years for killing somebody, if that get out to eight or something, then it makes me suggest, well, that just shows how the system works. People's lives mean nothing. Business is money. Information is money and money is power. People don't mean anything, and that's the way the law works. Bevin's memories of the events would eventually come back to haunt him in the form of Gary McKinnon. Being charged with almost identical hacking activities under the handle, solo,

McKinnon's extradition loomed in the air for a painfully long time. Had McKinnon learned anything from Bevin, perhaps. you wouldn't have even attempted to play with digital fire. And perhaps the race to uncover UFO information, both hackers were ultimately chasing after, would have eventually caught up to them. But in the end, Bevin was the first to see through the legal system, how unbelievably flawed it was when dealing with hackers,

and perhaps even more importantly, how easy it was to gain access not only to UFO information, but with a few simple keystrokes, the entire annual budget of government-funded cyber security. So, in the eyes of Bevin, what exactly was the moral to this crazy string of events? Whatever you do, don't do it now. If you do it now, you will be screwed.

You know, new laws are in place to deal with terrorists. You know, our civil liberties have been stripped. from under our noses and the guise of security are looking after us. But I think people don't realize that hacking now is classed as a terrorist defense. You know, a suspected terrorist. Yeah, I've broken into somebody's computer system. I could be held indefinitely without trial, you know. And, great.

Send me to Guantanamo Bay. I don't know. You know, I was very lucky that computer wars were in place, but they were so airy-fairy. And what I was doing was not malicious. It's been agreed by all sides. I never did anything for financial gain. I never did anything malicious.

I never destroyed data. So the model is, be lucky. Don't get into things now. You know, it's just not worth it. It's not worth it. And I think any crime, if you're aware that it's a crime, is not worth it. When you're a kid, you know, had a lesson.

You jump over ravines. You climb trees that are 20, foot third, for a high, and he jumped out of them because you're a kid and you can't, you won't get hurt. When you're hacking, you won't get caught. You know, you're invulnerable. When you're a bit older, you don't climb trees, you don't, you know, run up and down the street and do whatever that you did when you're a kid, because you know there's consequences. And I think the moral is when you know, maybe you should be very careful. Either way, these men, although arrogant in their own ways, paved a path for civilians who will

Stop at nothing to uncover a truth that they feel is being so deeply hidden from the public. Somewhere in the Skies is part of the Somewhere Podcast universe. Please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To learn more about all of our shows, visit thespu.com. Spectrevision Radio. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line.

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