After his defense team tried using everything from policy to health complications in attempts to prevent “UFO Hacker” Gary McKinnon from being extradited to the United States, it appears that one final strange turn of events may get him off the proverbial hook. According to the Examiner website earlier today, “Credible witnesses have claimed that NASA has altered or destroyed its photos containing images of UFOs. This could become a legal and public relations nightmare for NASA.”

In a nutshell, what’s going on here has everything to do with the nature of NASA photography. As a government organization, photographs, video, and other data issued by NASA becomes public domain once it is released. Therefore, now that “NASA insiders” (that is, former employees and others with present or past access to NASA image archives) are claiming that photographic evidence of UFOs taken by NASA may have been destroyed, this brings into question NASA’s supposed destruction of public property. If this were indeed found to be the case, sources say that the cost of McKinnon’s alleged “destruction” during hacking sessions within the last decade would be “insignificant compared to NASA’s annual funding of more than $17 billion.”

“Part of NASA’s mission is to look for signs of intelligent life in outer space,” the Examiner piece reported. “So asking for more money to ‘look’, after they’ve already destroyed evidence that they  ’found’, is a not going to be easy.” Author Jeff Peckman asks, “is it a crime for someone to hack into a government agency that is committing a much bigger crime?” Indeed, if proof were uncovered that caught NASA red-handed in such unscrupulous activity, it would be very difficult for the American space agency to make an example of Gary McKinnon, based on what he is alleged to have discovered.

But for now, the question remains: Has NASA ever truly possessed proof of alien life in photographic evidence? Or will this strange occasion end up being used as merely a “final ruse” to buy time for Gary McKinnon, whose pending trial in the US could put him away for the remainder of his life?