The name first appeared in 2006 on a forum called Open Minds. Someone posted a detailed claim: there exists a secret space fleet called Solar Warden. As of 2005, the poster said, it consisted of eight large carrier-class spacecraft and forty-three smaller escort vessels. One of those escorts had nearly crashed while defending a Mars colony established jointly by the Soviets and Americans in 1964.

The post went largely unnoticed. A few replies, some skepticism, then silence. It seemed like another internet conspiracy theory, destined to fade into obscurity.

Then, in 2017, a Huffington Post contributor named Darren Perks published an article connecting Solar Warden to Gary McKinnon's discoveries. According to Perks, the program had been initiated in 1980 by the U.S. Navy's Space Operations division. The fleet's mission: monitoring extraterrestrial activity and defending Earth's orbital space.

Perks claimed to have been contacted by a Department of Defense insider who confirmed the program's existence. The source allegedly told him Solar Warden had operated for decades but was shut down during the Obama administration.

No follow-up articles appeared. NASA and the Department of Defense denied everything. But Perks wasn't the only one talking.

Around the same time, an amateur astronomer named John Lenard Walson began experimenting with a new photographic technique. He modified his telescope to capture images in both infrared and ultraviolet, then layered the exposures to produce exceptionally clear images of objects in orbit.

Walson first tested the technique on the International Space Station. The results were sharp enough that NASA unofficially acknowledged the method's validity. Encouraged, he turned his telescope toward what he thought were distant stars.

What he found were not stars. They were massive, structured platforms in Earth's orbit. Some had solar panels. Others had protruding extensions that looked disturbingly like weapons. A few, Walson said, resembled ships from Star Trek.

He published the images online. Within days, military helicopters began circling his property. Unmarked vehicles parked outside his house. On multiple occasions, men in plainclothes confronted him. The encounters sometimes became physical.

Walson's story added visual evidence to the Solar Warden claims. But the question remained: if such a program existed, how had it stayed hidden for so long?

One answer emerged from declassified documents about a program called MOL - the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Officially, MOL was a 1960s project to establish a research station in low Earth orbit. It was canceled in 1969 due to budget constraints.

But Gary McKinnon had found references to MOL operations running in parallel with NASA's Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The personnel wore different spacesuits. They launched different satellites. And according to the files, the program didn't end in 1969.

Another piece of the puzzle came from President Ronald Reagan's personal diary. In a June 11, 1985 entry, Reagan wrote: "Lunch with five top space scientists. It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy are like science fiction, except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such that we could orbit 300 people."

At the time, NASA's Space Shuttle could carry a maximum of eight crew members. The entire fleet of four shuttles, if launched simultaneously, could put thirty-two people in orbit. Where, then, was Reagan getting the number 300?

Some historians suggest he was referring to a canceled program called Rockwell's Star-Raker, a massive spacecraft designed to carry large crews. But Star-Raker was never built. At least, not officially.

Then there's the Calvine photograph. On August 4, 1990, two hikers in Scotland photographed a diamond-shaped craft being pursued by a Royal Air Force jet. The image was handed to the Ministry of Defence, classified, and reportedly destroyed. For decades, it remained one of the UK's most famous missing UFO photos.

In 2022, a former intelligence officer named Craig Lindsay released what he claimed was a scan of the original. It showed exactly what the witnesses described: a large, smooth, diamond-shaped object with a fighter jet trailing behind it. The craft matched descriptions of vehicles from a rumored black project called Aurora, a triangular reconnaissance aircraft allegedly developed in the 1980s.

Sightings of triangular UFOs skyrocketed during that period, particularly over the United States and United Kingdom. Many researchers believe Aurora was a prototype for vehicles later integrated into programs like Solar Warden.

But here's where the story gets messy. Most of the so-called whistleblowers turned out to be frauds. Many testimonies were plagiarized from 1970s British sci-fi shows like UFO, which featured a secret space defense organization called SHADO remarkably similar to Solar Warden's description.

A project of this scale would require cooperation between multiple nations, hundreds of corporations, and tens of thousands of personnel. Keeping it secret would be nearly impossible. Supplies alone - fuel, food, equipment - would leave trails. Amateur astronomers like Walson would spot launches. Insider leaks would be constant.

And yet, Gary McKinnon's findings remain unexplained. The spreadsheets. The photographs. The files referencing programs that officially don't exist. Something was there. Whether it's as grand as Solar Warden's supporters claim is another question entirely.