Gary McGolden

Gary McGolden
Biographical information
Nationality	American
Career and family information
Affiliation(s)	MEGASURPRISE magazine
Occupation	Journalist
Notable family	John-Dee (cousin)
Behind the scenes
Main appearance(s)	Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses)
Created by	Shuyo Murata

Gary McGolden was a journalist and nonfiction writer who was best known for his past bestseller, The Telekinetic Powers of the Loch Ness Monster - The True Energy Source of UFOs. He also leaked information about the Shadow Moses Incident in his book, The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses.

Biography

Early life and career

McGolden was a journalist who focused on the paranormal. He believed that he had once been kidnapped by aliens when he was young due to having a small hole, about the size of a pinprick, behind his ear, resulting in him having paranoia and believing that many conspiracies were going on in the world.

The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses

In May 2007, McGolden received an optical disc from his friend Max Smithson, chief editor of the magazine MEGASURPRISE (although he was initially reluctant to open the package, thinking it was a letter bomb). It contained the book In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth by Nastasha Romanenko. After reading the book, he decided to conduct an investigation to see if the contents of the disc were true. He initially attempted to contact the publishing company for the book (also briefly bullying a college-age next door neighbor to access his computer), but the publishing company hung up on him after being called a "leftover carnival prize."

Front cover of The Shocking Conspiracy... article.

Wanting to learn more, McGolden joined his cousin, John-Dee, a fisherman in Alaska, on June 24, 2007 (the anniversary of his supposed abduction by aliens). He asked John-Dee to take him to Shadow Moses Island, though John-Dee was reluctant because he had heard that he could not come too close or else he would be arrested and interrogated. Nonetheless, he agreed to bring him to the island as close as possible without being detected. 20 miles from the island, McGolden supposedly swam the rest of the distance to Shadow Moses, disguised as a giant tuna.

When he arrived at an abandoned facility, he discovered that his cousin had been captured and tied-up. John-Dee attempted to explain that he had been captured after seeing a black square-shaped helicopter. McGolden then tried to escape the island but was himself caught by agents of the Patriots using a similar black helicopter to John-Dee 's description. He was then taken prisoner in a weather observation building and interrogated about the contents of the disc given to him by Smithson. He refused to reveal anything, and went on to accuse them of being agents of a secret society that commanded even the President, while insulting them. Just as he was about to be killed by his captors, due to his lack of cooperation and assertions towards them, a stealth-camouflaged Solid Snake rescued him, although he was convinced that "it had to be an alien, one of the little grey kind." Upon returning, he wrote the article on his experiences on a typewriter instead of a computer. His method of writing it ultimately delayed the Patriots from immediately recapturing him when he started writing it, as his next-door-neighbor was implied to have been kidnapped by the Patriots immediately after McGolden utilized the latter's computer to read it.

Article reception

McGolden wrote about what happened to him on Shadow Moses in The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses and sent it to Smithson. However, his lack of credibility and the humorous tone adopted in his book resulted in nobody taking seriously what happened to him. However, it did nonetheless manage to allow an unabridged version of In the Darkness of Shadow Moses to be successfully published. Shortly thereafter, he vanished without a trace. Despite McGolden's disappearance, Smithson expressed hope that the writer was still alive and hard at work on a follow-up to his novel.

Smithson revealed that he never gave Gary the optical disk. It was likely that Solid Snake gave Gary the optical disk to help give more exposure to Nastasha's book, knowing McGolden's direction of the investigation.

Personality and traits

McGolden was known to be very paranoid, as his main reason for being initially reluctant to open the package that was allegedly sent to him by Max was because he thought it contained a letter bomb. Likewise, he also believed in aliens and that he was abducted by them, which is implied to be the root of his paranoia.

He disliked peanut butter as a child but perceived this as a weakness, and began eating it with every meal in order to conquer this weakness. This resulted in him hating peanut butter even more, which of course, led to him eating peanut butter even more constantly in order to either continue to contend with it, or to rid the world of its existence bit by bit. It’s an obsession so strong that it appears as if he straightforwardly loves peanut butter without context. He even twists the lyrics to Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” in order to express his hatred.

Behind the scenes

The song that McGolden was trying to remember before being captured by the Patriots is the late Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You."

Sources

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty