CASE 17708 (CLOSED) and DR. Leon Davidson

This short memorandum, dated 9 January 1958, went from the CIA’s Chicago office to its Contact Division in Washington. It concerns Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and UFO researcher who kept pressing the government on a claimed “space message” and the transmitter behind it.

What the memo says

The Chicago office reports that it phoned Davidson to say it could not resolve his question because the records had been destroyed by the agency that held them. Davidson replied that he had heard this before, said he had a second article on Air Force handling of sightings with the Pentagon’s security reviewers, and hinted he might raise the message again later.

The writer is candid about the agency’s position. He says “many cooks” had been involved, so the noncommittal, evasive answer the office had been told to give was perhaps the only way to avoid contradicting earlier statements by the CIA and others – but it was hardly fair to Davidson and unlikely to satisfy him. He adds that the record did not show Davidson knew he had been dealing with the CIA in earlier contacts, since efforts had been made to hide that, but the office was fairly sure he knew perfectly well. The memo ends by predicting more would be heard from him.

Why it is notable

The file says nothing about what the message was, but it is a rare internal admission that the agency gave a member of the public a deliberately vague answer on a UFO-related question to keep official stories consistent.