CIA memo on UFO researcher Leon Davidson, 1958

[PAGE 1] Approved for Release 2026. Chief, Contact Division. FOR: Support Branch, Chief, Chicago Office. 9 January 1958. CHI-58-17. [Handwritten: S-49559] Case 17708 (Closed) and Dr. Leon Davidson. REF: WA 26643, and Connell, Lohmann, LaMountain Telecon of 8 Jan 58. 1. We have contacted Dr. Davidson by telephone advising him that we cannot resolve his problem concerning the space message and its transmitter because records on the matter have been destroyed by the evaluating agency. Davidson accepted this statement with the comment that he had been told this before, that he now had a second article for publication concerning Air Force handling of space sightings in the hands of the Pentagon security review people (which he thought was mild enough to pass them), and he hinted that he might wish to take up again at a later date the matter of this particular message. 2. We appreciate that there have been many cooks in the kitchen on this dish and that, as a result, the extraordinarily noncommittal and evasive answer we were instructed to give Davidson was perhaps the only one possible if we were to avoid crossing up previous statements of our own, and other involved agencies, to this man. But the answer was hardly fair to Davidson, and one not likely to be fully accepted by him. 3. Referenced telephone conversation disclosed that there is nothing in the record to show that Davidson knew he was dealing with the Agency in his contacts with Walker and Skakich, that in fact, an effort had been made to conceal their CIA identity from him. We are reasonably sure that when Davidson talked to us in the Court of Appeals Building conference room, he knew very well with whom he was dealing, and in the Davidson-LaMountain telephone conversation, Davidson specifically mentioned "your agency" by which he presumably meant CIA. 4. We are sure more will be heard from Davidson. R.P.B. LOHMANN F:LaMountain:rs [Stamp: FULL TEXT COPY DO NOT RELEASE] [Stamp: CONFIDENTIAL, crossed out] [Handwritten circled "7" bottom-right margin; illegible cursive initials in the upper-left margin.]