Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency filing is a declaration by Delores M. Nelson, the CIA's Information and Privacy Coordinator, in Bryant v. CIA, Civil Action No. 09-0940 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It supports the CIA's motion for summary judgment. It traces Larry W. Bryant's 2008 FOIA request for records of a 1987 FAA meeting on the November 17, 1986 Japanese 747 encounter over Alaska and records of similar airborne UFO encounters. It also describes the fee dispute and the searches the CIA ran. No records of the meeting were found, and three documents from other agencies were referred to them.
“Leon Davidson”1 page
“""' ‘ \, ,\ t~ Approved for Release: 2025/06/11 C07083374 UFOs‘ Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (AFRO) immediately pushed for release of the Robertson panel report." Under pressure, the Air Force approached CIA for permission to declassify and release the report. Despite such pressure, Philip Strong, Deputy Assistant Director oFO5I-. refused to declassify the report and declined to disclose CIA sponsorship of the panel. As an alternative, the Agency prepared a sanitized version of the report which deleted any reference to CIA and avoided mention of any psychological warfare potential in the UFO controversy." The demands, however, for more gov- ernment information about UFO: did not let up. On 8 March 1958, Key- hoe, in an interview with Mike ‘Wallace oi CB5, claimed deep CIA involvement with UFOs and Agency sponsorship of the Robertson panel. This prompted a series of letters to the Agency from Keyhoe and Dr. Leon Davidson, a chemical engineer and UFOlogist. They demanded the release ofthe Full Robertson panel tepott and confirmation of CIA involvement in the UFO issue. Davidson had convinced himself that the Agency. not the Air Force, carried most of the responsibility for UFO analysis and that "the activities of the US Government are responsible For the flying saucer sightings of the last decade." Indeed. because of the undisclosed U-Z and OXCART fl’ hrs. Davidson was closer to the v- I inquires such as Keyhoe s and David- son's, Agency officials confirmed their opposition to the declassifitation of the Full report and worried that Key- hoe had the ear of Former DCI VAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter. who served on the board ofgovernots of NICAP. They debated whether to have CIA General Counsel Lawrence R. Hous- ton show Hillenltoerter the report as a possible way to defuse the situation. CIA officer Frank Chapin also hinted that Davidson might have ulterior 1 motives, “some ofthem perhaps not in the best interest of this country," and suggested bringing in the FBI to invsdgare.” Although the record is unclear whether the FBI ever insti- tuted an investigation of Davidson or Keyhoe, or whether Houston ever saw Hillenltoetter about the Robertson report, Hillenltoetter did resign from the NICAP in I962." The Agency was also involved with Davidson and Keyhoe in two rather Famous UFO cases in the I950s, which helped contribute to a growing sense of public distrust of CIA with regard to UFOs. One focused on what was reported to have been a tape recording of a radio signal From a fly- ing saucer; the other on reported photographs ofa flying saucer. The - “radio code" incident began inno- cently enough in I955, when two elderly sisters in Chicago, Mildred and Marie Maier, reported in the jour- nal afSpare Flight their experiences with UFOs, including the recording‘E truth than fig 5u5p¢¢;¢d_ CI, n¢v¢,-;h¢_ _ of a radio program in which an uni- less held firm to its policy of not revealing its role in UFO investiga- tions and refused to declassiiy the Full dentified code was reportedly heard. The sisters taped the program and other ham radio operators also ' Robertson panel report." claimed to have heard the "space mes- sage." OSI became interested and ' Field officers from the Contact Divi- sion (CD), one of whom was Dewelt Wdket, made contact with the Maiet sisters, who were “thrilled that the government was interested,” and set l up a time to meet with them. 5’ In try- ing ro secure the tape recording, the Agency ofiicers reported that they had smsnbled upon a scene from Arsenic arul Old Lace. “The only thing lack- ing was the elderbcrry wine,“ \Va..ll-ter cabled Headquarters. After reviewing the sisters’ scrapbook ofelippings from their days on the stage, the oi¥ic- ers secured a copy of the recording. 5‘ OSI analyzed the tape and Found it was nothing more thm Morse code from a US radio station. The matter rested there until UFOlogist Leon'Davidson talked with the Maicr sisters in 19574 The sisters remembered they had talked with a Mr. Walker who said he was from the US Air Force. Davidson then wrote to a Mr. Walker, believing him to be a US Air Force Intelligence Ofiieer fi'om Wright-Patterson. to ask if the tape had been analyzed at ATIC. Dewelt_\Y/allter replied to Davidson that the tape had been For- warded to properlauthorities For evaluation, and no information was I available eonoernirig the results. Not satisfied, and suspecting that ‘Walker was really a CIA officer, Davidson next wrote DCI Allen Dulles demand- ing to learn what the coded message revealed and who Mr. \Vall<er,was.” The Agency, wanting to lteep Walker's identity as a CIA employee secret, replied that another agency 0F the government had analyzed the rape in question and that Davidson would ~ be hearing from the Air Force. 5‘ On S August. the Air Force wrote David- son saying that Walker "was and is an .--AirjForce Oilicer" and that the tapeIn a meeting with Air Force representa- asisgd §cientific Contact Branch .el-.3-vihfinalyzed by another governmentraves to discuss how to handle Future to obtain a copy 0F the recording. 51 otgatiization." The Air Force letter 74 Approved for Release: 2025/06/11 C07083374
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 58 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.