Wilson Davis Memo
The Wilson-Davis Memo is a 15-page document that surfaced in 2018 from the estate of Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, purporting to record notes from an October 16, 2002 meeting between astrophysicist Dr. Eric Davis and Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, former Deputy Director and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The memo documents Wilson's alleged 1997 discovery of a hidden crash retrieval and reverse engineering program within an aerospace contractor, his attempts to gain access as one of the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. military, and his subsequent stonewalling by program managers and Pentagon officials. If authentic, the memo represents smoking-gun evidence corroborating decades of claims that the United States government is actively attempting to reverse engineer craft of non-human origin.
Provenance and Public Release
The memo came to public attention through James Rigny, who obtained it while helping disperse Edgar Mitchell's estate in 2016. Around 2013, Rigny had formed a close relationship with a confidential source who maintained relationships with numerous Apollo astronauts, including Mitchell. When Mitchell died in February 2016, Rigny's source was invited by Mitchell's family to help disperse the estate, much of which was marked for destruction.
After being granted access to the materials, Rigny copied numerous documents including the Wilson-Davis memo. His name became public when he appeared on Richard Dolan's podcast discussing the memo's origin. The document subsequently became one of the most significant pieces of evidence in UAP disclosure discourse and was entered into the official U.S. Congressional Record in 2022.
Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, had long maintained public interest in UFOs. He began talking publicly about his beliefs in 1973, just two years after his moon landing, claiming "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real."
The 1997 Pentagon Briefing and Wilson's Investigation
The events documented in the memo began in April 1997 when Steven Greer briefed Vice Admiral Wilson, retired Navy Commander Will Miller, Edgar Mitchell, and Dia Hughes in a Pentagon conference room about UFOs, Roswell, and crashed UFOs. Following the conference, Miller and Wilson spoke privately, leaving Wilson intrigued to investigate further.
Wilson launched a 45-day investigation from April to June 1997, advised by General Marshal Ward and Secretary of Defense Bill Perry to examine records in OUSD(AT)—the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology. Both Ward and Perry informed Wilson of a "special project records group not belonging to usual special access programs"—a special subset of unacknowledged carve-outs and waived programs organized in 1994 by Perry himself.
Wilson found the unusual records group in the index abstracts and called seven program managers. Four referred him to the same program run by three people who called themselves the "Watch Committee": a security director (former NSA), a program director, and a corporate attorney. The program was coordinated by an aerospace technology contractor described as "the best one of them," active in defense and intelligence—likely Lockheed Martin based on subsequent whistleblower accounts.
Wilson's Meeting with the Watch Committee
At the end of May 1997, Wilson demanded a formal briefing and flew out to meet the watch committee in their conference room in a secure vault. The committee told Wilson they had formed after a near-disaster almost exposed the program during a past audit investigation. Following that incident, a formal agreement had been struck with SAPOC to prevent future discovery, with special criteria established to control all access.
The committee showed Wilson pages of a Bigot List dated 1990 to 1993 containing all civilian names—scientists, technicians, engineers, managers—with no politicians, White House officials, presidents, or congressional members. The committee told Wilson the program was a reverse engineering effort focused on recovered technological hardware.
According to the memo, the program manager stated they had "a craft, an intact craft they believed could fly" that was "not of this Earth, not made by man, not by human hands." The program had been attempting to understand and exploit the technology for years with agonizingly slow progress and little success, partly due to inability to collaborate with the wider scientific community. Only 400 to 800 workers total had been involved since the program's inception.
Denial of Access and Career Threats
Despite Wilson's position as Deputy Director of the DIA with statutory oversight and regulatory authority over all DoD special access programs, the watch committee denied him access because he was not on the bigot list and did not meet their undisclosed special criteria.
Wilson complained to the SAPOC senior review group at the Pentagon, but the SRG sustained the contractor's access denial and ordered Wilson to drop the matter. SRG chairman John Deutsch (former CIA Director) threatened Wilson that if he did not comply, "he would not see the Director of DIA promotion, he would get an early retirement, and lose one to two stars."
Wilson apparently heeded the threat—he later became Director of the DIA from 1999 to 2002. In January 1998, he spoke to Jacques Gansler (Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology), who had been read into the program. Gansler told Wilson: "UFOs are real, so-called alien abductions not real," and refused to discuss further.
The October 16, 2002 Meeting
On October 16, 2002, after Wilson had retired from the DIA, he met with physicist Eric Davis in a car outside defense contractor EG&G. The meeting was facilitated by Oak Shannon, former manager of special projects at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Davis had been investigating crash retrieval programs and wanted to hear Wilson's account firsthand.
Wilson recounted the entire 1997 investigation and subsequent denial of access. He emphasized the extreme sensitivity of the information, telling Davis that if Davis ever violated his trust, Wilson would "deny the meeting, deny everything said in the meeting, and would never seek to know more or talk more on this topic without clearance." Wilson characterized the program as "absurdly close held subject matter" and said he'd "never seen anything like this program in the black programs community."
Davis concluded the meeting by promising to keep it private for personal use only.
Confirmations and Denials
Admiral Wilson flatly denied the memo in a 2020 interview with Billy Cox: "It's all fiction. I wouldn't know Eric Davis if he walked in right now." However, Wilson admitted to meeting with Greer and Mitchell but claimed he didn't follow up on any investigation. Researchers note Wilson stated in the memo itself he would deny the meeting if his trust was broken.
Eric Davis refused to comment directly on whether the meeting occurred, citing security clearances, but confirmed in a deleted segment of The Basement Office: "They were leaked out of Ed Mitchell's estate." He stated he could not discuss any aspect of the notes due to DoJ policies on prosecuting security clearance violations for discussing classified information leaked into the public.
Edgar Mitchell confirmed the 1997 meeting on CNN's Larry King Live in 2008 before his death, describing Wilson's discovery of black budget funding for a UFO program and his subsequent denial of access: "He was told 'I'm sorry Admiral, you do not have need to know here, and so goodbye.'"
Will Miller confirmed the 1997 Pentagon meeting when interviewed by Joe Murgia and expressed his "firm belief" that the U.S. possesses "entire operational craft" including "transluminal velocity craft that can take us anywhere in space and time."
Oak Shannon confirmed the memo's authenticity in a Jay Anderson Project Unity interview.
Lou Elizondo stated: "That Wilson memo, let me tell you something, that thing isn't going to die. That thing is now out for the public and that is going to start a firestorm."
Chris Mellon confirmed the memo's authenticity in a website post, writing the memo "provided specific information lending credence to sensational reports that an official US government program is actively seeking to exploit recovered technology that was fashioned by some other species or perhaps advanced AI machines."
Significance to UAP Disclosure
The Wilson-Davis Memo is frequently cited as evidence of:
- The existence of crash retrieval programs managed in the private sector outside traditional military oversight
- Institutional gatekeeping mechanisms that prevent even senior intelligence officials from accessing UAP-related compartmented programs
- The transfer of recovered non-human technology to defense contractors for reverse engineering
- The nested compartmentalization structure described by whistleblower David Grusch in 2023
- The existence of intact recovered craft that defy conventional explanations
The memo's entry into the U.S. Congressional Record in 2022 lent institutional weight to its significance in UAP discourse.