Thomas Wilson
Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson served as Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and later as Director from 1999 to 2002. He is best known in UAP discourse as the central figure in the Wilson-Davis Memo, which documents his alleged 1997 discovery of and subsequent denial of access to an unacknowledged special access program conducting crash retrieval and reverse engineering of non-human technology.
| Role | Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; Deputy Director and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency |
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Military Career
Wilson was an accomplished and decorated officer in the U.S. Navy, receiving numerous awards including the Distinguished Defense Medal and the Distinguished Service Medal during his career. As Deputy Director and later Director of the DIA, Wilson held one of the most senior intelligence positions in the U.S. military, with statutory oversight and regulatory authority over all special access programs within the Department of Defense, whether acknowledged or unacknowledged.
The 1997 Pentagon Briefing and Investigation
In April 1997, at the request of retired Navy Commander Will Miller, Wilson attended a briefing in a Pentagon conference room where Steven Greer presented information about UFOs, Roswell, and crashed UFOs to Wilson, Miller, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, and Dia Hughes. Following the conference, Miller and Wilson spoke privately, leaving Wilson intrigued to investigate further.
Wilson subsequently 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.
Discovery of the Program
According to the Wilson-Davis memo, 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. Wilson identified an aerospace technology contractor (likely Lockheed Martin) as the project coordinator—"the best one of them," active in defense and intelligence.
At the end of May 1997, Wilson made three calls to the program manager, including a conference call with the security director and corporate attorney. Wilson told them he had read into their program record and wanted to know about their crashed UFO retrieval program. They met him with confusion and agitation. Wilson demanded a formal briefing, invoking his regulatory authority as Deputy Director of DIA, and the overseers agreed to meet in person.
Meeting with the Watch Committee
Wilson 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. A formal agreement had been struck with SAPOC to prevent future discovery, with special criteria established to control 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. 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."
Denial of Access and Threats
Despite Wilson's position and clearance level, the watch committee denied him access because he was not on the bigot list and did not meet their undisclosed special access criteria. Wilson complained to the SAPOC senior review group at the Pentagon, but the SRG sustained the contractor's access denial. SRG chairman John Deutsch threatened Wilson that if he did not drop the matter, "he would not see the Director of DIA promotion, he would get an early retirement, and lose one to two stars."
Wilson later spoke to Jacques Gansler (who had been read into the program) in January 1998. Gansler told Wilson: "UFOs are real, so-called alien abductions not real," and would speak no more on the topic.
The 2002 Meeting with Eric Davis
On October 16, 2002, after Wilson had retired from the DIA, he allegedly 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. Wilson recounted the entire 1997 investigation and subsequent denial of access, telling Davis to keep the meeting private and never discuss it without clearance.
Public Denials
In a 2020 interview with investigative reporter Billy Cox for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Wilson flatly denied the events described in the Wilson-Davis memo: "It's all fiction. I wouldn't know Eric Davis if he walked in right now... I'm not saying that sometime somewhere I never met Davis, but I certainly don't know him. I don't remember him, and I definitely did not sit with him in a car for an hour in Las Vegas."
However, Wilson did admit to meeting with Steven Greer and Edgar Mitchell, though he claimed he did not follow up on any investigation. Researchers note that Wilson stated in the memo itself that he would deny the meeting and everything discussed if his trust was broken, and his career advancement had been threatened if he continued pursuing the matter.
Confirmations from Other Sources
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. Will Miller confirmed the 1997 Pentagon meeting in an interview with Joe Murgia. Lou Elizondo, Chris Mellon, and Oak Shannon have all confirmed aspects of or the authenticity of the Wilson-Davis memo documenting these events.