{"type":"documents","slug":"2026-pursue-release-03-013-cia-uap-004-case-17708-closed-and-dr-leon-davidson","title":"CIA-UAP-004 Case 17708 (Closed) and Dr. Leon Davidson","url":"https://disclosdex.com/documents/2026-pursue-release-03-013-cia-uap-004-case-17708-closed-and-dr-leon-davidson","description":"A 1958 CIA memorandum documenting a phone call with Dr. Leon Davidson about a destroyed space message and its transmitter.","date":"1958-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","tags":["Correspondence"],"updated":"2026-06-12T00:00:00.000Z","disclosureRating":5,"connectionCount":0,"content":{"markdown":"CIA-UAP-004 is a Central Intelligence Agency internal memorandum dated 9 January 1958, released in PURSUE Release 03 on June 12, 2026. The originating agency is the Central Intelligence Agency; the incident date is 1958 and no specific incident location is recorded in the Department of War release metadata.[^1][^2][^3]\n\n<PDF src=\"https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/061226/release_03/documents/CIA-UAP-004-CASE_17708_CLOSED_AND_DR_LEON_DAVIDSON.pdf\" />\n\n## Provenance and Chain of Custody\n\nCIA-UAP-004 is classified administratively as a \"Closed Contact Case,\" designating that the matter had been formally concluded in CIA records at the time of the memorandum. The document was authored by R.P.B. Lombard and directed from the Chief, Chicago Office to the Chief, Contact Division, Support Branch. A more redacted version of this memorandum has long been available on the CIA's public website, making the PURSUE Release 03 version notable primarily for the additional unredacted detail it provides regarding personnel identities and internal deliberation.\n\nThe memorandum was approved for release in 2026 as part of the Department of War's PURSUE disclosure program. As with all PURSUE materials, it originates from within the U.S. intelligence and defense apparatus and represents an internal administrative record rather than an externally facing report or field assessment.\n\n## What the Document Contains\n\nThe memorandum memorializes a telephone conversation conducted on 8 January 1958 with Dr. Leon Davidson. The document is not a report of an aerial sighting or anomalous encounter; it is a contact management record documenting how CIA personnel handled a civilian researcher's persistent inquiries, the internal coordination difficulties those inquiries created, and the Agency's decisions about what information to provide him.\n\nThe central subject is a \"space message\" and its transmitter. According to the memorandum, Davidson had been seeking information about both. CIA's stated response was that the Agency could not resolve his problem because records on the transmitter had been destroyed by the originating agency. The memorandum does not identify the originating agency, the content of the space message, the nature of the transmitter, or any anomalous phenomenon that may have been associated with these materials. Davidson accepted this explanation but noted he had been told the same thing before, indicating a sustained pattern of prior CIA communications on the matter.\n\n## Key Participants\n\nDr. Leon Davidson is the primary subject and civilian contact. Davidson was a private researcher who had been corresponding with the CIA regarding space-related matters and had written at least one published article on Air Force handling of space sightings. At the time of the January 1958 contact, he had a second article pending Pentagon security review.\n\nCIA personnel referenced in the memorandum include Walker and Smkich, whose CIA identities had been deliberately concealed from Davidson in earlier interactions. Lowell Lobsann is referenced in connection with telecommunications on 8 January 1958. LaMountain is mentioned in connection with a subsequent telephone conversation with Davidson. R.P.B. Lombard authored the memorandum. A radio operator identified only by the designator WA 26643 is mentioned but not further identified in the released text.\n\n## Institutional Coordination Problems\n\nOne of the most candid passages in the memorandum concerns the internal management of this case. The author acknowledges there had been \"many cooks in the kitchen,\" meaning multiple CIA offices and personnel had been involved in handling Davidson's inquiries, with the result that prior communications with him had been \"non-committal and evasive.\" CIA was now constrained to provide Davidson with what the author describes as \"the only one possible answer\" in order to avoid contradicting statements already made by the CIA itself and by other agencies involved in the matter.\n\nThe author is openly critical of this outcome. The memorandum states that the answer given to Davidson \"is hardly fair to Davidson, and one not likely to be fully accepted by him.\" This acknowledgment is notable: an internal CIA memorandum marking a case as closed simultaneously registers the author's view that the closure was administratively convenient rather than genuinely satisfying for the civilian on the receiving end. It reflects a tension between institutional coordination requirements and honest engagement with a civilian researcher who had been persistently seeking a substantive answer.\n\n## CIA Identity and Davidson's Awareness\n\nThe memorandum addresses directly whether Davidson knew he was dealing with the CIA in earlier contacts. Telephone records reviewed by Lombard show nothing indicating that Davidson was aware of CIA involvement when he previously communicated with Walker and Smkich. The memorandum notes that \"an effort had been made to conceal their CIA identity from him\" during those interactions.\n\nHowever, the author concludes that Davidson became aware of the CIA's involvement when he was given access to a trust conference held in the Appeals Building conference room. This conclusion is supported by a subsequent telephone conversation between Davidson and LaMountain in which Davidson used the phrase \"your answers,\" which Lombard interprets as Davidson's acknowledgment that he understood he was now dealing with CIA officials.\n\nThe question of when and how Davidson came to understand he was corresponding with the CIA -- and what that means for the reliability of the prior \"non-committal and evasive\" communications he received -- is left unresolved in the memorandum.\n\n## Davidson's Publication Plans\n\nAt the time of the January 1958 contact, Davidson had prepared a second article for publication concerning Air Force handling of space sightings. This article was pending Pentagon security review. The memorandum does not specify the subject matter of his first published article, nor does it indicate whether the second article was subsequently cleared and published or withheld. The reference to Pentagon security review establishes that Davidson's research was being monitored at a level above the CIA Chicago Office.\n\n## Anticipated Future Contact\n\nThe memorandum closes with the author's prediction that \"more will be heard from Davidson,\" reflecting CIA's expectation that Davidson would not accept the destroyed-records explanation as final. Given that the case was formally closed and the author simultaneously predicted continued contact, the administrative closure appears to have been procedural rather than a genuine resolution of Davidson's inquiry.\n\n## What The Record Supports\n\nCIA-UAP-004 establishes that the CIA maintained an active contact case with Dr. Leon Davidson in the late 1950s, tracked his correspondence about a \"space message\" and its transmitter, and coordinated with other agencies on what information to provide him. The memorandum confirms that CIA personnel concealed their identities from Davidson in earlier interactions and that the Agency's chosen response to his inquiries was shaped by the need to maintain consistency with prior evasive statements rather than by a determination to resolve the underlying question.\n\nWhat the record does not establish: the content or nature of the space message; the identity of the transmitter; the identity of the originating agency that destroyed the records; any anomalous phenomenon or UAP sighting associated with these materials; or whether Davidson's research ever produced a published account of his findings. The destruction of the transmitter records, referenced as the central explanation given to Davidson, remains unexplained and unverified within the document itself.\n\nThis is an administrative record of a managed and formally closed inquiry. Its significance lies in what it reveals about CIA contact management practices and the candid internal acknowledgment of institutional evasion, not in any direct documentation of an anomalous aerial event.\n\n## References\n\n[^1]: [Department of War PURSUE page](https://www.war.gov/UFO/#release)\n\n[^2]: [Department of War PURSUE data file (uap-data.csv)](https://www.war.gov/Portals/1/Interactive/2026/UFO/uap-data.csv)\n\n[^3]: [CIA-UAP-004, Case 17708 (Closed) and Dr. Leon Davidson remote release asset](https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/061226/release_03/documents/CIA-UAP-004-CASE_17708_CLOSED_AND_DR_LEON_DAVIDSON.pdf)","readingTime":"7 min read"},"relatedRecords":[],"citation":{"canonicalUrl":"https://disclosdex.com/documents/2026-pursue-release-03-013-cia-uap-004-case-17708-closed-and-dr-leon-davidson","title":"CIA-UAP-004 Case 17708 (Closed) and Dr. Leon Davidson","publisher":"Disclosdex","retrievedFrom":"https://disclosdex.com/api/v1/documents/2026-pursue-release-03-013-cia-uap-004-case-17708-closed-and-dr-leon-davidson","license":"CC-BY-4.0"}}