The CIA space message: a Manhattan Project scientist, a deleted recording, and what the agency would not confirm

Dr. Leon Davidson was not a fringe figure. He was a chemical engineer who worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, as part of the scientific team that developed the atomic bomb. After World War II he shifted his focus to the study of unidentified flying objects, approaching the subject with the same technical rigor he applied to weapons research.

Davidson became one of the most persistent and effective advocates for transparency in government UFO investigations. He convinced a Congressional committee to compel the Air Force to allow him to publish and distribute, in its entirety, Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14, the Air Force's primary analytical document on UFO sightings. The Air Force and CIA found Davidson unusual among UFO researchers: technically sophisticated, formally credentialed, and not easily dismissed. CIA internal documents describe him repeatedly as not a fool. They also describe the effort to manage his correspondence as a persistent problem.

At some point before 1957, Davidson obtained a tape recording of what he believed was a signal of non-terrestrial origin. The precise contents of the recording, what frequencies it contained, and where or how Davidson obtained it are not established in the declassified public documents. What is established: he believed the recording contained a message from space, and he wanted two things from the government , a verbatim translation of the message and identification of the transmitter from which it came.

The Air Force responded through Captain Wallace W. Elwood, who wrote to Davidson on August 5, 1957. Elwood told Davidson the message was identifiable as morse code and had originated from a known U.S. licensed radio station. The implication was that there was no space message: Davidson had recorded an ordinary terrestrial radio transmission and misidentified it.

Davidson rejected this. His technical background made him difficult to dismiss on acoustic grounds. He told the Air Force that the characteristics of the sounds on his tape recording were not morse-type. He continued pressing for a verbatim translation and continued seeking answers from every government contact he could access. The CIA documents that followed describe an agency dealing with a technically credentialed man who would not accept a non-answer.

The crucial finding in the documents declassified in 2019 through a Black Vault Mandatory Declassification Review: CIA agents had been communicating with Davidson about the space message and its transmitter for over a year without ever telling him they were from the CIA. Davidson believed he was corresponding with Air Force personnel or other government officials. The CIA was routing communications to him through cover identities or through Air Force channels. When the original document was released with further redactions lifted in 2019, the information about CIA agents concealing their affiliation became public for the first time.

The November 3, 1957 memo references an internal coordination structure with code references ("WA-2625B"), a mysterious entity referred to in multiple documents only as "the attic," and a network of communications back-channels for managing Davidson's inquiries. "The attic" is referenced repeatedly in the document cluster and appears to be either a code name or an unofficial nickname for a location or unit, possibly at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where materials related to UFO research were analyzed and stored. No government document has formally explained what "the attic" designates.

The November 1957 CIA memo is candid about what the agency thought of its strategy for handling Davidson. After noting that Captain Elwood's letter was intended to satisfy Davidson by telling him he had not received a space message, the memo states: "He is not satisfied and explains that the characteristics of the sounds on the tape recording of the message are not morse-type." The document then makes the following assessment: "Davidson is no fool and it appears that the attic is treating him as one if they think he can be satisfied with a SOP such as Captain Elwood's."

The phrase "SOP" refers to standard operating procedure. The CIA was acknowledging internally that the government's standard dismissal approach, the letter from an Air Force captain saying it was ordinary morse code, was inadequate for Davidson specifically because of his technical background. The memo implies a more sophisticated response was needed. The document appears to cut off or become redacted at this point.

A second document from 1957, catalogued as DOC_0000015244, adds: "Davidson was calm and pleasant but very determined. In view of your WA-2625B we wish to bow out of this thing, but urge that headquarters [REDACTED] and the attic concern themselves with this man and try to satisfy him. Please do not let us down on our agreement to communicate with him. We are committed." The phrase "we are committed" refers to a pre-existing agreement to continue corresponding with Davidson, an agreement that had apparently been made at an earlier stage of the interaction.

A CIA document in the CREST archive, classified as CIA-RDP61S00527A000200070027-0 and dated July 1, 1958, carries the title "DESTRUCTION OF RECORDS, REPORTS OF." It is a records destruction report covering the period that overlaps with the Davidson correspondence. The document is heavily redacted and the specific records it confirms as destroyed are not identifiable in the public version.

The connection between this destruction report and the Davidson space message file is established by what happened when the Black Vault filed Mandatory Declassification Review requests in subsequent years seeking the original unredacted versions of the space message documents. In December 2023, the CIA responded to one such request confirming that the original unredacted documents no longer exist. The redacted versions released in 1978 and 2019 are the only copies in agency possession. The CIA could not provide the language of the original space message, the identity of who originally requested the translation, or the full context of the communications that had been redacted.

As the Black Vault reported in July 2025, this pattern of missing original documents is not unique to the Davidson case. Multiple MDR requests on CIA UFO-related files have returned responses confirming the originals cannot be located, with only the previously redacted releases remaining in agency archives. Executive Order 13526 requires intelligence agencies to maintain permanent records properly and process MDRs in good faith. The accumulation of missing originals in CIA UFO files represents either a systemic records management failure or something else. The primary source documents cannot say which.

The primary sources establish: a Manhattan Project scientist had a recording he believed was extraterrestrial in origin; CIA agents communicated with him about it for over a year without revealing their CIA affiliation; the Air Force told him the signal was morse code from a terrestrial source; Davidson rejected this on acoustic grounds; the CIA internally agreed Davidson was technically sophisticated and not being adequately answered; a records destruction report from 1958 covers the relevant period; and the original unredacted documents from the Davidson file no longer exist.

What the primary sources do not establish: what the tape recording contained, what the signal actually was, whether the government's explanation was accurate, what the "attic" refers to, what the redacted portions of the internal CIA memos say, or why the original documents no longer exist. The question of whether Davidson's recording contained what he believed it contained is unanswered in the public record. The question of why CIA agents communicated with him covertly rather than simply declining to engage is also unanswered. The documents describe a government managing an inconvenient researcher. They do not explain why managing that particular researcher required concealment of the agency's identity.