The Wilson Leak: Latest Developments

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It’s been a week since I described what I called “The UFO Leak of the Century.” This concerned the fifteen pages of notes taken by Dr. Eric Davis following his 2002 meeting with retired Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson concerning Wilson’s failed attempt to gain access to deeply secret and mostly privatized black-budget programs to reverse-engineer alien technology. Technology, in the words of the notes, “not made by man – not by human hands.”

A lot has happened since then. Although I have not had the time or opportunity to follow all the threads that have been started since this, I have tried to keep track of the responses by responsible researchers and investigators. Although there are a few loud voices calling this event disinformation or an “op” of some sort, I would say that informed analysts know otherwise. I’ve had quite a few private communications from other researchers over the week who have confirmed to me that they know beyond a doubt that these documents are genuine. One of them, a highly respected name in the field, even told me that they – like me – had seen a copy of these notes many years ago and knew they were absolutely real. It’s pretty obvious to me that there are probably quite a few other individuals who over the years have been shown these notes in one form or another. For reasons of career, professional, private life, whatever, I am guessing that most of them will be content to sit on the sidelines and watch this develop, rather than participate. That’s fine.

Three people I can name with whom I had conversations this week were Linda Moulton Howe, Melinda Leslie, and Grant Cameron. All three, from their particular vantage point, have investigated and analyzed relevant aspects of the issues surrounding the leaked notes.

Even more critically, I have been in close communication with one of the key people involved in the leak. He has agreed to having his name released, and has also answered a number of questions that I have asked him about this matter and the leak. He is still intent on protecting the anonymity of the primary source of the leak, but as you will see, he gives us quite a bit to work with.

I also want to mention a very important blog post by the Australian researcher Keith Basterfield. Keith is one of the most experienced UFO researchers in the world, and has been following this development carefully. In his most recent post, he reaches a conclusion about the ultimate source of the leak. I will just say that from every single thing I have learned behind the scenes, his conclusion is absolutely correct.

So let’s get to it.

I will start by identifying the source I have been speaking with. Now I need to emphasize this is not the individual who showed me two pages of the notes back in 2006. That is someone who’s identity I have promised never to reveal and I won’t. I respect what they did back then and as long as they are alive, or unless they give permission otherwise, I’m simply not going to give that person’s identity up. I will only say that this person was in an exactly perfect position to have this information, and trusted me enough to see it.

Nor do I know the identity of the person who anonymously sent me the full 15 pages of the notes on April 19 of this year. I thought it was the source I am about to introduce, but he assures me it wasn’t him, and he himself is curious as to who might have sent it to me. So clearly there are a few people involved in this.

This makes perfect sense to me. A document is leaked out by means of a single person who shares it to a trusted friend, or perhaps two, or perhaps three or more. Any one of the original recipients might choose to share it quietly with someone else they trust. After a few weeks it’s pretty easy to see how half a dozen or more different people have copies of this leak and from that point, it’s only a matter of time before it makes its way to the rest of the world.

This is why, in fact, by the time I received the notes on April 19, my main consideration was to study them as carefully as I could before making any statement. Because I knew pretty quickly – especially after communicating with Grant Cameron – that there were quite a few others who had this.

And then my own source wrote to me. Again, this is not the person who leaked it to me, but he is very close to the original source of the leak.

He has given me permission to reveal his name and even a photograph. He’s a great guy and it turns out I met him before, and he’s been known to many people in the UFO field. His name is James Rigney.

He’s an Australian citizen who lives in Australia. When he sent me his photo I realized we met and remembered that he was very thoughtful, knowledgable, and very, very good guy. James is also the source who communicated with Keith Basterfield, as cited in Keith’s recent posts on his website.

James emailed me answers to questions I asked him, as well as to a few questions he added. I will read a good portion that here, but it’s a bit too long simply to read the whole thing, so I am posting it for everyone to read here.

Richard Dolan Questions

And will try to give a concise version of his statement for you here.

As per our brief discussions this week, I am happy to answer the questions you have provided, as honestly and as openly as I can. I do this with the proviso that my obtaining these documents involved maintaining some level of secrecy as to their source.

I would like it to be known that I was hoping to maintain my anonymity, not because I have anything to hide, but rather I was satisfied to have facilitated the procurement of the documents, passed them on to Grant Cameron and wanted no further involvement.

Please remember that the documents were given to Grant Cameron seven months ago, (November,’18), so I have been happy to stay out of it since then. Once I had shown the documents to Grant, and it should be said, subsequent to that, several other friends in the UFO community both in the US and Australia, there was not much more I could do.

I would happily have remained totally anonymous were it not for the fact that I was contacted a few days ago by the Australian researcher Keith Basterfield, asking me to confirm or deny that I had sourced the documents. I openly admitted that I was, that I had nothing to hide, and I agreed to answer a few of his questions, although I preferred for the moment that he left my name off it, which he kindly honoured.

While I am aware of the interest in both the backstory and contents of these documents, I have absolutely no interest in doing radio interviews or any other media.

I approached you (Richard Dolan) several days ago to do a written Q & A so that my involvement could be put on the record, but more importantly to help establish the provenance of the documents up to the time they were shown to Grant Cameron.

I can confirm that you subsequently prepared some questions (I asked for a dozen or so) which I received from you yesterday.

What can you say about yourself?

Not too much of interest to people here… but a snapshot would be: Australian, 63 year old self employed Architect, married, wonderful wife and two kids, obsessively curious, critical thinker, well travelled and well read on the subjects of both ufology and manned spaceflight. I am mostly interested in the history & geopolical aspects of Ufology.

I am also active in the fairly small Australian UFO scene helping to organise conferences and other public events. I was fortunate to have recently worked with James Fox filming the Australian content his upcoming movie. ‘Phenomena’. I am a frequent visitor to the US where, amongst other things I have attended many conferences and made a number of friends . . .

James emphasized that he is not interested in publicity but realizes that he’s got to bite the bullet on this one and just come out on this matter.

When were the documents obtained?

I won’t put a date on when I received them, but I can say that I received them in two stages over a twelve month or longer period. I have had the first of the two documents for several years. Basically I just sat on both of them as I had no idea what to do with them. I would pull them out occasionally and read through them, and then forget about them for a few months. Frankly, it was difficult, and took time to get my head around what was going on in them. I really had no idea who, if anyone, they should be given to. I was confident however, that things would happen in the right way and at the right time.

Can you identify the the source of these documents?

Well, I guess that requires a little explanation, but the caveat here is that the person, or people, who gave me the documents did so on the absolute undertaking, lets call it a verbal NDA, that I would not release their identity or how they have the docs. I will honour their trust, and ask people to respect that, as, without this agreement this no-one would be seeing any of these documents and none of this would be happening. Please keep that in mind and respect my position here, along with those at the source.

I understand that by not naming the source I am raising all sorts of questions about the authenticity of the documents, but I would hope there is enough content in them to afford them a reasonable level of authenticity if given intelligent and thorough investigation. I have no interest in participating in that process, but I will watch with interest as to whether the documents can be verified.

How were they acquired? Do you have supporting evidence to back your story up?

Although I wanted James to go further with his answer, what you willl read is going to go very far toward explaining a lot. And I will ask you to remember that we’ll be coming back to Keith Basterfield’s blog in a short while and that’s going to put everything together. James knows this, in fact. I think he just doesn’t want to be the person to fully state the answer. So let me read this and comment.

He writes:

It is unlikely that these documents would ever have found their way to anyone within the UFO community were in not that for the fact that for number of years I was very active in the ‘Space’ community, belonging to an organisation in Australia and making frequent trips to the US to attend conferences and other events. Along the way I was fortunate to make acquaintance in the US with several people in the US who knew of my interest in, knowledge of, and credible approach to the UFO/UAP phenomena, as well as my passive and occasional involvement in the UFO community.

The events that lead me to obtaining the documents were strangely the result of this strange and unlikely intersection between the usually incompatible Space & UFO fields.

[Just pause and think about that for a moment. The Space connection is very important here. James is giving a significant hint]. He continues:

Over a period of a couple of years, I gained [the] trust of these people to a point where I was invited to look over some documents, copy what I wanted, and get them into the right hands if I thought that was appropriate. Certainly there was no intrigue or ‘smoking gun’ type discussions at the time.

As to the evidence, well, of course there is a lot of evidence to put me in those places and times if I wanted to document that, and also a lot of correspondence, but nothing that I would be prepared to release.

Can you describe the process by which these documents were shared prior to their release to the world?

There’s little need for me to read this one in detail, but you can read it at the link below and I’ll give you the best short version. James attended Paola Harris’s Starworks USA confernece in November 2018 in Laughlin, Nevada. Grant Cameron happened to be there, and James realized Grant would be an ideal person to share info on the documents with. He was able to connect with Grant just before Grant was leaving for the airport. I will read this segment:

I opened the first page of the doc, showed it to him, and to quote his Lawyer, Michael W. Hall, Grant went ashen and said “where did you get this?”. Grant had a couple of mins to look over the documents, before he had to grab his shuttle.

The two then continued their communication after each returned home and that’s how Grant Cameron first got the documents.

James added that he later wrote to attorney Daniel Sheehan to discuss the documents but didn’t get a reply. Most likely Danny didn’t see the email. Something I can speak to very easily. It’s tough to catch everything that comes in.

I’ll paraphrase a few more items James states here. He was not the person who leaked the documents to Reddit, and stated he never had any intention ever of leaking them. He stated he was confident it also wasn’t Grant Cameron, giving several reasons for this, and I completely agree. For his part, James was surprised that the documents were released when they were. It caught him off guard.

Another question, and I like his answer here.

What would you say is the main purpose of leaking them?

He writes:

You would have to ask whoever leaked the documents what their motives are. It is not hard to speculate, however, that it is someone who cares enough about their country, planet, and our kid’s future that they want to help lift the lid on the ‘Truth Embargo’, get the technology out of military hands, and help move our civilisation forward.

The following question is one that was important to me, and I am glad James answered it as he did.

Does [his] source have a connection to any Military or Intelligence Agency?

If they do, I certainly didn’t know about it. Knowing the character of the people involved and their background, I would think that this is extremely unlikely.

Another question of importance:

Could these documents be a hoax or part of a disinformation effort? Are you able to provide any additional evidence to the contrary?

From my knowledge of it, definitely not. I believe the credentials of my sources are impeccable, and I would happily put my life on this given what I know of the provenance of the documents and the people involved. . . . On the other hand, is the information in the documents genuine? I have no idea. Was Vice Admiral Wilson feeding dis-information to Dr Davis? Anything is possible but basic common sense says that given the contents this looks to be authentic.

To which I will add that I agree completely.

There are a few other questions and statements James made which are not necessary to go over here, in my view. They are more like personal statements and speak well of him but aren’t exactly germane to the issue of the documents and their authenticity. But this final question is important.

Are there more documents that have been obtained from this source, and if so, can you describe the nature of these documents?

There were a number of documents that I was shown and invited to copy, but that is not to say that any of these were or weren’t as significant or potentially as controversial as those released. In any event, all of these are now with Grant Cameron and being held in trust by his Lawyer, Michael Hall, so whether any of these will ever be released is up to them. I certainly won’t be talking about them or releasing anything publicly.

Thank you, James, for taking the time to share this information with us. This last answer made me chuckle when I first read it. The wording: “that is not to say that any of these were or weren’t as significant or potentially as controversial as those released.”

A nice way of saying they might be more explosive than what we have seen, or maybe not. So James is saying here that he’s out and is leaving the matter with Grant Cameron and Grant’s attorney Michael Hall. Sounds good to me.

So, this statement by James, while definitely helpful, doesn’t answer a few important elements of what we want. Indeed, it kind of leaves us hanging. We understand, James, it’s okay. What you have provided does help, and especially in the context of what I’m about to discuss.

That’s Keith Basterfield’s blog piece. This is very important. Keith has been following this all along and as mentioned he also was, or is, in communication with James. He wrote a very good earlier piece on this a few days ago which I also recommend. In this current blog, Keith puts together known facts about the notes and then offers his own hypothesis as to the ultimate source of the leak.

One of the key statements Keith pulled out was one from Grant Cameron from an interview on the Black Vault radio with John Greenewald on December 28, 2018. Keith quotes Grant here:

“It’s a transcript of an interview and the person who had it died, had the transcript, and it comes out of their files.”

That’s a definite clue. The person who had this document died, and what we have now has come from the files of that person.

Keith continues along in his analysis and quickly – and very accurately, as far as I have understood the matter – concludes that all the evidence points to Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who died in January 2016.

He writes in his blog:

5. Dr Edgar Mitchell was on the Science Advisory Board of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) when Dr Eric Davis was a NIDS employee, and thus were well known to each other.

6. Dr Edgar Mitchell, who passed away in 2016, is central in all of the above information.

Now, we are treading right at the edge of saying the files have come from Dr. Edgar Mitchell. I am going to add here that, based on everything I have been able to learn, this has been my understanding as well. I will quickly add that everything I have learned, or more accurate been told, leads me to conclude that these files were obtained legally and with permission of relevant parties involved. But other people will have to investigate this to confirm what has come to me.

To those people demanding, we want it all out, now!, I would advise them to understand the delicate position some of these people have found themselves in. It’s not surprising that there is a great deal of hesitation on the part of some of them, and those of us, like myself, who are peripherally involved have to respect their situation. We are all pushing in our own way to get this information out, and it’s quite clear to me that it is all indeed coming out. When you think about the magnitude of what we are discussing, it’s rather shocking at how fast it’s all happening.

In any case, I strongly recommend people go to Keith Basterfield’s site and read his work on this in detail.

Now let me move on to the next segment here. Because we are not done.

I want to give my own interpretation of how this scenario happened to begin with, and how things have unfolded. And I also will need to share with you an extremely important “no comment” statement issues by one of the key people involved. Believe me, you will want to hear this statement. But first, I want to describe the larger scenario.

As I said earlier, during this past week I have had long phone calls with a number of UFO researchers, namely Linda Moulton Howe, Grant Cameron, and Melinda Leslie. All of them have had very helpful insights. Melinda had an interesting thought about how the meeting between Davis and Wilson occurred. It’s an idea that dovetailed with my previous best guess, but she added a bit more. Fundamentally, it must be understood that Davis did not meet Wilson entirely on his own initiative. As the notes say, the meeting was arranged by Oke Shannon, who was former U.S. Navy, an Annapolis graduate and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Melinda pointed out that Shannon was a member of the famed “Advanced Theoretical Physics Group” organized by John Alexander out of the Pentagon in 1985. This group met at the BDM McLean Secure facility in Virginia, a point which is referenced by Wilson on page two of the notes, where he states that Oke Shannon told him all about the meetings that took place at BDM. When I spoke to Grant about this, it turns out this connection with Oke Shannon was something he also noticed immediately when he first reviewed the notes back in November 2018.

The Advanced Theoretical Physics Group was originally mentioned by journalist Howard Blum in his 1990 book, Out There (he called it the UFO Working Group). I also wrote about this group in Vol. 2 of UFOs and the National Security State. The people involved in this series of meetings were an interesting assortment of people that overlaps with the so-called Aviary, and also includes many individuals who are closely connected to Robert Bigelow. In effect, you can consider TTSA as the latest permutation of the original group.

We are talking about a small group of very intelligent scientists, military people, and government people who share a strong interest in the UFO phenomenon. They have continued over the years to communicate with each other to learn what they can learn, usually quietly shared more or less among themselves. I think of their efforts as an attempt to navigate through the labyrinth of the UFO reality and coverup. Because of their clearances, they have had access to more information than the average researcher. Also because of their clearances, they have had to communicate with each other very carefully so as not to openly violate security oaths. I don’t know how they do all this in specifics, but I imagine they have developed their own system that has worked well enough for them. It wouldn’t shock me that Bigelow would be first among equals in this group, as many of the key individuals in it have been on his payroll at one time or another. It also would make a lot of sense to me that a big current motivation that some members of this group are promoting a soft or controlled disclosure is because there could well be significant Defense contracts that might come out of their study of the technology connected to all this. That’s because human beings aren’t angels – they’re human beings. My sense, however, is that at least some of these members do care about getting the truth out, and have cared in fact for many years. No doubt they all have their own opinions. And that’s just my assessment.

In any case, Oke Shannon is one of the “team.” Hal Puthoff is most definitely one of the team. As is Kit Green, and as was astronaut Edgar Mitchell. There are also a number of others who weren’t involved in the 1980s but were brought into the club later. This would include Eric Davis, also very much a Bigelow man and a close associate of Puthoff.

In my view, the most likely scenario is as follows.

On or about April 9, 1997, Greer, his colleague Shari Adamiak, Lt. Commander Willard Miller, and Edgar Mitchell meet with Wilson and his two colleagues, General Pat Hughes and Admiral Mike Crawford, and it appears at least one other aide. This was during a time when Greer was very active in cultivating contacts in Washington and trying to set up meetings with powerful people regarding the UFO/ET issue. All of that is well known. Even Wilson has acknowledged the meeting took place on multiple occasions, including once to me. I described that meeting and its aftermath in my livestream of last week, which is also in article form linked below.

After the meeting ended, Miller had an extended private conversation with Wilson in which, according to the notes, they discussed such topics as MJ-12, Roswell, crashed UFOs, and alien bodies. How the information leaked out from that point appears solely via Miller, who not only was close with Greer but also at some point close enough to Puthoff and Davis that he was communicating with them by early 2002.

But most likely it would seem Miller related the basics of his private conversation to someone else: Edgar Mitchell. Mitchell, after all, was with him at the original meeting so it makes more sense. Moreover, Mitchell was close to Puthoff and Davis and would most likely have related that information to them. However it happened, it’s clear that this informal team knew everything immediately, and certainly no later than 1999, which is when Oke Shannon spoke at length to Wilson to persuade him to speak with Davis. This is what we are told in the notes. 1999. It took three years, apparently, to make the Wilson-Davis meeting happen.

Since this group of people were all closely connected to Robert Bigelow, and since Bigelow had a history of employing all of them in the past via NIDS, it’s a reasonable supposition that Bigelow may have been the primary impetus for arranging the meeting between Davis and Wilson. In any case, it’s obvious he would have known all about it.

So by October 2002, the team was finally able to send Davis on his mission to meet with Wilson. They ended up with a home run interview, in which Wilson and Davis sat for over an hour in Wilson’s car, and he said everything to Davis which, it would appear, Davis recorded or at least took extremely detailed notes as it was all happening. That is the most likely scenario of how this all happened, and why.

There have been some loud denials that this ever happened. That the notes are a fabrication. Lt. Commander Miller was interviewed recently and denied writing the two page letter that has his name at the bottom, an extremely specific and detailed letter, I might add, addressed to Eric Davis and which comprises pages three and four of the 15-page leak. What’s really interesting is that there are people who take this denial at face value and therefore conclude (a) that the denial can be believed without any question and (b) that the rest of the notes must also be fake.

To which all I can say is … are you kidding?

So. On this matter, two things.

First, something that was sent to me a few days ago, which is a snippet of audio from an interview between Will Miller and Steven Greer from 2013. It’s on Youtube, link below.

In this exchange, Miller states that Wilson was very engaged in the 1997 meeting, and that the matter of MJ-12 did indeed come up. Here is a transcript of the main part:

Miller: “The Admiral took this briefing with the same level of gravity and interest as he would any other national security, national intelligence matter. So when folks say that the military is not interested in this subject, it’s obviously not the case and has not been our experience.”

Greer: “No, and in fact I remember we were slotted for a certain amount of time and he kept turning to his aides saying cancel this and cancel that [trails off]. He kept extending because he had tremendous interest in all this.”

Miller: “Yes. Yes. It was also a little interesting aside as I was leaving, the Admiral’s aide turned to me and said that, you know the subject of Majestic MJ-12 came up and there’s been a lot of debate as to whether that’s real or ever existed and he said ‘we know it exists. We here at the Intelligence directorate for the Joint Staff just don’t have a need to know what they do.’ I found that to be a very interesting statement.”

The full interview can be heard here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdoHAeaTc2A

That’s quite interesting, for sure. Just as interesting is this “no comment” that I received June 12 from Dr. Hal Puthoff.

Rich,

With regard to authenticity, we have no comment on the documents recently being circulated.  As some of us still retain USG security clearances and remain bound by the secrecy oaths we have taken, we believe it is in the best interest of the USG and ourselves not to comment on any documents that purport to describe classified USG programs or information.

Best regards,

Hal

I would ask you to read that statement very carefully. Rather than a simple denial, Dr. Puthoff offered a carefully worded non-denial, practically offering an explanation for the no-comment. It’s as confirming a statement as a “no comment” can ever be. It’s also noteworthy that he states “we have no comment,” clearly speaking for all parties concerned.

He was gracious enough to allow me to quote this no-comment, so I leave it with you.

As you can see, this story is not over. It’s only just beginning. There is a consensus and it is forming among researchers who are looking at this document carefully. It’s that this is checkmate. As more and more people realize these notes are genuine, another, more powerful realization will settle in: that our official government has lost control over the black budget program to reverse engineer extraterrestrial technology.

It’s a lot to digest. If you are interested in slowly, gently pushing a soft form of controlled disclosure, this kind of leak is not welcome. It’s not hard to grasp this. For people who have been immersed in UFO research and have strong opinions about the reality of it all, it’s often easy to forget just how difficult this subject is for the rest of the world. it’s not just that you probably have many family members and friends who don’t believe in this, or who don’t know anything about it. But there is an entire global infrastructure of scientists, of media people, of political figures, of academicians, of professional people who are often not just skeptical to this subject but seriously hostile to it.

When trying to educate such people, anyone can easily understand it’s not best to start with your most radical pieces of information. You start with the data that is easiest to handle. In other words, you start conservatively. And this I imagine is one reason why we are seeing such carefully worded official and semi-official statements coming out about UAP and how we supposedly don’t know what they are and so on. It’s a convenient but perhaps necessary fiction as a way to start a very difficult conversation.

This leak – the notes of Dr. Eric Davis concerning his meeting with Admiral Wilson and the explosive information contained within it – blows that controlled disclosure narrative apart. The denials and no comments from all the relevant people – be they Davis, Miller, Puthoff, or anyone else – are of course understandable.

You have a situation where these people are undoubtedly embarrassed by this leak. They have clearances. They know they aren’t supposed to let this kind of thing happen. What if it affects their current security clearances? That when astronaut Edgar Mitchell died they didn’t take proper care to ensure that his files were properly handled? So there’s that. Miller’s denial takes on additional emotional impact when you realize in the notes that Wilson was genuinely angry on pages five and six of the notes when he discussed how Miller had divulged the contents of their private conversation to other people, namely Steven Greer. Wilson said that violated “Navy camaraderie among officers—brotherhood,” in his words. That had to sting Miller when it got back to him. It’s fair to assume there is no way Miller will compound an already difficult situation by now making it worse for them and especially his Navy colleague and fellow officer, Thomas Wilson.

The no comment offered by Hal Puthoff speaks volumes. Even so, it seems unlikely we are going to get anything more than this from any of the other relevant people involved.

What is now needed is for independent researchers to jump in and analyze these documents to learn even more clues.

It’s not like me to make such strong statements about disputed documents or controversial subjects in ufology. But you mark my words. These documents are authentic. The information contained within them may not be entirely accurate. After all, we really have no reason to think that an off-limits private black budget program involved in ET technology reverse engineering is going to tell an outsider – even one as powerful as Wilson – every detail about what they are doing, or even to be truthful about it. So their protestations about slow progress may be accurate, or they may not be. We don’t know, except that Wilson told Davis that this is what they told him.

We are still in a hall of mirrors here. But even so, it’s very evident to discerning, analytical people, that there is a reality in this one. That the world of unacknowledged special access programs, occasionally written about in the mainstream world, in which it is understood to be dominated not by defense department personnel but rather by private contractors and private money, works in a similar manner in relation to the UFO phenomenon.

These programs – and it’s a reasonable guess to assume there are more than one – have been studying non-human technology from elsewhere for a long time, trying their best to figure it out. How much progress they have made is a very, very important question. What they have learned about these other beings is perhaps even more important.

Things are moving fast so let’s do this right. With clear heads, with prudence, and with courage. Name calling, defamation, loud proclamations are only by those people seeking to muddy the waters. What we need from all sides of this matter is clear presentation of facts. Nothing else will do.

Richard Dolan
June 15, 2019