Mary Elizabeth Elliot inquiry
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 10
| Subject | A woman named in the 2002 Wilson–Davis notes as the source of a "TRW story" |
|---|---|
| Claimed role | Former TRW employee said to have worked on a secret reverse-engineering programme called "Zodiac" |
| Researched by | Eric W. Davis (2000–2002); later Keith Basterfield, Richard Dolan and online researchers |
| Related writing | "Sedge Masters" articles by "Greg Halifax", UFO Magazine, May/June–December 1998 |
| Attorney named | Jeffrey W. Griffith (has never publicly acknowledged a role) |
| Status | Identity unconfirmed; no one has located or interviewed her |
| Date | 15 September 2021 |
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Congress & law (topic) |
| People | Thomas Wilson |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 202 |
| Year | 2021 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2021 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
"Mary Elizabeth Elliot" is the name given in the disputed 2002 Wilson–Davis notes to a former employee of the aerospace firm TRW. She is said to have taken part in a secret programme called "Zodiac" to recover and reverse-engineer crashed craft.[1] Physicist Eric Davis spent several years trying to verify her story through an attorney who had taken her testimony. Researchers have since tried to link her and the attorney to a series of 1998 magazine stories about Zodiac.[1][3] Her identity has never been confirmed, and no one has publicly located or interviewed her.[1]
The "Zodiac" stories
Researcher Keith Basterfield, who drew the threads together in July 2023, traces the name "Zodiac" to three articles in UFO Magazine in 1998, signed "Greg Halifax".[1]
- The first article. The first, in the May/June 1998 issue (vol. 13, no. 3), was "Deep files Trans 'X' Communique: Letter to a UFO Recruit". The editor prefaced it as "largely unverified... But that doesn't mean it's not true".
- The story. It told of "Sedge Masters", recruited by the CIA and briefed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Two craft had been recovered at Roswell in 1947 with dead and living beings. MJ-12 was formed, but the group and programme were mostly known by the code name "Zodiac".
- The briefing letter. Zodiac had supposedly recovered eleven more craft by the early 1980s, some handed over by "friendly powers, most notably Denmark". Reverse engineering had "met with limited success".
- Later instalments. The September and December 1998 instalments continued the story. They included a large "underwater submerged object" off Palos Verdes and a craft recovered in the Midwest around 1972.
- The author. The magazine described Halifax as a writer-researcher of 20 years in southern California with "a number of good friends in the military-industrial complex".[1]
The articles drew little notice at the time. A 2001 internal memo of the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), released in 2019, showed that Hal Puthoff had paid attention. In July 1999 he asked Kit Green whether he had heard of Zodiac, "which is supposed to be a true name". He believed the articles were "only slightly fictionalized versions of a source's experience" writing up records for the Wright-Patterson archives. No reply is recorded.[1]
Davis's search (2000)
Jacques Vallée's journals, quoted by Basterfield from Forbidden Science volume 5, record Davis's search:[1]
- 22 March 2000. Davis had spoken openly about NIDS and "his efforts to track down a woman who'd worked at TRW in Roswell days and might be able to confirm UFO crash data".
- 8 May 2000. Puthoff, Davis and Vallée discussed "the revelation of a former TRW employee. An attorney friend of hers has gathered her testimony. She was part of a secret reverse-engineering project called Zodiac." Vallée added: "Eric has compiled his own file, but it doesn't lead to the verifiable, hard facts we need."
- A later meeting. At a later meeting of nine people at Joe Firmage's home, Davis retold the story with named participants. He said he had been told there were ten bound volumes at Wright-Patterson with Roswell data on two crashed "'Mantra Ray' shaped" [sic] craft, bodies, foil-like material and "a special study by TRW".[1]
The name in the Wilson–Davis notes
The name itself comes from the "Wilson–Davis notes". These are dated 16 October 2002 and emerged in 2019 from the estate of the astronaut Edgar Mitchell. They describe a conversation in which Davis said retired Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson told him about a hidden crash-retrieval programme.[1][2] Among the notes Basterfield found an entry describing Davis telling Wilson about "Mary Elizabeth Elliot - TRW story". The recorded feedback says she "sounds like real deal based on her info and behavior with attorney (Jeffrey W. Griffith.)". It adds: "Probably will only come totally clean on her deathbed 30 years from now."[1] Basterfield first spelled the surname "Elliott" and corrected it after a reader who said they had researched her told him the spelling was "Elliot".[1]
Who was "Greg Halifax"?
In an August 2021 podcast interview with James Iandoli, researcher Richard Dolan said he thought he knew, though was "not 100% sure", who "Greg Halifax" was.[1]
- Dolan's guess. He said the author was "almost certainly a corporate attorney for TRW", now elderly. People who tried to contact him had the phone hung up on them.
- The witness. Dolan suggested the author was either a direct witness to the underwater-object sighting or "very, very close to a woman whose name is listed in the Wilson notes".
- Fiction. Dolan described the three articles as written as fiction.[1]
Dolan has discussed the Davis–Wilson material at length on his own show.[3]
Basterfield noted that a California attorney named Jeffrey W. Griffith has a published biography saying he had been corporate counsel for Hughes Aircraft and general counsel of another southern California corporation. Basterfield added that, to his knowledge, Griffith had never acknowledged representing Mary Elizabeth Elliot or being "Greg Halifax".[1][4] The biography mentions Hughes Aircraft, not TRW.[4]
Inquiries
- A candidate. A social-media researcher claimed to have found the real Mary Elizabeth Elliot by tracing a woman named Mary Ann Elliot who had worked in aerospace. An image shared on Twitter in connection with the search could not be read for this article.[1][5]
- No interview. Basterfield wrote that, to his knowledge, no one had ever located and interviewed her.[1]
- Dolan's caution. Dolan said that even off the record he had never received "any kind of concrete meaningful admission" about Zodiac. "None of this proves that there's a real Zodiac program," he said.[1]
- Other mentions. An anonymous 1999 letter to Timothy Cooper among the "Majestic documents" claimed the cover-up group "at one time... was called ZODIAC".[1]
Assessment
Basterfield concluded that there is still "no definitive proof that there was an entity named 'Zodiac'", either as a cover-up group or as a retrieval programme. He pointed back to Vallée's 2000 judgement that Davis's file lacked "verifiable, hard facts".[1] Skeptic Robert Sheaffer, in a comment on Basterfield's post, called the "Sedge Masters" briefing letter a hoax and the story fiction.[1]
The notes in which her name appears are themselves disputed. Wilson has called them "all fiction" and said he did not know Davis.[2] In a Facebook post in September 2024, Davis acknowledged that he was their author.[6] The inability to verify names such as Elliot's is one reason the notes' account remains contested.[1]
People and topics
- Wilson–Davis notes — Wilson–Davis notes
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
- TRW — A U.S. aerospace and defence contractor often named in UFO claims.
- Thomas Wilson — Former DIA director named in the Wilson–Davis notes.
On the Timeline
- Nat Kobitz's read-in remark (3 September 2021) — Coulthart says a Navy science director told him he was read into a crash program.
- Alaska pyramid claim (28 September 2021) — DeLonge says he was told of a large pyramid beneath Alaska.
See every 2021 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Thomas R. Wilson — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- U.S. congressional hearings on UFOs — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Keith Basterfield, "Zodiac", UFOs – scientific research (July 2023) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Wilson/Davis memo research site · daviswilsonmemo.github.io · archived copy
- youtu.be · youtu.be · archived copy
- londonfischer.com · londonfischer.com · archived copy
- pbs.twimg.com · pbs.twimg.com · archived copy
- Billy Cox, "Reviving the W-D memo", Life in Jonestown (September 2024) · lifeinjonestown.substack.com
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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