At least 11 U.S. scientists associated with American nuclear and space research programs have died or disappeared in recent years. That triggered a federal investigation – and US President Donald Trump called the situation “pretty serious stuff.”
On April 20, the House Oversight Committee announced it would investigate the deaths and missing persons cases after committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) warned on “Fox & Friends” that “something sinister could be afoot.” Comer said he initially thought it was “some crazy conspiracy theory” but now considers it a possible national security issue.
CNN reported that the FBI is leading the investigation to establish possible links between the missing and deceased scientists, working with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and state and local law enforcement agencies. NASA said on
Escape from the country?
Trump drastically cut funding for scientific research in his second term, opening the door for other countries to poach leading scientists. Could there be a brain drain behind the missing person cases? Some Republican lawmakers seem to think so. Congressman Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote on
Who are the scientists?
Questions about a possible sinister connection between the 11 deaths and missing person reports began to arise after William Neil McCasland, a 68-year-old former U.S. Air Force major general, was reported missing from his Albuquerque home by his wife on February 27, 2026. McCasland left behind his reading glasses, phone and electronic devices; It is believed he took his .38 caliber revolver with him. Two months later, the police are still in the dark.
McCasland was once commander of the Wright-Patterson base, which plays a central role in the Roswell incident. Its connection to UFO myths and secret space weapons programs fueled speculation sparked by a YouTuber named Daniel Liszt when he posted a video theorizing that a Portuguese physicist had been murdered because of his work in advanced fusion research. Nuno Gomes Loureiro, a renowned nuclear science professor, was shot dead in his home in Massachusetts in December 2025. He had recently been appointed director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT.
Liszt, who goes by the name Dark Journalist, argued that Loureiro’s work was “potentially so groundbreaking that if you’re really ahead in research, you become a kind of database that might have to be deleted.” He linked Loureiro’s murder to the deaths of other scientists who worked on the US Strategic Defense Initiative program.
Parallels and speculations
Right-wing influencer Jessica Reed Kraus published a Substack article in February drawing parallels between Loureiro’s death and that of astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, who was shot outside his home in rural California. In another post, she called McCasland’s disappearance a “conspiracy alert!” The Daily Mail broke the story in March, reporting that the “mystery of five missing scientists is spreading terror across America.”
Comer and other lawmakers date the string of mysterious deaths and missing person reports to July 2023, when Michael David Hicks, a 59-year-old scientist who specialized in comet and asteroid research at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, died. Speculation is also rife surrounding the suicide of anti-gravity researcher Amy Eskridge in 2022 after the Daily Mail linked her death to the other cases. Eskridge, a researcher from Alabama, revealed in a rambling 2020 interview that she wanted to publish information about UFOs and aliens and was receiving threats because of it.
The cases vary significantly in their circumstances and span several years. JPL space researcher Frank Maiwald died in July 2024; his cause of death has not been publicly announced. Anthony Chavez, a retired engineer who worked on nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, disappeared from his home in New Mexico in May 2025. An administrative employee at the Los Alamos Laboratory named Melissa Casillas was reported missing in June 2025; she was last seen walking along a highway several miles from her home. Monica Jacinto Reza was working as director of materials processing at JPL when she disappeared while hiking with a friend in the Angeles National Forest last June. Steven Garcia, a materials handler with high security clearance at a national nuclear security facility in Albuquerque, disappeared in August. Pharmaceutical scientist Jason Thomas was reported missing in December and was found dead on March 17, 2026.
What connects the scientists?
The common denominator among the eleven dead and missing appears to be that they all had access to sensitive nuclear and space research data. The press release announcing the House Oversight Committee investigation states that “these deaths and missing persons cases could pose a serious threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets.” Internet detectives claim the cases are linked because those involved worked on clean energy development projects. Rep. Eric Burlison told Fox News: “This has all the hallmarks of a foreign operation.”
Critics simply think this is a conspiracy theory. Retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer told Newsweek magazine that the allegations “fall apart when viewed under basic investigative principles.” Erin Ryan, co-host of the political commentary podcast “Hysteria,” saw this as a symptom of the MAGA movement’s anti-science rhetoric: “I think this is a way for people on the far right to shirk responsibility for creating an environment that is actually dangerous for scientists.” Daniel Engber of The Atlantic wrote: “To call it a conspiracy theory would be too charitable, since no coherent theory has been put forward that would explain the pattern of events.” The bottom line is that the story is “incredibly stupid.”
Why is the federal government investigating?
The story of dead and missing scientists gained momentum when Republican politicians declared it serious news. On April 15, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about the scientists; two days later, Leavitt announced that the White House would launch an investigation. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fl.) wrote: “If you feel uncomfortable about how many scientists have disappeared, died and taken their own lives recently – your intuition is correct.” Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), who sits on the Oversight Committee with Comer and Burlison, took a more measured tone to CNN: “The United States has thousands of nuclear scientists and nuclear experts. It is not the type of nuclear program that a foreign adversary could significantly weaken by targeting 10 individuals.”
President Trump said this week that the investigation had not yet uncovered any evidence linking the deaths to missing persons cases. “Some of the cases we looked at are very sad – some were sick, some took their own lives, others had different circumstances,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to do a full report. And that’s very serious.”
What do the families say?
Relatives of the dead and missing are frustrated by the maelstrom of conspiracy theories. Michael David Hicks’ daughter said speculation about her father’s death has left her shaken. “From what I know of my father, there is no logical connection that would implicate him in this possible federal investigation,” Julia Hicks told CNN. “I don’t understand the connection between my father’s death and the other missing scientists. I can’t help but laugh about it – but at the same time it’s getting serious.”
Amy Eskridge’s father Richard Eskridge, a former NASA scientist, dismissed any suggestion that his daughter’s suicide was suspicious: “Scientists die too, just like other people.” William McCasland’s wife wrote on Facebook that McCasland had access to “some top secret programs and information” during his time in the Air Force but has been retired for more than a decade. “It seems very unlikely that he was kidnapped to learn long-outdated secrets.”
Despite the federal investigation, Monica Jacinto Reza’s family says neither the White House nor the FBI has contacted any family member about her disappearance. They reject any suggestion that Reza was working on something that could have been dangerous to her. One of her relatives told LA Mag: “She was just a normal person with a family.”
Whether credible or not – the conspiracy theories don’t stop. The Mercury News reported that Rep. Burlison brought up two other names that he said deserved closer scrutiny: Matthew James Sullivan, a former Air Force intelligence officer who died of an overdose in 2024, and Ning Li, an anti-gravity physicist who died in 2021 at age 79 after a car accident. There is also the case of Joshua LeBlanc, a NASA nuclear scientist who died in a car accident in Alabama last year.
On April 30, Burlison wrote on
