Since mid-2023, at least ten people connected to classified American nuclear, aerospace, and UAP research programs have either died or vanished, and federal investigators are now looking for links between the cases.
The deaths and disappearances span multiple states and institutions. Some of the individuals left behind phones, wallets, and car keys. One was shot outside his home. Another disappeared on a hiking trail. A retired Air Force major general walked out of his house in New Mexico and has not been seen since. The cases, taken individually, might each have a mundane explanation. Taken together, they have drawn enough attention to reach the White House podium.
Who Has Died
The string of cases begins with Michael David Hicks, a physicist who spent nearly 25 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on the DART Project and Deep Space 1 mission. Hicks died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. His cause of death was not publicly disclosed. His daughter told CNN that her father had been dealing with known medical issues, and she described the speculation surrounding his death as distressing.
Frank Maiwald, 61, also a principal researcher at JPL, died on July 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. Maiwald had been working on a NASA mission to map biological signatures on Earth from space and on a program to help astronauts identify signs of life on other planets. His cause of death was also not publicly disclosed.
Nuno Loureiro, 47, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, was shot at his Massachusetts home in December 2025 and died from his injuries the following day. His death was linked to a separate mass shooting at Brown University.
Carl Grillmair, 67, an astrophysicist who collaborated with NASA and Caltech, was fatally shot outside his home near Los Angeles in February 2026. Authorities arrested a suspect they do not believe had any prior connection to Grillmair.
Jason Thomas, 45, an associate director of chemical biology at pharmaceutical company Novartis, was found dead in Lake Quannapowitt, Massachusetts, in March 2026.
Amy Eskridge, 34, who co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and described her research as focused on experimental propulsion concepts including what she called antigravity research, also died during this period. In a 2020 interview, Eskridge had stated that her team believed they had made a significant discovery and that their lives had subsequently been disrupted.
Former US Air Force intelligence officer Matthew James Sullivan, 39, died in 2024 before he could testify in a federal whistleblower case related to UFOs. Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri told Fox News that Sullivan died by suicide, which he described as suspicious given the timing.
Who Has Vanished
Retired Air Force Major General William Neil McCasland, 68, was last seen leaving his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February 27, 2026. He left behind his phone, prescription glasses, wearable devices, and an Air Force sweatshirt that was later found nearby. McCasland had commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, one of the most storied locations in UFO lore, and had been consulting informally with a non-government group pushing for disclosure of government UFO files.
His wife addressed the speculation directly in a public Facebook post, writing that her husband “does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt.” She added, with dry humor, that no mothership had been spotted over the Sandia Mountains. McCasland has not been found.
Monica Reza, 60, an aerospace engineer and director of the Materials Processing Group at JPL, disappeared while hiking in a Los Angeles forest in June 2025. She has not been located.
Melissa Casias, 53, an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the facility that developed nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project, was last seen dropping off lunch for her daughter in June 2025. She left home without her belongings, and her phone had been factory-reset before she disappeared.
Anthony Chavez, 79, a retired Los Alamos employee, walked out of his home in May 2025 without his car, phone, wallet, or keys. He has not been seen since.
Steven Garcia, a government contractor at the Kansas City National Security Campus, has been missing since August 2025.
What Officials Are Saying
The FBI confirmed it is leading the effort to identify any connections across the cases, working alongside the Department of Energy and state and local law enforcement. Despite that, officials close to the individual investigations have said they see no confirmed links between them.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked directly about the pattern at a press briefing. She said she would consult with relevant agencies and get an answer, calling the situation worth looking into if the reports were accurate. President Trump described it as “pretty serious stuff” and said he hoped the cluster of cases was random. “We’re going to know in the next week and a half,” he told reporters.
The National Nuclear Security Administration stated it was aware of the reports and looking into the matter.
Former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker told NewsNation he did not believe the scientists were being abducted by extraterrestrials. His assessment was that if the cases were not simply random, the most likely explanation was modern-day espionage. He noted that if the FBI were investigating, the public likely would not hear about it. “These are classified matters,” he said.
Ufologist and retired physician Steven Greer offered a different interpretation, suggesting to Fox News Digital that some of the disappearances could be connected to federal investigations into what he described as legacy programs tied to UAP research and development, which he characterized as having operated outside normal oversight structures.
The Pattern That Won’t Go Away
The mainstream explanation being offered by officials is essentially that there is no pattern, that the timing is unfortunate, and that the deaths and disappearances reflect a range of personal and unrelated circumstances. That may well be true. Several of the deaths have straightforward if tragic explanations, and the families of those involved have pushed back on speculation.
But the concentration of cases around JPL, Los Alamos, and classified aerospace research programs, the number of individuals who vanished without phones or wallets, and the presence of at least two people with documented UFO research connections make this difficult to set aside entirely. The FBI is not typically pulled into missing persons cases without a reason.
Whether this turns out to be coincidence, espionage, or something else, the question is now being asked at the highest levels of the US government. That alone is notable.
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