The Trump administration is probing concerns surrounding nearly a dozen scientists said to be connected to highly secretive space research whose deaths and disappearances are under increasing scrutiny.
President Donald Trump called the situation “pretty serious stuff” last Thursday, revealing he had just attended a meeting about the scientists and promised the government would probe the situation.
“Some of them were very important people, and we are going to look at it over the next short period,” he said. “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half.”
How many are missing or dead?
Concerns have been raised about at least 11 scientists and high-level officials with ties to government research programs, including NASA and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a Department of Energy research facility in northern New Mexico. The individuals have been reported dead or have vanished.
Why have the cases become a big deal?
The matter has stoked controversy due to mounting concerns surrounding the circumstances of the scientists’ disappearances and deaths. For many of those being scrutinized, no public cause of death has been released. Many hold ties to top-tier institutions, have worked on classified projects, and have held high-level security clearances.
Concerns have also been raised due to the sensitive topics the scientists were said to have been linked to or researching on behalf of the United States government, including UFOs, and military, nuclear, and aerospace research initiatives.
Who is investigating?
Several lawmakers have expressed concern about the cases. In late March, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) reiterated calls for the FBI to investigate. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed last week that the Trump administration is working with the FBI and other federal agencies to address “legitimate questions about these troubling cases” and “identify any potential commonalities that may exist.”
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration told Fox News Digital this week it is investigating the deaths and disappearances. And the House Oversight Committee on Monday requested briefings from four government agencies on the matter, including the FBI, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” the committee wrote in letters to the agencies, according to NewsNation.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Fox News that the extent of deaths and disappearances could constitute a “national security threat.”
“It does appear that there’s a high possibility that something sinister is taking place here,” Comer said Monday. “Congress is very concerned about this. Our committee is making this one of our priorities now because we view this as a national security threat.”
Who are the scientists who vanished or died?
Retired Air Force Major General William Neil McCasland went missing on Feb. 27 after allegedly having connections to secret UFO government programs that included information about unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs. McCasland’s wife said her husband left their Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on foot with a sidearm and suggested he did not want to be found.
During his time in the military, McCasland oversaw classified space weapons programs and led research at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which has been rumored to contain extraterrestrial debris from a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
Monica Reza, who worked as the director of materials processing for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, vanished in June 2025 at the age of 60. Like McCasland, she had connections to the Wright-Patterson Air Force base.
The aerospace engineer was one of McCasland’s former colleagues and was last seen hiking in the Los Angeles forest with a companion. Reza’s friend said she last saw her about 30 feet behind on the trail, smiling. Moments later, the friend said she turned around again, but Reza had vanished. Rescue teams searched for days, but her body was never recovered.
Like McCasland, Steven Garcia, 48, was last seen on surveillance footage leaving his Albuquerque home on foot, carrying only a handgun. Garcia was a government contractor who worked at the Kansas City National Security Campus in Albuquerque before vanishing in August 2025. As a property custodian at the Kansas City National Security Campus, which manufactures non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons, Garcia had a high-level security clearance.
Anthony Chavez, who disappeared in 2025 at age 78, worked for decades at the Los Alamos National Laboratory before retiring in 2017. He was last seen leaving his home on foot, and left behind his wallet, keys, and other personal items, according to authorities. His car was locked in the driveway, and there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle, according to the Los Alamos Reporter.
Melissa Casias, 53, also worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory before she mysteriously vanished in 2025. Her car and personal belongings were left behind at her home, and family members said that both her personal and work phones had been factory reset. Casias was last seen walking alongside a highway without her phone, wallet, or keys.
Michael David Hicks, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, died with no cause publicly declared at the age of 59 in 2023 after publishing dozens of scientific papers and working on the DART Project and the Deep Space 1 Mission. The respected physicist, who specialized in the physical properties of comets and asteroids, helped research whether asteroids could be deflected.
In 2024, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Frank Maiwald died without a publicly known cause at the age of 61. The NASA engineer designed critical instruments for space missions and was working on the Surface Biology and Geology mission at the time of his death.
Novartis biologist Jason Thomas, 46, was a pharmaceutical scientist who went missing from his home in Wakefield, Massachusetts, in December 2025. Thomas held advanced degrees in physics, biology, and biophysics and was known for his work in drug discovery and chemical biology. His body was recovered from Lake Quannapowitt in March 2026.
Astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, was gunned down at his home earlier this year. He worked for Caltech’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, which partners with NASA, and was renowned in the scientific community. He conducted work on dark matter and galactic structures using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Authorities later arrested Freddy Snyder in connection with the shooting and a nearby carjacking.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Nuno Loureiro, 47, was fatally shot at his home in 2025 by Claudio Manuel Neves Valente. The nuclear physicist, who was the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, was murdered two days after Valente carried out a mass shooting at Brown University on December 13. Valente was found dead in an apparent suicide in New Hampshire on Dec. 16. Loureiro was the Director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a world-renowned expert in nuclear fusion and magnetic reconnection.
Amy Eskridge, 34, died in 2022 in what was reported as a suicide. She conducted extensive research into anti-gravity technology and topics involving UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
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Eskeridge was the daughter of retired NASA engineer Richard Eskridge and co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science with her father. In a 2020 interview with YouTuber Jeremy Rys, she claimed anti-gravity technology had already been invented, and suggested that the National Security Agency “has a list of five people that have independently discovered” anti-gravity, including Tesla’s Elon Musk. She warned that she had faced threats against her life as she conducted anti-gravity research, leading her to hire a security firm she claimed was run by the former Chief Information Officer for Northrop Grumman, who had spent 35 years in counter-espionage for the Navy. She claimed he told her that other women conducting secretive research for the government have been similarly targeted.
“I told him a bunch of stories about, like, electronic and physical surveillance and stalking and like, weird-ass death and sexual threats. … And I got to the end, and I was like, Okay, I’m ready. Tell me, I’m crazy,” she said. “And this guy was like, ‘I wish I could tell you that you were insane, but you’re totally not.’ … And he was like, the stories you’ve told me, I’ve heard from other young women in technology positions. And he was like, they do it on purpose. They do like crazy ass shit to you that is unbelievable, just so that you feel like you can’t tell anyone, and they pose as like agents.”