America's missing scientists, 2021–2026
In the spring of 2026 a list of Americans who had died or gone missing since 2021 moved from YouTube and Substack to the Daily Mail, the New York Post and Fox News, and then to Congress, the White House and the FBI[1]. Its people had worked, or were said to have worked, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Los Alamos laboratory, MIT, Caltech, NASA's Marshall centre and the nuclear weapons complex, or on research described as exotic; the claim was that so many deaths and disappearances in so few years could not be chance[2][3].
The case that made the list news was that of William Neil McCasland, a retired Air Force major general who had commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory and advised the musician Tom DeLonge on UFO matters. He walked out of his home in the Albuquerque foothills on the morning of 27 February 2026, leaving his phone and glasses, and has not been found[4][5][6]. On 17 April the White House said it would review all the cases together; on 20 April the House Oversight Committee wrote to four agencies; on 21 April the FBI said it was "spearheading" the search for connections[7][8][9].
What the record shows, as of 28 October 2026, is a set of separate cases. Two scientists were killed: the FBI found that Loureiro's killer, a former classmate, acted alone, and the man charged with Grillmair's murder is one he had reported for trespassing[10][11]. Others died of illness, by accident, or in ways that officials have not finished ruling on; four are still missing; several were never scientists[2][9]. No official body has published a link between any two of them, and the number of such deaths is far below what ordinary death rates predict for the workforces involved[12][13]. Of the 5 questions on this site, 0 are answered.
Key questionsset by the editors
What is known
The list is not an official one. It was assembled online and in the press from early 2026, grew from five names in a Daily Mail article of 22 March to ten in the House Oversight Committee's letters of 20 April and thirteen in late April, and has been added to and pruned since[3][14][15][16]. The fifteen cases most often cited are below, oldest first, with what was reported about each person's work and what officials have found. They take in a physicist who died at 79, a 29-year-old NASA engineer, an MIT professor killed by a former classmate, an administrative assistant, a property custodian and a retired general[9][2].
- Ning Li, physicist, formerly of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, whose gravity research had Defense Department funding in 2001. Died in Huntsville, aged 79, on 27 July 2021. Her obituary says she died peacefully; her son said she never went missing and could not work after a road accident in 2014[17][18].
- Amy Eskridge, co-founder of the Institute for Exotic Science in Huntsville. Died in Huntsville, aged 34, on 11 June 2022. Reported as a suicide; few official details have been released[19].
- Michael David Hicks, planetary scientist at JPL for nearly 25 years, to 2022. Died, aged 59, on 30 July 2023. Cause not made public; his daughter said he had known medical issues[2].
- Matthew James Sullivan, former Air Force intelligence officer. Died in Falls Church, Virginia, aged 39, on 12 May 2024. The Virginia medical examiner ruled the death accidental[15][20].
- Frank Maiwald, JPL researcher. Died in Los Angeles, aged 61, on 4 July 2024. Cause not made public[15].
- Anthony Chavez, retired from the Los Alamos laboratory, where CNN reported he was a construction foreman. Reported missing from Los Alamos, aged 78, on 8 May 2025. Still missing; police found no sign of foul play and marked the case inactive on 6 October 2025[2][21][22].
- Monica Reza, aerospace materials engineer, co-developer of the Mondaloy rocket-engine alloy at Rocketdyne. Last seen hiking near Mount Waterman in the Angeles National Forest, aged 60, on 22 June 2025. Still missing[23][24].
- Melissa Casias, administrative assistant at the Los Alamos laboratory. Went missing in Taos County, aged 53, on 26 June 2025; a hiker found her remains in Carson National Forest on 28 May 2026. The Office of the Medical Investigator classified the manner of death as undetermined; the state police investigation is open[9][25][26].
- Joshua LeBlanc, electrical engineer on nuclear propulsion at NASA's Marshall centre. Died in a single-car crash in north Alabama, aged 29, on 22 July 2025, hours after his family reported him missing. No official ruling has been published[27].
- Steven Garcia, property custodian for the Kansas City National Security Campus's Albuquerque operations. Went missing from south-west Albuquerque, aged 48, on 28 August 2025. Still missing; police reported no new developments in April 2026[28].
- Jason Thomas, chemical biology researcher at Novartis. Reported missing in Wakefield, Massachusetts, aged 45, on 13 December 2025; his body was recovered from Lake Quannapowitt on 17 March 2026. The Middlesex District Attorney said no foul play was suspected[15][29].
- Nuno Loureiro, MIT professor and director of its Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, aged 47, on 15 December 2025, by a former classmate who had attacked Brown University two days earlier. The FBI found that the gunman acted alone and that the attacks had no nexus to terrorism[15][10].
- Carl Grillmair, Caltech astrophysicist. Shot at his home in Llano, Los Angeles County, aged 67, on 16 February 2026. A man he had reported for trespassing in December is charged with his murder and has pleaded not guilty[11][30].
- William Neil McCasland, retired Air Force major general who commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory from 2011 until he retired in 2013. Last seen at home in the Albuquerque foothills, aged 68, on 27 February 2026. Still missing[4][5][31].
- Nick Pope, former UK Ministry of Defence official who once investigated UFO reports. Died at home in Tucson, Arizona, aged 60, on 6 April 2026, of cancer, as his wife announced[32].
The author David Wilcock, who died in Colorado on 20 April 2026, is sometimes added; his family said he took his own life[33]. Anyone struggling can call or text 988 in the US, at any hour[34].
The links drawn between these people are of four kinds: an employer or place (JPL and Caltech in Pasadena, the Los Alamos laboratory, NASA's Marshall centre in Huntsville, the nuclear weapons complex), a security clearance, research called exotic (Li's gravity work, Eskridge's institute), and McCasland's past command of the Air Force Research Laboratory and his advice to the musician Tom DeLonge on UFO matters[2][6]. Who held clearances, and of what kind, is mostly unreported; Casias's niece said she did not have a high-level one, and the sheriff's office said McCasland held a standard retiree clearance[9][35].
McCasland's case is the centre of the story. On the morning of 27 February 2026 a repairman spoke with him at his home; his wife left for a medical appointment at about 11 a.m., and when she came back at 12:04 he was gone, leaving his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices. His wallet and a red backpack were not in the house. The sheriff's office issued a Silver Alert that afternoon[4][36]. His wife told the 911 dispatcher she had "some indication that he planned not to be found"[37]. In public she has rejected the idea that he was taken for what he knew: he had "access to some highly classified programs" in the Air Force, but he retired almost thirteen years ago, and his consulting for DeLonge was unpaid and for fiction and media projects[6]. The sheriff's office said in April that it had found no evidence connecting the disappearance to his classified work, and in August that it had no updates to release[38][12]. Anyone with information can call the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office Missing Person Unit on 505-468-7070, or text "BCSO" and the tip to 847411[4].
Timeline
The search
Searchers looked for McCasland with drones, helicopters, dogs and ground teams in the Sandia foothills he walked in, including Elena Gallegos Open Space and the Domingo Baca trail, canvassed about 700 homes for video, flew infrared sorties that the warm winter made hard to read, and searched his second home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado[4][36]. A US Air Force sweatshirt found about 1.5 miles from his house on 7 March was not confirmed as his[36]. By mid-March the sheriff said there had been "no confirmed sightings", and a lieutenant said that if he had gone into the mountains his chances of survival were "very low"[4]. The FBI's Albuquerque office has helped with interviews, analysis and surveillance, and has twice refused to release its records under the Freedom of Information Act[4][12]. As of early October 2026, more than seven months on, he had not been found[12]. No official map of the search areas has been published in any source found for this article, so the map on this page marks towns, parks and forests only.
The other searches were local and are mostly over. Los Alamos police searched trails and homes for Chavez, checked hospitals, phone records and a reported sighting on a Dallas flight, and marked the case inactive on 6 October 2025[22]. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department searched for Reza around Mount Waterman from the air and the ground for a week before handing the case to its Missing Persons Unit on 29 June 2025[23][39]. Albuquerque police reported no new developments on Garcia in April 2026[28]. Casias was found by a hiker eleven months after she went missing[25].
The federal and congressional reviews came later and looked for connections, not people. On 20 April 2026 House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer and subcommittee chairman Eric Burlison wrote to the Energy Secretary, the Secretary of War, the FBI director and the NASA administrator about what they called "unconfirmed public reporting", asking for staff briefings by 27 April[8][14]. On 21 April the FBI said it was "spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists", and NNSA said it was "looking into the matter"[9]. On 28 April FBI director Kash Patel said "They're all state cases", that some of the people were not scientists, and that a final report would come "in short order"[40]. The only federal finding published is the FBI's on the Brown University and Brookline shootings, on 29 April: the gunman acted alone and his victims were "symbolic in nature"[10]. No FBI report on the wider review, and no findings from the Oversight inquiry, had been made public by 28 October 2026 in any source found for this article.
How the story spread
CNN traced the story's path. In January 2026 the YouTube channel Dark Journalist streamed three hours on Loureiro's death and proposed a pattern; on 20 February the Substack writer Jessica Reed Kraus wrote about Loureiro and Grillmair, on 2 March about McCasland, and on 11 March an Instagram post of hers on the two killings went viral[1]. On 22 March the Daily Mail began a series on what it called "a chilling pattern", naming five people, and NewsNation's Ross Coulthart linked McCasland to Reza[3][1]. A claim that Reza had worked on a rocket alloy "as part of a U.S. government project overseen by General McCasland" circulated without a named source from at least 18 March; the New York Post reported a "close professional connection" between them on 21 March[41][14].
Fox News covered McCasland on 23 March; Rep. Tim Burchett told Benny Johnson on 24 March that "there's just too many of them disappearing"; the New York Post added names from 27 March[1]. Rep. Burlison said on 30 March that he had "already requested FBI involvement"[42]. Fox's Will Cain Show had taken up the cases by 7 April, and Joe Rogan discussed them on 9 April[43][1]. On 15 April Fox's Peter Doocy asked the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who said she had not yet spoken to the agencies; on 16 April President Trump said "I hope it's random, but we're going to know in the next week and a half"; on 17 April Leavitt announced that the White House and the FBI would "holistically review all of the cases together"[7][3]. Podcasts went further: on 18 April Timcast IRL titled an episode "The Eskridge conspiracy, 11 UFO scientists missing"[44].
The Oversight letters of 20 April, the first page of the one to the FBI shown here, rest on press reports: their footnotes cite the Daily Mail of 11 April, the New York Post of 18 and 21 March and 9 April, and The Hill of 16 April[14]. Comer said it was "very unlikely that this is a coincidence" and Burlison that the cases had "all the hallmarks of a foreign operation"[45]. Burlison added Sullivan, Li and, on 28 April, LeBlanc[15][46]. On 30 April Trump told Doocy that "so far, we're finding that there's not much of a connection"[1]. Later claims, that McCasland had met a "shadowy Pentagon unit" the evening before he vanished and that he had been trying to leave secret research programmes, rested on a witness's account of a dinner and on second-hand reports, and the sheriff's office corrected the second in June[47][48][35].
The explanations
The case for a connection, as those who make it put it, rests on clustering, access and one man. Four of the missing are from New Mexico, home to the Los Alamos and Sandia laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base; four of the dead or missing worked, or were said to have worked, at or with JPL and Caltech in Pasadena; three of the dead lived and worked in Huntsville, home of NASA's Marshall centre[2][28][15]. Several of the missing left behind phones, keys or wallets[15]. McCasland ran the Air Force Research Laboratory, earlier directed special programmes for the Pentagon's acquisition chief, and in 2016 was described by DeLonge as the man who had led the Wright-Patterson laboratory where, DeLonge wrote, the Roswell wreckage went, and who "helped assemble my advisory team"[5][49]. Reza's alloy was developed with Air Force Research Laboratory cost-sharing from 1999[24], and the Oversight letters repeated press reports of a "close professional connection" between the two[14]. Coulthart has said that some individual cases "do raise suspicions and warrant further investigation"[1], and David Grusch, who testified in 2023 that the US runs a retrieval and reverse-engineering programme for non-human craft, called McCasland's disappearance concerning[50][12].
Each strand weakens on inspection. No police force, sheriff, medical examiner or federal agency has found a link between any two cases[2][38][35]. Where a cause is known it is particular to the person: Loureiro's killer was a former classmate who acted alone, Grillmair's accused killer was a man he had reported for trespassing, Thomas's death involved no foul play, Sullivan's was ruled accidental, Li's followed years of illness, and Pope died of cancer[10][11][29][20][18][32]. Several people on the list were not scientists, as Patel himself said: an administrative assistant, a property custodian, a retired construction foreman, an intelligence officer and a general who retired in 2013[9][40][51]. The Reza link rests on an unattributed post; the Air Force work on her alloy began in 1999, when McCasland was chief engineer of the GPS programme in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles magazine found no confirmed reporting that she ever worked under him[24][5][52].
The UFO strand has its own record. Grusch's evidence was given to the Defense Department's Inspector General, which in 2024 withheld all 25 pages of his submissions from The Black Vault under FOIA case DODOIG-2024-000205[53]. The Pentagon's 2024 historical review found no verifiable evidence of the programme he described[54]. What is on the public record of DeLonge's dealings with government is a 2019 Army agreement to test materials his company supplied, released under FOIA, which names no one on the list[55][56].
The base rate is the strongest argument against a pattern. Mick West estimated that some 700,000 Americans hold Top Secret clearances in aerospace and nuclear work, and that ordinary mortality would kill about 4,000 of them in 22 months, including some 70 by homicide and 180 by suicide[13]. The model on this page, built from 2024 CDC rates and 2024 FBI missing-person figures, gives about 190 homicides, 460 suicides and 1,870 accidental deaths over the four and a half years the list spans, and about 480 adult missing-person reports a year, for a workforce of that size; for a narrow workforce of only NNSA and NASA staff, about 74,000 people, it still gives about 20 homicides and 50 missing-person reports a year[57][58][59][60][61][62][63]. The list holds two homicides and four people missing. A list drawn after the fact from such a population, and extended by adding new names as they come to notice, will always look like a cluster; Michael Shermer calls it finding "meaningful patterns in random noise"[64].
The pattern has been seen before. Between 1982 and 1988 more than twenty British defence scientists and engineers, most of them at GEC-Marconi, died by suicide, accident and other causes; MPs called for an inquiry and the Ministry of Defence called the deaths a coincidence[65]. One of them, first ruled a suicide, was shown in 2021 by DNA evidence to have been murdered by an unconnected offender[66]. Between November 2001 and March 2002 eleven microbiologists died around the world; each death had its own cause, and the American Society for Microbiology pointed out that the United States alone had some 20,000 academic microbiologists[67].
Published claims
| Year | Who | Claimed | Status | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Ministry of Defence[65] | The deaths of more than twenty British defence workers in 1982–88 were a coincidence, not a pattern | Accepted | No link between the deaths was established; one, first ruled a suicide, was shown in 2021 to be a murder by an unconnected offender[65][66]. |
| 2002 | American Society for Microbiology[67] | Eleven microbiologists' deaths in five months are what chance predicts among some 20,000 US academic microbiologists | Accepted | Each death had its own cause, and none was connected to another[67]. |
| 2016 | Tom DeLonge[49] | McCasland ran the Wright-Patterson laboratory where the Roswell wreckage was taken | Disputed | He commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson in 2011–13; the Pentagon's 2024 review found no verifiable evidence that crash material was recovered or reverse-engineered[5][54]. |
| 2016 | Tom DeLonge[49] | McCasland helped assemble DeLonge's advisory team | Accepted | His wife confirmed that he advised DeLonge, unpaid, on fiction and media projects[6]. |
| 2023 | David Grusch[50] | The US runs a programme to retrieve and reverse-engineer craft of non-human origin | Disputed | The Inspector General withheld his submissions in full, and AARO found no verifiable evidence of such a programme[53][54]. |
| 2023 | Jack Sarfatti, as reported[18] | Ning Li went back to China | Ruled out | Her son said she never went to China and never defected; she died in Huntsville in 2021[18][17]. |
| 2026 | Dark Journalist (YouTube)[1] | Loureiro's killing belongs to a pattern of scientists' deaths | Ruled out | The FBI found his killer acted alone and his victims were "symbolic in nature"[10]. |
| 2026 | Jessica Reed Kraus[1] | The killings of Loureiro and Grillmair are linked | Ruled out | Loureiro's killer acted alone, and the man charged with Grillmair's murder is one he had reported for trespassing[10][11]. |
| 2026 | McCasland's wife[6] | He was not taken for what he knew: his access ended when he retired thirteen years ago, and his UFO advice was unpaid | Accepted | The sheriff's office found no evidence tying the disappearance to his classified work and said he held a standard retiree clearance[38][35]. |
| 2026 | BroBible (unattributed)[41] | Reza developed a rocket alloy "as part of a U.S. government project overseen by General McCasland" | Disputed | No source was given. Air Force cost-sharing on the alloy began in 1999, when McCasland was chief engineer of the GPS programme, and Los Angeles magazine found no confirmed reporting that she worked under him[24][5][52]. |
| 2026 | New York Post (Shane Galvin)[14] | Reza had a "close professional connection" with McCasland on materials for reusable space vehicles and weapons | Disputed | Repeated in the Oversight letters' footnotes; no document or named colleague has confirmed it[14][52]. |
| 2026 | Daily Mail[3] | The deaths and disappearances form "a chilling pattern" | Disputed | No official body has found a link between any two cases[2][35]. |
| 2026 | Ross Coulthart (NewsNation)[1] | Some of the cases "do raise suspicions and warrant further investigation" | Still possible | Four people are still missing and Casias's death is undetermined, so several local cases remain open[12][26]. |
| 2026 | Rep. Tim Burchett[1] | "There's just too many of them disappearing" | Disputed | Ordinary rates predict hundreds of adult missing-person reports a year in a cleared workforce of 700,000; the list has four people missing over four and a half years[60][13]. |
| 2026 | McCasland's wife, in the 911 call[37] | She had "some indication that he planned not to be found" | Still possible | The sheriff's office has not said what it concluded, and he has not been found[12]. |
| 2026 | New York Post (Ross O'Keefe)[14] | JPL's Maiwald and Hicks were linked to a "secret program" | Disputed | Both worked at JPL; no programme has been named, and Hicks's daughter said he had known medical issues[2][15]. |
| 2026 | Daily Mail (Chris Melore); BroBible[69] | Steven Garcia was a "missing nuclear official" in a "very high-level, overseeing position" | Ruled out | He was a property custodian for the Kansas City National Security Campus's Albuquerque operations[28]. |
| 2026 | Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office[38] | No evidence connects McCasland's disappearance to his classified work | Accepted | Repeated in June, with the detail that he held a standard retiree clearance[35]. |
| 2026 | Mick West[13] | Ordinary mortality explains the list: about 4,000 deaths in 22 months among 700,000 cleared workers | Accepted | This page's model, from CDC and FBI rates, gives the same order of numbers: about 190 homicides and 460 suicides over the list's span for such a workforce[57][58]. |
| 2026 | Rep. Eric Burlison[15] | Matthew Sullivan's death was a suspicious suicide | Ruled out | The Virginia medical examiner ruled the death accidental[20]. |
| 2026 | President Trump[3] | "I hope it's random, but we're going to know in the next week and a half" | Still possible | No findings had been published by late October 2026[40]. |
| 2026 | Fox News; online posts[19] | Amy Eskridge was killed for her research | Disputed | Her death was reported as a suicide, with few official details; her family asked people not to "make too much of this"[19][1]. |
| 2026 | Timcast IRL[44] | Eleven UFO scientists are missing | Ruled out | Four people on the list are missing, and most were not UFO researchers; several were not scientists[9][40]. |
| 2026 | Richard Hanania[51] | The "disappearing scientists" story is hysteria built on ordinary deaths | Accepted | Several on the list were not scientists, and the numbers are below what base rates predict[9][13]. |
| 2026 | Rep. James Comer[45] | "It's very unlikely that this is a coincidence" | Disputed | His committee's letters rested on "unconfirmed public reporting", and it had published no findings by late October 2026[14]. |
| 2026 | Rep. Eric Burlison[45] | The cases have "all the hallmarks of a foreign operation" | Disputed | No agency has named a foreign service or suspect in any case; the only federal finding, on Loureiro, is that the gunman acted alone[10][40]. |
| 2026 | FBI[9] | The FBI is "spearheading the effort to look for connections" | Still possible | Patel promised a final report "in short order" on 28 April; none had been published by late October[40]. |
| 2026 | NASA[2] | "Nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat" | Accepted | No investigation has tied a NASA case to a threat[2]. |
| 2026 | Early posts and reports[9] | Melissa Casias was a Los Alamos scientist | Ruled out | Her niece said she was an administrative assistant without a high-level clearance[9]. |
| 2026 | Michael Shermer[64] | The list is a case of finding "meaningful patterns in random noise" | Most likely | Consistent with the base rate and with the separate causes found so far[13][10]. |
| 2026 | Kash Patel, FBI director[40] | "They're all state cases", and some of the people were not scientists | Accepted | Each case is held by a local or state agency, and the list includes an administrative assistant, a property custodian and a retired construction foreman[9][2]. |
| 2026 | Rep. Eric Burlison[46] | LeBlanc's death in a crash after he was reported missing "is not normal" | Still possible | No official ruling on the crash has been published[27]. |
| 2026 | FBI and US Attorney, Boston[10] | Loureiro's killer acted alone, and the attacks had no nexus to terrorism | Accepted | A federal finding after investigation[10]. |
| 2026 | President Trump[1] | "So far, we're finding that there's not much of a connection" | Most likely | Consistent with every local finding; no federal report has been published[40]. |
| 2026 | BroBible, from Law&Crime bodycam footage[47] | McCasland met a "shadowy Pentagon unit" before he disappeared | Disputed | The footage shows a witness describing a dinner with Space Force personnel the evening before; nothing on the record ties the dinner to his disappearance[47]. |
| 2026 | Daily Mail; BroBible[48] | McCasland was trying to leave Pentagon secret research programmes when he disappeared | Disputed | The sheriff's office said no Pentagon research centre appeared in its reports and that he held a standard retiree clearance[35]. |
| 2026 | Office of the Medical Investigator, New Mexico[26] | The manner of Melissa Casias's death is undetermined | Accepted | The official finding; the state police investigation is open[26][25]. |
| 2026 | David Grusch[12] | McCasland's disappearance is concerning | Still possible | He gave no evidence of a link to other cases, and the case remains open[12]. |
What would settle it
For the connection, publication: the FBI's report on its review, which Patel promised in April, and any findings of the Oversight Committee's inquiry, with enough detail to say what each agency checked[40][8]. A real link would show as something shared that ordinary life does not explain: a common programme or contract in the employment records, a common suspect, or the same foreign service in the counter-intelligence files. A proper test of excess deaths needs the employers' own figures, the workforce and its deaths by cause over the same years, compared with the rates this page uses[57][62].
For the people, the ordinary work of the local cases. Finding McCasland, Reza, Chavez or Garcia would settle the most important questions on the list[12][23][22][28]. A final ruling on how Casias died, the outcome of the Grillmair trial, and a published cause for LeBlanc's crash would close three more[26][11][27]. For the claim behind the UFO strand, documents: anything released under the UAP records law or by the Inspector General that names a retrieval programme and the people in it[68][53].
Questions
0 of 5 questions are answered.
Evidence 42 findings
Artifacts
The films, photos, papers and objects this mystery rests on, each with its own key and its distance from the original.
See also
References
- 1.CNN's dated chronology of the story's spread (read in a syndicated copy), from a January 2026 YouTube stream to Trump's remark of 30 April that there was "not much of a connection".cited 12 times hereSRC0DCQDZS391TN
- 2.CNN's case-by-case review of 21 April 2026 (read in a syndicated copy): roles, dates, police findings, family statements, NASA's and Comer's statements.cited 12 times hereSRC0DCQCK12DHFD
- 3.The AP's account of the spread, the Daily Mail's piece of 22 March 2026, Trump's remark of 16 April, and researchers on why such patterns persuade.cited 5 times hereSRC0DCQE05M43NA
- 4.The sheriff's 16 March 2026 briefing as reported: the morning timeline, what was missing and left behind, where searchers looked, the FBI's role, and the tip lines.cited 8 times hereSRC0DCQBW9RME6T
- 5.His official assignments with dates, including the Phillips Research Site at Kirtland (2001–04), special programmes in the Pentagon (2009–11) and command of AFRL from May 2011.cited 9 times hereSRC0DCQCC8Q9PKP
- 6.His wife's public Facebook statement on his unpaid consulting for DeLonge, his past and present clearances, and her view that he was not abducted for secrets; the sheriff's 6 March appeal.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQC4JZ7ZZM
- 7.Leavitt's reply to Peter Doocy on 15 April 2026 and her post of 17 April announcing a review of all the cases together.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDRP40S7B
- 8.The committee's release of 20 April 2026 opening its inquiry, with the four letters to DOE, the Department of War, the FBI and NASA.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQDJWYK9GD
- 9.The FBI's 21 April statement that it was "spearheading" a search for connections, NNSA's response, and the roles of each person, including those who were not scientists.cited 12 times hereSRC0DCQCJTADE6A
- 10.The FBI and US Attorney's findings of 29 April 2026 on the Brown University and Brookline shootings: one man acting alone, victims "symbolic in nature", no nexus to terrorism.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQD38N0SMX
- 11.The charges against the man accused of killing Carl Grillmair at Llano on 16 February 2026, his not-guilty plea in May, and the earlier trespass report.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQD8VSCDYR
- 12.The latest status found (5 October 2026): McCasland still missing after seven months, the FBI's refusal of a records request, and David Grusch's remarks on The Joe Rogan Experience.cited 9 times hereSRC0DCQCBVR5BVM
- 13.The base-rate argument: about 700,000 Top Secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workers would see some 70 homicides and 180 suicides in 22 months, against ten names on the list.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQE14HCFBF
- 14.The letter itself (primary): built on "unconfirmed public reporting", it asks the FBI for a staff briefing by 27 April 2026 and repeats the reported Reza–McCasland "close professional connection".cited 10 times hereSRC0DCQDRFQBED1
- 15.The thirteen-name list of 24 April 2026 with dates, places and ages, including Jason Thomas, Matthew Sullivan and the additions made by Rep. Burlison.cited 12 times hereSRC0DCQD2FC32S2
- 16.The tertiary overview used as a list of leads; each case and statement was checked against the reporting cited here before use.cited 1 time hereSRC0DCQEX114T5E
- 17.Her dates (14 January 1943 – 27 July 2021) and the family's notice that she died peacefully in Huntsville.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDJ2M2M3W
- 18.Ning Li's gravity research at UAH and AC Gravity, the 2001 Defense Department grant, and her son's account that she never went missing or left the country and was unable to work after 2014.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDHVKAQYR
- 19.How Amy Eskridge's 2022 death was added to the list in April 2026, with the limits of the official record on it.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDABB39X4
- 20.Reports the Virginia medical examiner's finding that Matthew Sullivan's death in May 2024 was accidental, and Rep. Burlison's letter of 16 April 2026 referring the case to the FBI.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQD9ZEHGVB
- 21.The Los Alamos police appeal for Anthony Chavez, reported missing on 8 May 2025, with the department's contact number.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQCKHMMTQP
- 22.The Los Alamos police file on Chavez as reported in June 2026: what was left at home, the leads checked, and the case marked inactive on 6 October 2025.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQCKW5GKM5
- 23.The sheriff's department release on Monica Reza, last seen a little after 9 a.m. on 22 June 2025 near Mount Waterman, with its missing persons number.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQCTQR4685
- 24.Monica Jacinto (Reza)'s own account of developing the Mondaloy alloy at Rocketdyne in the 1990s and its first AFRL cost-sharing programme in 1999, the documented root of the claimed McCasland link.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQD1D1KRF0
- 25.The state police release: remains found by a hiker in Carson National Forest on 28 May 2026 and identified as Melissa Casias, cause and manner then undetermined, the investigation open.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQCT5KYDZG
- 26.Reports in August 2026 that the Office of the Medical Investigator classified the manner of Melissa Casias's death as undetermined.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQCTEBZTTB
- 27.Joshua LeBlanc's NASA work on nuclear propulsion and the crash of 22 July 2025, as the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency described it; no official ruling on cause is quoted.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQD9A2SQ47
- 28.What police in Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Taos County said about the four New Mexico cases in April 2026, including Steven Garcia's job and the date he went missing.cited 5 times hereSRC0DCQCK84XC06
- 29.The Middlesex District Attorney's statement of 17 March 2026 on the recovery of Jason Thomas's body: no foul play suspected.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQD2ZSCRE7
- 30.The District Attorney's release of 28 May 2026 (primary): the man accused of killing Carl Grillmair pleaded not guilty on 26 May to murder, carjacking and residential burglary; the charges are allegations.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQXJFXJWXA
- 31.His retirement in July 2013 after 34 years, and Karoline Leavitt's post of 17 April 2026 promising a review of the cases together.cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQCCPKTT24
- 32.Nick Pope's death at home in Tucson on 6 April 2026 from cancer, as his wife announced, and his 21 years at the UK Ministry of Defence.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDJAAVH2Z
- 33.The county's release of 23 April 2026 identifying David Wilcock and carrying his family's statement on his death; used only to date it.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDJMBKASJ
- 34.Where help is available in the US: call or text 988, or chat online, at any hour.cited 1 time hereSRC0DCQKZXHNGP9
- 35.The sheriff's office corrections of June 2026: a standard retiree clearance, no Pentagon research centre in its reports, and no known connection to other missing-scientist cases.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQCBBWQ3XC
- 36.The same 16 March briefing: drones, helicopters, dogs, 700 homes canvassed, the sweatshirt found on 7 March, and the sheriff's office tip number.cited 9 times hereSRC0DCQC3Z5GENZ
- 37.Reports the 911 call audio, obtained by Law&Crime Network, in which his wife said she had some indication he planned not to be found.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQC5289B6Y
- 38.The sheriff's office statement of April 2026 that it had no evidence tying the disappearance to his classified work or to the other cases.cited 5 times hereSRC0DCQC4CDF8ZT
- 39.The end of the first search phase for Reza on 29 June 2025 and the case's transfer to the sheriff's Missing Persons Unit.cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQCV0F8ZEE
- 40.Kash Patel on 28 April 2026: "They're all state cases", some on the list are not scientists, and a final report would come "in short order".cited 5 times hereSRC0DCQDS1F1EC4
- 41.The March 2026 claim, unattributed, that Monica Reza worked on a rocket alloy in a government project overseen by McCasland; cited as an example of the claim, not as evidence for it.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQD20SHSB1
- 42.Rep. Burlison's post of 30 March 2026 saying he had already asked for FBI involvement.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQDSA3MTDJ
- 43.Shows that Fox's Will Cain Show had taken up the story by 7 April 2026; the exact air date was not confirmed.cited 1 time hereSRC0DCQE0H3MYJG
- 44.The Timcast IRL episode of 18 April 2026 (Tim Pool and co-hosts) framing the list as "11 UFO scientists missing"; cited as an example of how podcasts described the cases, from its listing (title, date, description).cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQWDEFM2ZB
- 45.The strongest official statements of the connection case: Comer's "very unlikely that this is a coincidence" and Burlison's "all the hallmarks of a foreign operation", with a former FBI agent's dissent.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQDSQFKX6K
- 46.Rep. Burlison's post of 28 April 2026 adding LeBlanc to the list ("This is not normal").cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQD9HS5A5X
- 47.The 29 May 2026 article on police bodycam footage (obtained by Law&Crime) in which an unnamed witness said she and Space Force personnel dined with McCasland the evening before he vanished; cited for the claim and its framing.cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQWF1G9ZX4
- 48.The June 2026 claim, passed on from the Daily Mail and a FOIA requester, that McCasland was trying to resign from research posts when he disappeared; cited for the claim, which the sheriff's office later corrected in part.cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQWEM5XMZK
- 49.The text of DeLonge's January 2016 email to John Podesta, released by WikiLeaks, saying McCasland had run the Wright-Patterson laboratory and helped assemble DeLonge's advisory team.cited 5 times hereSRC0DCQCD2NPV32
- 50.Grusch, D. 2023. Opening statement to the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.cited 10 times hereSRC0CXDN62A7S39
- 51.The argument (19 April 2026) that several people on the list were not scientists at all and that the two who were serious researchers were killed for personal or criminal reasons.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQE78CJST0
- 52.Her companions' account of the hike as reported, and the distinction between the claimed McCasland link (a social media post) and anything confirmed.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQCVFMQ04H
- 53.The Inspector General's FOIA letter of 7 March 2024 (primary, held by The Black Vault): 25 pages of Grusch's submissions withheld in full, partly for a pending law-enforcement inquiry.cited 5 times hereSRC0DCQE8T5D6X5
- 54.All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, U. 2024. Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I. U.S. Department of Defense.cited 22 times hereSRC0D0140M03414
- 55.The agreement itself (primary, released under FOIA and held by The Black Vault): from October 2019 the Army would test TTSA's metamaterial samples and other claimed technologies; it names no programme or person on the list.cited 6 times hereSRC0DCQEH0BHHD8
- 56.The Black Vault's account (24 October 2024) of its FOIA cases on the Army–TTSA agreement (FA-21-0064, FA-23-0015, FA-24-0006) and the exemptions used to withhold records.cited 4 times hereSRC0DCQEHAVW4WF
- 57.The 2024 US homicide rate, 5.9 per 100,000 (20,162 deaths), an input to the base-rate model.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQEHN0D208
- 58.The 2024 US suicide rate, 14.4 per 100,000 (48,824 deaths), an input to the base-rate model.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQEHYMW51F
- 59.The 2024 US death rate from unintentional injury, 58.1 per 100,000 (197,449 deaths), an input to the base-rate model.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQEJEPDYE1
- 60.NCIC figures for 2024: 183,952 missing-person entries for people 18 and over, and 93,447 records still active on 31 December (25,493 of them under 18), used for the model's missing-person rates.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQERW4C3D0
- 61.The US resident population aged 18 and over on 1 July 2024, 266,978,268, the denominator for the model's missing-person rates (Census table, copy hosted by the Hawaii DBEDT).cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQESATP6JW
- 62.The size of the NNSA workforce in fiscal 2022 (about 1,800 federal staff and 55,000 contractor staff at seven sites), part of the model's narrow workforce.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQESV6YJJ9
- 63.NASA's civil-service headcount of 17,391 in fiscal 2025 (excluding JPL), part of the model's narrow workforce.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQETC6HSCZ
- 64.Skeptic's case (25 April 2026) that the pattern is patternicity and base-rate neglect, with the cases that would be needed to test it left out.cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQE1M942MY
- 65.The 1980s British precedent: more than twenty defence scientists, mostly at GEC-Marconi, dead between 1982 and 1988, which the Ministry of Defence called coincidence.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQE7H9RY1W
- 66.A tertiary summary of the Marconi cases and their inquest verdicts, including the 2021 DNA finding that one death first ruled a suicide was a murder by an unconnected offender.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQE84MFBP4
- 67.A contemporary report on the eleven microbiologist deaths of November 2001 to March 2002, with the cause found in each and the American Society for Microbiology's point about base rates.cited 3 times hereSRC0DCQE8EYQ47B
- 68.Barna, S. 2024. Implications of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Amendment in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Inside Government Contracts (Covington & Burling).cited 3 times hereSRC0CXDN7S045PC
- 69.The 13 April 2026 article calling Steven Garcia a "nuclear official", passing on an anonymous source to the Daily Mail who described his job as "a very high-level, overseeing position"; cited for the claim, not as evidence for it.cited 2 times hereSRC0DCQWE0BN5G2