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The US is investigating a possible conspiracy after at least 10 scientists connected to US nuclear secrets and rocket technology went missing or died under shadowy circumstances over the past few years.
Pointing to tabloid reports from The Daily Mail and The New York Post, Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sought information about each missing or departed scientist. In letters to the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said the tabloid reports had raised “questions about a possible sinister connection between a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances.”
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to US national security and to US personnel with access to scientific secrets,” the letters said.
Lawmakers demanded answers by April 27 and requested that agencies report any actions taken to mitigate potential ongoing risks to active personnel.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has confirmed that President Donald Trump is actively working with the FBI to probe the conspiracy theory by “holistically” reviewing “all the cases together” to “identify any potential commonalities that may exist,” CNN reported.
“No stone will be unturned,” Leavitt said, “in light of the recent and legitimate questions.”
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News on Sunday that his agency is specifically looking for potential links between scientists’ access to classified information or d connections with “foreign actors.”
In their letters, lawmakers noted that Trump said he had already met with the FBI, as he was troubled by the tabloids reporting of what he deemed to be “pretty serious stuff.”
On X, NASA’s spokesperson disputed concerns over feared national security threats, though.
“NASA is coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists. At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” NASA’s X post said. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
More information could come to light soon, CNN reported. Trump said last Thursday that he hopes the deaths and disappearances turn out to be “random,” but he expects to know more about feared links within the next “week and a half.”
What the tabloids say
Concern that scientists might be targeted for their knowledge of government secrets started after Michael David Hicks, a former NASA scientist who worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1998 to 2022. Hicks—whom The Daily Mail reported “had been involved with the DART Project, NASA’s test to see if humans could deflect dangerous asteroids away from Earth”—died in 2023. But no cause of death or autopsy record was ever made public.
Similarly, Monica Reza served as director of the NASA Lab’s Materials Processing Group before she went missing while hiking in California in June 2025.
Most recently, retired Air Force General William Neil McCasland disappeared in February 2026 after leaving his New Mexico home with a .38 caliber revolver. Reza and McCasland were at one point close professional collaborators, reports said.
“The other missing or deceased individuals, according to the reports, are two more affiliated with NASA JPL, two affiliated with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), an MIT scientist working on nuclear fusion, a pharmaceutical researcher, and a government contractor working at a nuclear weapons component production facility,” lawmakers said in their April 20 letters to agencies seeking information on the missing and dead scientists.
To support their info demands, lawmakers cited one report from The Daily Mail and three reports from the New York Post.
In their April 11 report, the Daily Mail spoke to an anonymous source after a government contractor with a “top security clearance and broad access” to government “nuclear secrets,” Steven Garcia, went missing in August 2025. McCasland, he left his New Mexico home with a gun and hasn’t been seen since. Two other scientists who worked at LNAL, Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias, similarly vanished after leaving their New Mexico homes without their wallets, phones, or keys.
Because the source said that Garcia was “a very stable person,” suicide seemed less ly than “the possibility of Garcia being the target of foreign spies,” the Daily Mail reported. That “makes the most sense,” their source said.
So far, one missing scientist—Jason Thomas, “a pharmaceutical researcher testing cancer treatments at Novartis”—was found dead three months after disappearing, the Daily Mail reported. But “unseasonably warm” weather was blamed for difficulties in searching for McCasland in New Mexico, the NY Post reported. The hot temperatures have so far complicated thermal drone searches, as has the “vastness of the search area.”
McCasland’s case is unique in that the scientist had links to the UFO community, the NY Post reported. The retired general and UFO expert had supposedly retired due to experiencing “mental fog” after serving as the longtime commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
That lab has been “long rumored to house extraterrestrial debris linked to the alleged ‘Roswell incident,’ despite Air Force denials,” McCasland’s wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, wrote in a lengthy Facebook post, as CNN reported.
“It is true that Neil had a brief association with the UFO community,” McCasland Wilkerson wrote. “This connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil. Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt.” She further added, “No sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia Mountains have been reported.”
McCasland disappeared about six days after Trump announced that he planned to release files related to UFOs and aliens, the NY Post reported. Police searching for McCasland told the NY Post that they’ve received “some tips with some outlandish theories, conspiracy theories,” but promised that “we will look into everything.”
Another former US Air Force member, intelligence officer Matthew James Sullivan, died in 2024 “before he could testify in a federal whistleblower case about UFOs,” CNN reported. That death is a suspected suicide, but Rep. Burlison told CNN he considered the circumstances suspicious.
Families, lawmaker doubt tabloid links
Law enforcement has yet to find any connections between the deaths and disappearances, with cases varying widely in circumstances, CNN reported. While several scientists’ cases seem to a similar pattern, two other cases involve fatal shootings of scientists where suspects have been arrested and charged, CNN reported. At least one member of the House committee launching the probe, Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), expressed doubts that any links will be found.
“The United States has thousands of nuclear scientists and nuclear experts,” Walkinshaw told CNN. “It’s not the kind of nuclear program that potentially a foreign adversary could significantly impact by targeting 10 individuals.”
Families of two scientists have “pointed to preexisting medical conditions or personal struggles as explanations.” Hicks’ daughter, Julia Hicks, told CNN that she couldn’t help but laugh at the conspiracy theory the tabloids have raised, despite the probe suggesting that it’s now “getting serious.”
“From what I know of my dad, there’s no train of logic to that would implicate him in this potential federal investigation,” she said. “I don’t understand the connection between my dad’s death and the other missing scientists.”
Similarly, the family of Amy Eskridge—who cofounded the Institute for Exotic Science, a facility experimenting with anti-gravity technology—has pushed back on recent efforts to link her 2022 death to the conspiracy.
“People should realize that scientists die also and not make too much of this,” the family told CNN.
But some lawmakers suspect foul play regardless.
“It’s very unly that this is a coincidence,” Comer told Fox News on Sunday, while confirming that the probe would remain a top priority for his committee.
Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter
Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.
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Arstechnica.com
