The cases span California, New Mexico, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and involve researchers tied to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIT’s nuclear fusion research, Novartis pharmaceuticals and sensitive Air Force aerospace programs, CBS News reported.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists,” the agency said in a statement on April 21. “We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers.”
The House Oversight Committee opened its own investigation a day earlier, demanding briefings from the FBI, Defense Department, Department of Energy and NASA by April 27.
The most recent case, and the one that initially drew lawmakers’ attention, is that of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, who once commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
McCasland walked out of his Albuquerque, New Mexico home around 11 a.m. on Feb. 27, leaving behind his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices but taking his wallet and a .38-caliber revolver, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office. Search teams deploying drones and K-9 units have found only a gray Air Force sweatshirt a mile from his home.
Wright-Patterson has long been tied to UFO lore because of its role in the Cold War-era Project Blue Book, and after retiring in 2013 McCasland briefly served as an unpaid consultant to Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge on UFO-themed media projects. His wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, has publicly dismissed any UFO connection, telling CNN her husband “does not have any special knowledge” on the topic.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, before his retirement in 2013. Photo courtesy of USAF |
Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, who earned NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 2011 for his discovery of water on distant exoplanets, was shot on the front porch of his rural home in Llano, California on Feb. 16, 2026, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. The suspect, 29-year-old Freddy Snyder, had previously been reported for trespassing on Grillmair’s property while armed with a rifle, according to ABC7 Los Angeles. No motive has been released.
The body of Jason R. Thomas, a 46-year-old Novartis pharmaceutical researcher working on cancer treatments, was pulled from Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield, Massachusetts on March 17, three months after he disappeared. His wife, Kristen Bartoli, told Boston 25 News her husband had lost both his parents in fall 2025 and was struggling to cope. Police have found no evidence of foul play.
MIT physicist Nuno F.G. Loureiro, director of the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, was shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts on Dec. 15, 2025.
The suspect, 48-year-old Portuguese national Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente, had studied in the same physics program as Loureiro at Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico in the late 1990s, according to US Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley.
Two days earlier, on Dec. 13, Valente had opened fire during a final-exam review session at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, killing two students and wounding nine others. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New Hampshire storage unit on Dec. 18.
Monica Jacinto Reza, 60, the Director of Materials Processing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-inventor of Mondaloy, a nickel-based superalloy used in rocket engines, vanished on June 22, 2025 while hiking near Mount Waterman in California’s Angeles National Forest. Her companion told investigators the two were roughly 30 feet apart when she smiled and waved; moments later she was gone. Her body has never been recovered.
Those close to several of the individual investigations have told U.S. media they see no evidence connecting the cases.
One former Department of Energy official told CBS News that “people do just die” and that some of the individuals involved held peripheral roles without access to classified material.
Retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer has questioned why Loureiro’s killing is being folded into the federal review at all, given Valente’s apparent personal motive.
Representative James Walkinshaw, a Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told CNN that while an investigation is warranted, he is not convinced a coordinated motive lies behind the cases, arguing that with thousands of U.S. nuclear scientists, targeting 10 would not meaningfully damage any foreign adversary’s position.
Trump, speaking to reporters on April 16, called the matter “pretty serious stuff” while saying he hoped the pattern was “coincidence.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer struck a sharper tone. “It’s very unlikely that this is a coincidence,” Comer told Fox News. “Our committee is making this one of our priorities now because we view this as a national security threat.”
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