- Introducing DC Insider – your guide to what’s rocking Washington, rattling the White House and setting tongues wagging on Capitol Hill. Sign up HERE.
Lawmakers are demanding a sweeping investigation into the mysterious disappearances and deaths of nearly a dozen top US scientists with top-level security clearances, citing national security concerns.
At least 11 scientists with ties to NASA, nuclear research, aerospace programs, and classified projects have vanished or turned up dead in recent years.
Many of the individuals, including researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, had access to sensitive information on space missions, nuclear technology, or advanced defense systems, prompting speculation about possible ‘sinister’ connections.
In light of the concerning deaths and disappearances, top lawmakers are now demanding that the FBI, Pentagon, NASA and the Department of Energy open probes into the cases.
‘The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating recent unconfirmed public reporting on the disappearance and death of individuals with access to sensitive U.S. scientific information,’ Republican Chairman James Comer wrote in letters sent on Monday.
‘These reports allege that at least ten individuals who “had a connection to U.S. nuclear secrets or rocket technology,” have “died or mysteriously vanished in recent years,”‘ he writes.
‘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.’
Comer specifically notes the ‘possible sinister connection between a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances which began in 2023.’
President Donald Trump said that he was briefed on the string of disappearances and deaths last week, saying that answers about the alarming cases should come out in the coming weeks.
‘Well, I hope it is random, but we are going to know in the next week and a half,’ Trump said when asked about the missing scientists on Thursday.
‘I just left a meeting on that subject, so pretty serious stuff. Hopefully, coincidence… but some of them were very important people, and we are going to look at it.’
Comer and Republican Congressman Eric Burlison, who also signed the letters to the departments, called on the agencies to provide briefings to Congress on the matter no later than April 27.
When the Republican lawmakers contacted the Department of War for further information on the missing scientists, the department responded that ‘there are no active national security investigations of any reported missing person.’
This disturbing pattern first emerged after retired Air Force General William Neil McCasland vanished on February 28.
He was last seen leaving his New Mexico home without his phone, wearable devices or glasses less than two months ago. He was only carrying a pistol and his wife told 911 dispatchers that it appeared he was trying ‘not to be found.’
The strange circumstances surrounding the general’s disappearance were almost identical to four other missing person cases taking place between May and August 2025 in the Southwest.
Concerningly, all four have been tied to McCasland through his work overseeing the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which has been rumored to study extraterrestrial technology since the 1947 Roswell UFO crash.
Like McCasland, Steven Garcia, 48, vanished without a trace after leaving his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on foot.
He also departed his residence without everyday essentials like a phone, instead just bringing a handgun.
An anonymous source told the Daily Mail that Garcia was a government contractor working for the Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC), a major facility in Albuquerque that manufactures more than 80 percent of all the non-nuclear components that go into building the military’s nuclear weapons.
While at Wright-Patterson, McCasland oversaw and reportedly approved the funding for scientist Monica Jacinto Reza’s work on a space-age metal for rocket engines called Mondaloy.
Reza, 60, disappeared while hiking with friends in California on June 22 last year. She had just become the director of the Materials Processing Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias both worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one of the nation’s most important nuclear research sites.
Chavez, 79, worked at the lab until his retirement in 2017, although his role there has not been made clear. Casias, 54, was an active administrative assistant at the facility and is believed to have had top security clearance.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced last week that the administration and FBI are looking into the missing scientists.
‘In light of the recent and legitimate questions about these troubling cases, and President Trump’s commitment to the truth, the White House is actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist,’ Leavitt said.
