April 23, 2026Updated April 24, 2026, 12:57 p.m. ET
The highest levels of the federal government are paying attention to a list of people who have vanished or died, citing concerns about their connections to scientific research, some of it possibly classified.
The list includes multiple scientists, spans several years and involves a patchwork of people from different backgrounds and circumstances. The White House, multiple federal agencies and members of Congress have said they are taking a closer look at whether there are connections between the list of up to 10 cases.
The cases range from a retired Air Force general missing (authorities had said there was no evidence of foul play) to an astrophysicist shot outside his home. It also includes a construction foreman at Los Alamos National Laboratory who vanished.
Congressmen James Comer and Eric Burlison, Republicans who chair the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs, respectively, said they are investigating the cases of missing or deceased people with “access to sensitive U.S. scientific information.” It’s not clear how many of the people on a list put out by the congressmen had such access.
President Donald Trump has said the cases might be random.
“Hopefully, I don’t know, coincidence, whatever you want to call it,” Trump said last week, telling reporters he had been in a meeting on the topic. “But some of them were very important people, and we’re going to look at it over the next short period.”
Meanwhile, critics have dismissed the concerns as baseless conspiracy theories. Daniel Engber, an editor at The Atlantic, called the panic “unbelievably dumb.”
Sociologist Robert Bartholomew was also skeptical in a report for Psychology Today. The reaction to the cases of missing or deceased scientists is an example of how human brains are wired to search out patterns, even when they may not exist, Bartholomew wrote. The United States has thousands of nuclear and aerospace scientists, and people die or go missing all the time, he said.
Here is what we know about the missing and deceased scientists:
White House, federal agencies probe cases of missing scientists
Reports from various outlets suggest a “possible sinister connection” exists between the deaths and disappearances, Comer and Burlison said in letters to the heads of the Department of Energy, Department of War, the FBI and NASA.
“We request a briefing on any information regarding these deaths and disappearances, as well as the processes and procedures in place to protect American scientific secrets and ensure personnel safety,” they wrote in the letters.
NASA is coordinating with agencies looking into the cases, but “at this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” spokesperson Bethany Stevens said April 20.
The deaths and disappearances began, according to Burlison and Comer, with Michael David Hicks in 2023. Hicks’ cause of death was not revealed. The two most recent cases are from 2026.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said April 17 that the administration is working with “relevant” agencies and the FBI and said “no stone will be unturned.” The attention to the cases from government officials comes after weeks of internet speculation and tabloid reports.
USA TODAY has reached out to the FBI and the Department of Energy, two of the agencies involved in the investigations.
Who are the people on the list?
The Republican members of Congress listed some of the scientists by name, including McCasland, Hicks and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Monica Jacinto Reza. Others were referred to by their affiliations with other scientific agencies. About 10 names have been widely circulated in tabloid and other news reports.
A review of the cases reveals inconsistent ties to scientific research or varying topics of study.
These people related to the U.S. science community are missing:
- McCasland, 68, a retired U.S. Air Force general, at the time of his disappearance was commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, and once managed a science and technology program. He joined Wright-Patterson in 2011 and retired in 2013, reported the Cincinnati Enquirer, part of the USA TODAY Network. The base was home to a 1950s and 60s project that looked into UFO sightings. It’s this connection that appears to have sparked speculation about his ties to classified information.
- Reza, 60 when she disappeared, was director of the NASA Lab’s Materials Processing Group. She worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2022 as a materials and processes engineer in JPL’s Thermal, Propulsion and Materials Engineering group.
- Anthony Chavez, 78 when he vanished, once was a construction foreman at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos Police Chief Dino Sgambellone told USA TODAY. The lab works “alongside the Department of Energy to support energy advancements and environmental management,” its website says. It also manufactures nuclear weapons components.
- Melissa Casias, who was 58 when she disappeared, also worked at Los Alamos National Lab, her family told NBC News in July 2025. She was an administrative assistant, according to a LinkedIn page through which she verified her employment using her work email.
These people with ties to science research have died in recent years:
- Hicks, 59, was a research scientist who worked at JPL from 2000 to 2022 and focused on the physical properties of asteroids and comets.
- Professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was a member of MIT’s departments of nuclear science and engineering and physics and the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He focused on the theory and simulations of astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, according to MIT.
- Carl Grillmair, 67, was a CalTech astrophysicist. Grillmair’s research included dark matter, galactic structure, stellar populations and exoplanets, according to CalTech. He named several stellar streams he discovered.
- Jason Thomas, 45, was a Massachusetts scientist who worked in chemical biology at the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research, according to Wicked Local, part of the USA TODAY Network.
- Frank Maiwald, 61, specialized in microwave radiometry. He worked at JPL from 2001 to 2024, when he died. He contributed to Earth science missions including Surface Water and Ocean Topography and the Jason-3 satellite, which takes sea level measurements to gain insight into climate change.
List includes a range of circumstances, from homicide to unexplained disappearances
A review of publicly available information and information provided by law enforcement shows the circumstances surrounding the deaths and disappearances vary widely. Officials said foul play was not suspected in some of the cases. One death was linked to a mass shooter and was widely covered in the news.
McCasland, the retired Air Force general, was last seen at his home in Albuquerque in February. Authorities issued a “Silver Alert,” an advisory used when a senior or someone with a health or cognitive condition goes missing, citing unspecified “medical issues.” He had experienced “mental fog,” authorities said, but investigators didn’t believe he was cognitively impaired at the time of his disappearance. They said there was no evidence of foul play at the time, and items including a revolver appeared to be missing from the residence as well.
McCasland’s wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, said in a social media post in March that she wanted to “dispel” misinformation. Though it was true her husband once had access to highly classified information, she said, he was retired for more than a decade and had only “commonly held” clearances since.
“It seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him,” she wrote.
In New Mexico, authorities said they were searching for Casias, the administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in June 2025. She was last seen walking along a highway, and family members said they were perplexed about where she could have gone, NBC reported at the time.
Chavez, who was a construction foreman at the lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico, disappeared in May 2025.
“We do not have any information that would link his disappearance to his work,” Sgambellone, the local police chief, told USA TODAY.
Reza, the JPL engineer, disappeared in June 2025 while on a hike in Crescenta Valley, north of Los Angeles, authorities have said.
Jason Thomas, 45, was a Massachusetts scientist who worked in chemical biology at the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research. Thomas disappeared in December 2025, and his body was found in a lake March 17, authorities said. He disappeared from home shortly after losing both his parents, his wife told Wicked Local. The local district attorney’s office said no foul play was suspected.
In December 2025, Loureiro’s death became national news when authorities revealed he was allegedly shot by the same suspect who killed two people in a Dec. 13 attack at Brown University, Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente. Investigators have said Valente, who later killed himself, did not reveal a motive for either shooting in videos he made afterward.
Grillmair, the CalTech astrophysicist, was shot to death on the porch of his rural home in February 2026, news outlets including ABC 7 reported. A suspect, Freddy Snyder, had been arrested for trespassing on Grillmair’s property, but the two didn’t appear to know each other, the outlet reported, citing authorities. Snyder was also charged in a separate carjacking.
The deaths of at least two people, JPL scientists Hicks and Maiwald, were not revealed in obituaries and could not be verified as of the time of publication. Hicks’ daughter, Julia Hicks, told CNN he had been struggling with known medical problems before his death on July 30, 2023.
“From what I know of my dad, there’s no train of logic to follow that would implicate him in this potential federal investigation,” Julia Hicks said. “I don’t understand the connection between my dad’s death and the other missing scientists.
“I can’t help but laugh about it, but at the same time, it’s getting serious,” Hicks told CNN. She said she has been “shaken up” by all the renewed attention on her father’s death.
(This story has been updated to add new information.)
