Scientists Missing or Dead: The Full 2026 Timeline and What the FBI Actually Found

Scientists Missing or Dead – Last updated: July 2026

On the morning of February 27, 2026, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland walked out of his Albuquerque home and never came back. He left his phone behind. His prescription glasses. His wearable devices. A repairman had spoken with him around 10 a.m.; by the time his wife returned from a doctor’s appointment just after noon, he was gone.

Four months later, he still hasn’t been found.

McCasland spent decades near the center of the Pentagon’s most sensitive aerospace research, once commanding the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a base long tied to Roswell UFO lore. That alone might have stayed a local mystery. Instead, his case became the spark for a much bigger story: a growing public list of scientists missing since 2022, a Congressional inquiry, an active FBI review, and a comment from President Trump that some of those involved “were very important people” and that the pattern was “pretty serious stuff.”

Search interest in scientists missing or dead has climbed sharply in 2026, and for good reason, part of what’s now widely referred to online as the missing scientists 2026 story. Below is every case in the timeline, sourced and verified, along with what investigators, families, and skeptics actually say about it, updated with details that surfaced as recently as late June.

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What Is the “Scientists Missing” Conspiracy Theory?

The theory holds that a cluster of roughly ten to eleven deaths and disappearances among people connected to classified or sensitive research since 2022 aren’t coincidental, but linked, possibly to suppress knowledge tied to UFOs, energy research, or materials science. Federal officials, including the FBI and the White House, have confirmed they’re reviewing the cases for any common thread. As of mid-2026, no evidence of a coordinated cause has been made public, and several individual cases already have separate, unrelated explanations.

It’s worth being precise about the count, too, because the number circulating online varies. Some viral posts inflate the list to 15, 20, or more names by including people with no verified connection to classified research, or by double-counting cases already resolved. Once you strip those out, the confirmed scientists missing or dead list holds at roughly ten or eleven names with a documented tie to a national lab, NASA, or defense research, and only a handful of those remain genuinely open. Wikipedia’s own tracking of the theory notes the count is consistently cited as “10 or 11,” depending on whether borderline cases like Amy Eskridge or David Wilcock are included.

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Scientists Missing: The Full Timeline of All 11 Cases

Name	Role / Institution	Date	Status	What’s Known
Amy Eskridge	Co-founder, Institute for Exotic Science (antigravity research)	Died June 11, 2022, Huntsville, AL	Resolved by family	Death by suicide. Her father has said publicly it wasn’t suspicious. Her family has asked people to remember that scientists die too.
Michael David Hicks	Research scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (comets and asteroids)	Died July 30, 2023, age 59	Cause never disclosed	A nearly 25-year JPL veteran. His daughter has said he had known medical issues and that there’s “no train of logic” connecting him to the theory.
Frank Maiwald	Principal researcher, NASA JPL	Died July 2024, age 61	Cause never disclosed	Long career on major NASA instrument programs. No cause of death made public.
Anthony Chavez	Longtime employee, Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired)	Missing since May 2025, age 78	Open	Had been retired for nearly a decade at the time of his disappearance. No signs of foul play; local search has found nothing.
Melissa Casias	Administrative assistant, Los Alamos National Laboratory	Missing since summer 2025, age 53	Open	Reportedly drove herself and her husband to work at Los Alamos and was last seen dropping off lunch for her daughter that afternoon.
Monica Reza	Materials researcher, NASA JPL	Missing since June 2025, age 60	Open	Disappeared while hiking in an LA-area forest. Search efforts have found no trace of her.
Steven Garcia	Contract employee, Kansas City National Security Campus (Albuquerque site)	Missing since August 2025	Open	Reported missing in Albuquerque. Employer hasn’t confirmed employment details to fact-checkers.
Jason Thomas	Pharmaceutical researcher with a Pentagon contract	Missing Dec. 2025	Resolved	Remains recovered in early 2026. No foul play suspected.
Nuno Loureiro	Director, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center	Died Dec. 16, 2025, age 47	Resolved, homicide solved	Fatally shot at his Brookline, MA home by a former university classmate, days after the same suspect carried out a shooting at Brown University. No terrorism or classified-work link found.
Carl Grillmair	Astrophysicist, Caltech/IPAC (NASA NEOWISE, NEO Surveyor)	Died Feb. 16, 2026, age 67	Resolved, suspect arrested	Shot outside his rural California home. A suspect was already arrested and has also been charged with other, unrelated crimes.
William “Neil” McCasland	Retired Maj. Gen., former commander, Air Force Research Laboratory	Missing since Feb. 27, 2026, age 68	Active, unresolved	Walked out of his Albuquerque home on foot. Phone, glasses, and wearables left behind. FBI assisting.

Also referenced in some accounts: David Wilcock, a New Age conspiracy theorist and author who died by suicide on April 20, 2026, in the presence of law enforcement officers, after a long battle with depression and financial difficulty. U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett has said he doesn’t think the timing is “a coincidence,” though Wilcock’s death is not officially connected to the other cases. Matthew James Sullivan, a former Air Force intelligence officer who died in 2024 shortly before a scheduled interview tied to a UFO whistleblower matter, is sometimes cited as well; officials ruled his death a suicide, and no public evidence connects it to the cases above.

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How It Started: The William McCasland Disappearance

McCasland’s case is the one that turned scattered stories into a national one. He was an experienced hiker and outdoorsman, an astronautical engineer with an extensive Air Force career. He oversaw classified space weapons programs and ran research at a base long rumored, without evidence, to house extraterrestrial materials.

A repairman interacted with him around 10 a.m. on February 27. His wife left for a medical appointment shortly after and returned around noon to find him gone. She reported him missing that afternoon, and authorities issued a Silver Alert.

What he left behind became central to the case: his phone, prescription glasses, and wearable devices were all found in the house. Still missing was his .38-caliber revolver, which authorities believe he took with him.

Body-camera footage obtained by Law&Crime and reported by NewsNation later added detail to his final hours. An unnamed woman who said she’d had dinner with McCasland and members of the U.S. Space Force the evening before he vanished told police, “I was shocked this morning when I saw the alert because what I noticed Thursday evening is that he wasn’t his usual self. He was kind of spacey and quiet.

Separately, McCasland’s wife described his condition the morning he disappeared, telling authorities he’d lost roughly 20 pounds without explanation, had been dealing with anxiety, and had taken a newly prescribed sleep medication the night before that left him feeling “foggy” the next morning. She has also said she believed he “had planned not to be found.”

As of the most recent updates, investigators say they’ve found no evidence of foul play, and the case remains open.

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Scientists Missing: What Investigators Learned from FBI, White House, and Congress Statements

The response from Washington is what elevated this from a series of unrelated tragedies into a formal federal review.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the bureau is coordinating the effort, working with the Department of Energy and the Department of War to look for any connections among the cases, and said arrests would follow if anything pointed to nefarious conduct.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed at an April briefing that the administration is coordinating directly with the FBI and other federal agencies to review all of the cases together and check for any shared thread among them. President Trump, asked about the pattern, said he hoped it was “random” but called it “pretty serious stuff,” and noted that some of the people involved held significant positions.

The House Oversight Committee, chaired by James Comer, sent letters to the FBI, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and NASA requesting briefings. Comer, who said he initially thought the theory sounded like “some kind of crazy conspiracy theory,” has since said he believes it merits a national security review. Not every member of the committee agrees a coordinated pattern exists, though: Rep. James Walkinshaw, also on the Oversight Committee, told CNN he supports the investigation but isn’t convinced there’s a coordinated motive, pointing out that “the United States has thousands of nuclear scientists and nuclear experts.

He noted the U.S. employs thousands of nuclear scientists and experts, making it an unlikely strategy for a foreign adversary to target just “10 individuals” in hopes of meaningfully damaging the country’s nuclear program.

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Which Cases on the Scientists Missing or Dead List Have Already Been Resolved

Three of the highest-profile names on the scientists missing or dead list already have confirmed, unrelated explanations, and they matter because they directly undercut the idea of a single coordinated plot.

Together, these three resolved cases show that removal from the scientists missing or dead list usually means something mundane: a personal grudge, a random confrontation, an accident. That doesn’t guarantee every open case will end the same way, but it’s real evidence against a single shared cause.

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Why Experts Say It’s Not a Coordinated Pattern

Medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew, who studies social hysteria and conspiracy thinking, has said belief in the theory “underscores the human tendency to see” connections where none exist, a phenomenon researchers call apophenia.

Political scientist Richard Hanania, who studies conspiracy movements, examined the list for UnHerd and pointed out that the people on it “toiled in widely divergent fields, held different positions, had no obvious connections to one another, and lived in different parts of the country.” His list included, in his words, a retired Air Force major general, an MIT professor, and a pharmaceutical scientist who “apparently only made the list due to having a Pentagon contract.”

Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami political scientist who has spent his career studying conspiracy theories, said what sets this one apart isn’t the theory itself but the official response to it: “Your average conspiracy theory, someone comes up with it and it dies on the vine… What makes this unique is you have government agents, with guns, investigating this.”

CBS News reported that neither its own reporting nor several outside experts it interviewed found any obvious links between the cases. The Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe reported similar findings, with experts interviewed by the Globe describing “strong doubts” that a conspiracy was involved. Fact-checking outlet Snopes reviewed the claims and called the idea of a coordinated conspiracy “purely conjecture.”

Family members have pushed back directly, too. Amy Eskridge’s family has said people should realize that scientists die too, and that not everything should be read as connected. Michael Hicks’s daughter has said her father had known medical issues, that there’s “no train of logic” connecting him to the theory, and that she “can’t help but laugh about it.”

None of this means the federal review is pointless. Reviewing patterns across cases involving national labs and security clearances is a legitimate use of investigative resources. It does mean the “connected conspiracy” framing should be treated as an open question, not a settled one, at least until the FBI publishes something more definitive.

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How the Missing Scientists 2026 List Has Changed Since April

The list of scientists missing or dead hasn’t stayed static since the story first broke. When Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show” first covered it on April 2, 2026, the count circulating publicly was closer to five or six names. By the time the House Oversight Committee sent its letters on April 20, the number most commonly cited had grown to ten or eleven, as older, previously unconnected cases like Amy Eskridge’s 2022 death were resurfaced and folded into the narrative.

Since then, three of the eleven cases, Loureiro, Grillmair, and Thomas, have moved from “unexplained” to “resolved,” even as the overall list kept circulating online without those updates. That’s part of why fact-checkers at Snopes and Poynter have repeatedly noted that viral versions of the scientists missing or dead list often lag behind the actual state of each case by weeks or months. If you’re seeing a version of this list today, it’s worth checking the date it was compiled, a “current” post from March may already be describing cases that were resolved by June.

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11 Missing Scientists vs. the Viral List of 20+

Some social media posts have stretched the original 11 missing scientists list to 15, 20, or more names. This inflation happens two main ways: first, by adding people with only a loose or unverified connection to classified research (contractors, family members of researchers, or people who simply worked near a national lab); second, by double-counting cases that have already moved from “missing” to “resolved” without updating the list.

Richard Hanania’s review for UnHerd specifically flagged this pattern, noting that some names on expanded lists include a self-described researcher with no published academic work and a person whose only tie to the group is a distant Pentagon contract. When outlets like CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe conducted their own reviews, they consistently arrived back at the same core group of ten or eleven verifiable cases, which is the list used in the timeline table above.

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Why It Matters

Whatever the review ultimately concludes, public attention has already pushed federal agencies to publicly account for how they track the deaths or disappearances of employees connected to sensitive research, something that previously happened case by case with little visibility. Families connected to the scientists missing or dead cases have also gained a platform to push back on speculation about their loved ones, which matters regardless of where the investigation lands.

Future Research and Open Questions on the Scientists Missing or Dead Cases

Several questions about the scientists missing or dead list remain unanswered, and they’re likely to shape how the story develops through the rest of 2026.

• What, if anything, connects McCasland’s disappearance to his prior work on classified programs, if anything at all
• Whether the DOD will issue a public statement addressing security-clearance-related cases specifically
• Whether Reza, Casias, Chavez, or Garcia’s cases will see any new developments
• Whether the House Oversight Committee will release findings publicly or only through closed briefings

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Key Takeaways: The Scientists Missing or Dead Cases

• At least ten or eleven scientists, researchers, and lab-affiliated employees have died or gone missing since 2022 under circumstances that drew public attention, and the exact scientists missing or dead count depends on which borderline cases are included.
• The confirmed 11 missing scientists list is smaller than most viral versions suggest.
• Three of the most prominent cases, Nuno Loureiro, Carl Grillmair, and Jason Thomas, have already been resolved with separate, unrelated explanations.
• The FBI, White House, and House Oversight Committee have all confirmed an active federal review, though no evidence of a coordinated cause has been made public, and not every lawmaker involved believes the cases are connected.
• Several disappearances, including William “Neil” McCasland’s, remain open with no confirmed foul play.
• Independent fact-checkers and researchers who study conspiracy theories argue the connections behind the scientists missing or dead list are largely circumstantial, and viral versions of it are often inflated well beyond what verified reporting supports

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Frequently Asked Questions

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More on the dead missing scientists story and related mysteries:

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• DARPA Light Beam: The Technology Behind Long-Distance Energy Transmission
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• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: What Investigators Still Can’t Explain
• The Buga Sphere Mystery: The Strange Object That Left Scientists Baffled

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Source Articles (Top References)

Source Articles (Top References) for the Scientists Missing or Dead Timeline

• Wikipedia: Missing scientists conspiracy theory
• CNN: Deaths and disappearances of scientists spark federal probe
• Newsweek: FBI Investigating Dead or Missing Scientists: What We Know So Far
• Snopes: Did 11 US scientists connected to sensitive research die or go missing? What we know
• Poynter/PolitiFact: What we know about the dead or missing scientists fueling conspiracy theories
• UnHerd: Richard Hanania, Behind the “missing scientists” hysteria
• NewsNation: Missing scientists update: William McCasland was “foggy” from meds before disappearing

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Conclusion: Where the Scientists Missing or Dead Investigation Stands Now

The scientists missing or dead story sits in an unusual place for a viral theory. It hasn’t been debunked outright, and it hasn’t been confirmed either. What’s changed since the story first broke is the tone of the response. Federal agencies aren’t dismissing the pattern, they’re actively reviewing it, and that alone has kept public interest high.

At the same time, the evidence gathered so far points away from a single coordinated explanation. Three of the highest-profile cases have already been resolved with separate, unrelated causes, and researchers who study conspiracy thinking say the remaining connections are largely circumstantial. That doesn’t make the open cases any less real for the families involved. Anthony Chavez, Melissa Casias, Monica Reza, Steven Garcia, and William “Neil” McCasland are still missing, and their disappearances remain genuinely unexplained.

For now, the most accurate way to describe the scientists missing or dead list is as a set of individually documented cases under formal review, not a confirmed conspiracy. That distinction matters, and it’s likely to stay the defining fact of this story until the FBI or House Oversight Committee releases findings that say otherwise.

It’s also not the only case where the gap between official explanation and public suspicion has kept a story alive. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has spent over a decade in the same unresolved territory, and more recently, the Buga sphere left scientists publicly divided in a way that echoes how experts are split on this story. For a case with a more deliberate, alleged cover-up at its center, Project D.O.L.L. explores what happens when secrecy itself becomes the story.

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About the Author

Mubashir Razzaq is a writer and researcher for Strange Happenings, focused on tracking and fact-checking unexplained events, viral theories, and strange stories as they unfold in real time. This article was compiled and verified against federal statements, named outlets (CNN, Newsweek, Snopes, Poynter, CBS News), and Wikipedia’s sourced timeline, and is reviewed for accuracy as new developments emerge.

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