# FBI reviews deaths of scientists at top US labs - Category: **Politics** - Publisher: **Psyll Magazine** - [https://psyll.com](https://psyll.com) - Author: **Sarah Jenkins** - [https://psyll.com/sarah](https://psyll.com/sarah) - Original article: [https://psyll.com/articles/politics/fbi-reviews-deaths-of-scientists-at-top-us-labs](https://psyll.com/articles/politics/fbi-reviews-deaths-of-scientists-at-top-us-labs) --- ![Main image](https://psyll.com/assets/image/fbi-reviews-deaths-of-scientists-at-top-us-labs.png) **The White House and FBI conduct a review of missing JPL and Los Alamos scientists. Authorities investigate potential links in high-security cases.** --- On **April 17-19, 2026**, the White House confirmed that the Trump administration is working with the FBI and other federal agencies to conduct a **holistic review** of roughly 10 to 11 cases involving scientists, researchers, and personnel tied to high-security federal facilities. The list spans NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Kansas City National Security Campus. The individuals under review have died or been reported missing at various points since 2022, with several cases clustering in 2025 and early 2026. The review's stated aim is narrow: identify whether any commonalities exist across the cases and determine if further investigation is warranted. It is not, as of this writing, a single criminal investigation into one coordinated event. It is a records-and-pattern review, coordinated with the Department of Energy, NASA, and the Department of Defense, of individuals whose work touched aerospace, nuclear research, materials science, plasma physics, and advanced propulsion. That distinction matters, and it's one that's gotten lost as the story moved from cable news segments to a formal congressional inquiry in the span of about three weeks. ## Background on the facilities and personnel **Los Alamos National Laboratory**, managed under the Department of Energy, traces its origins to the Manhattan Project of the 1940s and remains central to the country's nuclear weapons and energy research. **NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory**, run by the California Institute of Technology on NASA's behalf, oversees robotic deep-space missions and advanced aerospace engineering. **Caltech's IPAC** partners with NASA on infrared astronomy, including asteroid-tracking missions like NEOWISE and its successor, NEO Surveyor. Some of the reviewed cases involve current or former employees and contractors at these sites. Others involve people connected to adjacent defense and space programs, including retired military personnel who once held significant security clearances. Not everyone on the list was an active research scientist - some were retirees, administrative staff, or contractors who nonetheless had clearance access. The incidents span roughly four years, not the tight cluster of months that circulated in early viral posts. They include confirmed homicides with suspects already charged, open missing-person cases with no evidence of foul play, and deaths where a cause was never made public. Treating all of these as a single category obscures more than it reveals - a point several fact-checking organizations and outside researchers have made directly, as covered further below. ## Key cases under review The following cases have been publicly identified by law enforcement, the House Oversight Committee, and national media reporting. Their status varies considerably, and several have moved from "unexplained" to "resolved" since the story first broke. **NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) personnel** - **Michael David Hicks**, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL for nearly 25 years, died on *July 30, 2023*, at age 59. No cause of death has been publicly disclosed. His daughter has since told reporters her father had known medical issues and that she sees "no train of logic" connecting his death to the broader theory. - **Frank Maiwald**, a JPL space research specialist who worked on major NASA instrument programs including AMR/SWOT and HIFI, died in Los Angeles on *July 4, 2024*, at age 61. His obituary noted he had led a 2023 breakthrough in detecting potential signs of life on moons like Europa and Enceladus. No autopsy was performed and no cause of death was disclosed. - **Monica Jacinto Reza**, 60, director of JPL's Materials Processing Group and co-inventor of a nickel super-alloy used in rocket engine manufacturing, disappeared on *June 22, 2025*, while hiking near Mount Waterman in the Angeles National Forest. Her hiking companion told investigators they were roughly 30 feet apart when Reza smiled and waved to signal she was fine - then vanished moments later. Extensive search and rescue efforts have not located her. Reza previously worked at Aerojet Rocketdyne, a contractor for both NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory, and investigators have noted her professional history overlapped with retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland's. **Caltech / IPAC** - **Carl Grillmair**, 67, a Canadian-born astrophysicist who worked on NASA's NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor asteroid-tracking missions at IPAC, was fatally shot on the front porch of his home in the unincorporated community of Llano, California, on *February 16, 2026*. A 29-year-old neighbor, **Freddy Snyder**, was arrested and charged with murder and carjacking days later; he had a prior trespassing arrest at the property in December 2025. Investigators have found no evidence connecting the killing to Grillmair's research or to the other cases, though the FBI has kept it in its broader review. **Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel** - **Anthony "Tony" Chavez**, 78, a retired LANL construction foreman, vanished on *May 8, 2025*, while walking near his New Mexico home. He had already been retired for nearly a decade at the time of his disappearance. No evidence of foul play has surfaced, and local search efforts have found nothing. - **Melissa Casias**, 53, an administrative employee at LANL with high-security clearance, was last seen on camera on *June 26, 2025*, walking alone on a highway in Taos County after telling family she would be working from home that day. Reporting indicates she had driven herself and her husband, also a LANL employee, to work that morning and was later seen dropping off lunch for her daughter. Her phone, wallet, and keys were left at home, and the device found had been factory-reset. The case remains an open missing-person investigation; New Mexico authorities have said no foul play is currently suspected. **Retired military and other cases** - **Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland**, 68, disappeared on foot from his Albuquerque home on the morning of *February 27, 2026*. He commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from 2011 to 2013, leading advanced programs including the Space Based Laser Project and GPS chief engineering work. He left behind his phone, prescription glasses, and wearable devices; missing were his wallet, a .38-caliber revolver, holster, and backpack. A Silver Alert was issued and remains active. According to body-camera footage later obtained by Law&Crime and reported by NewsNation, an acquaintance who had dinner with McCasland and members of the U.S. Space Force the night before he disappeared described him as unusually "spacey and quiet." His wife has separately told authorities he had lost roughly 20 pounds without explanation, had been struggling with anxiety, and had taken a newly prescribed sleep medication the night before that left him feeling "foggy" the next morning - and that she believes he "had planned not to be found." She has also publicly said she considers it *"quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets"* from him, given he retired from active duty more than a decade earlier. Authorities have recovered clothing and boots believed to be his, but he has not been found. - **Steven Garcia**, 48, a government contractor and custodian at the Kansas City National Security Campus - which manufactures nonnuclear components for nuclear weapons - was last seen leaving his Albuquerque home on *August 28, 2025*. - **Jason Thomas**, a Novartis pharmaceutical researcher who went missing in December 2025, was found dead; his remains were recovered from a Massachusetts lake on *March 17, 2026*. Investigators found no evidence of foul play. - **Nuno Loureiro**, 47, director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a leading theoretical physicist in fusion energy research, was fatally shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, on *December 15, 2025*. Investigators identified the shooter as Claudio Neves Valente, a former university classmate who had also carried out a mass shooting at Brown University two days earlier, killing two students. Valente was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. MIT has confirmed Loureiro was not engaged in classified research, and investigators found no link between his death and any national-security matter. Two additional names surface regularly in circulating lists but sit further from the core group. **Amy Eskridge**, co-founder of the Institute for Exotic Science, died by suicide in June 2022; her father has publicly said her death was not suspicious and has asked people to remember that scientists, like anyone else, sometimes die of ordinary causes. **David Wilcock**, a New Age author sometimes linked to the theory, died by suicide on April 20, 2026, in the presence of law enforcement, following what reporting describes as a long struggle with depression and financial difficulty. His death has not been officially connected to the other cases. ## Congressional and federal response On **April 20, 2026**, House Oversight Committee chairs **James Comer** and **Eric Burlison** sent formal letters demanding briefings from the FBI, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and NASA. The committee stated that public reporting *"raise questions about a possible sinister connection"* between the cases. Comer, who has said he initially thought the theory sounded like "some kind of crazy conspiracy theory," later said he now believes it merits a national security review. Not every member of the committee agrees. Rep. **James Walkinshaw**, a Democrat on Oversight, told CNN he supports the review but isn't convinced of a coordinated motive. *"The United States has thousands of nuclear scientists and nuclear experts,"* he said, arguing it would be an implausible strategy for a foreign adversary to meaningfully damage the nuclear program by targeting a handful of individuals. **FBI Director Kash Patel** confirmed the bureau's role directly: *"The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and with our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers."* He added that *"if there's any connections that lead to nefarious conduct or conspiracy, this FBI will make the appropriate arrest."* NASA confirmed in a statement that the agency is *"coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists,"* and separately posted that nothing related to NASA currently indicates a national security threat. ## What has actually been resolved This is the part of the story that gets flattened in viral retellings, and it's worth stating plainly: three of the highest-profile cases on the list have already been closed with explanations that have nothing to do with each other, let alone a coordinated plot. - Nuno Loureiro's killing was solved within days - a former classmate with a documented history of violence, already linked to a separate mass shooting. - Carl Grillmair's killing led to an arrest within days, involving a neighbor with a prior trespassing history at the property. - Jason Thomas was found, and his death was ruled free of foul play. That leaves a genuinely open list of four or five cases - McCasland, Reza, Casias, Chavez, and Garcia - where no explanation has surfaced yet. Their families and colleagues have consistently emphasized that "unexplained" is not the same as "connected," and pushing those two ideas together is where much of the public conversation goes wrong. ## Security and investigative focus Federal authorities say they are examining whether the cases are isolated or share common factors, while emphasizing conventional explanations first: espionage, security lapses, personal or medical circumstances, or unrelated coincidence. No specific suspects or foreign entities have been publicly named in connection with any alleged coordinated pattern. Public speculation online has leaned heavily toward **unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)** research, fueled in large part by McCasland's past connections to the UAP community. His name appeared in 2016 WikiLeaks emails involving former Blink-182 musician **Tom DeLonge** and then-presidential campaign chair **John Podesta** discussing UAPs, and he once commanded Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a site long associated with Roswell-era UFO lore - though officials have said his clearance carried no active access to current programs by the time he disappeared. The FBI is working with the Department of Energy to assess whether any technical data or intellectual property may have been compromised in connection with any of the cases. The review remains, in the FBI's own description, a broader examination of possible patterns across jurisdictions and years - not a formal criminal investigation into a single coordinated event. ## What researchers who study conspiracy theories are saying Several academics who specialize in conspiracy belief have weighed in publicly, and their assessments are worth including precisely because they cut against the viral framing rather than confirming it. Medical sociologist **Robert Bartholomew**, who studies social hysteria, has said belief in the theory illustrates *apophenia* - the human tendency to perceive meaningful connections in random or unrelated events. Political scientist **Richard Hanania**, reviewing the list for UnHerd, noted the individuals involved "toiled in widely divergent fields, held different positions, had no obvious connections to one another, and lived in different parts of the country." University of Maryland professor **Jen Golbeck**, who studies conspiracy theories, told NBC that once a theory reaches mainstream repetition, people tend to accept it as established fact without examining its origins. University of Miami political scientist **Joseph Uscinski**, who has spent his career researching conspiracy theories, framed what actually sets this case apart: most conspiracy theories fade without official engagement, but this one has drawn active federal investigators. As he put it, what's unusual isn't the theory - it's that "you have government agents, with guns, investigating this." Independent reporting from CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe has separately found no obvious links between the cases. Fact-checking organizations including Snopes and PolitiFact have reviewed the viral claims and found the coordinated-conspiracy framing unsupported by public evidence - while stopping short of declaring every open case fully explained. ## Political and public implications President Trump described the situation as *"pretty serious stuff"* in mid-April and said he hoped the cases would prove coincidental, predicting more clarity within roughly a week and a half - a timeline that, as of this writing, has not produced public findings. White House Press Secretary **Karoline Leavitt** said *"no stone will be unturned"* and confirmed the administration 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."* Federal officials have repeatedly cautioned against unfounded speculation, framing the primary objectives as understanding each individual case and locating the people still missing. Relatives of several affected individuals have pushed back directly against the conspiracy framing - a reminder that behind every entry on a viral list is a family still waiting for answers, or grieving a loss that had nothing to do with national security at all. Readers following the broader thread of how federal agencies engage with public and congressional pressure may also be interested in how legislative oversight functions when it collides with executive branch investigations - a dynamic explored in this outlet's coverage of [why Congress is blocking the Fort Knox gold audit](https://psyll.com/articles/politics/policy-law/why-congress-is-blocking-the-fort-knox-gold-audit), another case where congressional demands for transparency have run up against agency timelines and competing political incentives. ## Where the review stands now As of late July 2026, the review remains open, and no conclusive findings have been released publicly. Updates have mostly surfaced through local law enforcement disclosures and press reporting rather than a formal federal report. The House Oversight Committee has not indicated whether its findings, once complete, will be released publicly or only through closed briefings. What can be said with confidence: the confirmed list holds at roughly ten to eleven names with a documented tie to a national lab, NASA, or defense research - smaller than the 15-to-20-name lists that have circulated on social media, which typically inflate the count by including people with unverified connections or by double-counting cases that have already been resolved. Three of the highest-profile cases are closed. Four or five remain genuinely open. And no public evidence, as of this writing, ties any of them together. ## Key takeaways: * The Trump administration directed a multi-agency **"holistic review"** - led by the FBI - of roughly **10 to 11 deaths and disappearances** of individuals with ties to U.S. government scientific and defense programs. * Cases involve personnel or former personnel linked to **NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)**, **Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)**, **Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)**, the **Air Force Research Laboratory**, and the **Kansas City National Security Campus**. * The incidents span roughly **four years (2022 to early 2026)**, not a tight recent cluster as early viral posts suggested. * **Three of the most prominent cases have already been resolved** with separate, unrelated explanations: *Nuno Loureiro* (MIT physicist, killed by a former classmate also tied to a Brown University shooting), *Carl Grillmair* (Caltech astrophysicist, suspect arrested days later), and *Jason Thomas* (Novartis researcher, remains recovered, no foul play found). * **Four to five cases remain genuinely open** with no confirmed foul play: *William Neil McCasland*, *Monica Reza*, *Melissa Casias*, *Anthony Chavez*, and *Steven Garcia*. * The **House Oversight Committee** (Reps. Comer and Burlison) formally demanded briefings from the FBI, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and NASA on *April 20, 2026*. * **FBI Director Kash Patel** confirmed the bureau is "spearheading the effort" in coordination with the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and state and local law enforcement. * **No evidence of a single coordinated plot** has been publicly established. Fact-checking organizations, independent researchers, and several family members have pushed back on conspiracy framing. * Speculation online has centered on **UAP/UFO research**, largely due to *McCasland's* past connections to the UAP community, including his name appearing in 2016 WikiLeaks emails discussing UFOs. Officials have not confirmed any such link, and have noted his clearance carried no active access to current programs. * Academics who study conspiracy belief - including sociologist *Robert Bartholomew* and political scientists *Richard Hanania* and *Joseph Uscinski* - describe the pattern as likely *apophenia*, the tendency to see connections in unrelated events. * Viral social media lists have inflated the count to **15-20+ names** by including unverified connections or double-counting resolved cases; major outlets independently reviewing the claims consistently return to the same core group of 10-11 verified cases. * As of **late July 2026**, the review remains ongoing, with no conclusive findings publicly released and no confirmed release date for any final report. ## Sources: * CNN - Deaths and disappearances of scientists spark federal probe - [https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-scientists-investigation](https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-scientists-investigation) * CBS News - FBI investigating deaths and disappearances of staff at secretive government laboratories - [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deaths-disappearances-scientists-staff-government-labs/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deaths-disappearances-scientists-staff-government-labs/) * Snopes - Did 11 US scientists connected to sensitive research die or go missing? What we know - [https://www.snopes.com/news/2026/04/28/scientists-dead-missing/](https://www.snopes.com/news/2026/04/28/scientists-dead-missing/) * Poynter/PolitiFact - What we know about the dead or missing scientists fueling conspiracy theories - [https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2026/missing-dead-scientists-ufo-nuclear-conspiracy-fact-check/](https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2026/missing-dead-scientists-ufo-nuclear-conspiracy-fact-check/) * Wikipedia - Missing scientists conspiracy theory - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_scientists_conspiracy_theory) ## Author - **Author**: Sarah Jenkins - **Job title**: Senior Local News Strategist - **Author profile**: [https://psyll.com/sarah](https://psyll.com/sarah) - **About author**: Sarah Jenkins is an investigative political reporter with a relentless focus on the mechanics of American governance - municipal budgets, local taxation policy, voting systems, and the fine print of legislation that directly affects everyday life. She operates on the conviction that city hall decisions and state-level policy changes matter far more to most people than national political spectacle, and she covers them with forensic precision that holds local power accountable. Her work bridges the gap between dense policy documents and the people those policies are actually written about. ## **License** This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You are free to copy, redistribute, and share this article in any medium or format, provided that: - Attribution is given to the original author. - A visible link to the original article is included: https://psyll.com/articles/politics/fbi-reviews-deaths-of-scientists-at-top-us-labs - Any modifications are clearly indicated. License: [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)