The highest levels of the federal government are paying attention to a list of people who have gone missing or died, citing concerns about their connections to scientific research, some of it potentially 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 about 10 cases.
The cases range from a retired Air Force general missing (authorities previously 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:
Reports from various outlets suggest that 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, 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 on 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 on 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.
The Republican members of Congress investigating 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 currently missing:
These people with ties to science research have died in recent years:
A review of publicly available information and information provided by law enforcement shows the circumstances surrounding the deaths and disappearances varied widely. Officials said foul play was not suspected in some of the cases. One death was linked to a mass shooter and 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 previously experienced “mental fog,” authorities said, but investigators didn’t think 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. While true that her husband once had access to highly classified information, he was retired for over 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 worked as 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 went missing in December 2025 and his body was found in a lake on March 17, officials said. He disappeared from home shortly after losing both his parents, his wife told Wicked Local, part of the USA TODAY Network. 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 previously 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 issues 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,” Julia Hicks told CNN, adding that she’s been “shaken up” by all the renewed attention on her father’s death.
(This story has been updated to add new information.)