{"id":207962,"date":"2026-04-17T09:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/hope-its-random-trump-reacts-to-missing-scientist-conspiracies-the-times\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T09:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:52:24","slug":"hope-its-random-trump-reacts-to-missing-scientist-conspiracies-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/hope-its-random-trump-reacts-to-missing-scientist-conspiracies-the-times\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hope it\u2019s random\u2019: Trump reacts to \u2018missing scientist\u2019 conspiracies – The Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump said he would have an \u201canswer\u201d in the coming days to the question of what happened to the growing list of scientists who have either died or disappeared in the past three years.
There is no evidence to suggest that their deaths and disappearances are linked, but conspiracy theories have circulated online to suggest this may be the case.
Asked if he believed the scientists\u2019 fates were connected or random, Trump told reporters on Thursday: \u201cWell I hope it\u2019s random, but we\u2019re going to know in the next week and a half.\u201d
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\u201cI just left a meeting on that subject,\u201d he said outside the White House before departing for Las Vegas. \u201cPretty serious stuff \u2026 hopefully coincidence, or whatever you want to call it. Some of them were very important people, and we\u2019re going to look at it over the next short period.\u201d
The president added: \u201cWe\u2019ll probably have a pretty good answer over the next week.\u201d
After a reporter asked whether a \u201cforeign adversary\u201d in the US could have played a role, Trump pointed to his predecessor\u2019s immigration policy. \u201cWell, Biden had open borders. It wasn\u2019t very hard to get here,\u201d he replied.
During a White House briefing on Wednesday, a Fox News reporter asked Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, about ten scientists who had disappeared or died since mid-2024 and \u201creportedly had access to classified nuclear or aerospace material\u201d.
Leavitt said that the Trump administration planned to look into the reports. \u201cI haven\u2019t spoken to our relevant agencies about it. I will certainly do that, and we\u2019ll get you an answer. If true, of course, that\u2019s definitely something I think this government administration would deem work worth looking into,\u201d she said.
Steven Garcia, a 48-year-old government contractor, vanished last August in New Mexico, according to reports this week. Garcia was last seen leaving his Albuquerque home on foot and carrying a handgun, according to The Daily Mail. A source told the outlet that Garcia worked for the Kansas City National Security Campus, a federal site that produces non-nuclear material components for national defence systems, according to the US Department of Energy.
The Times has asked the security campus for confirmation of his employment.
In February, William Neil McCasland, a retired Air Force general, vanished. He was also last seen near his home in Albuquerque.
McCasland, 68, left his phone and glasses at home. His hiking boots, wallet and a .38 calibre revolver were not recovered, Bernalillo County sheriff\u2019s office said last month, adding: \u201cWhile there is currently no evidence indicating foul play, investigators are examining all available information as the case remains active.\u201d The office noted it had not received any confirmed sighting or videos showing McCasland leaving the area.
According to the Air Force, McCasland was responsible for managing the military branch\u2019s $2.2 billion science and technology programme.
Eric Burlison, a Republican congressman representing Missouri, posted on social media last month: \u201cThe disappearance of multiple scientists and military personnel with ties to advanced research is deeply concerning. I\u2019ve already requested FBI<\/a> involvement, and we will keep pressing for answers.\u201d
Online amateur sleuths have linked the disappearances to the 2023 death of Michael David Hicks, a 59-year-old Nasa researcher. He served on the science teams of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test Project and the Nasa Deep Space 1 Mission, among others, according to the American Astronomical Society. His cause of death was listed as \u201carteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease\u201d and it was listed as \u201cnatural\u201d. The case status is still open, according to Los Angeles county medical examiner records.
Also in Los Angeles, Monica Reza, 60, went missing last June while hiking in the Angeles National Forest. She had worked at Aerojet Rocketdyne, a defence and space manufacturer, for decades, according to her LinkedIn<\/a> profile.
Other scientists who have disappeared include Jason Thomas, a Novartis biologist last seen in December, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory employees Anthony Chavez, 78, and Melissa Caslas, 45.
There is also speculation about the deaths of Frank Maiwald, a 61-year-old Nasa scientist, Nuno Loureiro<\/a>, a 47-year-old Portuguese professor of nuclear science at MIT, and Carl Grillmair, a 67-year-old Canadian astrophysicist.
In February Freddy Snyder, 29, was charged with Grillmair\u2019s murder in California. It was not clear if Snyder and Grillmair had any connection.
Cl\u00e1udio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old who died by suicide after he allegedly killed two Brown University students last December, is believed to have also killed Loureiro.
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source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump said he would have an \u201canswer\u201d in the coming days to the question of what happened to the growing list of scientists who have either died or disappeared in the past three years.There is no evidence to suggest that their deaths and disappearances are linked, but conspiracy theories have circulated online to suggest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}