“Something is up”: NASA engineers, UFO expert… Who are the eleven American scientists who mysteriously disappeared?

The affair is starting to gain momentum across the Atlantic. So much so that the White House spokesperson and then Donald Trump himself ended up being questioned in the middle of a press conference. A mysterious series of disappearances and suspicious deaths of American scientists begins to worry the authorities.

“It seems that there is a good chance that something sinister is afoot here,” lamented the chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, expressing “the concern of Congress”, which will make it one of its priorities. But what happened to these scientists? And who are they exactly?

Amy Eskridge: the first case

The investigation into his death had been closed… before reappearing in recent days. Amy Eskridge, a 34-year-old experimental propulsion researcher, was found dead in her Alabama home on June 11, 2022, killed by a gunshot wound to the head, apparently self-inflicted.

Before her death, she was trying to develop antigravity technology that could revolutionize space travel. “If you take risks in public, at least someone will notice if you get beheaded,” she had already suggested in a live on YouTube. Premonitory?

William “Neil” McCasland: the high-ranking officer

Four years after Amy Eskridge, William “Neil” McCasland is the last name on the list. Disappeared on February 27 after leaving his home in Albuquerque on foot, he never gave any sign of life again.

He is, however, in possession of thousands of confidential information. The 68-year-old former commander held the Air Force’s most sensitive positions, starting with running the research laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, famous for allegedly harboring extraterrestrial debris.

Michael David Hicks, Frank Maiwald and Monica Jacinto Reza: NASA researchers

In the space of two years, NASA’s “Jet Propulsion Laboratory” program, specializing in space exploration, lost three of its members. It was the disappearance of Monica Jacinto Reza, a 60-year-old scientist specializing in the design of rocket engines, during a hike in the forest near Los Angeles on June 22, 2025, which aroused suspicion.

A year before her, Frank Maiwald, a 61-year-old researcher, died of a cause never communicated. On July 30, 2023, Michael David Hicks, a 59-year-old physicist, met the same end. Another unexplained death.

Melissa Casias and Anthony Chavez: employees of Los Alamos

The two of them were not, strictly speaking, scientists. But Mélissa Casias, a 53-year-old administrative assistant, and Anthony Chavez, a 79-year-old retired employee, both had access to the confidential laboratory in Los Alamos (New Mexico), known for having developed the atomic bomb.

Melissa Casias was last seen on June 26, 2025, walking alone on a highway with a backpack. Anthony Chavez, for his part, left his home on foot on May 4, 2025, without ever being heard from again.

Steven Garcia, Carl Grillmair, Nuno Loureiro and Jason Thomas: the other disturbing cases

This macabre list is supplemented by more eclectic profiles. Carl Grillmair, an astrophysicist, was shot dead in front of his Los Angeles home in February, as was Nuno Loureiro, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Massachusetts who was found dead in Boston on December 15. Both, rewarded for their work on the universe and plasma, were 47 years old.

Jason Thomas, a 45-year-old pharmacy researcher, was recovered from a Massachusetts lake in March, three months after his disappearance. The family of Steven Garcia, a 48-year-old government contract contractor, hopes he did not suffer the same fate. Leaving home in August 2025, he has a high-level security clearance at the Kansas City National Security Campus, a hotspot for U.S. nuclear weapons components.