ARE SOME DEAD AND MISSING SCIENTISTS RELATED TO UFOs?
Okay, this one is a little out of my area of expertise, but let’s see if looking at it from an experience investigator’s position helps.
I usually start an article by stating that even though I was an FBI Agent for 25 years, I have no inside information about what I’m going to write. And while I worked on some very cool things from bank robberies and fugitives, to undercover operations, to major terrorist events, (one of which I am going to testify about in a federal trial forty years later this summer - more on that when I’m allowed to talk about,) I promise I have no inside FBI knowledge about UFOs and missing scientists.
Although I have to admit, there was a point in my career when I had teenage daughters, gave speeches in schools and churches about the FBI, and the number one question at Q&A time was, “Is The X-Files real?” To which I always responded, “Of course.”
One other point. When I was waiting for the FBI’s pre-publication review unit to review my first two fiction novels about the FBI (which took a combined fifteen months,) I fooled around with three novellas about murders at Area 51 in the Nevada desert in 1955, 1963, and 1969. I could hammer them out quickly and did not need the FBI to approve them before publication. It caused me to do a little research on Area 51, UFOs, and Roswell, NM, which was fun. But they are still crime stories.
So I guess I have a passing interest. You can check out those novellas: here
Recent interest in a series of scientists with tangents to UFO programs, Black programs, and Metallurgy started in February with the disappearance of General William McCasland, who mysteriously waked away from his home in New Mexico this past February. Since then, internet sleuths, the mainstream media, and even FBI Director Patel and President Trump have taken note of thirteen other scientists and science-adjacent individuals who have either gone missing or died since 2021. The President asked Patel to look into it. Ten of them were in 2025 and 2026.
McCasland was a distinguished Air Force General with degrees up to a PhD in aeronautics and engineering. He worked in a number of systems-related billets with the Air Force utilizing his engineering expertise.
Two things stood out to the UFO crowed. One was General McCasland’s assignment, (his last in the Air Force,) to the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. Wright-Pat, as it’s known, holds a special place in the hearts of UFO-oligists because it is where an alien aircraft was said to be sent after it crashed in Roswell, NM in July of 1947. Many people think it’s still there.
You can read some of what I wrote about Roswell in the novellas I mentioned above, because I had to do a bunch of research about it at the time. Is there anything to the myths surrounding Roswell and Wright-Pat? I don’t know. A lot of people think there is.
The second data point that really got the attention of the conspiracy industrial complex was a reference in the 2016 DNC data breach involving McCasland and UFOs.
Stay with me here.
Recall that in the summer of 2016 in the throws of the presidential election season, there was a hack of the Democrat National Committee (DNC) data base where embarrassing communications about a strategy to make sure Hillary Clinton got the nomination were grabbed and released. It’s widely believe the Russians were behind the hack, but if you want to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, there’s a lot to work with.
The hack started with the AOL account of Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, whose password was reportedly, “Password.” Included in his captured emails were communications from entertainer, and long-time UFO-oligist Tom DeLonge, who would go on to found ‘To The Stars,’ a non-profit involved in UFOs and entertainment. Notwithstanding Podesta had a documented history of associations with the UFO disclosure movement.
What really caught a number of internet investigator’s attention was a leaked communication between Podesta and DeLong, in which DeLong says of General McCasland:
“I’ve been working with him for months. I just got done giving him a four hour presentation of the entire project a few weeks ago. Trust me, the advice is already been happening on how to do all this (Sic). He just has to say that out loud, but he is very, very aware as he was in charge of all the stuff. When Roswell crashed, they shipped it to the laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. General McCasland was in charge of of that exact laboratory up to a couple years ago. He not only knows what I’m try to achieve, he helped assemble my advisory team. He’s a very important man.”
Then McCasland’s wife, Susan Wilkerson added (probably inadvertently) to the cause by saying that her husband had a brief relationship with the UFO community where he was helping work on a book about the subject with DeLong. Police confirmed that McCasland left home with his wallet and a .38 caliber revolver. They also said he had an “unspecified” medical condition, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Ms. Wilkerson-McCasland also speculated his disappearance had to do with his former “work.”
There is additional speculation relating to General McCasland and UFOs due to his relationship with Michael Duggin, an Australian-American scientist at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico who spent years researching the UFO phenomena.
McCaland’s disappearance caused internet sleuths to take a look in the wayback machine and come up with the other thirteen missing aerospace-adjacent scientists where they believe there is an anomalous connection.
Here’s where I am going to put a dagger in the heart of any conspiracy theory:
As I noted these other cases go back to 2021, nearly five years. Nobody was really paying attention to the individual cases until General McCaland disappeared.
And what we can see from the individual details, is nine of the other thirteen individuals died, they did not disappear. All but one of those deaths has been ruled not suspicious. Suicide, drowning, auto accidents, Alzheimer's, and homicide, (where a suspect was convicted in a car jacking, and another was a victim of the Brown University shooting,) are among the causes of death. One cause was withheld, but a family member said they had suffered previous heath issues.
Only Frank Maliwald, 61, of Pasadena, CA who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory died in 2024 with no cause of death listed, although nobody has claimed it was suspicious.
None of the family members of these deceased individuals think their work had anything to do with their deaths.
Of the four, (other than General McCaland,) who disappeared, only one is what I would consider suspicious. That being Monica Reza, a materials engineer credited with co-inventing Mondaloy, a nickel-based alloy used in spacecraft, who disappeared while hiking in the Angeles National Forrest in June, 2025.
Of the other three who disappeared, one was a retired construction foreman who disappeared in June of 2025, one was a custodian who disappeared in August of 2025, and the other was an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory who disappeared in June of 2025. None of these professions seem related enough to UFOs or Top Secret projects to be part of a larger conspiracy. The latter, Melissa Casias was reported by family members to be under stress from financial related problems. The New Mexico State Police concurred with that as a potential cause of her disappearance.
Fourteen individuals out of approximately 1.5 to 2.5 million people with a Top Secret clearance seems like an incredibly small number that their fates could not be considered individual circumstances, and not part of a conspiracy or related to the paranormal. Especially since only three of them, McCaland, Reza, and Miliwald are remotely suspicious.
As I write this, we are told the FBI report on these events is imminent. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict they will conclude there is no nexus between any of these deaths or disappearances, and that there is no evidence they are related to any programs they worked on for the government. Even as there may be more investigation to do on the disappearances of General McCaland and Melissa Casias.
What I’m Working On:
I’m deep into the third iteration of edits of my upcoming novel, GREY GHOST - An Air America - CIA Thriller, coming in September. This is a new area of writing for me and involves 1968 Laos, Vietnam, the CIA and their super secret airline, Air America. I wrote about it an earlier article you can read: here
Pre-order your copy of GRAY GHOST: here
