Nearly a dozen scientists associated with nuclear and space defense programs involving NASA, SpaceX and Blue Origin are dead or missing in cases dating back to 2022, and they have gone largely unnoticed by authorities and the public until now.
The House Oversight Committee on Monday formally sought answers from four federal agencies over the deaths and disappearances of at least 11 U.S. scientists and researchers associated with NASA, nuclear research and classified defense programs — many of them directly linked to space defense technologies now being commercialized by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Representative Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs, sent letters to FBI Director Kash Patel, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman requesting a staff-level briefing before April 27.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances could pose a serious threat to US national security and US personnel who have access to scientific secrets,” the letters read.
Later on Monday, Comer said the string of deaths were unlikely to be coincidental. “Once you look at the facts, it would suggest that something catastrophic could have happened and it would be a national security concern,” Comer said, adding that he and Burlison were looking to see “if we can put it together and find any missing links to solve what’s going on here. Because it’s very, very unlikely that this is a coincidence. Congress is very concerned about this. Our committee is making it one of our priorities now because we see it as a national security threat.” Admit.”
The White House responded
The White House formally acknowledged the pattern on April 15, when Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt was asked directly about it in a briefing. He responded, “If that’s true, I think it’s definitely something that this government and administration should look at.”
Later that day, President Trump told reporters, “I don’t know. Hopefully, coincidence, whatever you want to call it. But some of them were very important people,” adding that he would have answers within “the next week and a half.”
“I’ve just left a meeting on that topic, very serious.”
In a post on X two days later, Leavitt confirmed that the administration is “actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to thoroughly review all cases and identify any potential parallels that exist,” adding, “No stone will be left unturned.”
On Sunday, Patel confirmed that the FBI is formally investigating. “We’re going to look for connections,” he explained. fox news“Whether there is classified access, access to classified information and or ties to foreign actors.”
“If there is a connection that leads to nefarious conduct or a conspiracy, the FBI will make the appropriate arrests.”
The bureau said Luck In a statement, “The FBI is leading the effort to find connections to the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, the Department of War, and our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers.”
When asked for comment, NASA instructed Luck His first official statement on the matter in an X post. “NASA is coordinating and cooperating with relevant agencies regarding the missing scientists. At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat. The agency is committed to transparency and will provide as much information as possible.”
SpaceX and Blue Origin, and the scientists involved
The committee’s papers focus on NASA and nuclear research relationships, but the broader context is the commercial space-defense industry that these scientists helped create. The planetary defense and nuclear research fields are particularly isolated: there are only a few hundred scientists who specialize in asteroid characterization, deflection modeling, and space-based identification.
Blue Origin unveiled its NEO Hunter planetary defense concept in March 2026, developed in partnership with California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Caltech and built on its Blue Ring spacecraft platform. Ion-beam deflection and kinetic impact capabilities propose to share core technology with missile-defense detection and intercept systems.
Both companies have received substantial federal contracts under the Trump administration. The Space Force awarded national security launch contracts worth about $6 billion to SpaceX and about $2.3 billion to Blue Origin through April 2025. SpaceX is under separate contract for the Golden Dome missile defense satellite constellation; Blue Origin has been added to a $151 billion SHIELD contract through the Missile Defense Agency and appointed its first Chairman of National Security in December 2025.
NASA Administrator Isaacman, one of the four letter recipients, has previously supported expanding privatization of missions previously managed by government agencies. Neither SpaceX nor Blue Origin responded Luck’S Request for comment.
The letters indicate a close professional relationship between two of the missing: Aerojet Rocketdyne and JPL engineer Monica Reza and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neal McCasland, both missing in 2025 and 2026, respectively. The letters read that the two worked together on “an Air Force-funded research program in the early 2000s related to advanced materials needed for reusable space vehicles and weapons,” which Comer and Burlison say has not been explained.
Deaths and disappearances
The cases date back to 2022 and include JPL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIT, Caltech, and the Kansas City National Security Campus. Reza, 60, was the director of JPL’s materials processing group and had patented a nickel super-alloy used in both space travel and weapons when she disappeared while on a hike on Angeles Crest Highway in June 2025 and was never found. He patented nickel super-alloys for rocket manufacturing, research which went into reusable rocket programs such as New Glenn and Starship. McCasland, 68, disappeared on foot from his Albuquerque home on February 27 this year carrying only a .38 caliber revolver.
JPL chief scientist Frank Maiwald, 61, died on July 4, 2024, with no cause of death released and no statement from NASA. Steven Garcia, a government contractor who supervised nuclear weapons assets at the Kansas City National Security Campus, disappeared from Albuquerque in August 2025, last seen in surveillance footage walking away with a handgun.
Michael Hicks, who worked at JPL from 1998 to 2022, died in July 2023 at the age of 59. He worked on asteroid characterization research that was used in NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission, and it was the same methodology on which Blue Origin’s NEO Hunter was modeled and SpaceX’s Falcon 9, originally launched in 2021. Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmeyer was discovered shot to death on his front porch in rural Llano, California earlier this year. The 67-year-old worked on the NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor telescopes, which are the investigative backbone used by NEO Hunter. SpaceX is contracted to carry the NEO Surveyor into orbit on a Falcon 9 in 2027.
Two Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Anthony Chavez and Melissa Cassias, disappeared a few weeks apart in nearly identical circumstances in 2025, each leaving behind their car, keys, wallet, and phone. Jason Thomas, an assistant director at Novartis with active DoD contracts, disappeared in December 2025 and was found dead in a Massachusetts lake three months later.
Spoke to a former colleague of one of the deceased newsweekThe concentration of deaths and disappearances in such a small, specific area has been described as defying simple probability. Joe Masiero, a lead scientist at the California Institute of Technology, told the publication: “It’s really unfortunate to see a tragedy happen again and again.”
Former FBI official Chris Swecker recently shared that this pattern matches how “many foreign powers” operate by “kidnapping, blackmailing, torturing, and even murdering” scientists to gain information.
<a href