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Stranger than Fiction: The Red String and the Missing Scientists | Beyond the Times
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Thursday, June 11, 2026
Science
Stranger than Fiction: The Red String and the Missing Scientists
Is there a throughline that connects the deaths and disappearances of these scientists? Investigators are still asking the same question.
QG
This article was researched and source-verified with AI assistance.
The real plight of high-clearance scientists strangely mirrors that of the astrophysicists in the sci-fi novel-turned-streaming series, The Three-Body Problem: since 2022 at least 11 American scientists and former officials with ties to nuclear, aerospace and advanced energy research programs have died or disappeared under questionable and mysterious circumstances.
The FBI is currently leading a multi-agency review of the cases [9] and the House Oversight Committee has opened its own parallel inquiry into the matter. [12] While no authority has so far confirmed a link between the cases, red strings of speculation cannot help but be pulled taut: four of the 11 had ties to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) or Caltech's partnering Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), two worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), four of the five missing persons disappeared from New Mexico, and several worked in overlapping fields.
This is what is verifiable, what is speculative, and what still remains unknown:
The Dead
Amy Eskridge, a 34-year-old researcher who was reportedly working on anti-gravity technology, [38] died in June 2022 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Huntsville, Alabama. Prior to her death, she had told Franc Milburn, a former British intelligence officer, that she feared for her life and believed she was being targeted by a directed energy weapon which was affecting her hands. She also sent texts warning him not to accept any reports of her taking her own or someone else's life. Her father, a former NASA employee, told NewsNation he did not believe her death was suspicious.
Michael David Hicks, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who specialized in the physical properties of comets and asteroids, [3] died on July 30, 2023, at age 59. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Hicks had worked at JPL from 1998 to 2022 [3][10] and served on the science teams for the DART Project, the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) Project, the Dawn Mission, and Deep Space 1 — projects pertaining to planetary defense against near-Earth objects such as asteroids.
One year later, on July 4, 2024, Frank Maiwald, 61, a JPL principal researcher, died in Los Angeles. [18] He had managed the development of the Surface Biology and Geology VSWIR instrument and worked on programs aimed at identifying signs of life on Europa and Enceladus, moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively. His cause of death has never been publicly disclosed.
Recently, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) added to the list Joshua LeBlanc, 29, a NASA electrical engineer in Huntsville, Alabama, who worked on nuclear propulsion projects at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center. [37]
LeBlanc was reported missing in July 2025 after his family expressed concern that he had been abducted; later that day, his Tesla was discovered burned out following a crash in a rural area near Huntsville, and his remains were identified days later by state forensic officials. [37]
LeBlanc's death has drawn additional attention given that antigravity researcher Amy Eskridge also died in the same city of Huntsville in 2022. However, his inclusion on the list is driven by congressional attention rather than any confirmed link to the FBI's formal review of the other cases. [37]
The pace of deaths accelerated toward the end of 2025:
Nuno Loureiro, 47, the director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, [8][26] was shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, on December 15, 2025, and pronounced dead the following morning.
His research in magnetic reconnection aimed at advancing understanding of nuclear fusion as a potential source of clean energy. [26]
Authorities identified the shooter as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a former classmate of Loureiro's from Portugal, who two days earlier had killed two people and wounded nine more in a mass shooting at Brown University. [11] Valente was found dead in New Hampshire of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on December 18.
On February 16, 2026, Carl Grillmair, 67, a Caltech astrophysicist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), was shot dead on the front porch of his home in Llano, in Antelope Valley outside Los Angeles. [4][19] Grillmair had worked on NASA's NEOWISE space telescope and NEO Surveyor missions, which search for asteroids and comets that could pose potential threats to Earth, and was renowned for his work on the search for water on planets outside our solar system.
A 29-year-old local resident, Freddy Snyder, has been arrested in connection with the killing. [4] Investigators say the two men were not known to each other, though Snyder had previously been arrested in December 2025 after being found on Grillmair's property carrying a loaded, unregistered rifle — [5] charges later dropped in early February, weeks before the killing.
Snyder's arraignment was delayed three times before he finally pleaded not guilty on May 26, [5][19] with a preliminary hearing scheduled for June 5. If convicted on all charges, Snyder faces a potential life sentence in prison.
Jason Thomas, 45, a scientist at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, who was researching cancer treatments, disappeared from his home in Wakefield, Massachusetts, in December 2025. Three months later, his body was recovered from Lake Quannapowitt on March 17, 2026. [43] Investigators noted that no foul play was suspected.
The Missing
Of the five who went missing, four disappeared from New Mexico.
Anthony Chavez, 78, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee, disappeared in May 2025 after leaving his home in New Mexico on foot, leaving behind his wallet, keys and cigarettes with his car parked in the driveway. [27] Chavez spent most of his career at the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility, a key site for U.S. nuclear weapons research. [23]
Monica Jacinto Reza, 60, the director of the Materials Processing Group at NASA's JPL [23] and co-inventor of Mondaloy, a nickel-based superalloy used in rocket engines, [20] disappeared on June 22, 2025, while hiking in the Mt. Waterman area of the Angeles National Forest. [15] Her hiking companion told investigators she had waved and indicated she was fine just moments before she vanished, reportedly 30 feet behind him on the trail. An extensive search involving helicopters, drones and canine units lasted until June 30, to no avail.
"Because Mondaloy is a family of alloys, I worked with the [U.S.] Air Force to...get the material ready for insertion into a rocket engine," Reza told SpaceNews in a 2017 profile.
Four days later, on June 26, 2025, Melissa Casias, 53, an administrative employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was last seen walking alone along State Road 518 in New Mexico. [15][18] Her phones were found left behind and had been factory reset. [11] Her family has disputed suggestions that she left of her own accord.
Steven Garcia, 48, a property custodian with high-level security clearance at the Kansas City National Security Campus — a facility that manufactures more than 80 percent of the non-nuclear components for U.S. nuclear weapons — [15] left his Albuquerque home on foot on August 28, 2025, reportedly carrying a handgun, and has not been seen since.
Retired U.S. Air Force Major General William "Neil" McCasland, 68, disappeared from his home in Albuquerque on February 27, 2026, [27] leaving behind his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices [21] and reportedly taking a .38-caliber revolver. [15] A gray U.S. Air Force sweatshirt was later found approximately 1.25 miles east of his residence.
McCasland had oversight of research conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Anthony Chavez had worked, as well as the Air Force group that funded research into advanced materials needed for reusable space vehicles and weapons — work that included Monica Jacinto Reza's development of Mondaloy. [2]
In addition, the retired Major General had also previously commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, [11] a facility long the subject of UFO-related speculation tied to the alleged 1947 Roswell crash. Rep. Eric Burlison of the House Oversight Committee has said he contacted McCasland twice about research into UFOs before the general's disappearance. [21]
Connections...or Not
There are a number of institutional connections among the documented cases. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory appears four times across the list: Michael David Hicks and Frank Maiwald both worked there, Monica Jacinto Reza served as its director of materials processing at the time of her disappearance, [23] and Carl Grillmair's Caltech IPAC partners with NASA on work supported by JPL. Los Alamos National Laboratory appears twice, in the cases of Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias. Investigators have also noted that retired Major General McCasland, while commanding the Air Force Research Laboratory, supervised and approved funding for Reza's work on rocket propulsion materials — [20] a direct professional connection between two of the missing individuals.
Beyond these institutional overlaps, no authority has yet established any link between the cases. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has nonetheless called the growing list a national security threat. [9]
Parallels or Parallax View: China
On the other side of the world, at least nine Chinese scientists working in sensitive military, hypersonics — research and development of weapons and aircraft operating at speeds equal to or greater than Mach 5, or five times the local speed of sound — [1] nuclear and space defense research have also died unexpectedly since roughly 2018, the most recent being the death of Yan Hong, a hypersonics researcher, in March 2026.
Nine Dead
Chen Shuming, 57, died in a car accident in 2018. A military scientist and microelectronics expert at China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), he led a high-end weapon chip research and development team.
Feng Yanghe, 38, died in a car crash in Beijing in the early hours of July 1, 2023. [28] A professor at NUDT, he had designed "War Skull" — described as China's first AI system for military command and control — and had been working on military AI simulations related to potential Taiwan scenarios.
Zhou Guangyuan, 51, died in December 2023 from a cause that was not publicly stated. Zhou was a celebrated chemist specializing in advanced materials and polymers whose research has potential dual-use applications in military aerospace.
Liu Donghao, 51, died from an unspecified accident in 2024. He was a prominent data scientist and founder of a big data protection and security research organization in Guizhou province.
Zhang Xiaoxin, 62, died in a car crash in Beijing in December 2024. He was a leading space physicist who specialized in weather monitoring and early warning systems and held international posts at the World Meteorological Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Zhang Daibing, 47, died on January 3, 2025, in Changsha. [13] His official obituary gave no cause of death. [34] Zhang served as deputy director of the Unmanned Systems Research Institute at NUDT before founding Yunzhihang Technology in Changsha, where his work in high-payload drone systems helped advance emergency response technology, notably for high-rise firefighting and building maintenance.
Li Minyong, 49, died suddenly in Guangzhou on November 16, 2025 — [41] about a month before Nuno Loureiro was shot and killed. Li was an internationally renowned medicinal chemist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry whose research focused on light-controlled drug discovery and bioactive visualization of target proteins in major diseases.
Fang Daining, 68, chief scientist at the Beijing Institute of Technology's Institute of Advanced Structure Technology, died from an undisclosed illness on February 27, 2026 — [6][30] the same date that retired Major General McCasland vanished from his home in Albuquerque, NM.
Fang was among China's foremost specialists in super-strong materials for spacecraft and hypersonic vehicles — including the DF-17 hypersonic glide missile — [42] and had developed ultra-high-temperature testing equipment to evaluate how materials behave under the conditions generated by hypersonic flight.
Neither Beijing Institute of Technology nor any affiliated institution issued a formal statement about Fang's death. [42]
Yan Hong, 56, died in Nanjing on March 24, 2026, following an illness. [6] Specializing in supersonic and hypersonic flow control, plasma-based flow control, and computational fluid dynamics, [24] Yan was a professor and doctoral supervisor at Northwestern Polytechnical University — an institution that appears on U.S. sanctions lists for its alleged ties to military research. Before returning to China in 2010, she had held research positions at Rutgers University and Wright State University in Ohio.
As with the American cases, there are institutional and scientific field overlaps: three of the nine worked at China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), and the two most recent deaths involved scientists working on hypersonic technology. But also in parallel, no Chinese authority has offered an explanation to link any of the deaths.
Astroblog.nl
To Save...or Destroy
Analysts tracking both sets of cases have noted that the scientific domains of hypersonics, advanced materials, nuclear-adjacent research and space defense are precisely the areas in which American and Chinese military strategic competition is most intense.
However, while a large swath of the scientists from both countries could be directly linked to military weapons and AI systems research, quite a few also worked on projects that could move humanity towards a more sustainable future, like MIT's Nuno Loureiro and his research in nuclear fusion as a potential future clean energy source, and Zhang Daibing's work with high-payload drone systems to help firefighters. [13] The two chemists Jason Thomas of Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Li Minyong were respectively researching cancer treatments and bioactive visualization of target proteins to combat disease. [41]
Then there is the group who was preparing to defend Earth against threats from beyond the atmosphere. Zhang Xiaoxin specialized in space weather monitoring and early warning systems — tracking solar activity that can disrupt satellites, power grids and communications infrastructure. Carl Grillmair and Michael David Hicks both studied and monitored asteroids and near-Earth objects to advance detection and defense against these potentially extinction-level threats. [4]
It is worth noting the dichotomy between a contest of military might and endeavors offering solutions that would potentially benefit all. But scientists from both sides of this duality have died or disappeared. If there is indeed a coordinated effort to eliminate scientific talent, it has so far been indiscriminate, challenging the simple categorization of these cases as casualties of geopolitical rivalry. Where indeed does the red string lead?
Historical Precedent...?
Speculation about a mutual-targeting theory — in which great powers quietly eliminate each other's scientific talent — does have some precedent. Between roughly 2007 and 2012, a series of Iranian nuclear scientists were killed in targeted attacks in Tehran involving bombs or gunfire. [35] Iranian authorities attributed those killings to Israel and the United States, accusations that the U.S. emphatically denied — and that Israel neither formally confirmed nor denied. That campaign involved scientists directly connected to Iran's nuclear program, at least five of whom were killed either by bomb or bullet.
In the cases of the American and Chinese scientists, no clear actors have emerged, nor has any clear motive. The FBI review is, in part, an attempt to determine whether the red string actually connects to anything. As more comes to light, a larger picture may yet emerge — hopefully at no further cost to scientists worldwide.
