White House Opens Probe Into Deaths and Disappearances of 10 Defense Scientists

President Trump said Thursday the White House is investigating the deaths and disappearances of 10 scientists with ties to classified US defense, nuclear, and aerospace research, calling the pattern “pretty serious stuff” after leaving a meeting on the topic — as a lawmaker called for a formal FBI probe into what investigators have not yet confirmed is anything other than coincidence.

The White House scientist investigation officially entered public view Thursday when President Trump acknowledged he had just left a meeting on the topic of 10 scientists who have died or disappeared since mid-2024, all of them tied to classified US defense, nuclear, or aerospace research.

“Pretty serious stuff,” Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One. “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt this week called it “definitely something I think this government and administration would deem worth looking into,” according to Newsweek reporting. A lawmaker has separately called for the FBI to open a formal investigation.

Five of the ten have died; five remain missing. Among the most prominent: retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, 68, who previously oversaw some of the military’s most advanced and highly classified research programs, disappeared from his Albuquerque home on February 27, 2026, leaving his phone and prescription glasses behind. Authorities have found no trace of him.

Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, who worked on the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, was shot and killed outside his California home on February 16, 2026. A 29-year-old suspect was arrested and charged with murder. MIT plasma physicist Nuno Loureiro, 47, director of the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, was shot at his Brookline, Massachusetts home in December 2025 and died from his injuries. Jason Thomas, 45, a Novartis pharmaceutical researcher, went missing in December 2025 and was found dead in a Massachusetts lake in March 2026 after investigators said no foul play was suspected.

Monica Reza, 60, a director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has been missing since June 2025 after vanishing on a well-traveled California hiking trail.

What Authorities Have Found and Have Not Found

No federal agency has publicly confirmed an active investigation linking the cases. Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker told NewsNation he believed the bureau was probably reviewing the cases, adding: “These are classified matters. We shouldn’t be hearing about them if they are investigating.”

Authorities have noted that each case is distinct: some are confirmed homicides with unrelated suspects, some are disappearances with no established cause, and some appear accidental. Avi Loeb of Harvard said he does not believe the cases are related because the individuals worked in different scientific disciplines and there is no established technical link.

The overlap in timing and profession, however, and the access these individuals had to nuclear weapons programs, advanced aerospace systems, and other sensitive areas, has fueled questions across government and intelligence circles that the White House cannot credibly ignore in public.

For the crypto sector, the pattern has a specific relevance: researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the institutions named in connection with these cases, are early adopters of NVIDIA Ising, the new quantum AI toolkit launched this week. Advances in quantum computing research — and the security of the people advancing it — directly intersect with the quantum threat timeline that determines when cryptographic systems securing Bitcoin and other blockchain infrastructure become vulnerable.