By spring 2026, a list was circulating online of 11 people tied to sensitive U.S. research who had died or disappeared since 2022. It included Amy Eskridge, an anti-gravity researcher who died in 2022; two Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists, Michael David Hicks and Frank Maiwald, who died in 2023 and 2024 of causes never made public; four people who vanished in 2025 (Los Alamos employees Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias, JPL engineer Monica Reza and Kansas City nuclear contractor Steven Garcia); MIT fusion scientist Nuno Loureiro, shot dead in December; Caltech’s Carl Grillmair, shot in February; Novartis researcher Jason Thomas; and retired Maj. Gen. Neil McCasland, missing since February 27.

In April, after Rep. Jared Moskowitz demanded hearings and Rep. Eric Burlison said the cases were almost certainly tied to classified access, Washington moved. A White House official said the FBI, Pentagon and Energy Department were examining them. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted that no stone would be unturned. President Trump called it pretty serious stuff but said he hoped it was random. House Oversight Chairman James Comer, who said he’d first thought it was a crazy conspiracy theory, asked agencies for a briefing by April 27.

Skeptics point out how different the cases are. Grillmair’s accused killer appears to be a local man with no link to his work. Loureiro’s killer also attacked Brown University. Thomas’s death was not considered suspicious. No investigator has found evidence connecting any of them.