Spanish
Los Ángeles.- The FBI confirmed this Tuesday that it is investigating possible links between the cases of 11 scientists and laboratory personnel from nuclear or space technology who have disappeared or died in recent years, which have generated attention in American public opinion and even from the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
In a statement, the FBI said it is leading "the initiative to seek connections" between the cases. The Department of Energy, the Department of War, and state and local police would be assisting the investigation, according to information cited by CBS.
Although there are no obvious connections between the cases, a series of assumptions about a supposed conspiracy has been woven on social media, which has even reached the White House.
"It's a pretty serious matter (...) hopefully it's a coincidence, or whatever you want to call it," Trump told reporters last Thursday, after being asked about the issue, warning that more will be known in the coming days.
Four of the cases are linked to Los Angeles County. Authorities are investigating whether there is a connection between the circumstances of the death or disappearance of Carl Grillmair, an astrophysicist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at Caltech; and the three experts from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): Michael David Hicks, Frank Maiwald, and Mónica Jacinto Reza.
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Grillmair passed away last February at the age of 67, while Hicks and Maiwald died in 2023 and 2024, respectively. For his part, Jacinto Reza disappeared last June while hiking with a friend in the Angeles National Forest.
In addition to these cases is that of retired Major General William Neil McCasland, 68, who was last seen at the end of February at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is missing.
McCasland, directed headed some of the Pentagon's most advanced aerospace research, and directed the Air Force Research Laboratory, according to data cited by FOX.
Scientist Jason Thomas, director of Novartis, disappeared last December in Massachusetts, his body was found three months later. The police found no evidence of a crime related to his death.
There are other cases, such as the death of Amy Eskridge in June 2022 in Alabama from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The death of the scientist, who worked at the Institute for Exotic Science, has drawn public attention due to her denunciations of a "psychological war" aimed at stopping her work in the field of antigravity, as she said in a podcast.
The FBI is also investigating the death of Portuguese scientist Nuno Loureiro, who was shot dead at his residence in Massachusetts; authorities attributed the homicide to a suspect also responsible for a mass shooting at Brown University.
Loureiro was the director of the MIT Center for Plasma Science and Fusion, as well as a world-renowned expert in nuclear fusion and magnetic reconnection.
The list of cases is completed by the disappearances of the experts Melissa Casias, Anthony Chávez, and Steven García.
