A retired FBI agent said there is not a “conspiracy” behind a series of people in the science-based industry who have died or gone missing in the past four years.
“This isn’t some large scale conspiracy to take off people who work/worked in science-based industry,” Jennifer Coffindaffer wrote on X.
Coffindaffer told Newsweek that these are “standalone incidents.”
“I see no strings between them, other than they had similar scientific occupations, that’s it,” she said.
FBI Director Says Agency Will Investigate: What To Know
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News that the agency is investigating the deaths and disappearances of multiple scientists that have attracted widespread attention and online speculation. Officials have not confirmed any links among the recent cases.
“These missing and killed scientists and former professional members of the Department of Energy vary in wide range, and we’re working most importantly with our state and local partners who have the jurisdiction on each of these cases, whether they be a homicide or a missing person’s case, they have the evidence. What we’re going to do is collectively pull it all into one place,” Patel said.
He said the agency will then “look for connections on whether there are connections to classified access, access to classified information and or foreign actors, and then we will produce that information to the White House and the world because it’s of such great public importance.”
President Donald Trump has described the incidents as “pretty serious stuff” and said he hoped the cases are “a coincidence.” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, told Fox News that it is seeking information on the matter from the FBI, NASA, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.
Who Are The Scientists Who Have Died or Gone Missing?
Below is a list of workers with ties to advanced research whose disappearance or deaths have attracted public interest.
Amy Eskridge—A scientist reportedly researching anti-gravity technology who died in June 2022.
Michael David Hicks—A research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who worked on the DART Project and Deep Space 1 mission who died in July 2023.
Frank Maiwald—A principal researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who died in July 2024.
Anthony Chavez—A former employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has been missing since May 2025.
Monica Reza—A director of materials processing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has been missing since June 2025.
Melissa Casias—An administrative worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has been missing since June 2025.
Steven Garcia—A government contractor at a New Mexico facility for the Kansas City National Security Campus who has been missing since August 2025.
Nuno Loureiro—The director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center who died in December 2025.
Carl Grillmair—California Institute of Technology astrophysicist who worked on NASA’s NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor missions who died in February of this year.
William “Neil” McCasland—A retired U.S. Air Force major general who has been missing since February 27 of this year.
Jason Thomas—A pharmaceutical researcher who was found dead in March of this year.
Are The Cases Connected?
Patel told Fox News that the agency is investigating the deaths and disappearances and looking for potential connections.
Coffindaffer said some of these cases have already been investigated, including the death of Loureiro. Loureiro was killed two days after a fatal mass shooting at Brown University, and officials said they believe former Brown student and Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente was responsible for both incidents. Valente was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility three days after Loueiro was killed.
“The scientist from MIT that they lumped into this, he was killed by the Brown shooter,” Coffindaffer said. “This is no part of a conspiracy from a government or any other entity, but they’ve lumped him in there, simply saying because he happened to be a scientist and he died within their four-year time frame.”
Coffindaffer said she thinks it is “very easy” to attempt to “draw one thread that weaves between some individuals who have died or gone missing in any occupation.”
“Let’s look at some other occupation, and you could virtually take multiple occupations, I took was a truck driver. I said, ‘what about just your average long haul truck driver?’” she said. “Eight-hundred fifty-plus instances of them missing or dead. And I just looked at one year.”
Coffindaffer said FBI officials will want to either confirm the conspiracy theory or “make sure that they can show that there is nothing going on,” in order to build public trust in the agency.
What Happens Next
Coffindaffer said the next step in the investigation will be assigning the case to go through each incident.
“That’s what I think you’re going to have, is a few people with different areas of expertise from the FBI looking into this, and it shouldn’t take long,” Coffindaffer said. “I mean, as they go through these, they should see that most of them have very pragmatic and logical explanations.”
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