10 U.S. scientists are missing or dead. Could they be connected?

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey guys, uh thanks so much for checking out my channel. Really, really appreciate it. Uh please click to subscribe. I really appreciate all the support. Uh today I wanted to dig into a group of cases. Uh they've been in the headlines over the last couple of weeks.

[00:00:13]Scientists, there's at least 10 of them that are missing or are dead, have popped up, just totally vanished over the last several years. uh some with connections to sensitive government information programs like aerospace uh and defense programs. And the question now is could they be linked? This has gotten a lot of attention. Um it's been all over the news. President Trump has been talking about it, spoke about it from the White House. Uh they say that they are actively working with the FBI now to investigate. The House oversight chairman also announced uh an investigation. And there there's a a lot of conspiracies that I've seen, theories about these cases, questions about whether or not they are connected. So, we're going to get into all of this and I want to really break down sort of um what's true and what's myth and which of these cases actually do seem suspicious and which ones don't because they don't all lump into the same category in my opinion. So, we're going to get into all of it in this episode of Brian and Investigates. Okay. So, there's at least 10 of these cases. Uh some of them could be suspicious, others really are just sad. Uh and what I wanted to do in this episode again is is narrow it down to the five cases, and I've looked through them all that I am actually watching very closely that seem like they could be the most suspicious. Um so what are the facts? What do we actually know here? Let me get into it. The first one is William Neil uh McCassland. this started getting going and started getting a lot of attention around the time of the Nancy Guthrie case. Uh McCastland is a retired Air Force general. He's he's an avid hiker. He left his home back on February 27th, leaving behind his phone, glasses, and smartwatch. His wallet, revolver, leather holster, and backpack. All of those items are still unaccounted for.

[00:02:06]That's what the authorities are saying.

[00:02:08]Uh, and this has gotten a lot of attention because McCastassland was head of research at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Uh, there are rumors that he had access to UFO secrets which has put this case in the limelight. Um, his wife though has been quick to push back against conspiracy theories and again there have been a lot of them. She says her husband was was starting to suffer from brain fog and other health issues. told 911 dispatchers that uh she thinks he did not plan to be found. Uh but still, despite now months of searching, there has been absolutely no sign of him. Uh investigators say they do not suspect foul play, but again, because he was involved in these secret government programs, um this one has gotten a lot of attention and it does seem like there are some things that just don't add up there. So, I'm going to ask my guests, former U FBI agents about that in a second. Okay, the second case is Monica Raza, an aerospace engineer and a former colleague of massland. Uh she also has connections to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Monica disappeared in June of 2025 while hiking with a companion.

[00:03:19]Uh police say the person she was hiking with uh described it like this, that she was there one second and gone the next.

[00:03:27]Basically just vanished. Her body, it has never been found. There have been multiple search efforts. Um but pretty much nothing has turned up. So that one seems strange. Uh this is also an interesting one. On fe um February of this year, scientist Carl Grillilmare uh was shot to death on his front porch. A man was arrested later that day in a carjacking and connected him to Carl's death. His court case right now is ongoing, but there's no clear motive, which is strange in a situation like this. And police say the two men did not know each other at all. Carl was an astrophysicist at Caltech and collaborated also with NASA and police have not said if his work had anything to do with his murder, but that is also still under investigation. Um, and then there is the possible UFO whistleblower Matthew James Sullivan. This is a former US Air Force intelligence officer. In 2024, he was scheduled to interview with lawmakers about UAPs when he died from an accidental drug overdose. Uh, this was in his home in Virginia. This is where it gets interesting. US Representative Eric Berles thought the timing was concerning and he has now contacted the FBI and the FBI is now investigating all of this. Uh James served in Operation Enduring Freedom, worked for several intelligence agencies uh and was allegedly a part of a government UFO program. Then there is the fifth case. Um this is one you're also going to hear my guest talk about uh in a second. This is Amy Escridge, a Plaza physicist studying anti-gravity technology. Uh she she had previously worked with NASA. She died in 2022. She was 34 years old. The medical examiner called it a suicide. Uh but a friend says that is just not true and believes that she was targeted because of her work. And this is the part that's really this one to me might be the most alarming because this friend says that Amy told him to not believe any reports that she killed herself. Uh again, you've got family members pushing back.

[00:05:44]Her family says there's no conspiracy here. Uh he said scientists die also. So um just like with some of these other cases, it's the families who are pushing back saying like, "Please don't lump my loved one into one of these big conspiracies." Um so how does the FBI and Washington get to the bottom of this? Because you've got all these different cases that they have to sort through, figure out which ones are suspicious, which ones could be connected, or whether all of this is just um a big conspiracy theory and none of them are connected. retired FBI profilers James Fitzgerald and Ray Carr.

[00:06:16]Uh they join me to help me break all of this down.

[00:06:19]>> Jim and Ray, thank you both for joining me. I really appreciate you both um taking the time. Uh it seems like everybody's talking about these um missing scientists. President Trump is talking about it. There's, you know, members of of Congress who have asked for investigations. There are now investigations. The FBI says they're investigating. And I was I've been going through the list. Um, you know, some of them seem easy to sort of take out. I mean, there like the um MIT professor, I covered the Brown shooting that was all connected and you can kind of explain that away. But there are others that really are strange and some similarities with them leaving home with a firearm, leaving all their other belongings behind. Um, I'll start with you, Jim. I mean, where do you land on this?

[00:07:02][snorts] >> Well, um, a few things. First of all, I support this investigation. I was glad to hear a few weeks ago that it was initiated and the FBI is conducting it.

[00:07:13]I have no doubt my former unit uh the behavioral analysis unit is involved at least part of it reviewing the folks. Uh the big word which people may get tired of hearing me saying um but u in profiling it's one of the most important concepts uh under which we work and that is victimology. So, we always we always want to study the serial killers, the serial rapist, that which of course is very important once they're identified, arrested, convicted, etc. Um, but we got to know everything we do or we can know about the victims themselves. And that's exactly what they'll be doing in here, uh, doing with this investigation.

[00:07:47]There's actually a name for it. There's nothing original to what's being done here. It's called an equivocal death investigation. I've done dozens of them over the years, some even in retirement, helping people out, but certainly in the FBI. And we're looking at the causes of death. Is it homicide, suicide, accident, natural causes, or you know, other and uh uh and there's subcategories to each of those, but that's what they're looking at here. So, it's it's no new process being invented here. Uh it's it's strictly uh looking at each individual case separately to begin with, finding out everything they can about the victim starting the earliest one I have is Amy Escridge in June of 2022. That's at least my records and the last one was just a few months ago I believe uh in in in February so of this year uh 26. So they're going to try to piece all these together, find out dotted line, you know, famous vin diagrams they can put together, look for interlinking circles, and then try to find out any sort of common denominator besides them dying. Some of them relatively young, others not so much.

[00:08:58]and just trying to see if there's any other factor that links in besides them being scientist, ufologist, uh or or some, you know, nuclear uh working with nuclear weapons and finding something besides that common denominator to see if there's a reason behind their death.

[00:09:14]So, I support this investigation, but I am not locked into at this point that it's anything possibly more than coincidence. I'll leave you with this. I I want to hear what Ry has to say, but I grew up, you know, in and starting in the 70s, there was this famous uh part of Earth called the Bermuda Triangle. Uh it was over a thousand square miles, I think. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of acres, planes, boats missing. You know, that was over several decades. I think after all these years, it's been explained there's no magnetic force. There's no alien field underneath the uh the water there. uh it just bunch of ships and planes, you know, went down under stormy weather. [snorts] Uh this is different. It's not so much geographically oriented. It's more professionally oriented. And I I just want to make sure we everyone involved goes into this objectively looking at all the components to it and then deciding, you know, months from now when they have all those answers or at least hopefully they do, then render some sort of a decision in terms of is this a consistent pattern of these people being killed or taken missing or disappeared or is it strictly coincidence?

[00:10:23]>> And Ray Jim brings up Amy Escridge. Uh that was one of the more interesting ones to me because she reportedly texted a friend. If you see any report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not. If you see any report that I overdosed myself, I most definitely did not. If you see any report that I killed anyone else, I most definitely did not.

[00:10:42]Which is kind of peculiar, right?

[00:10:46]>> It is. And and uh something of that is concerning. I mean, Brian, when you look over the last few years, there's been a a series of cases involving scientists and engineers and and defense adjacent personnel that have died or gone missing. And on the surface alone, that sounds alarming, but the first question that any investigator is going to ask is really pretty simple. Uh, are these cases actually connected? You know, or are we watching unrelated events being grouped together because they share a common theme? you know, there's thousands, hundreds of thousands clear professionals working across the United States, uh, defense, aerospace, scientific sectors, uh, and within that population over a number of years, you would expect to see natural deaths, suicides, accidents, homicides, and disappearances. I agree with Jim and everything he's saying about this case being necessary. Uh, there's some things that have popped up. Uh but the challenge here isn't whether these events are tragic because they are. The challenge is whether the evidence of coordination targeting is a pattern or is it just coincidence. Um you know I I just think that uh what Jim says I I support I I agree what he says. Uh but I just think that uh it's something that needs to be done because it needs to be quelled. Otherwise, you're gonna have these conspiracy theorists out there throwing all kinds of things around, and I don't think that's really something necessary. So, the the question here to me is, are we looking at a coordinated pattern or a series of unrelated tragedies that are being stitched together?

[00:12:31]>> So, pattern verse coincidence, >> right? And they may not all be uh like I said, there's already some in there that don't seem like they belong that maybe some, you know, sort of online publications just lumped into this list that already seem different. Do do you think, Jim, because so many of these scientists have these top security clearances, will that make it difficult for the FBI with an investigation? I mean, you know, figuring out who they associated with and coming up with a timeline >> in a way that may make it easier because the agents of course investigating these deaths or these disappearances uh will also have top security clearances so they can delve and do a lot of the work that they've been doing or hopefully they can hopefully there's no restrictions in that regard. So um but they are going to be looking at the u uh uh digital uh footprints if you will and they will also undertake what um [clears throat] is known as a psychological autopsy. Uh and they will uh you know we know we know what a physical autopsy is when the medical examiner does that. But here [clears throat] the behavioralists will in fact look at the the behaviors of these people, the uh the lifestyle of these people with whom they associated you know socially, professionally, by chance, who cut their hair, who uh you know what doctors they went to, every single factor in that regard they will look at and look if there is any possible common denominator. I mean a lot of them lived in the uh you know Huntsville, Alabama area, but there was also a laboratory there. Some of them lived in the uh Albuquerque, New Mexico area. There's, you know, laboratories there and even California, the JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Um, you know, some of them live near there. So, geographically, it it's not as much of a coincidence in that regard. So, uh, because they all work sort of at the same place. So, um, and to go back to Amy's um, [clears throat] preemptive text, uh, that is in unusual and I will grant you that. I've heard of other people even in recent times there's someone out there I forget what category of life he's in uh he sent something out that publicly uh to a friend and it in fact was publicized uh someone in the in the political circles in the US that you know I'm not going to kill myself I'm not going to take myself out and you think that is strong that is a strong u comment to make beforehand to assure family and friends and let me just end this segment with this part suicide is a very difficult um uh scenario to unfold with certainly the individual himself or herself but certainly uh the family on top of that and as difficult it is for the family I've worked so many cases in this regard they don't want to acknowledge their loved one committed suicide it may be for very personal and emotional reasons probably the majority of the time but as Ry would know and perhaps you and your audience sometimes it's for financial reasons it's for uh insuranceoriented reasons and um and they don't want the information getting out that way. So they will fight tooth and nail uh to make it look like it was something other than suicide. Will they even alter a crime scene? Usually it's a family member, almost always it's a family member or close friend who finds the body of a suicide victim and do they do something to alter that scene to make it appear like su uh uh homicide and not suicide. So, I'm not saying any of that happened here, but these are what the investigators are going to have to delve into, including the text allegedly sent by Amy, and I'm not going to say she didn't send it, but they want to make sure uh it was in fact from her phone, and we have that as verifiable proof, etc., etc. Uh, and then and then see where that goes. But in the course of a month, depending on your your mood, your the drugs you take, alcohol you intake, even if you put something like that out on the text message, if you have suicidal ideiation to begin with, one day you may feel like it's not going to happen. A month later, other factors kick in, and you determine it's time to end it. So >> again, all these factors will have to be looked at, broken down, and discussed.

[00:16:45]And u I I think we'll have I think we will have a conclusion to this when the time comes. Uh it's just a question of when and how long it takes.

[00:16:53]>> And with some of the families, they've actually been the ones saying, "Wait a minute, like this isn't a conspiracy.

[00:16:59]We don't think there's anything weird going on." Um so they they've actually some of them have been doing the opposite of sort of keeping this going.

[00:17:08]>> Well, the public narrative here is that scientists are being targeted, but the investigative reality to it is is that you have different locations, different causes of death, and different timelines. So, uh, it really, uh, just because you have a list of 10 to 12 scientists that are missing or have been killed or suicide, that doesn't necessarily mean a conspiracy. It's a starting point for an analysis. I think we can't lose sight of that.

[00:17:36]>> What do you think, Ry, about several of them last time they were seen left their homes armed?

[00:17:43]Uh, could that mean that there was some threat that they were concerned about?

[00:17:49]>> You know, I leave my home armed, too, and I'm sure Jim does. And a lot of ex law enforcement, a lot of individuals leave their leave their home armed every day. So, without, as Jim talked about in the very beginning of this segment, without looking at the victimology and finding out as much as we can about the individuals, it's kind of tough to say what the motivation would be for leaving AR. Did they leave armed just that day or do they leave armed every day or is it Monday, Wednesday and Friday that they go to work armed? What what is it?

[00:18:21]What's their what's their pattern?

[00:18:23]What's their tendency to be able to do that?

[00:18:26]>> And I don't want to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole too much, Jim, but there are already people saying we'll never really know the answer because even though they're saying there's investigations, if this actually has to do with like adversaries taking out our people because of this top secret research, like that would never be made public. Uh, is that a possibility?

[00:18:46]>> Uh, in today's world, I uh I can't rule that out. Um, it's well known the Israeli MSAD took out a bunch of Egyptian scientists. I think it was back in the 60s or so, '7s who were working on, you know, attaining nuclear devices or or building, you know, uh, weaponizing uranium, etc. And that that's been well established. Of course, even after the 1972 Olympic uh uh bombing and the killing of the Israeli athletes, the Israelis took out a bunch of the people invol involved in that.

[00:19:18]That was a little bit different. That was making them pay for something in the past. And here is the Israelis with the Egyptian uh scientists, they made do it uh preventing something happening in the future. And of course they also are taking out Iranian nuclear scientists over the last few years with AI controlled uh high-powered machine guns in the back of cars uh etc. So um I'm not saying it's our own government. I'm not saying it's the Israelis doing this.

[00:19:45]But would the would our government the US government under the Trump administration have a reason for sort of uh poo pooing or uh or minimizing any sort of conspiratorial aspect to this?

[00:19:59]Um, I don't know. I mean, knowing Trump, he could probably sell his bill of goods even better, saying, "Look, we have some kind of foreign adversary here. Maybe Iranians, maybe Chinese, you know, taking out our scientists, and we need more money from Congress. We need to put this blockade up, you know, bomb these people, whatever." Not to get political here, but I'm just saying, you know, I think the truth coming out wouldn't surprise a whole lot of people in this country, but we're far from that truth being a conspiratorial governmental uh you know uh foreign governmental uh aspect uh taking care and under underdoing undertaking these these events right now. So, we're not there yet. I would hope we get the truth. And I always say and Ray and I were in the FBI and we said Ray Ray you know the what about 60 years between us uh Ray uh total and you know there's some classified information I'm aware of and I know Ry and different people over the years but you know we've never come upon anything like this grand scheme of of of conspiracy we hear about and it's a lot of FBI agents you know they just wouldn't keep these type of secrets if they knew about them and that goes with every every conspiracy Y theory you want to talk about out there. I can't believe someone after all these years who was involved in JFK's assassination if there was someone else wouldn't have said something. That's a whole different podcast we could do. But I think the same thing would happen here. If if there is something being hidden, I think at some point we would find this out because this is too important not for for for the American public not to know.

[00:21:33]And right now I'm going to say everything is upfront and objective.

[00:21:36]I'll just until I know otherwise and we will hopefully get some kind of a report that comes out in the next few months certainly by year's end u that that tell us what actually happened here.

[00:21:46]>> Yeah. And with the general I mean he was involved in one of these UFO programs uh which sort of takes things to a different level because you think about top secret clearances and even you know President Trump speaking recently again saying I'm trying to release more file.

[00:22:00]I mean it's been this ongoing drip of information for for decades. So I think with him uh that has piqued a lot of interest because of the UFO component, >> you know.

[00:22:12]>> Yeah. Could be an alien, right? Right.

[00:22:15]>> I was thinking you remember Al from that TV show, right? You never know. But [clears throat] yeah, >> I want to go back to something you said earlier, Brian, when you said that uh one of the individuals, and I'm not going to mention names about them because I don't want to pigeon hole information to any certain person, but you mentioned someone left their home with a weapon. Uh and then there's others that left their home without their phone, without their keys, and other essentials. Uh there was others that had sudden stress indicators uh prior to their disappearance and there were others that uh had isolation behaviors prior to their disappearance.

[00:22:53]To me uh from an investigative standpoint, these are often indicators of personal crisis and not external targeting. Uh but you know I wouldn't rule anything out early on here but I'm just saying it's people once this thing hits the media it just permeates and the media has a tendency because they think it's juicy to sensationalize things to the point and then all of a sudden people start making things up and if you read it on the internet it's true >> right well yeah that's why I mean I was particularly thinking that way with the MIT professor just because I covered that whole story. I went out there when he was killed and um it literally has nothing to do with any of this. I mean, it was this personal vendetta that a different person had against him and that same person went to MIT and then the shooting at Brown. So, I never really understood why that one was was lumped into all this besides the fact that he was just a well-known scientist, I guess. But one other thing you said, Rey, which has piqued my interest also, is that several of them left their phone, wallet keys behind when they disappeared. And that always just sort of stands out to me whenever I cover a case um because it's just so unusual in today's world. Most people bring their phone with them everywhere or would have their keys or wallet.

[00:24:18]You know, I I'll be honest with you and uh I'm one of those people and and Jim knows this. He's tried to get a hold of me. I go on vacation. I leave my phone at home.

[00:24:27]>> Do you really take it with me? Yeah. I mean, I I want to be separated from everything. I want to I want to enjoy myself. And if I have my phone with me, guess what? Somebody can call me. I just I I just do away with the phone thing.

[00:24:39]And and what you're saying and what I said, those are legitimate concerns. I really believe they're they are very legitimate. But to date, I'm not aware.

[00:24:49]Maybe someone in the FBI or one of the other agencies is aware. There's no confirmed linkage here. Um there's no confirmed foreign actor involvement here, you know. So with that said, is this a national uh security concern?

[00:25:03]Usually when you look at that, that doesn't equal a national security conspiracy, you know? I mean, and that's what happens. People just jump on the bandwagon and and until it until it runs out until it runs out of gas and then there's another wagon that picks them up and they just keep on moving from theory to theory.

[00:25:23]>> Do you think it'll be a long time, Jim, before we get answers because there's so many people that they have to look into.

[00:25:32]>> Uh I don't think an unreasonable amount of time. I mean, there's going to be enough people put on this task force. It will be some sort of a task force assemble. I'm not sure where it will be where it'll be located, but they're going to have a dozen or so agents. Um just like after 911 in the profiling unit. Um you know, each of us was assigned one of the um hijackers and our job was to get basically do a psychological autopsy of each one of those. I was actually assigned to headquarters. I didn't I didn't participate in that exact part. I was kind of synthesizing a lot of stuff. So, they're going to have each there's going to be a team assigned to each one of these scientists, two to three agents.

[00:26:09]They will be doing all kinds of interviews with people, looking over all kinds of medical reports, getting subpoenas, search forums, whatever it takes. Uh, you know, access to their uh DMs and social media postings, all those kind of things certainly leading up to the time frame. And, you know, you brought up people that, you know, would leave a house without a phone. I was interested. I I guess the last one of which we are aware is Neil McCazzlin.

[00:26:34]He was in February of 26 of this year and uh he left the home supposedly without his prescription glasses. Okay.

[00:26:42]Um that depending on his eyesight that could be strange or maybe not. But did he just if he's taken a gun with him? He took a gun, no phone, and no prescription glasses.

[00:26:53]>> Okay. What does that mean? uh if he's going to shoot himself when he shoots.

[00:26:58]>> Well, but I I guess he could well I'm going to get graphic here, but he wouldn't need glasses to take himself out supposedly with his 38 caliber uh weapon. So, uh but let me I'm going to throw something to the group because I just saw this >> over maybe Sunday and Brian, you you you have a great team around you [clears throat] and now I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to u conflate two different incidents. Didn't I read that um uh Cole Allen on a Facebook page or Instagram something one of these scientists names just came up just the two name just a first name and last name and nothing else about it nothing else about it. Did anyone see that?

[00:27:40]>> What do you mean?

[00:27:43]>> So someone did some um research you know uh on Cole Allen of course the White House correspondents dinner shooter attempted assassin. Oh, I see.

[00:27:52]>> And and looking at his social media, one and and prior to the shooting, one of the posts was just the name of one of these scientists. It went by so fast. And in researching for us talking today, Brian, I couldn't find it again.

[00:28:07][clears throat] But it still doesn't mean there's something untoward here or anything beyond coincidence. Well, why would one name of one of these missing people show up on I think on one of his screens?

[00:28:19]>> That's interesting. Yeah. Well, I mean, looking at his manifesto, you know, um he was obviously unwell and conspiracy theories and all. Maybe this and this has been all over the news for the last couple of weeks, so maybe this was something that he was reading about. I haven't seen that, but that's that's interesting when you talk about though um the general I just go back to uh you his one his is kind of what started all this in the beginning cuz he oversaw classified space weapons, head of research at a facility uh rumored to house extraterrestrial debris. Again, rumored to house um and so his his is I think his is one of the main ones here.

[00:29:00]Although there was also a report that there was a 911 and this didn't come out till later that there was some kind of 911 call involving him that he may have been upset about his mental health. So like there's I don't know there's like there's little tinges of things that make you go maybe this isn't actually anything [snorts] >> you know.

[00:29:18]>> Yeah.

[00:29:19]Well, you mentioned ear you mentioned earlier um when the bureau gets involved in these things uh they look uh they're looking for linkage analysis uh and they're coordinating this with multiple agencies. So when a case appears connected what the FBI looks for and Jim kind of you know touched on this but I'm going to go a little deeper. They look for overlaps in communication, travel, finances, associations, all those things that relate back to victimology. And every time we talk and we circle back, we come right back to victimmology and how that will tie each individual in if it's if there is a link, that's what's going to tie them in together.

[00:30:00]>> Really appreciate James and Ray for for joining me and helping me break all of it down. Uh I'm obviously going to stay on top of it, see how this investigation develops. As they said, I mean, this could take a lot of time with the FBI because you've got a lot of different cases to look into and then to see if there are any comparisons. But, you know, when people were saying there were 8 n 10 scientists involved, a lot of those just don't appear to be suspicious. There are though a handful as I went through there that seem like they could be strange. So, I'll stay on top of it. Appreciate you guys for subscribing. Appreciate you guys for following along. And I'll talk to you guys later.