Retired U.S. Air Force Major General William Neil McCasland, 68, went missing on February 27 — and the search has intensified amid reports linking McCasland to highly-sensitive space weapons programs and rumors about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).
McCasland was last seen near his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, around 11 a.m. local time — and according to officials, he left his phone behind and has not been in contact with any friends or family members in the nearly two weeks since he disappeared.
The retired astronautical engineer held degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University — and while serving in the Air Force, held a number of posts that gave him access to highly-sensitive information.
McCasland, as CNN reported, served for a time at the Pentagon overseeing several programs related to space weaponry. He was the chief engineer on the Global Positioning System program within the Department of Defense, and served as program director for the Space Based Laser Project Office as well.
He also served for a time as commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which has long been rumored to be the “storage” facility where UFO debris from Roswell, New Mexico, was held. The Air Force has consistently denied that is the case, but Wright-Patterson was also home to Project Blue Book — the military program that studied 12,618 reported UFO sightings between 1952 and 1969.
After his retirement, McCasland worked with Blink-182 musician Tom DeLonge as a consultant regarding UAP for DeLonge’s company, To The Stars, Inc.
McCasland’s wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, posted on Facebook after he disappeared, saying that she did not believe he knew anything that would have made him a target for abduction.
“It is true that Neil had a brief association with the UFO community. This connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil. Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt,” she said.
Luis Elizondo, a former Department of Defense intelligence officer, added, “I hope and pray this is not one of those cases where a former senior military officer was specifically targeted and that he will be found happy and healthy in the immediate near term for his sake and the sake of his loved ones.”
Elizondo said that the best thing for everyone would be to wait for law enforcement officers to do their jobs.
Authorities have interviewed hundreds who live in the vicinity and have asked neighbors to provide footage from security cameras in an effort to determine which direction McCasland went when he left home, apparently on foot. They have also issued a Silver Alert on him, in part because the retired service member reportedly also has a medical condition that was not specified.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico has requested help from the public in locating McCasland, noting that he is an “avid outdoorsman” who routinely runs and hikes in the surrounding neighborhoods and in the foothills of the nearby Sandia Mountains.
“Due to his background and established partnerships, BCSO is coordinating closely with multiple agencies,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement, noting that the FBI and McCasland’s previous Air Force duty stations were among those agencies.
