WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration is investigating the “troubling” deaths and disappearances of scientists and researchers who each reportedly had access to classified information at some point in their careers.
“In light of the recent and legitimate questions about these troubling cases, and President Trump’s commitment to the truth, the White House is actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Friday afternoon.
Her remarks came after Fox News’ Peter Doocy pressed both Leavitt and President Donald Trump about the eerie timeline, given that at least 11 scientists have died or disappeared under strange circumstances. All of these individuals have been tied to military, nuclear, or aerospace research, according to Fox News.
“No stone will be unturned in this effort, and the White House will provide updates when we have them,” Leavitt emphasized on Friday.
A spokesman for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration told The Daily Wire on Friday that it is “aware of reports related to employees of our labs, plants, and sites and is looking into the matter.”
Trump himself said that he had just left a meeting on the topic as he departed the White House on Thursday for Las Vegas.
“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump said. “Pretty serious stuff … hopefully a coincidence, or whatever you want to call it.”
President Donald Trump speaks to the Press before departing from the White House to Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 16, 2026, in Washington DC. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Amy Eskridge, for example, was an Alabama researcher who died on June 11, 2022, at the age of 34 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and worked on “antigravity” research. In a 2020 interview with YouTuber Jeremy Rys, she described receiving “harassment, threats,” and sabotage of her research. Notably, she suggested at one point that scientists who had breakthroughs in their work would “disappear” or stop working.
“If you stick your neck out in public, at least someone notices if your head gets chopped off,” Eskridge said in the interview. “If you stick your neck out in private, they will bury you. They will burn down your house while you’re sleeping in your bed, and it won’t even make the news.”
Other strange cases include NASA scientist Monica Jacinto Reza, who vanished on a hike in June 2025; astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, who was shot on his front porch in February, Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Nuno Loureiro, who was shot and killed in his home in December 2025, and Air Force Maj. Gen. William McCasland, who vanished from his Albuquerque, New Mexico home in March.
NASA researcher Michael Hicks passed away in July 2023, while NASA engineer Frank Maiwald died in July 2024. Two Los Alamos employees went missing and have not been found: Melissa Casias, who went missing in June 2025, and Anthony Chavez, who went missing just before Casias in May 2025.
Pharmaceutical scientist Jason Thomas went missing in December 2025 and was recently discovered at the bottom of a Massachusetts pond, and Kansas City National Security Campus government contractor Steven Garcia disappeared in Albuquerque in 2025, allegedly with only a handgun.
Officials have not established that there is a connection between the deaths, but the public has grown increasingly disturbed by the frequency of the incidents. Four of the mysterious cases involve New Mexico, for example, where the Los Alamos National Laboratory is located.
