House Oversight Demands FBI Briefing on Dead and Missing Scientists With Classified-Access Ties, Cites JPL, Los Alamos, MIT Cases
In an April 20 letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, Chairmen James Comer (Oversight) and Eric Burlison request a staff-level briefing by April 27 on what the Bureau knows about at least ten U.S. scientists with ties to nuclear secrets or rocket technology who have died or disappeared 'in recent years.' The letter names three individuals — Michael David Hicks, Monica Reza, and retired Air Force Gen. William Neil McCasland — and points to an alleged professional link between two of them through an Air Force program on reusable space vehicles.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform formally asked the FBI on Monday to brief it on a set of reports alleging that at least ten Americans with "connection to U.S. nuclear secrets or rocket technology" have "died or mysteriously vanished in recent years." The April 20 letter — signed by Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Chairman Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs — demands a staff-level briefing "as soon as possible but no later than April 27, 2026."
The letter characterizes the reporting as "unconfirmed public reporting" and writes: "If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets." It was sent to FBI Director Kash Patel and copied to Oversight Ranking Member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.).
The three named individuals
The letter singles out three specific cases:
- Michael David Hicks, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1998 to 2022, whose 2023 death is described as the earliest incident in the alleged pattern.
- Monica Reza, former director of NASA JPL's Materials Processing Group, who "disappeared while hiking in California in June 2025 and remains missing."
- Retired Air Force Gen. William Neil McCasland, who "disappeared from his Albuquerque, New Mexico home with a .38 caliber revolver" in February 2026 and remains missing.
The letter flags an alleged professional link between Reza and McCasland, characterizing them as having had a "close professional connection" through an Air Force-funded research program in the early 2000s on "advanced materials needed for reusable space vehicles and weapons."
The other seven individuals are described without names, only by affiliation: "two more affiliated with NASA JPL, two affiliated with Los Alamos National Laboratory, an MIT scientist working on nuclear fusion, a pharmaceutical researcher, and a government contractor working at a nuclear weapons component production facility."