President Trump attends White House Meeting on Missing and Murdered Scientists Tied to Nuclear and Aerospace Secrets

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday with officials to address the disappearance or murder of at least 10 American scientists and military personnel with access to classified nuclear, aerospace, and advanced propulsion research since mid-2023.

Emerging from the session, Trump told reporters the situation involves “pretty serious stuff” and that investigators expect answers “in the next week and a half.” “I hope it’s random,” he added. “Some of them were very important people, and we are going to look at it.”

The meeting follows growing public concern and calls from lawmakers, including Rep. Eric Burlison, for full FBI involvement. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the administration is reviewing the cases after reporters highlighted the pattern of deaths and disappearances tied to sensitive defense programs.

The victims include government contractors, retired military leaders, and university researchers specializing in nuclear weapons components, plasma and fusion science, astrophysics for space surveillance, and advanced aerospace propulsion.

Among the cases:

• Steven Garcia, 48, a contractor at the Kansas City National Security Campus, which produces non-nuclear components for America’s nuclear stockpile, vanished August 28, 2025, after leaving his Kansas home with a handgun. No trace has been found.
• Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, disappeared from his Albuquerque home in February 2026 while carrying a firearm. His portfolio included cutting-edge aerospace programs. The case remains open with no evidence of foul play identified.
• Nuno Loureiro, director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, was shot and killed at his Brookline, Massachusetts, home on December 15, 2025. The shooter, a former classmate, died by suicide.
• Carl Grillmair, a Caltech astrophysicist involved in NASA-supported space observation technologies, was fatally shot on his porch in Llano, California, on February 16, 2026. A suspect was arrested.

Other cases include former Los Alamos National Laboratory staffer Anthony Chavez, who disappeared in May 2025; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Frank Maiwald, whose July 2024 death had no disclosed cause; and Monica Reza (also known as Monica Jacinto Reza) and Melissa Casias, both linked to advanced propulsion programs at NASA-affiliated facilities.

Though authorities say no proven connections exist, the overlapping expertise in highly classified fields — nuclear stockpile maintenance, plasma/fusion research with military applications, space domain awareness, and next-generation aerospace technologies — has raised national security concerns. The institutions involved include Los Alamos, the Kansas City National Security Campus, the Air Force Research Laboratory, MIT’s fusion center, and NASA’s JPL.

The White House review seeks to determine if the incidents are tragic coincidences or a coordinated threat to America’s technological edge.