WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee launched a probe Monday into reports of the mysterious disappearances or deaths of at least 10 scientists and researchers working in US nuclear or rocket technology, according to letters obtained by The Post.
“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,” wrote Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) in each of the four letters.
The missives to the FBI, Department of Energy, NASA and Department of War are demanding information about the US personnel who have vanished — including Michael David Hicks, who was employed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1998 to 2022.
Hicks died in 2023, but no autopsy or cause of death has been made publicly available.
NASA Lab Materials Processing Group Director Monica Reza also went missing in June 2023 while hiking, and retired Air Force Gen. William Neil McCasland disappeared in February of this year from his Albuquerque, NM, home without his prescription glasses or phone — and a .38 caliber revolver.
The two had a “close professional connection” when participating in an Air Force research program in the early 2000s that handled “advanced materials needed for reusable space vehicles and weapons.”
Two other missing or deceased US personnel worked with NASA JPL, two more were affiliated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, another was an MIT scientist studying nuclear fusion.
There was also a pharmaceutical researcher and a government contractor involved with nuclear weapons component production at a US facility.
A third Las Alamos administrative assistant, Melissa Casias, has also been announced missing in recent weeks.
The White House has convened an interagency effort to investigate as well, and President Trump said the preliminary information was “pretty serious stuff” after being briefed.
Comer and Burlison, who chairs the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs, have asked for a staff-level briefing by April 27 as well.
A spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration said in a Friday statement that it was “aware of reports related to employees of our labs, plants, and sites and is looking into” mysterious deaths, suicides and vanishings of those who had left the agency.
Frank Rose, the former no. 2 at NNSA, told The Post that it’s unlikely a “connection” will be uncovered, but plenty of “crazy stuff” has happened in the past to scientists and researchers at their facilities.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if you look into each of these individual cases, there’s probably something more once you dig into it,” Rose said. “This would go right to the administrator and the deputy administrator. They don’t sweep stuff like this under the rug.”
“NNSA and the National Security Laboratory complex is a huge foreign intelligence target, but again, I have not seen any evidence that, you know, the deaths, when I was there, were connected in any way with a foreign intelligence organization,” he added.
Comer and Burlison, who chairs the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs, have asked for a staff-level briefing as well.
Reps for the FBI, DOE, Department of War and NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
