The FBI said it is leading federal efforts to investigate potential connections in reports of dead or missing U.S. scientists in recent years, coming days after President Donald Trump expressed alarm.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” an FBI spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement on Tuesday.
The spokesperson, who didn’t provide additional comment, was responding to a question about whether the federal law enforcement agency was involved. Last month, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) called on the bureau to investigate the deaths.
This past week, Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to questions from reporters about roughly 10 scientists who went missing or died in recent years and whether those incidents involved any national security concerns.
Reports of the scientists dying or going missing, Trump told reporters on April 16, should be considered serious because “some of them were very important people.“ He added that he hopes they are ”random” occurrences.
A day earlier, Leavitt was asked a similar question during a daily press briefing, with the reporter saying that some of the scientists had knowledge of nuclear or aerospace research.
“I haven’t spoken to our relevant agencies about it. I will certainly do that, and we’ll get you an answer. If true, of course, that’s definitely something I think this government and administration would deem worth looking into,” she said in response.
Multiple House lawmakers, including Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), have suggested the possibility that their disappearances or deaths are connected.
“The numbers seem very high in these certain areas of research. I think we’d better be paying attention, and I don’t think we should trust our government,” Burchett told the Daily Mail in March, referring to the researchers.
In the interview, Burchett referred to the case of a former Air Force general, William McCasland, who went missing from his New Mexico home without his phone or glasses in February. His colleague, Monica Reza, who works as a rocket scientist, was also reported missing last year after going hiking in Southern California.
Speaking to Fox News this week, Burlison said he was particularly concerned about McCasland’s case, describing him as an expert on unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. He said that his office was working to contact the former general about a separate congressional investigation.
“He was on our list to talk to, and he disappeared, so that kind of piqued our interest,” Burlison told Fox News.
He later added, “It’s just really, really strange that in about a five-month period of time, four or five people walked out their front door and never returned, and were all doing advanced aerospace research.”
NASA released a statement on Monday saying that, while it is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists,” there is nothing to suggest “a national security threat.”
“The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able,” NASA wrote in a post on X, responding to a video with Leavitt’s comments.
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