Tag: science

Chinese Scientists Have Been Dying Mysterious Deaths Too

The star of China’s booming artificial intelligence defense sector had been working on Taiwan invasion scenarios—until he died in an unexplained car crash in the early hours of the morning in Beijing, aged just 38.

Many questions remain over the July 1, 2023 death of Feng Yanghe, a professor at the National University of Defense Technology, who had won national competitions with his pioneering “War Skull” platform.

Such as, why did an obituary in the state-run science news website, Sciencenet.cn, say he was “sacrificed”? Why was the brilliant scientist from Gansu province buried in a special cemetery in Beijing for the Communist Party elite, state heroes, and revolutionary martyrs?

Yet as in the U.S., Feng’s death was just one of many unexpected deaths of top-flight scientists working in ultra-sensitive fields such as military AI, hypersonic weapons, and space defense, according to reports in Chinese and overseas Chinese media.

The phenomenon mirrors the wave of disappearances or deaths among American scientists that is now being investigated by Washington. In the U.S, there have been 11 cases, in China at least nine.

It’s prompted a disturbing question among some military analysts: Is there a silent “scientist war” going on?

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FBI Officially Investigating Reports Of Deaths, Disappearances Of US Scientists

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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Search for 11 missing nuclear scientists escalates as top lawmakers reveal NEW ’national security’ fears

Lawmakers are demanding a sweeping investigation into the mysterious disappearances and deaths of nearly a dozen top US scientists, citing national security concerns.

At least 11 experts with ties to NASA, nuclear research, aerospace programs and classified projects have vanished or turned up dead in recent years.

Many of the individuals held top security clearances, granting them access to sensitive information on space missions, nuclear technology or advanced defense systems, prompting speculation about possible ‘sinister’ connections.

Lawmakers are now demanding that the FBI, Pentagon, NASA and the Department of Energy open probes into the concerning deaths and disappearances, which included researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

‘The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating recent unconfirmed public reporting on the disappearance and death of individuals with access to sensitive US scientific information,’ Republican chairman James Comer wrote in letters sent on Monday. 

‘These reports allege that at least ten individuals who “had a connection to US nuclear secrets or rocket technology,” have “died or mysteriously vanished in recent years,”‘ he writes. 

‘If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to US national security and to US personnel with access to scientific secrets.’

Comer specifically notes the ‘possible sinister connection between a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances which began in 2023.’

President Donald Trump said that he was briefed on the string of disappearances and deaths last week, saying that answers about the alarming cases should come out in the coming weeks. 

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Scientists Can’t Seem To Stop Going Missing Under Mysterious Circumstances

Ten U.S. researchers and scientists have reportedly died or disappeared over the past 33 months amid increasing speculation about the cause of some of the disappearances.

Steven Garcia, a 48-year-old government contractor who allegedly had top-level clearance at a key nuclear facility disappeared in August 2025 after reportedly leaving behind his phone, wallet and keys, taking a gun and leaving his home in New Mexico on foot, NewsNation reported Thursday. Moreover, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland similarly went missing on Feb. 27 after leaving his home in Albuquerque on foot, the outlet reported.

Eight other well-known scientists and researchers in the U.S. have reportedly died or gone missing over the past few years, raising questions about whether some of these cases might involve suspicious circumstances. However, U.S. officials have not identified any definitive connection between the cases, according to an April 9 Newsweek report.

Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC), who Garcia served as a contractor for, produces 80% of the non-nuclear material part of the U.S.’ nuclear weapons, The Daily Mail reported, citing an anonymous source.

“Over the past year, 10 different US specialists, ranging from scientists working on aerospace, nuclear and UAP research have all gone missing. Most of the cases have been labelled as old person wandering off, or disappearing when hiking,” professor and independent journalist Adam Cochran wrote in a Tuesday X post responding to the Daily Mail’s story. “But it’s way too many to be a coincidence especially when many of them worked together, and all happened to work on top US secrets…”

During a Wednesday press briefing, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about whether the U.S. government is planning to investigate the spate of reported disappearances and deaths.

“There are now 10 American scientists who have either gone missing or died since mid-2024,” the reporter said. “They all reportedly had access to classified nuclear or aerospace material. Is anybody investigating this to see if these things are connected?”

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Trump Says White House is Investigating Mysterious Deaths and Disappearances of 10 US Scientists

President Trump on Thursday said his administration has launched an investigation into the deaths and disappearances of 10 US scientists.

“There are these 10 missing scientists with access to classified stuff, nuclear material, aerospace. They’ve all gone missing or turned up dead in the last couple months,” a reporter said to President Trump.

“Well, I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half. I just left a meeting on that subject,” Trump said.

“So pretty serious stuff, but we’re going to be now hopefully, I don’t know, coincidence if you want it, whatever you want to call it. But some of them were very important people and we’re going to look at it,” Trump added.

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UFO-linked scientist who warned ‘my life is in danger’ found dead at 34 becomes ELEVENTH mysterious case

A scientist experimenting with anti-gravity tech was found dead at 34 after warning that her life could be in danger, marking another mysterious case of deaths and disappearances in recent years. 

Amy Eskridge was just 34 years old when she allegedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head in Huntsville, Alabama on June 11, 2022. However, neither the police nor the medical examiners have publicly released any details of an investigation ever taking place.

Before her death, she was openly researching and trying to develop anti-gravity technology, a way to control or cancel out gravity, which could revolutionize space travel and energy production.

Anti-gravity propulsion has also been widely discussed by UFO researchers, who have claimed this advanced technology is what allows alien spacecraft to achieve impossible speeds. 

Conspiracy theorists have also claimed the US military has been experimenting with this technology for years, but the government has denied that alien technology exists.

In 2020, Eskridge stated she was planning to present novel foundational work regarding antigravity but needed approval from NASA. 

Since her passing, shocking details, including an unearthed interview with Eskridge herself and independent findings submitted to Congress have claimed that the death was not a suicide and was instead part of an elaborate ‘murder’ conspiracy.

Eskridge’s death marks the eleventh person with ties to America’s space or nuclear secrets who has died or mysteriously vanished in recent years, putting US national security experts on edge. 

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Scientist Suggests DARK MATTER Could Be BLACK HOLES From A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE

While the scientific establishment has spent decades chasing invisible particles that never quite show up, a leading cosmologist has dropped a theory that turns everything on its head: dark matter isn’t some exotic new particle. It could be ancient black holes that survived from an entirely different universe.

This idea, laid out by Professor Enrique Gaztanaga of the University of Portsmouth, doesn’t just tackle one cosmic puzzle. It offers a clean fix for the Big Bang’s thorniest problems and lines up with fresh observations that have astronomers scrambling.

Gaztanaga argues the elusive substance that makes up roughly 27 per cent of the universe’s mass may actually be “relic” black holes formed in a previous collapsing phase of the cosmos.

“The idea is that dark matter may not be a new particle, but instead a population of black holes formed in a previous collapsing phase and bounce of the Universe,” Professor Gaztanaga says.

He rejects the standard singularity model where everything explodes from an infinitely dense point that breaks physics. Instead, he proposes a “bouncing” universe.

“The Big Bang corresponds to a bounce from a previous collapsing phase, rather than the absolute beginning of everything,” the Professor Gaztanaga further noted, adding “So it is the start of the expansion we observe, but not necessarily the beginning of time itself.”

In this picture, black holes from the collapsing galaxies of that earlier universe survived the bounce and now drift through our cosmos, exerting gravity without emitting light.

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War for Fusion – From Iran’s Front Lines to a Boston Scientist’s Murder

“BLOOD, FUSION, and POWER” asked whether the Brown University mass shooting and the killing of MIT fusion scientist Nuno Loureiro were random crimes or signs of a bigger battle over fusion. This battle is really about who will control future energy and military power, and why those choices are being made far away from the American people.

Under Barack Obama, the United States quietly moved tens of billions of dollars in funding, equipment, and scientific work toward the France based ITER fusion project and away from American labs, weakening U.S. facilities while feeding a foreign run “global collaboration.” Even some Democrats and budget experts warned that ITER was turning into a money pit that trapped U.S. fusion funding inside a structure controlled overseas. Taxpayers were never plainly told that money meant for American labs and jobs was being shifted so a multinational body in southern France could decide how it would be spent.

France sells ITER as a peaceful science and climate project, but it is also a tool of French power. Hosting the world’s flagship fusion experiment makes France the gatekeeper of a critical energy technology. China is an official partner, shipping giant components to the French site and embedding its engineers there while using what they learn to boost their own “artificial sun” projects at home. Iran, although blocked from formally joining ITER by a U.S. veto, has locked itself into a sweeping 25 year strategic deal with China covering energy and technology, and has sought scientific cooperation with Europe in nuclear adjacent fields. On paper, ITER is neutral; in reality, France, China, and Iran are tied together through energy, technology, and strategy. The current war involving Iran’s proxies only underlines the point. Any serious solution has to look at those backing and supplying Tehran, not just the fighters on the ground.

This creates a sharp problem inside NATO. France enjoys the full benefits of the alliance and American security guarantees, yet hosts a fusion project closely tied to Chinese industry and sits in a European environment that looks for ways to keep trade and energy links with Iran alive. How can a country claim to protect NATO and U.S. interests while deepening its energy and technology ties to Beijing and standing at the center of a system that helps the very powers arming Iran’s war?

At the same time, there are still no clear answers about why someone killed one of America’s top fusion scientists. Police and media reports identify the suspected gunman, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a former Brown physics student later found dead in an apparent suicide, as the man likely responsible for both the Brown University shooting and Loureiro’s killing. Yet officials have not provided a convincing motive and have said they have no public evidence linking the attack directly to Loureiro’s research. The official story stops right where the real questions begin, and what the public is being asked to accept, without full explanation, does not make sense.

All of this unfolded as President Donald Trump pushed in the opposite direction, toward bringing fusion power and investment back under American control. In 2025, his administration advanced an “America First” investment and industrial approach, tightening focus on strategic sectors such as advanced energy and technology and supporting moves toward a national fusion roadmap aimed at a strong domestic industry.

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Disappearance of NASA rocket scientist takes chilling turn after critical national security patent comes to light

The disappearance of a rocket scientist has taken a chilling new turn after it emerged she holds a one-of-a-kind patent tied to advanced US launch systems.

Monica Jacinto Reza, 60, was last seen hiking in the rugged San Gabriel Wilderness area within the Angeles National Forest on the trail to Waterman Mountain summit on June 22, 2025, at about 9:10am local time.

Several 2025 reports in the forum EISPIRATEN indicated that a man hiking about 30 feet ahead of Reza turned around moments later and discovered she had vanished without a trace. According to those familiar with the hike, Reza was carrying a backpack believed to contain several liters of water at the time she disappeared.

New attention has focused on Reza’s work as public records highlight her role in developing advanced aerospace materials linked to high-performance propulsion systems.

Records show she is the only surviving co-creator of a patent filed in 2010 with Dallis Ann Hardwick, who died of cancer in 2014, for a specialized metal designed to resist burning while remaining incredibly strong under extreme heat.

She was also credited as a co-inventor of Mondaloy, a nickel-based superalloy later used in key components of advanced propulsion systems developed through US Air Force and NASA-backed research programs.

Reza spent decades working at Rocketdyne, later part of Aerojet Rocketdyne, a major aerospace contractor involved in government propulsion programs, while retired US Major General William Neil McCasland, who oversaw related Air Force research portfolios, also went missing in June 2025.

Reza and McCasland are among nine recent cases involving scientists with ties to aerospace, defense or nuclear research whose deaths or disappearances have drawn public attention.

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Is the ‘Ghost Murmur’ quantum device possible? Scientists are skeptical

On Monday afternoon President Donald Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe hinted at technology that had helped locate a downed American Air Force officer hiding in a mountain crevice in southern Iran. By Tuesday, the New York Post reported that the CIA had deployed Ghost Murmur, a device that uses vaguely described “long-range quantum magnetometry” to find signals of human heartbeats, after which artificial intelligence software isolates each heartbeat from the noisy data. An unnamed source told the Post it was like “hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert.” Another line landed like a movie tagline: “In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you.”

It’s a terrific story. It is also, according to scientists who study magnetic fields, almost certainly not true. The rescue was real—the mission involved multiple aircraft and a survival beacon carried by the airman—but Ghost Murmur, at least as publicly described, finds no support in decades of peer-reviewed physics, even with the help of AI, experts told me.

Quantum magnetometers are real; they are ultraprecise at, for instance, detecting heart arrhythmias by measuring magnetic fields (via quantum properties) produced by the cardiac muscle. The problem is that the heart’s magnetic field is weak. “At the surface of the chest, where you’re about 10 centimeters away from the source, the magnetic field is just barely detectable,” says John Wikswo, a professor of biomedical engineering and physics at Vanderbilt University. “Now, [if] instead of going 10 centimeters away—which is a tenth of a meter—you go a meter away, the amplitude of the signal has dropped to a thousandth of what it was.” The signal becomes dramatically weaker at a kilometer.

Wikswo was the first scientist to measure the magnetic field of an isolated nerve and has been measuring the heart’s magnetic field since the mid-1970s. The first such detection was done by other researchers with two coils, each containing two million turns of wire, and then with a magnetometer “cooled to four degrees above absolute zero,” Wikswo says. This magnetometer is not spy gear—it is a cryogenic instrument designed to keep the rest of the universe out.

To find a heartbeat, a quantum Ghost Murmur tool would have to contend not just with Earth’s magnetic field and magnetic noise from natural and human-made electric currents but also with “the heartbeats of the sheep and dogs and jackrabbits—whatever else is running around out there,” says Chad Orzel, a professor of physics at Union College in New York State and author of How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog. He uses refrigerator magnets to illustrate the weakness of magnetic fields in general. “You have to get the magnet very, very close to the refrigerator before it snaps into place,” he says. “That field drops off very quickly.” Clinical sensors “are usually butted right up against your body … at a distance of centimeters,” Orzel adds. Even pattern-matching using artificial intelligence, he says, couldn’t find a magnetic signal large enough to identify the presence of a person from kilometers away in a desert. At one kilometer away, the signal would diminish to about one trillionth of the strength.

Bradley Roth, a physicist at Oakland University and author of the 2023 review Biomagnetism: The First Sixty Years, agrees. “People have been measuring the magnetic field of the heart for 60 years, and usually it’s done in a lab with shielding, and it’s done just a few centimeters or a couple inches from the heart, and even then you can barely record it.” A helicopter-borne version, he says, “would be not just a small advance, but it’d be a revolutionary advance from the state of the art.”

Orzel struggles to see how a Ghost Murmur could work. “There is really fascinating work being done using quantum magnetometry to measure heart rates,” he says, and magnetic brain scans can now catch the tiny flickers of firing nerves. “But none of that is something that works over ranges of many miles.”

So why was this a story at all? Orzel has a guess: “Somebody yanking a reporter’s chain,” he says. It could be a “snarky, clever way to say, ‘Of course, I’m not going to tell you how we figured this out’”—or a piece of disinformation “to fool somebody into thinking that we actually have this secret technology.”

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