Thirteen in the Shadows: The List Grows, the Deadline Has Passed, and America Still Has No Answers
- Kal Inois
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
This article updates our original investigation, Scientists in the Shadows: Eleven Cases, No Answers, and a Federal Investigation That Just Began, published April 19, 2026. We recommend reading that piece first for full background on the original eleven cases.
Research compiled April 27, 2026
When we published our original investigation eight days ago, eleven scientists and officials connected to America's most sensitive nuclear, aerospace, and defense programs had died or disappeared. The ƒBI, the Department of Energy, the White House, and the House Oversight Committee had all formally begun looking into whether the cases were connected. †rump had set a self-imposed deadline of "the next week and a half" to have answers.
That deadline expires today. The list has grown to thirteen. There are still no answers. As a matter of fact, just three days ago, †rump fired all 24 members of the National Science Board.
The Two New Cases
Since our April 19 report, Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri, a member of the House Oversight Committee who has been tracking these cases longer than almost any other lawmaker, came forward with two additional names warranting serious federal scrutiny.
Matthew James Sullivan, 39. A former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer who died May 12, 2024, in Falls Church, Virginia. Sullivan had served as deputy director of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the same base connected to several other cases in this investigation. Sullivan had agreed to testify as a federal whistleblower about UFOs before Congress. He was dead before he could do so. The official cause of death was a lethal combination of four substances simultaneously — alcohol, alprazolam, cyclobenzaprine, and imipramine — ruled accidental. No detailed cause-of-death determination has ever been publicly released. Rep. Burlison told Fox News: "He was scheduled to come in for an interview. Within two weeks, he had suspiciously committed suicide."
What makes Sullivan's case stand out beyond the timing: at his funeral, retired Major General David Abba, who served as director of the Pentagon's Special Access Program Central Office, delivered a eulogy that stated Sullivan held "the burden that a select few in this nation have of truly understanding what's going on." That is a former commander of the Pentagon's most classified programs confirming publicly, at a funeral, that Sullivan had access to information most Americans will never know exists.
Dr. Ning Li, 78. A Chinese-American physicist and one of the world's leading researchers in superconductivity and anti-gravity technology, her story is the most haunting on this entire list.
In the early 1990s at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Li published landmark papers proposing a practical method for producing anti-gravity effects using rotating superconductors, attracting funding from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. In 1999 she left academia to found AC Gravity LLC. In 2001 she received a $448,970 Department of Defense grant to continue her research. The grant ended in 2002. No results were ever made public. FOIA requests for her work were denied. In May 2003 she sent a private email claiming "11 kilowatts of output effect" during an experiment. After that the record on Ning Li went dark entirely.
In 2014, Li was struck by a vehicle while crossing the UAH campus. Her husband, who witnessed the accident, suffered a fatal heart attack and died the following year. Li suffered permanent brain damage that developed into Alzheimer's disease. She died July 27, 2021, at age 78, in Madison, Alabama. The nature of her classified DOD research remains unknown. Rep. Burlison has cited Li alongside Amy Eskridge, another Huntsville-based anti-gravity researcher who died in 2022 after publicly stating her life was in danger. That two anti-gravity researchers in the same Alabama city died under unresolved circumstances has not been publicly addressed by any investigating agency.
The Complete List of Thirteen
The following cases are compiled from Newsweek, CNN, the House Oversight Committee, and the Union Bulletin's expanded list:
Michael David Hicks, 59 — NASA JPL scientist. Died July 30, 2023. No cause of death disclosed.
Frank Maiwald, 61 — JPL principal researcher. Died July 4, 2024. No cause of death disclosed.
Matthew James Sullivan, 39 — Air Force intelligence officer, Wright-Patterson AFB. Died May 12, 2024. Ruled accidental overdose. Was scheduled to testify as a UFO whistleblower before Congress.
Anthony Chavez, 78 — Retired Los Alamos National Laboratory employee. Missing since May 8, 2025. Left wallet and keys behind.
Monica Jacinto Reza, 60 — Director of Materials Processing at NASA JPL, co-inventor of Mondaloy rocket superalloy. Missing since June 22, 2025, after vanishing during a hike in Angeles National Forest. Had a professional connection to Gen. McCasland through an Air Force-funded research program.
Melissa Casias, 53 — Los Alamos employee with top-level security clearance. Missing since June 26, 2025. Both personal and government phones factory-reset before her disappearance.
Steven Garcia — Contractor at Kansas City National Security Campus, maker of over 80% of non-nuclear components of U.S. nuclear weapons. Missing since August 2025. Left home on foot with a handgun.
Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47 — Director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Shot and killed December 15, 2025, in Brookline, Massachusetts. A former classmate has been charged.
Amy Eskridge, 34 — Anti-gravity researcher, Huntsville, Alabama. Died 2022, ruled suicide by gunshot. Publicly stated before her death that her life was in danger. No investigative report has ever been released.
Carl Grillmair, 67 — Caltech astrophysicist, NASA NEOWISE mission. Shot and killed February 16, 2026, at his Antelope Valley, California home. A suspect with no known connection to Grillmair has been charged.
William Neil McCasland, 68 — Retired Air Force Major General, former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB. Missing since February 27, 2026 from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Left phone, glasses, and wearable devices behind. A grey Air Force sweatshirt was found 1.25 miles from his home. No other trace in 59 days.
Jason Thomas, 45 — Pharmaceutical researcher at Novartis. Missing since December 2025. Body recovered from a Massachusetts lake in March 2026. No foul play found.
Dr. Ning Li, 78 — Anti-gravity physicist, DOD grant recipient. Struck by vehicle in 2014, permanent brain damage, died July 27, 2021. Classified research results never released.
Where the Investigation Stands
The House Oversight Committee demanded briefings from the ƒBI, DOD, DOE, and NASA no later than today, April 27. As of this writing, no results have been publicly announced.
The ƒBI has confirmed it is "spearheading the effort to look for connections" between the cases, working with DOE, DOD, and state and local law enforcement. This is a significant shift from earlier this year when every case was treated in isolation. Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed a formal DOE probe, saying "we haven't found anything alarming yet." NASA stated "nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat." House Oversight Chairman James Comer said the cases are "unlikely to be a coincidence" and called them a "national security concern."
Notably, the DOD told Congress on April 16 that there are "no active national security investigations of any reported missing person who was a current or former clearance holder involved in special access programs," a response the Oversight Committee said "leaves the Committee with many unanswered questions."
While Scientists Vanish, †rump Is Dismantling the Institutions That Protect Them
There is a context to this story that has gone almost entirely unreported: at the same time that thirteen scientists and defense officials connected to America's most sensitive programs have gone missing or died, the †rump regime has been systematically dismantling the federal scientific infrastructure that trains, funds, and protects them.
On April 24, 2026, †rump quietly fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the independent, apolitical body that has governed the National Science Foundation for 75 years, with no explanation, in a brief email sent "on behalf of President Donald J. †rump." The NSB oversees $9 billion in annual research funding that underpins GPS, MRIs, smartphones, and America's technological edge over adversaries like China and Russia. Dismissed board member Willie May told the New York Times he had "watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm." Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member of the House Science Committee, warned that †rump would likely replace the board with "MAGA loyalists who won't stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries."
†rump has also proposed cutting NSF's budget by 55%, slashing NASA's budget by 25%, and eliminating NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely. As glaciologist Leigh Stearns told Scientific American: "This is how the US loses its scientific leadership, with a reckless budget line."
Think about what this means together. Thirteen people connected to America's nuclear and aerospace programs are missing or dead. The ƒBI is investigating whether a foreign adversary is systematically targeting American scientists. And at the same time, the regime is firing the overseers of American science, gutting the budgets that fund it, and dismantling the independent advisory boards that protect it. You cannot simultaneously investigate threats to American scientists and destroy the institutions those scientists serve. Unless, of course, you are not actually trying to protect them.
A Fair Counterpoint
Responsible journalism requires the full picture. The Atlantic called this the "single dumbest conspiracy theory of 2026." Medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew described it as apophenia, seeing meaningful patterns in random events. Science writer Mick West noted that over 700,000 Americans hold top-secret clearances in nuclear and aerospace fields, meaning deaths and disappearances at this rate are statistically expected without any coordinated plot. Families of several individuals have directly rejected conspiracy-based interpretations.
We report these cases because federal agencies have deemed them worth investigating, because Congress has formally demanded answers, because a Major General is still missing, and because a rocket scientist who vanished from a Los Angeles hiking trail nine months ago has never been found.
A Final Note on Missouri's Role
Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri has been tracking these cases for over a year, well before they became national news. He called for an ƒBI probe in early April, reached out to the bureau directly, and has now added two new names to the congressional list. Missouri is directly represented in this investigation, and Missouri residents should know that their congressman has been ahead of the curve on a story the rest of Washington is only now catching up to.
†rump's self-imposed deadline expires today. We are watching.
This article will be updated as new information becomes available.
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