A ninth scientist with connections to America’s space program and top secret research has gone missing or died under mysterious circumstances.
On July 30, 2023, Michael David Hicks, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1998 to 2022, died at the age of 59. Authorities never disclosed the cause of his death, and there is no evidence showing anyone ever performed an autopsy. Also, no online obituaries about Hicks mention any underlying health issues.
According to DailyMail.com, Hicks was a member of several teams that assisted NASA in researching the physical characteristics of comets and asteroids. He published over 80 scientific papers.
Hicks participated in NASA’s DART Project, an experiment to determine whether it is possible to divert potentially hazardous asteroids from striking Earth. Additionally, he was a member of the Deep Space 1 Mission, which in 2001 tested new, high-risk space technologies by flying past an asteroid and a comet.
He is also one of several people connected to U.S. space or nuclear programs that have either gone missing or died in recent years. While police did not report any evidence of foul play in Michael David Hicks’ death, three of the other scientists who have died or gone missing had ties to Hicks.
American scientists and researchers continue to mysteriously die or go missing without a trace
Frank Maiwald, a NASA scientist who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, died on July 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. However, authorities have never revealed the cause of his death, and they acknowledged that they never performed an autopsy. Additionally, NASA has never made a public statement regarding the scientist’s passing.
On May 4, 2025, Anthony Chavez, a former employee of Los Alamos National Laboratory, vanished from sight. The search for Chavez is still ongoing, the Los Alamos Police Department told DailyMail.com, and no new information has surfaced in the case nearly a year later.
Melissa Casias, who authorities believe had security clearance for sensitive data at Los Alamos National Laboratory, vanished under nearly the same circumstances two months later.
Monica Reza, JPL’s Director of the Materials Processing Group, disappeared just four days before Casias. She reportedly worked on developing a special metal for rockets as part of a U.S. government project overseen by retired U.S. Air Force Major General William Neil McCasland. McCasland, who was last seen on February 27, 2026, disappeared in nearly the same manner as Chavez and Casias.
One U.S. Congressman is calling it a ‘dark trend’
Three other researchers, Nuno Loureiro, Carl Grillmair, and Jason Thomas all also died under mysterious circumstances over the past year.
Loureiro was developing nuclear fusion as a limitless energy source when an unknown assailant shot and killed him. Another unknown assailant shot and killed Grillmair, a California Institute of Technology astrophysicist who participated in NASA-led space telescope missions, on the front porch of his home. Authorities found Thomas, a pharmaceutical researcher at Novartis testing cancer treatments, dead in a lake after he had gone missing three months prior.
“There have been several [scientists and researchers] throughout the country that have disappeared under suspicious circumstances. I think we ought to be paying attention to it,” Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett said in a recent interview. “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.”