Bidy of NM nuclear lab worker discovered by hiker

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has raised concerns about what he describes as a "sinister" pattern involving the deaths and disappearances of 11 U.S. scientists connected to nuclear, aerospace, and defense research. Former FBI agent Nicole Parker has examined the unusual cases, pointing to troubling details such as missing cell phones and erased digital data. In a separate case, an Iranian national was arrested for allegedly trafficking drones and weapons on behalf of Iran, drawing attention to serious national security issues affecting both the White House and NASA.

One of the 11 individuals who had mysteriously disappeared and who may have had connections to U.S. nuclear secrets or rocket technology has now been found. A hiker discovered the body in a national forest in New Mexico.

Authorities identified the remains as those of Melissa Casias, 54, an employee of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Her disappearance became part of broader speculation surrounding scientists and laboratory-affiliated personnel who had either vanished or died under unclear circumstances. These incidents attracted the attention of President Donald Trump and prompted an investigation by the House Oversight Committee.

According to a Facebook post issued late Saturday night by the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau (NMSPBI), a hiker found Casias' remains on Thursday in the McGaffey Ridge area of Carson National Forest. A handgun was found beside her body.

"The cause and manner of death have not yet been determined," police stated. Authorities added that the Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI) identified the remains as those of Casias and is conducting a "further anthropological examination."

Casias, who lived in Taos, New Mexico, worked at LANL alongside Anthony Chavez. Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the nation's leading nuclear research facilities. Both Casias and Chavez were among the individuals whose disappearances were considered suspicious in FBI and House Oversight Committee investigations.

"The New Mexico State Police extend their deepest condolences to the Casias and Mondragon families during this difficult time," the agency said in its statement.

Police reported that Casias was declared missing on June 25, 2025, after she failed to arrive at work and did not return home following a visit to her daughter at work. Family members later discovered that she had left behind her purse, identification, and cell phones, raising concerns for her safety and leading to a missing persons investigation.

State police emphasized that the investigation remains active and ongoing.

In an April 20 letter addressed to FBI Director Kash Patel, the House Oversight Committee stated that it was examining "recent unconfirmed public reporting" suggesting that individuals connected to "U.S. nuclear secrets or rocket technology" had either disappeared or died in recent years.

"Public reports raise questions about a possible sinister connection between a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances which began in 2023," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Eric Burlison, (R-MO) wrote in a request for information from federal agencies.

According to the committee's statement, the reported cases included two individuals connected to Los Alamos National Laboratory, two affiliated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an MIT scientist involved in nuclear fusion research who was shot by the Brown University mass shooter, a pharmaceutical researcher, and a government contractor employed at a facility that produces components for nuclear weapons.

Authorities have not established any connection between Casias' death and the other cases. Officials have suggested that the incidents are likely unrelated, and the House committee noted that the reports under review remain unconfirmed.

Steven Garcia, 48, an employee of the Kansas City National Security Campus, was reported missing on August 28, 2025, after leaving his Albuquerque home on foot carrying only a handgun.

Casias' disappearance had previously led New Mexico authorities to issue a Missing Endangered Advisory after she was last seen in the Taos area. She was 53 years old at the time she disappeared.

The discovery of her remains in Carson National Forest brings the search for Casias to an end. However, investigators are still working to determine how she died and to identify the owner of the handgun found beside her body.

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Numerous missing or dead scientists simply "too coincidental" not to be major concern, congressman says: now number 11

WASHINGTON — The deaths or disappearances of 11 top US scientists and researchers is a matter of urgent national importance, a member of the House Oversight Committee insisted Friday.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) said his office had already been eyeing some of the “too coincidental” disappearances a year before President Trump told reporters Thursday that he had ordered an investigation.

The lawmaker argued the fate of the scientists is almost “certainly” linked to the access some had to classified aerospace, defense and UFO information, and may involve bad actors from China, Russia or Iran.

“This is a rallying call to pay attention to this issue and make sure that our nation’s top scientists are safe and secure,” Burlison told Fox News' “Fox & Friends.”

“This is too coincidental, and so we have to be investigating this. We need to have our nation’s top investigators, the FBI and every agency looking into this matter.”

Some of the scientists, Burlison noted, “literally just disappeared” without a trace, including Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, who vanished in February after Burlison said he tried to contact him twice about his research into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), government-speak for UFOs.

Investigators claimed McCasland had experienced “mental fog” before disappearing from his home in Albuquerque, NM.

The retired general had worked in top positions pertaining to space research and acquisition, with his name even appearing in the WikiLeaks dump of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, with former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge claiming to have conversed with him about UAPs.

In many cases, the congressman continued, these scientists “felt some form of threat” and “left all of their devices at home” before they dropped out of sight.

“This is not normal,” Burlison said on Fox. “These are some of the most advanced scientists, researchers in our nation, some of the most important people for national security efforts. And they all just mysteriously disappeared.”

Burlison’s call for “bipartisan support” for a federal probe into the concerning cases comes after another scientist’s mysterious death came under scrutiny Thursday, NewsNation reported. Amy Eskridge, 34, who was involved in extensive research into anti-gravity technology, UFOs and extraterrestrial life, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at her home in Huntsville, AL. in 2022, according to the Daily Mail.

Her death was ruled a suicide and no public information was released.

Before her death, Eskridge had launched a research company, “The Institute for Exotic Science” in order to create a “public-facing persona to disclose anti-gravity technology.”

She chillingly said that she had started the company because “if you stick your neck out in private… they will bury you, they will burn down your house while you’re sleeping in your bed and it won’t even make the news.”

Eskridge revealed in a 2020 interview that she had plans to disclose information about UFOs and extraterrestrials to the public, and was receiving threats as a result.

“I need to disclose soon, man. I need to publish soon because it’s like escalating. It’s getting more and more aggressive,” she said.

“This has been going on for like four or five years, and over the past 12 months, it’s been escalating, like more aggressive, more invasive digging through my underwear drawer and sexual threats.”

Eskridge partnered with retired British intelligence officer Franc Milburn to investigate the alleged harassment, according to the Daily Mail.

Milburn, who submitted his findings to Congress in 2023, concluded that Eskridge did not kill herself and at one point was attacked by a “directed energy weapon” that burned her body with microwaves.

The other missing or dead scientists include: 

Melissa Casias, who had a security clearance at Los Alamos National Laboratory and vanished last June; Anthony Chavez, a retired Los Alamos National Laboratory worker who went missing last May; Jason Thomas, who led Novartis’ chemical biology team and was found dead this past March; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Frank Maiwald who died in 2024; famous MIT physicist Nuno Loureiro who was shot dead last December; exoplanet researcher Carl Grillmair, who was killed in February; Steven Garcia, who worked on security for a producer of non-nuclear components in American-made nukes and went missing in August of last year; aerospace engineer Monica Jacinto Reza, who went missing last June.

While widespread theories about the researchers and their fate have spread online, officials have not identified any connection between those deaths and disappearances.

There is something profoundly unsettling about this pattern. When the most brilliant minds working at the frontier of aerospace, defense, and the most sensitive questions surrounding unidentified anomalous phenomena begin to vanish or turn up dead under circumstances that strain credulity, one does not dismiss it as mere coincidence without inviting accusations of willful blindness. These are not ordinary citizens. These are individuals entrusted with knowledge that could alter the balance of global power. The instinct of any serious nation must be to treat such losses not as isolated tragedies but as a potential assault on its strategic advantage.

Rep. Burlison is right to sound the alarm. When scientists who have touched classified material on UAPs, anti-gravity propulsion, or exotic technologies start leaving their devices behind, reporting escalating threats, and then simply disappear, the burden of proof shifts. It is no longer sufficient for officials to shrug and mutter about suicide or “mental fog.” A republic that cannot protect its own intellectual capital in matters of national security is a republic that has already begun to surrender the future. The involvement of foreign adversaries, whether Beijing, Moscow, or Tehran, is not conspiracy but the cold logic of great-power competition. Nations that covet America’s edge have every incentive to neutralize those who guard it.

The case of Amy Eskridge is particularly haunting. A young researcher bold enough to speak of public disclosure, she warned explicitly of the consequences: those who “stick their neck out” risk being buried without ceremony. Her words carry the chill of prophecy. That she died by what was ruled a self-inflicted wound, after reports of directed energy attacks and invasive harassment, only deepens the unease. When even those who attempt transparency through “public-facing” institutions meet such ends, it suggests a machinery of suppression that operates beyond the reach of ordinary accountability.

This is not the time for partisan squabbling or institutional complacency. It is a moment that demands rigorous, transparent investigation, free from the reflexive dismissals that have too often characterized official responses to uncomfortable anomalies. The American people deserve to know whether their country’s premier scientific talent is being systematically targeted. Anything less is an abdication of the first duty of government: to secure the republic and those who defend its secrets.

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