The dead and missing scientists: where the list meets the record

The list that circulated in 2026 mixes solid cases with wrong names, but three clusters hold up. The first is AAWSAP: Sergey Macheret, the Skunk Works plasma physicist on the list, wrote one of the program's 38 DIRD reports, which PURSUE has now released. No coverage of the story mentions that link.

The second is Huntsville. Gravity physicist Ning Li went quiet after an Army contract out of Redstone Arsenal. Amy Eskridge, who co-founded an institute to pursue antigravity, said she was being targeted and died in 2022. NASA Marshall engineer Joshua LeBlanc, who worked on the cancelled DRACO nuclear rocket, died in 2025 after his car sat at the airport for hours.

The third is Albuquerque and Kirtland. Retired Maj. Gen. Neil McCasland, former AFRL commander, walked away from his home in February 2026 and is still missing. Steven Garcia of the NNSA campus office walked away the August before. LANL's Melissa Casias vanished in 2025; her death was ruled undetermined. No official body has linked the cases, and the FBI's promised report has not been published.