Washington | The deaths or disappearances of at least 10 top US scientists and researchers with access to information related to aerospace, defence and extra-terrestrial life have kicked off a row here, prompting the administration to order a probe.

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump was briefed on the deaths and disappearances of key scientists, and more details will be available over the next week and a half.

According to reports in the American media, the earliest of the deaths dates back to July 2023. Michael David Hicks, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist who specialised in comets and asteroids, passed away on July 30, 2023. The cause of his death was not disclosed.

Congressman Eric Burlison, a Republican from Missouri and member of the House Oversight Committee, said he has been drawing attention to some of the disappearances for quite some time as he found them “too coincidental”.

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

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

Burlison said some scientists “literally just disappeared” without a trace — including Air Force Maj Gen William McCasland, who vanished in February. The lawmaker claimed McCasland tried to contact him twice about his research into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), popularly known as UFOs.

Trump described the disappearances as “pretty serious stuff” and said that some of the scientists who have reportedly gone missing or died were “very important people.” The president said he would know more about the cases and whether there could be any connection between them in the coming days.

“I hope it's random,” Trump responded Thursday when asked if he thought there was any link between the cases.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was “actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist.”

“No stone will be unturned in this effort, and the White House will provide updates when we have them,” her statement continued, previously adding in the post that the questions surrounding the cases are “legitimate”.

A Novartis researcher, Jason Thomas, disappeared on December 12, 2025. His wife reported him missing when he didn’t return home. His body was recovered from a Massachusetts lake on March 17, 2026.

Nuclear physicist and MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was shot dead at his home near Boston on Dec 15, 2025.

Former Los Alamos employee Anthony Chavez disappeared on May 4, 2025. He was last seen leaving his home on foot. Los Alamos houses America’s earliest nuclear facilities.

Melissa Casias disappeared from her home on June 26, 2025. Casias was an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

A researcher with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Frank Maiwald, died on July 4, 2024, at 61, in Los Angeles.

Monica Jacinto Reza was a JPL employee who disappeared on June 22, 2025, while on a hike.

On February 16, 2026, Carl Grillmair was shot to death on his front porch. He was an astrophysicist at Caltech who collaborated with NASA and found water around exoplanets.

Steven Garcia, a 48-year-old government contractor, was last seen leaving his home in Albuquerque on Aug 28, 2025. He was on foot and carrying a handgun, with police reportedly warning he may have been a danger to himself.

Garcia worked as a property custodian at the Kansas City National Security Campus, which manufactures non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons.