At least 10 people tied to sensitive US research have died or disappeared
cnn.comThree things:
1. Many people intuitively assume that clumping/clustering of events implies non-randomness, and that random processes are smooth and low-variance. The opposite is true [1].
2. A consequence of 1. is that people often over-estimate their understanding of the likelihood of events and the degree to which they are conditional/dependent.
3. There was an intriguing comment on this site a few days ago [2], referencing Daniel Kahneman's work on System 1 and System 2 thinking. From memory it said that reality is a lot less explicable than we tend to think - and that a lot of what we casually think we know about the everyday world is just our brains filling in the gaps using quick and cheap System 1.
As to why people are clutching at science-fictional interpretations: perhaps they're looking for some excitement or novelty? That would be very human.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion
[2] Unfortunately I cant find the comment. I wish I'd favourited it.
Anyone else feel a bit queasy about citing Kahneman as a source anymore?
https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...
Point taken. But I'm not an academic and this is just hn - and I think the comment was well made.
Edit to add: The critique in the linked blog post refers to weak studies relied-on in one chapter of one general-readership book by Kahneman. I'm not aware of anyone claiming that he is generally unreliable as a scientist.
You say "just HN" but deep down it's a cabal where the rich and elite gather to laugh at the affected and groom future billionaires through advanced snobbification.
The NameUs US public database of around 26k longer term active missing person cases adds around 600 new names per month. It doesn't seem odd that a handful over years would share a narrow professional interest.
But that number, 20 disappeared people per day, is gut wrenching. (US murders are at around 40 per day.) Surveillance sucks, but maybe at least it can be leveraged to find patterns when married to NameUs data. On the other hand I can sympathize with someone who just doesn't want to be found.
I’d slightly disagree, the profile of people who go missing is as important as a random chance there is a coincidence. Former military officers, high-level scientists. These individuals have training, money, and live in areas where this tends not to happen.
A disappearance of someone from the above background, vs someone who is say in midwest rural America or near areas where human trafficking crimes occur at a higher rate than normal, matters.
Further, their research/knowledge of sensitive government material also implies they likely have some form of overwatch or at least minimal monitoring for foreign agent threats from our government (or had in the past). Its not uncommon for high ranking military officials to have some form of training in counter surveillance tradecraft for this exact reason.
The odds these events are due to a foreign adversary given the multiple wars and geopolitical tensions are not negligible
>Former military officers, high-level scientists. These individuals have training, money, and live in areas where this tends not to happen.
From my personal experience, these are also the kinds of people that enjoy challenging and thrill seeking hobbies like mountain climbing, backpacking, etc that put them in a position where there’s some not insignificant chance of death in a remote location.
They usually tell people when they're going climbing.
I'll happily take 20 missing people per day in exchange for the ability to organize a demonstration[0] or an uprising when needed and for not being disappeared myself when the surveillance net falls into the hands of the next (or current) despot.
[0]: I don't like the word protest because words are meaningless. A mass gathering of people is a demonstration of force because manpower means firepower and firepower means simple power as all real world power comes from violence.
It should be clear that martin-t is not "happy" about disappearances.
I've thought the same thing they expressed - perfect surveillance, if put into practice with omnipresent cameras tied to AI analysis for infinite government agents tracking each of us, would not be used to solve all crime but would be used to pre-emptively end any eventual needed revolution or mass uprising against the state.
Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.
Yes, tools are just tools - they are not good or bad by themselves but by how people use them. (Though of course, some tools are much easier to use for one side than the other.)
The second issue is surveillance does not affect all crime[0] equally. It works best against organized or planned action. It does little to prevent crimes of passion or spur of the moment decisions. States are more likely to be affected of the first kind, normal people are much more likely to be affected by the second.
[0]: It should go without saying, crime does not mean bad/harmful/evil but merely against the law. Slavery used to be legal, as was the holocaust.
The likelihood of becoming a missing person is very likely not evenly distributed.
You aren't going to find the missing people with more surveillance if you weren't finding them already.
Agreed. Especially if there is any likelihood that the people doing the surveillance are doing the disappearings. It only makes it easier.
> Surveillance sucks, but
No.
This basically sounds like the start of Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin.
Are we going to learn that physics no longer exists?
Some UFO guys have been claiming that a hoax will be conducted around the idea of an alien ship detected travelling towards Earth
I think this is a case of flawed human pattern recognition.
Even in the article, it lumps everything together as “in recent years,” but over the span of several years, people across a large country can die for all sorts of unrelated reasons. That’s just how basic mortality statistics work.
Also, the category “scientists” is far too broad. Unless we’re talking about the same organization, the same field of research, and the same timeframe, it’s hard to justify treating these cases as connected. The scope is too wide and the professions too varied. It feels like people are constructing conspiracy theories out of weak patterns because those narratives are more stimulating.
If we applied the same logic, we could take annual industrial accident deaths in the U.S. and claim they’re part of some coordinated assassination plan by capitalists. That obviously doesn’t make sense. (Although, to be fair, one could argue that industrial accidents reflect structural issues tied to capital, but that’s a different kind of argument entirely.)
What I’m really trying to say is that this kind of article feels like a product of the internet’s incentive structure — framing loosely related events as something suspicious in order to attract clicks and attention.
They have a distinct commonality of nuclear research. As such, is the limitation in pattern recognition not yours? If you are overlooking it, you are suppressing it, and are a a part of the conspiracy.
From what I’ve looked up, the range is actually quite broad from astrophysics to aerospace to administrative roles.
Here are the individuals mentioned:
* Michael David Hicks (JPL, comets/asteroids research) * Frank Maiwald (space research / JPL) * Monica Reza (aerospace engineer, JPL) * Nuno F.G. Loureiro (MIT, nuclear science and fusion) * Carl Grillmair (Caltech astrophysicist) * William Neil McCasland (Air Force, aerospace research) * Melissa Casias (Los Alamos National Laboratory, administrative role) * Anthony Chavez (Los Alamos, construction foreman)
I’m not sure what standard is being used to claim a meaningful connection here. The category seems extremely broad.
And the idea that “if you question it, you’re part of the conspiracy” is pretty convenient reasoning.
Honestly, I’d love to be part of some shadow organization secretly running the United States from behind the scenes — do you think they’re accepting applications?
What is missing is a denominator and some standardization.
There could be 100,000s of people in the US who have jobs where their disappearance could be considered "concerning".
And then we need a base rate for people of similar socioeconomic status. They're probably disappearing at a far smaller rate than the general population, since they're not poor, not sex-workers, not troubled teens, etc. However, there is still a base rate, and you still need to show that it exceeds that base rate--and I kind of doubt that it actually does.
We have a large population, and over the course of a few years 10 weird things happening seems entirely normal to me.
I think what someone needs to do is before looking up these names or professions, first define a the category of "sensitive US research" well enough (specific institutions, areas, level of access, seniority, etc) and only after that look at history to total missing persons and then decide if there is more or less of them missing in proportion to the total.
Nice writeup on the whole thing basically being hyped politically with actual nothing behind it https://unherd.com/2026/04/behind-the-disappearing-scientist...
Also ~10 in a year, modal age of established scientists + collaboration with us gov, the background rate is basically that... Basically a conspiracy theory at that point, and not even a good one.
Thanks for the link -- I read that when it was published, then the other day I wanted to send it to someone but I'd forgotten where it was.
also related, a bbc article on the impact from the speculation on the families: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyw9rpdl4po
> The speculation, she says, is "denigrating to their memories".
> Other loved ones reached by the BBC called the speculation "terrible" and "disgusting," compounding families' grief - but chose not to speak on the record because they didn't want to give the stories any more airtime.
this shit is harmful to people.
I see this at there's no credible connection at this time, but these individuals have knowledge of technical details on projects and technologies that they don't want in the hands of an adversary. So they're trying to rule out a kidnapping by another power not trying to find them.
Discussed here the other day:
FBI looks into dead or missing scientists tied to NASA, Blue Origin, SpaceX (228 points, 170 comments)
Last time I looked into this (last week, I think) it was a big wad of nothing. The people had disappeared over a span of many years. They weren't tied to any particular program, employer, or even any particular area of study, just “uh, tech stuff”. Some of them were technical experts, some weren't; one was an administrative assistant. One was killed by a campus shooter who also killed two students.
Typical example: “In the years since, several others connected to JPL have also died or disappeared: Frank Maiwald, a specialist in space research, died in Los Angeles in 2024 at 61.”
Yeah, it's like "At least 10 people with a red sweater on Tuesday have gone missing".
Or stupider: At least 10 people flipped a coin and it ended up on Heads!
The fact that it reached CNN levels of stupid means journalism is part of the overall USA's intentional brain drain.
It's worse than that, it's 11 people who wore sweaters in various shades of red, orange, and pink, at some point in the past ten years.
“Anthony Chavez, 79, worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory until he retired in 2017. He reportedly disappeared on May 8, 2025.”
To be fair to CNN, this article is about an FBI investigation.
It’s sanewashing.
I suspect this is narrative shaping for future purposes. I think the military trying to frantically modernize and adapt is also a sign.
4 separate government agencies are putting time and effort into something.
The headline is accurate. The reporting is accurate.
Should CNN not report what the government is doing?
Or are you confused and assume that the investigation has returned and finding? Or maybe, we should highlight the things the government is doing.
Why do you find what the article is saying sane?
If the weather service starts an investigation into Tuesday’s rain shower, that should be reported. But if that rain shower was completely within the normal range of weather for that location and time of year, that should also be part of the reporting. This article takes everything from the government at face value.
CNN should accurately report just how bizarre the reasoning behind these investigations appears to be.
I wonder if it is reasoning. To me the sequence looks something like this:
1. The story is promulgated by a long-retired ex-FBI analyst
2. Fox News picks it up and runs with it
3. Fox News watchers get excited about it on social media
4. Someone behind a desk at the FBI is assigned to pick up the phone and say tiredly “Yes, yes, we're investigating it all very seriously”
5.The FBI waits for the new Flavor of the Week to distract the Fox News people, then closes the investigation
Meantime, CNN reports on phase 4.
This is the same network that breathlessly covered the obviously fake “drone swarms”.
What was the "pattern" before this in these fields?
What is the current pattern in other industries?
Does the pattern exist elsewhere in the world?
Most people die at some stage. I wonder if there's any statistical evidence that this lot is abnormal?
I need to see stats on how many would be expected to die or disappear from natural causes and I’m never seeing that on these stories. Weird things happen all the time to people in any field of work, it’s only concerning if this is rising above the natural noise. The fact that the current administration, which has proven time and time again it is ignorant about statistics and pretty much all things science, is raising the alarm does not bode well for this being an actual issue.
Via [0], "Well, there are about 2 million researchers in the US. There are about 25 deaths per million people per day in the US, that’s 50 scientists dying each day, or 73,000 scientists over a four year period. Finding 11 that have some vague connection does not seem unusual to me."
(there's more detail at the link, obvs.)
[0] https://www.stevennovella.com/neurologicablog/whats-with-the...
Show some rigor.
> 25 deaths per million people per day
That's not the same age range as actively practicing researchers.
> Show some rigor.
Yes, perhaps by reading the link.
"I should point out I am using numbers for the general population, which may not match the rate for scientists. [...] I also looked at CDC data – about 800,000 people in the US between 25 and 65 die each year [...] About 6% of the population work in the science field, which would be 192,000, or half that if you use a narrow definition of 3%, so close to the 73,000 figure I calculated the other way."
He also looks at how that compares with the individual institutions.
But yes, "show some rigor" indeed!
> by reading the link
The link didn't inspire any confidence given the quote you provides.
Should I have posted the full text?
But then if we're doing age ranges, the 10 people "tied to sensitive research" who have disappeared or died are 59, 61, 60, 68, 53, 60, 78, 47, 67, 39 (with the two youngest identified as homicide and suicide). How does a cohort with an average age in their 60s compare with the age range of actively practising researchers?
I should imagine you could look at the CDC data for those cohorts and perform the same kind of analysis as he has.
I agree, my point was more along the lines the poster demanding rigour wanted to use the death rates for the entire age range of "actively practising researchers" as a comparison baseline for a group of people averaging in their 60s. Don't even need the look at CDC data to know that they die more than the average working age person...
Color me skeptical. Whenever I see this come up in a social media feed it's a UFO influencer. It's leaked out into the legacy news presenters who have great haircuts and no critical thinking skills.
Maybe he wants to frame it as the scientists being abduced by aliens. We now know that the whole UFO narrative of the 90s was a government psy ops to distract people from stealth fighter testing and dismiss the sightings as 'aliens'.
The critical thinking skills you need are that they were connected to nuclear research. UFO is a distraction. The purpose of the investigation is to determine whether the deaths are connected.
The critical thinking skills you need are the understanding that people die sometimes, and the question is how it compares to the normal rate of death among this population.
And not just rates, but also how they died and whether malicious actors were particularly likely to bother about disappearing them in ways which are actually really much harder to stage than happen naturally like disappearing someone trailwalking in mountains with friends, or whether someone so incompetent they were arrested on the retired professor's property a couple of months before he was shot and then caught still driving a car full of the victim's stuff after the murder was discovered is particularly likely to be part of a big cover up.
An disappearance of a retired major general without his personal possessions and someone committing suicide whilst due to testify in court, sure those things warrant an investigation even though those things happen as the result of mundane crime or mental breakdowns as well as conspiracy. But another thing entirely for the "nothing much to see in those Epstein files" FBI to spin the grand narrative that connecting all these dots is a legitimate question because UFOlogists on YouTube.
Same legacy news presenters which have a track record of pushing UFO conspiracy theories?
CNN was one of the biggest pushers of this hoax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_drone_sight...
> The FBI now says it “is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists,” adding that it “is working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state … and local law enforcement partners to find answers.”
> Separately, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced Monday it will investigate ...
So, do we not want the news reporting what the government is doing? That's the FBI, DoE, DoD, and the House Oversight Committee putting effort into this.
Like, no, i want this reported, not because there is anything that will come from it, but because we should report one what the government is doing.
Why do you think CNN should NOT report one what the government does?
You can report these stories without sanewashing.
CNN is basically on the same level as Fox News now. I'm not surprised.
Here's a more substantial take on the whole thing that doesn't just blindly repeat everything without question: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/missing-scientis... You know, what journalism is actually supposed to be like.
This BBC article https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyw9rpdl4po also has this tidbit:
> "The US Top Secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce is ~700,000 people," science writer, investigator and pseudoscience debunker Mick West wrote on 16 April on his Substack.
> "Ordinary mortality over 22 months predicts ~4,000 deaths, ~70 homicides, and ~180 suicides. The list has 10 … The deaths are real. The families' grief is real. The pattern is not."
If you are going to rudely link to a paywalled articles without an unpaywalled link to read each, then people can't be motivated to read them.
I guess being an asshole is just the standard now on HN? How is this attitude acceptable? What did I do to you? I didn't even realize it was paywalled until you mentioned it. But don't let that stop you from being a dick to somebody who's just trying to help fight misinformation. I guess I'll just go fuck myself.
But here, your paywall free link: https://archive.is/KNECz
Unfortunately, this is a sign of the times we live in now. Nobody extends a little grace to others. They assume every act is an intentional slight.
There's no room for mistakes or even differences of opinions, and it's tearing us apart.
Part of it, I think, comes from the anonymous nature of online communications, and little to no ramifications to bad behavior. It's the end result of "I can do whatever I want, the established rules and societal norms don't apply anymore."
If anything, it is you who were closer to being the a by posting what you did without corresponding unpaywalled links. Moreover, it is you who resorted to namecalling, not me. You should know what you're posting; you don't get to be ignorant about it. Even the BBC link you posted is paywalled and therefore unreadable.
Whether the concern is real or not is precisely for the FBI to determine. National security is too serious to leave in the hands of random journalists and overly-comfortable citizens. I fully understand that the data is almost certainly a coincidence, but the consequences of being wrong are so serious that it's best to definitively rule it out.
Amy Eskridge made publications about concrete deterioration. A scholar, no doubt. Also, outside of her field, a nutcase with conspiracy theories about energy weapons and a troubled individual. No doubt a tragedy, but clearly an outlier (of possibly many).
This is super weird, and I can't buy the narrative when clear outliers like this are in the mix.
This is, as far as I can tell, sensationalist work that disgustingly aggregates troubled individuals deaths to put forward a patriot narrative that might not hold water.
Yet another statistically misleading headline.