Body of Melissa Casias Discovered: From Los Alamos to NASA, a Timeline Behind the Mystery of the Missing American Scientists

Melissa Casias was a nuclear lab worker who suddenly disappeared on June 26, 2025, leaving no trace of her until she was found with a weapon over the weekend and positively identified by New Mexico State Police on Monday.

Casias worked at the US government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and her body was discovered in the Carson National Forest, about six miles from her last known location.

Authorities have not yet determined the exact time and cause of her death.

Her disappearance was shrouded in mystery from the beginning. Casias, she left her phone behind when she disappeared and also deleted all data from it. When she left her Ranchos de Taos home, she also left her ID behind.

He is not the only person related to the United States’ defense or nuclear programs to go missing in recent years. He is among a number of such people who have either died under mysterious circumstances or disappeared without a trace since 2022.

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The trend generated a lot of public interest, and conspiracy theories soon began to form around these (seemingly) unrelated accidents.

The effect of the public outcry was such that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs requested information from the Department of Energy, the Department of War, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) about those scientists and missing employees connected to US nuclear news who had died or committed their own rocket technology. has mysteriously disappeared in recent years”.

“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating recent unconfirmed public reports of the disappearance and death of individuals with access to sensitive U.S. scientific information. The reports claim that at least ten individuals who ‘had connections to U.S. nuclear secrets or missile technology’ have ‘died or mysteriously disappeared in recent years.'” If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances could pose a serious threat to US national security and to US personnel with access to scientific secrets. We request information on all information related to these deaths and disappearances, as well as the processes and procedures in place to protect US scientific secrets and ensure the safety of personnel,” the committee said.

Timeline of Deaths and Disappearances

It all started in June 2022 when Amy Eskridge, an antigravity researcher who founded the Institute for Exotic Science in Huntsville, Alabama, died by suicide. Although her family claimed she was in constant pain and her death was unusual, conspiracy theorists would have none of it.

The death of Michael David Hicks, a scientist associated with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who specialized in asteroids and comets, was another pivotal moment in that timeline, according to lawmakers now investigating the deaths and disappearances. Hicks’ cause of death has not been released, according to CNN.

However, his daughter spoke to the publication and claimed that her father had known health problems.

“From what I know about my father, there is no logic that would implicate him in this potential federal investigation,” she told CNN, adding, “I don’t understand the connection between my father’s death and the other missing scientists.”

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Hicks’ case was followed by the death of Frank Maiwald, another JPL engineer who died April 7, 2024. His cause of death was not listed in his obituary.

Then followed the disappearance of Anthony Chavez May 8, 2025. He was a retired foreman at Los Alamos and is still missing.

Right next month, on June 22, 2025Monica Jacinto Reza, a metallurgist also associated with JPL, disappeared while hiking in the Angeles National Forest in California. She has also remained missing to this day.

In addition to these incidents, there are the deaths of Jason Thomas (a chemical biologist at Novartis) and Carl Grillmain (murdered, a suspect was charged in the case) and the disappearance of former US Air Force officer William Neil McCasland, who remains missing after leaving his home and hiking in New Mexico.

After the discovery of Casias’ remains, watchers will be waiting for details on what will emerge next as the FBI continues to investigate this series of mysterious deaths and disappearances.

What did Trump say about it?

The curious case of these missing scientists was not limited to the US Congress or the FBI, but also reached the White House. On April 16, at a White House press briefing, the US president was asked about “10 missing scientists with access to classifieds, nuclear material, aviation, all gone missing or turned up dead in the last few months” and whether he believed the cases were related.

“I hope it’s coincidental, but we’ll find out in the next week and a half,” Trump said. A month and a half has passed since then.

What academics have said about such conspiracy theories

When the Associated Press spoke with Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies conspiracy theories, she told the agency, “There are a lot of people who work for national labs and universities and government research centers, and some of them go missing, commit suicide, or die,” adding, “Any time of the year, you can take a bunch of them and name them as something sinister if you wanted to.”

And if closely monitored, many of these deaths are not mysterious and have clear causes. For example, Nuno FG Loureiro, an MIT physicist whose death is part of an FBI investigation, was killed in a mass shooting at Brown University on December 15, 2025.

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Carl Grillmair, an astrophysicist from the California Institute of Technology, was shot by a carjacker on February 16, and Melissa Casias herself was not a scientist, but an administrative assistant.

The AP also spoke with Donnell Probst, executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, about the conspiracy theory, who said, “In the face of tragedy or uncertainty, people look for patterns and explanations rather than accepting ambiguity or chance,” adding, “Stories suggesting hidden connections or intentional wrongdoing can be more satisfying without evidence than incomplete or evolving information.”