විද්‍යාඥයින් කිහිපදෙනෙකු අතුරුදහන් වූ පසුබිමක UFO රහස් එළිකරන බවට ට්‍රම්ප්ගෙන් ප්‍රකාශයක්

A series of mysterious events surrounding a group of recently disappeared scientists and the conspiracy theories woven around them have now drawn the intense attention of the American government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Especially after Donald Trump announced his intention to publish secret UFO documents, the disappearances of these high-profile researchers have created a significant stir in society.

At the center of this mystery is the disappearance of 68-year-old retired Air Force General William Neil McCasland. Two months ago, on Friday, February 27, he disappeared from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was last seen that morning by a technician who came for home repairs, and when his wife returned home from a dental appointment in the afternoon, he was not there. He had left his mobile phone, Apple Watch, and glasses at home, but his revolver was missing. Although they lived in an upscale neighborhood where many homes had security cameras, no footage of him leaving was recorded, and it is believed he may have gone into the Sandia Mountains behind the house. A massive search operation involving over 120 people, official canine units, and drones failed to locate him.

McCasland's wife, mocking the conspiracy theories spreading with her husband's disappearance, posted on her Facebook account, stating that perhaps aliens had taken him to their mothership, but no such craft had been sighted near the Sandia Mountains. However, McCasland's disappearance caused a major uproar among UFO enthusiasts. At the peak of his military career, he served as the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Ohio, with an annual budget of billions of dollars. Conspiracy theorists claim that the wreckage of the alleged UFO that crashed in Roswell in 1947 was brought to this laboratory, and McCasland knew many secrets about it, hence he was silenced in this manner.

The timing of his disappearance has further intensified these suspicions. Seven days before he disappeared, Donald Trump announced his intention to publish secret government documents about extraterrestrial life. When a journalist asked Trump about the disappeared scientists in mid-April, he called it "a pretty serious matter" and stated that he would look into it. Shortly thereafter, Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, announced an investigation into the matter, calling it a "serious threat to national security," and the FBI also became involved in these investigations.

This conspiracy theory, which grew through the Reddit social media platform, increasingly links McCasland's incident with the disappearances and murders of about a dozen other scientists. Users pointed out that McCasland once oversaw a project to develop a special alloy for rocket engines, aimed at ending reliance on Russian military technology, and that Monica Jacinto Reza, a leading scientist in that project, mysteriously disappeared in 2025 while on a mountain climbing trip. As reported by the British 'Daily Mail' newspaper, 78-year-old Anthony Chavez, who worked for decades at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a leading research institution for nuclear weapons, also disappeared on May 8, 2025. He left his car, wallet, and keys at home and walked away, and like McCasland, was not captured by any security cameras. Six weeks later, in June 2025, Melissa Cassius, who worked in the administrative section of LANL and was believed to have access to security protocols, also disappeared, leaving her mobile phone and keys at home. In both these incidents, no signs of violence were found.

In addition, theorists have linked the shooting death of Nuno Loreiro, a professor of nuclear engineering and physics at MIT, at his home in Cambridge in December 2025, to this series of disappearances. Although police concluded that the murder was committed by a 48-year-old Portuguese man who had killed two Brown University students and injured nine others two days prior, and that the murder was due to a personal dispute originating from Portugal, after which he committed suicide, conspiracy theorists reject this official statement. However, the true connection between these scientists remains unclear, and President Trump, who has previously fueled various ideologies through movements like QAnon, is once again providing his supporters with a live experience of a real crime story through these investigations.

However, according to data from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) in the United States, approximately 600,000 people disappear annually, so such incidents of elderly individuals leaving home and not returning are statistically not at all rare. McCasland's wife also views the incident realistically, believing that he deliberately left his mobile phone and watch at home to prevent himself from being found. Furthermore, his taking of the revolver suggests that he was battling his own personal and mental struggles rather than alien intervention.
(Based on NZZ)