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How One Scientist List Grew So Fast

The 2026 list expanded as later compilations added people who matched only some of the original traits.

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Preview for How One Scientist List Grew So Fast

On this page

  • From roughly 10 cases to larger public compilations
  • What changed as new names were added
  • Why expanding criteria can create a stronger looking pattern

Introduction

The 2026 “missing and dead scientists” list did not simply uncover 18 additional members of an already defined group. It changed its definition as it grew. On 14 April, a viral post referred loosely to “like 10 disappearances in the last two years”. By 20 April, a congressional inquiry was referring to unconfirmed reports concerning “at least ten” people connected to US nuclear secrets or rocket technology. On 22 April, another prominent formulation spoke of 11 missing, dead or “suicided” scientists. PolitiFact subsequently identified 14 names circulating in the story.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

List Growth illustration 1
Explanatory illustration 1

Then the boundary widened dramatically. A community compilation posted on 25 April contained 28 entries in its first defined block, reaching beyond the recent US cases to UFO figures, Chinese researchers, a 2014 death and historical antigravity or unconventional-energy cases dating back to 1998.[Reddit]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026…Published: April 25, 2026

That progression — roughly 10, then 11, 14 and 28 — matters because the numbers do not describe successive measurements of the same population. They reflect successive changes in who was considered eligible for inclusion.

From roughly 10 cases to larger public compilations

The earliest widely reported version was comparatively narrow in time and subject matter. The 14 April viral post described roughly ten recent “disappearances”. By 16–21 April, mainstream reporting and the official response were discussing at least ten people associated in some way with sensitive nuclear or aerospace research who had died or disappeared. CNN reported that the FBI was looking for possible connections between the cases.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

Even at this stage, however, the category was already less uniform than the shorthand “missing scientists” suggested. On 20 April, House Oversight chairman James Comer and representative Eric Burlison asked the FBI, NASA and the departments responsible for defence and energy for information. Their announcement carefully described the underlying reporting as unconfirmed and referred not just to scientists but to “scientists and other personnel” connected to nuclear secrets or rocket technology.[Representative Burlison]burlison.house.govOpen source on house.gov.

That distinction was important. PolitiFact later traced 14 people appearing in the circulating claims and found that they were not all scientists and had not all worked together. Its reconstructed group included NASA personnel, two Los Alamos employees, Air Force figures, an MIT professor, a Caltech astrophysicist and people associated with antigravity research.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

Some differences were particularly large. Melissa Casias was an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Anthony Chavez a construction foreman; their employment at a nuclear laboratory did not make either a nuclear scientist. Carl Grillmair was an astrophysicist whose documented research included dark matter, Galactic structure, stellar populations and exoplanets. Amy Eskridge and Ning Li, by contrast, had direct connections to antigravity research. The shared category was therefore already becoming an aggregation of different kinds of connection rather than a single occupational cohort.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

The same happened to the outcome being counted. “Disappearances” became deaths and disappearances. The dead included people whose deaths had different reported circumstances, while missing people were treated alongside them before investigators had established that their disappearances shared a cause. The headline number could therefore rise without another scientist actually disappearing: a previously known death could be retrospectively added to the category.

5:54

Amy Eskridge Predicted Her Own Death – Before Becoming 1 of 11 Scientists Now Dead or Missing

Channel: New York Post · Views: 402.8K · Uploaded: April 2026 · Length: 5 minutes

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What changed as new names were added

The decisive expansion can be seen in the 25 April UFOB compilation. Its first 12 entries substantially overlapped the developing US story: Amy Eskridge, Michael Hicks, Frank Maiwald, Joshua LeBlanc, Nuno Loureiro, Carl Grillmair, William McCasland, Monica Reza, Anthony Chavez, Melissa Casias, Steven Garcia and Jason Thomas. The next entries changed the character of the list.[Reddit]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026…Published: April 25, 2026

Wynn Free and David Wilcock came from the UFO and alternative-belief world rather than the same institutional research population. A group of Chinese researchers then entered the compilation. Dallas Hardwick pushed the chronology back to 2014. Matthew Sullivan was added through the UFO-whistleblower strand: he was a former Air Force intelligence officer whom Burlison said had been expected to participate in a federal UFO whistleblower case. Contemporary reporting subsequently said Sullivan’s 2024 death had been ruled an accidental overdose.[reddit.com]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026…Published: April 25, 2026

Andrew Moffatt entered through yet another route. A UFOB post from 24 April described the University of Alabama in Huntsville research engineer’s death in a private aircraft crash and immediately attempted to fit him into the growing collection. That intermediate post listed 24 names and openly marked several — including Wilcock, Free and Robert Duncan — as “Unsure”.[Reddit]reddit.comuunfilter approved a post in rufobu/un-filter approved a post in r/UFOBApril 24, 2026…Published: April 24, 2026

The 28-name version makes the expanding rules unusually visible because the compiler supplied category-like annotations. Feng Yanghe was labelled as belonging to the compiler’s own investigation; Li Minyong was described as being in a tracker and “assessed as relevant”; Sullivan was a “major addition to framework”; Moffatt a “significant addition”; Mark McCandlish represented a “before-testimony sub-pattern”; and Stanley Meyer, who died in 1998, was labelled a “historical precursor”.[Reddit]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing & Dead Scientists and Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing & Dead Scientists and Other IndividualsApril 26, 2026…Published: April 26, 2026

Those labels show that the list was no longer simply asking, “Which members of the recent US cluster have died or disappeared?” It was simultaneously collecting people who could be connected through several different routes:

  • recent employment in aerospace, nuclear or defence-related institutions;
  • disappearance or death, regardless of whether the two outcomes were demonstrably related;
  • alleged knowledge of UFO or unidentified anomalous phenomena programmes;
  • antigravity or unconventional-propulsion research;
  • perceived proximity to testimony or disclosure;
  • membership of a separate overseas researcher cluster;
  • historical resemblance to the newer cases.

Once all of those routes counted, “28” no longer represented an enlarged version of the original ten in a strict statistical sense. It represented a broader hypothesis about what kinds of cases might belong together.

List Growth illustration 2
Explanatory illustration 2

The chronology itself stretched

One of the clearest signs of category expansion is the change in time window. The viral 14 April claim referred to roughly ten disappearances “in the last two years”.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

The 28-entry compilation could not preserve that rule. Its entries included Eskridge in 2022, Feng Yanghe in 2023, Matthew Sullivan in 2024 and Dallas Hardwick in 2014. Mark McCandlish, who died in 2021, was included as part of a claimed testimony-related pattern, while Stanley Meyer, who died in 1998, was explicitly presented as a historical precursor.[Reddit]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026…Published: April 25, 2026

That is a major methodological change. A two-year anomaly asks whether an unusual concentration occurred during a bounded recent period. Adding cases from 2014, 2021 or 1998 asks a different question: whether deaths across decades can be interpreted as belonging to a recurring pattern.

The second question may be interesting to UFO or antigravity researchers, but it cannot legitimately increase the numerator of the first without also changing its denominator and its inclusion rules. The apparent jump from ten to 28 therefore exaggerates continuity between two differently constructed datasets.

The compilation continued growing after 28, which makes the mechanism still clearer. The surviving Reddit thread eventually contained additional historical and contemporary names beyond the first 28 and invited contributors to cross-reference other lists and spreadsheets. It even pointed towards much larger collections of microbiologists, virologists and people associated with the MH370 disappearance.[Reddit]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026…Published: April 25, 2026

The important point is not whether every suggested addition was ultimately accepted. It is that the compilation process had become open-ended: existing lists were being searched for cases that might fit the emerging pattern.

11 MISSING SCIENTISTS: The Pattern Nobody's Talking About

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The meaning of “scientist” widened too

The numerical growth also depended on treating occupationally different people as comparable. The official congressional wording was more careful than much social-media discussion: it referred to “scientists and other personnel” and to alleged connections with sensitive scientific information.[Representative Burlison]burlison.house.govOpen source on house.gov.

PolitiFact’s reconstruction demonstrates why that qualification was necessary. Some people clearly were scientists or engineers: Loureiro was an MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering and physics; Grillmair was an astrophysicist; Reza specialised in rocket materials; LeBlanc was an electrical engineer; and Eskridge and Li worked on antigravity-related ideas. Others occupied administrative, construction, custodial, military or intelligence roles.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

This creates a subtle but consequential shift. A claim about “ten scientists” sounds as though the shared characteristic is scientific expertise. A list containing scientists, engineers, intelligence officers, contractors, administrative staff, UFO researchers and alternative-technology advocates instead uses proximity to a broad subject area as its organising principle.

The same looseness applies to “UFO connection”. McCasland, for example, had highly classified experience during his Air Force career, but his wife described his association with the UFO community as brief and connected to consulting for a fiction book. Sullivan’s alleged UFO-program connection came from a separate whistleblower narrative. Eskridge and Li entered through antigravity research. Those are materially different relationships, even though a broad compilation can place them under the same UFO/advanced-technology umbrella.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

The "Conspiracy" to Kill Cold Fusion

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Why expanding criteria creates a stronger-looking pattern

A list can become visually more persuasive at precisely the moment it becomes analytically weaker. Ten cases invite the question of whether ten is unusual. Twenty-eight cases look almost three times more impressive. But that comparison is meaningful only if both numbers were generated using substantially the same rules.

Here they were not. The growing compilation relaxed several boundaries at once: recent became historical; US became international; scientist became researcher, official or associated individual; missing became missing or dead; nuclear and aerospace work expanded towards UFO disclosure, antigravity and unconventional technology; and membership in one suspected cluster expanded towards resemblance to any of several proposed sub-patterns.[Reddit]reddit.comuunfilter approved a post in rufobu/un-filter approved a post in r/UFOBApril 24, 2026…Published: April 24, 2026

This produces what is effectively a multiple-entry system. A person does not need to possess every supposedly important characteristic. One entry might qualify through antigravity research, another through a defence clearance, another through alleged UFO knowledge, another because of an unexplained disappearance and another because the compiler regards the person as a historical precursor.

At the same time, disconfirming differences do not automatically exclude someone. Loureiro’s killing, for example, had a separately investigated context: PolitiFact cited the Associated Press account of the shooter who killed Brown University students and the MIT professor. Sullivan’s death was reported as an accidental overdose. Yet both could remain on broad internet lists because the criterion had shifted from “evidence of a common cause” towards “a case potentially relevant to the framework”.[PolitiFact]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

That is why the difference between investigating a possible connection and establishing one is essential. The FBI said it was looking for connections, and House Oversight sought briefings after unconfirmed public reports. Neither action established that the cases formed a single operational pattern. The congressional announcement itself preserved that uncertainty.[Representative Burlison]burlison.house.govOpen source on house.gov.

List Growth illustration 3
Explanatory illustration 3

What the 10-to-28 jump actually tells us

The most defensible lesson from the episode concerns list construction rather than the ultimate explanation for any individual death or disappearance. Within roughly eleven days, public discussion moved from an imprecise claim about “like 10” recent disappearances to a community list containing 28 people selected under visibly broader criteria. Between those endpoints came formulations of 11 cases, an official inquiry into reports of at least ten people, PolitiFact’s reconstruction of 14 circulating names and an intermediate community compilation containing 24 possible cases.[politifact.com]politifact.comPolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026…Published: April 28, 2026

That sequence does not prove that nothing suspicious happened in any of the cases. Nor does it make unresolved disappearances unimportant. It shows something narrower and more useful: the headline number was unstable because the category was unstable.

The 28-person compilation incorporated people because they matched different pieces of an evolving theory. It also explicitly invited further cross-referencing, and the same thread subsequently grew beyond 28.[Reddit]reddit.comUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsUpdated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026…Published: April 25, 2026

For evaluating researcher death lists in UFO, antigravity and alleged suppressed-technology narratives, that is the key distinction. A growing number can mean investigators have discovered additional cases meeting a fixed definition. But it can also mean the definition has expanded to absorb additional cases. The April 2026 progression from roughly ten to 28 is a particularly clear example of the second process: as the list became longer, the common characteristics required for membership became fewer, broader and more varied.

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Endnotes

1. Source: politifact.com
Link:https://www.politifact.com/article/2026/apr/28/missing-dead-scientists-nuclear-weapons-ufos/

Source snippet

PolitiFact | Fact-checking claims about missing, dead scientists: Were they researching UFOs, nuclear weapons?April 28, 2026...

Published: April 28, 2026

2. Source: burlison.house.gov
Link:https://burlison.house.gov/media/press-releases/comer-burlison-seek-information-missing-nuclear-and-rocket-scientists

3. Source: reddit.com
Title: Updated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other Individuals
Link:https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOB/comments/1svpnd6/updated_list_of_missingdead_scientists_other/

Source snippet

Updated List of Missing/Dead Scientists & Other IndividualsApril 25, 2026...

Published: April 25, 2026

4. Source: reddit.com
Title: uunfilter approved a post in rufob
Link:https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOB_Disclosures/comments/1su087w/uunfilter_approved_a_post_in_rufob/

Source snippet

u/un-filter approved a post in r/UFOBApril 24, 2026...

Published: April 24, 2026

5. Source: reddit.com
Title: Updated List of Missing & Dead Scientists and Other Individuals
Link:https://www.reddit.com/r/disclosureparty/comments/1svso7s/updated_list_of_missing_dead_scientists_and_other/

Source snippet

Updated List of Missing & Dead Scientists and Other IndividualsApril 26, 2026...

Published: April 26, 2026

6. Source: transcripts.cnn.com
Link:https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnc/date/2026-07-22/segment/09

7. Source: burlison.house.gov
Link:https://burlison.house.gov/media?page=1

8. Source: unexplained.co
Link:https://www.unexplained.co/news/matthew-sullivan-ufo-whistleblower

9. Source: transcripts.cnn.com
Link:https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ebo/date/2026-04-09/segment/01

10. Source: burlison.house.gov
Link:https://burlison.house.gov/media

11. Source: oversight.house.gov
Link:https://oversight.house.gov/all/?a_page=17&f-post-category=biden-family-investigation&f-post-month=&f-post-type=&f-post-year=

12. Source: oversight.house.gov
Link:https://oversight.house.gov/all/?a_page=17

13. Source: oversight.house.gov
Link:https://oversight.house.gov/page/5/?month=11&post_type=release&pyear=2014&update=update

14. Source: hindustantimes.com
Link:https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/matthew-james-sullivan-cause-of-death-ufo-whistleblowers-overdose-sparks-buzz-amid-missing-scientists-row-101777148288134.html

15. Source: wwew.jar2.com
Title: Dead Scientists
Link:https://wwew.jar2.com/Topics/Dead_Scientists.html

16. Source: shinysideout.com.au
Title: 14 matthew sullivan
Link:https://www.shinysideout.com.au/14-matthew-sullivan.html

17. Source: realm33.org
Title: David Wilcock
Link:https://www.realm33.org/induviduals/shadowbanned/david-wilcock/

18. Source: uapmurders.com
Link:https://uapmurders.com/uaps/Details/Melissa_Casias/

Additional References

19. Source: liberationtimes.com
Link:https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/late-air-force-officer-linked-to-alleged-legacy-ufo-program

Source snippet

Liberation Times | Reimagining Old NewsLate Air Force Officer Linked To Alleged Legacy UFO Program — Liberation Times | Reimagining Old News...

20. Source: ktvz.com
Link:https://ktvz.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2026/04/21/at-least-10-scientists-tied-to-sensitive-us-research-have-died-or-disappeared-in-recent-years-sparking-federal-investigation/

Source snippet

At least 10 people tied to sensitive US research have died or disappeared in recent years, sparking federal investigation - KTVZ...

21. Source: oann.com
Title: 12th person added to list of missing or dead govt
Link:https://www.oann.com/newsroom/12th-person-added-to-list-of-missing-or-dead-govt-scientists-and-officials/

Source snippet

scientists and officials – One America News NetworkJuly 27, 2026 — Monday, July 27, 2026 ONE AMERICA NEWS NETWORK Your Nation. Your News...

Published: July 27, 2026

22. Source: youtube.com
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QatWn2nMQnw

Source snippet

Murder, UFOs & Antigravity Tech — What’s Really Happening at Huntsville, Alabama's Space Port?...

23. Source: youtube.com
Title: The “Conspiracy” to Kill [Cold Fusion]({{ ‘cold-fusion/’ | relative_url }})
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlBZT7L1qM

Source snippet

Missing scientists UFO antigravity deaths What Happened to Anti-Gravity Researcher Amy Eskridge? #uaps #disclosure #antigravity...

24. Source: youtube.com
Title: 11 MISSING SCIENTISTS: The Pattern Nobody’s Talking About
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9OsOczZNpw

Source snippet

Amy Eskridge Predicted Her Own Death – Before Becoming 1 of 11 Scientists Now Dead or Missing...

25. Source: youtube.com
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KNLnt9gvzk

Source snippet

The "Conspiracy" to Kill Cold Fusion...

26. Source: imdb.com
Link:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt42446852/

27. Source: muckrack.com
Link:https://muckrack.com/alex-stambaugh

28. Source: programming.dev
Link:https://programming.dev/post/49201555