There's multiple parties looking at each other like, didn't we tell this bitch three years ago that we kill people for this? Is she not listening? What is she doing? She's still doing it? What? We told her we were going to kill her three years ago. So I have these two different scenarios floating constantly in my life where I have people being like, do it, do it, do it. You're the one, do it. And then I have multiple people being like, they're going to kill you. Don't do it. They're going to kill you.
In today's new episode of Missing, we are discussing the missing and deceased scientists, and we've got a lot of research here, and we're going to go over each person, what they did for work, and how they went missing or how they died. So buckle up here. We're going to discuss any possible connections that may come about, but there may not be any connections as well. So... Certainly let us know what you think in the comments section. We'll try to read the comments as we go here. And we are recording this conversation live on YouTube at Missing CSM. You can find us there on YouTube. We've been doing live shows about once a week or so recently. So let us know what you think of this conversation on YouTube or Spotify and follow us on social media at Missing CSM. Okay, we're going to break real quick here for commercial and we'll be right back to get into the missing and deceased scientists.
In early 2026, a widespread public narrative emerged across social media, news networks, and congressional briefings concerning a series of deaths and disappearances involving individuals tied to American scientific research, defense, aerospace, and nuclear engineering. And the consolidation of these individual cases into a singular overarching phenomenon gained substantial momentum following high-profile missing persons reports in the first quarter of 2026. And that trend quickly attracted the attention of federal lawmakers, prompting inquiries from members of the House Oversight Committee and drawing formal acknowledgments from executive branch officials, including the White House and FBI. And you did just say that we're not going to, we might not lean one way or another on this. So what we're trying to do here is provide an objective data-driven analysis of these events, something that demonstrates the narrative that encompasses 14 distinct individuals who died or vanished over this four-year period. So we're talking 2021 to 2026. And the individuals include...
Theoretical physicists, planetary researchers, aerospace engineers, technicians, administrative support personnel. And because several of these individuals possess high-level security clearances or worked at prominent federal research installations, and we're talking NASA, Jet Propulsions Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. So these are high-level, high-security installations. That just sparks that public speculation. frequently posited into a coordinated campaign of espionage or targeted attack. So this is what the conversation has become because of the position and the installations we're talking about. However, though, investigations conducted by law enforcement and medical examiners have revealed highly diverse, localized, and distinct circumstances behind these cases, and the following details the precise professional roles, institutional affiliations, and investigative findings for every individual associated with this narrative. And Lance, we did speak about the disappearance of Major General William Neal McCaslin maybe a couple of months ago with our friends David Perlmutter and Sarah Schiffacker.
And that case has really only gotten sort of more, more searched in the time since we've covered it. So if you would like to hear our complete episode on William Neal McCaslin, you can scroll back a, I don't know, 10, 20 episodes or something like that. Yeah, and I just want to say real quick on that episode, it was really interesting to talk to somebody like Dr. Sarah Schiffbecker. She's actually Austrian, so it was really interesting to get a perspective from somebody outside of the country. Okay, so as we detailed in that full episode on William Neal McCaslin, he was or is a highly decorated astronautical engineer and a retired major general in the United States Air Force. Over a military career spanning from 1979 to 2013, he served in several of the military's most sensitive scientific and technological commands. Most notably, he was the seventh commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he oversaw...
a multi-billion dollar portfolio encompassing aerospace systems, directed energy, materials manufacturing, and space vehicles. Now, I guess the real UFO heads out there who might be listening will hear Wright-Patterson, Air Force Base, and say, well, I know there's some funky stuff going on there. That's an Air Force base that is commonly embroiled in UFO lore. So McCaslin's prior assignments included serving as the director of special programs within the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, as well as commanding the Phillips Research Site at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. And following his retirement from active duty in 2013, McCaslin transitioned to the private sector, serving as the director of technology for Applied Technology Associates, an aerospace and defense contracting firm based in Albuquerque.
And I was surprised at how young he was. He was 68 years old, and that is quite a resume. I mean, he packed in his career. He has a lot going on or had a lot going on when he was operating in his professional capacities there. And he was 68 and officially reported missing by his family on Friday, February 27th of this year, 2026, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And according to timelines that were established by the Bernanillo County Sheriff's Office, a maintenance worker visited the McCaslin residence on the morning of February 27th. Shortly thereafter, McCaslin's spouse, Susan Wilkerson, or Susan McCaslin Wilkerson, left the home for a medical appointment.
upon her return, which was about an hour later, her husband was not at the property and she proceeded to call 911. She did. And actually, since we released that episode on William Neal McCaslin, this 911 call has been released to the public. So we've got it here and we'll play it right now. How may I help you? Hi, April. My name is Susan Wilkerson. My husband is missing. And it's been about three hours. And I have some indication that he must have planned not to be found. He's left his phone. He changed his clothes into I don't know what. I think he's on foot. All of our cars and bicycles are in the garage. I left for a doctor's appointment at about 1110. And he was here at that time at the house. And I got back from that at noon and he was gone. He turned it off and left it behind.
which seems kind of deliberate because he's always got his phone. He has a smartwatch. I don't know if that's with him or not. Has he ever done this before? Never. Nothing even remotely like it. He's a retired Air Force major general. He's very responsible. But he's also facing some medical issues. Do you have any video at your home? No.
Has he been diagnosed with any mental disorders or anything like that? Well, we've been seeing a doc for both physical and mental in terms of anxiety, short-term memory loss, lack of sleep. The same doc I went to see today. Does he carry any weapons on him? Well, not generally. He does have a gun safe, and I went to look in the gun safe to see if anything was missing, but I couldn't tell if anything was. He has quite a number of pistols and rifles.
saying if his brain and body keeps carrier rating, he didn't want to live like that. But it seemed to me that was just a, man, I hate how this is going kind of thing, because I told him, yes, you do. Yes, you do. Okay, we're going to send some deputies out to talk to you, see if we can search a little bit and see what's going on, okay? Sure. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay, so that is Susan Wilkerson, McCaslin, calling 911 about her missing husband. Anything strike you, I don't know, odd about that call? I don't think odd at all. I think she was very calm when I first heard this.
The first impression was how calm she was. And that's probably, one, a combination of being married to somebody like him. You know, watching somebody be that responsible, highly decorated military professional probably is calm in a lot of scenarios. So that probably was something that she picked up from or picked up from him. She was military herself. She was military as well. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this is the calmness. But I feel like she probably knew because she even mentions that he was talking about not.
He's talking about the frustration of being in decline. And I think she probably knew during this conversation that the reason for him leaving was because he wanted to end his life. Yeah. So a subsequent search of the residence by local authorities revealed that McCaslin had left behind his cell phone, his prescription eyeglasses, and his wearable digital tracking devices. However, his wallet, a pair of rugged hiking boots, and a personal .38 caliber revolver were missing from the home. And these are the kind of things, as we reported in the previous episode, these are the kind of things that sound exactly like someone who is intending to take their own life. Not only that.
take their own life, but with the wallet, he wants to be identified when his body's found. Right. So the sheriff's office immediately issued a silver alert, which is a protocol designated for missing individuals with cognitive or medical vulnerabilities, noting that McCaslin suffered from an unspecified medical condition characterized by sudden periods of severe mental fog. and despite extensive physical tracking operations executed by New Mexico Search and Rescue and investigative support from the FBI, no physical trace or verified sightings of McCaslin have been documented. His spouse has publicly stated that McCaslin held no active high-level clearances at the time of his disappearance, and that his historical knowledge was decades out of date, making external extraction highly improbable. Pretty interesting there. I mean, sounds realistic.
It does. And I wonder how long someone's, what do we call it, like the clearances that someone in his position, how long are those clearances in place? Like after you retire, are they immediately pulled or, you know, the more important is one pulled and then you can get into like lower level buildings with just sort of credentials. So I would think they're pulled probably right away, but I don't know. Yeah, they're probably pulled right away. So I guess my next question is just like, you know, could he go into a building that or have clearances for something that wasn't so high security? So I wonder if all of them were pulled, but that's nothing. You know, it really doesn't mean that there's a conspiracy.
Speaking of conspiracy, this is a really odd part of this story. And I think you could classify this entire story as a big rabbit hole. There are some tinier rabbit holes, I think, around in these individual cases. McCaslin's story, I would classify as a tiny rabbit hole. And this video that was released in 2020 from Susan McCaslin-Wilkerson is kind of an odd part of it. I mean, if you wanted to create a conspiracy, you could probably start here. But Susan McCaslin-Wilkerson...
wrote a song and released it in 2020. It's a little bit peculiar if you listen to the lyrics. And we don't have to play the whole song, but I just want to play a little bit of it here. I mean, it's kind of strange.
Yeah, she's got a nice voice. She does. Yeah, it's, you know, I haven't listened to the entire song, but some of the lyrics are a little notable. I mean, she's talking about a man who left, you know, left his family, I guess, in the beginning of that song. So, yeah. I mean, I feel like he would have heard this song, obviously, because they're married. So maybe this was something that she wrote and he was at the beginning of his decline and used it as inspiration. You know, maybe it was the other way around. You know, maybe he was listening to the song and was thinking, you know, maybe I could be that character.
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely possible. It's a bit peculiar, and there will be links in the show notes to that music video. You can find that. That's on her YouTube page, Susan McCaslin-Wilkerson. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor. The 2026 Chevrolet Trax is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy Safety Assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 2026 Trax. Start your build at chevrolet.ca. And a thank you to our sponsors. Back to the program.
Okay, so second person lands, Dr. Carl Grillmayer. So Dr. Carl Grillmayer was a highly regarded astronomer, astrophysicist, and author who spent nearly three decades contributing to the academic community at Cal Institute of Technology. and he operated primarily out of Caltech's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, a science and data facility dedicated to planetary and astronomy missions. Grillmare also served on the instrument support teams for NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, specifically handling data pipelines for the Infrared Spectrograph and the Infrared Array Camera.
And he was also a principal quality assurance scientist for the NEOWISE mission, which utilized a space telescope to discover and track asteroids and comets. Later, he worked as an instrument characterization specialist for NASA's upcoming Near-Earth Object Surveyor Space Telescope. And over his career, he published 147 peer-reviewed papers and was awarded the 2011 NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal. So pretty apparent that he was more involved with the instruments that go along with space exploration. And unfortunately, on February 16th of 2026, he was killed. He was 67 years old and he was killed outside of his home in the rural community of Lano, California. This is located in the Antelope Valley region, which is north of Los Angeles. And according to reports from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Dr. Gilmar was confronted in his driveway during the late afternoon by an armed individual. And this encounter escalated rapidly into a violent vehicle theft.
And the doctor sustained multiple fatal gunshot wounds during the altercation, and the assailant fled the scene in the scientist's personal vehicle. An emergency medical personnel pronounced Dr. Gilmer dead at the scene, and following an intensive multi-agent pursuit, the local law enforcement intercepted his vehicle, the stolen vehicle, and they arrested a 29-year-old California resident who had an extensive prior criminal record. So it sounds more like a random carjacking gone wrong here. The suspect was formally arraigned in February, later on that month, on charges of first-degree murder, carjacking.
felonious possession of a firearm, and homicide detectives conclusively established that the event was a random crime of opportunity, no indication that the perpetrator had any knowledge of Dr. Gilmer's identity, no knowledge of his scientific background or affiliation with Caltech. But another scientist dead. Right. Yes, but it doesn't sound like there's anything suspicious there, at least at this point in our program as we're discussing these. So, number three, Lance, is Dr. Nuno Loreiro. And Dr. Nuno Loreiro was a world-renowned theoretical plasma physicist,
a full professor of physics and the director of Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT in Massachusetts. He was born in Portugal. Dr. Larrero earned his undergrad in physical engineering in Lisbon, followed by a PhD in plasma physics from the Imperial College in London. And he conducted advanced postdoctoral research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and the Cullham Center for Fusion Energy in the United Kingdom. And Dr. Larrero was a leading global authority on magnetic reconnection.
the fundamental process by which magnetic field lines break and reconnect, releasing vast amounts of energy. His work was critical to the development of magnetic confinement systems for controlled nuclear fission energy, specifically tokamak reactors. He was young. He was young. He was 47 years old when he was fatally shot at his residence on December 16th of last year, 2025. The homicide occurred within the context of a wider violent incident involving a mass shooting targeted at professionals associated with Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. So folks might remember that from later on last year. The sole perpetrator of this multi-jurisdictional investigation was identified as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portugal national and former graduate.
student at brown university valente fled the scene of the shooting and was located deceased three days later in a remote area of new hampshire from a self self-inflicted gunshot wound actually in a storage storage unit park so uh an area where people rent out storage units he was inside that uh one of the storage units he actually had a video that he made of the uh basically admission of his crimes. Right. And so on April 29th, 2026, the FBI and United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts issued a conclusive report on the incident. Digital forensics and recovered journals revealed that Valenti had spent several years planning the assassination of Dr. Larrero and other academic figures. The motive was rooted entirely in severe personal and academic failures, profound social isolation, and an escalating psychiatric grievance narrative.
And Valenti erroneously blamed Larrero and specific institutional administrations for his professional stagnation. The federal investigation firmly concluded that the homicide was an isolated act of workplace violence and stalking devoid of any connection to corporate espionage, classified military programs, or international intelligence operations. And that one was in our state, our home state here in Massachusetts at MIT. Of course, it started not in Massachusetts. It started in Providence, Rhode Island, but that is within New England as well. And the next one that we have here is also in our home state and actually in the town right next to where I live.
Yeah, so this is about Jason Thomas, 45-year-old molecular biologist and organic chemist who served as the assistant director of chemical biology at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And Thomas possessed an advanced degree in biochemistry and specialized in high-throughput screening. target identification and chemical synthesis aimed at discovering novel small molecule therapeutics for complex diseases. His work was entirely situated within the commercial pharmaceutical sector, focusing on public health and biomedical innovation. And Thomas was reported missing by his spouse on December 12th, 2025, after he failed to return to a suburban residence in Wakefield, Mass., following an evening walk. And local law enforcement launched an immediate missing persons investigation, conducting physical searches around nearby parks and bodies of water. So you have to...
Think about the weather that time of year. This is mid-December in Massachusetts, and a lot of those bodies of water did have a pretty decent amount of ice on them, but nothing that was like in a deep freeze situation. sort of early on in the winter like this was, but a lot of the bodies of water did have a little bit of ice coverage on them. So in March of 2026, when I'm imagining some of these bodies of water were thought out to a point where something could be seen, which was approximately three months after his initial disappearance, a regional recovery team located and extracted his body from Lake Quanapowit in Wakefield. So same town that he lived in, Lake Quanapowit is not a huge lake at all. You can probably drive the entirety of the lake, circle around it. If you catch the lights correctly, it'd probably take you about four or five minutes to drive completely around the lake and you can walk around it too. The medical examiner officially ruled the cause of death is drowning.
noting an absolute absence of defensive wounds, external trauma or chemical indicators of foul play. So not poisoned, not beaten, not trying to protect himself from anything. Concurrently, Thomas's spouse issued a public statement clarifying that he had been battling a severe, debilitating episode of clinical depression at the time he walked away from their home. The case was formally closed by local and state police as a suicide. They're tragic. It is tragic. And I actually was passing by that lake on that day that they had the recovery team in the water. Yeah, it's home a little bit. Yeah. So that's four stories here. So our fifth scientist is Stephen Garcia.
He was a 47-year-old logistical specialist and government contractor. So Garcia operated as a contract property custodian and procurement clerk assigned to support infrastructure managed under the umbrella of the Kansas City National Security Campus and its satellite procurement operations in the Southwest Defense Corridor. His role was fundamentally bureaucratic, involving the processing of physical shipping manifests, heavy equipment tracking, and warehouse database management. So while traveling through New Mexico on August 28, 2025, Garcia disappeared. According to investigative files compiled by regional state troopers, Garcia parked his personal vehicle on the shoulder of a secondary roadway he left behind his cell phone, his wallet, and the keys, and his vehicle.
Family members and law enforcement confirmed that Garcia had departed the vehicle on foot while carrying a legally registered personal handgun. Comprehensive missing persons searches across the surrounding public lands failed to locate him. Skeptical reviews of the case emphasize that Garcia's disappearance fit a documented statistical baseline within the U.S. where thousands of individuals intentionally or accidentally vanish in vast national parklands and desert terrain. That's something that is very familiar in our world here and what we do. A lot of folks might associate this grouping of cases to David Politis. Yeah, and his missing 411 series. Yeah, missing 411 series. I don't believe that Garcia was taken by a Bigfoot.
Just my personal theory here. But in this case, investigators uncovered no physical or digital evidence linking Garcia's disappearance to his administrative job or any external conspiracy. It's still super mysterious. This one is like right up there with the most mysterious ones that we come across. Maybe I'm just caught up in the single car element to it that we come across a lot. Just leaving the vehicle and disappearing on foot. Yeah, but he was carrying a handgun. Oh, yeah.
This one sounds more like General McCaslin's disappearance to me than, say, Maura Murray or Brianna Maitland or something like that. This seems like a potential suicide here. I'm with you on that. I'm with you on that. It's just whenever I get that imagery in my head of a car on the side of the road and the person's gone, it can't help but go to those. Brianna Maitland, Maura Murray, Jason Landry. Yeah, and also I just want to note that if that is the fate of Stephen Garcia and General McCaslin, I think it seems to me a little rare to...
you know, sort of conceal your body after committing suicide. You mean to go to an area that they're sure no one's going to find their body? Yeah, to go to lengths so to keep yourself missing, you know, after you've offed yourself, you know? Exactly. Which is interesting that General McCaslin took his wallet because he wanted to be, in my opinion, identified once his body was found. So his body still hasn't been found. So he did go to a spot that was going to be kind of secretive for at least a while, a little clandestine for at least a little while.
Yeah, I mean, assuming that is what happened to McCaslin, that's certainly my opinion, but no confirmation at this point. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor. And a thank you to our sponsors. Back to the program. Joshua LeBlanc, Lance. Joshua LeBlanc was a 29-year-old electrical engineer employed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Marshall Space Flight Center is historically recognized as NASA's primary center for solid rocket propulsion, spacecraft structures, and space launch systems. LeBlanc worked within the engineering directorate, focusing on the integration, testing, and quality assurance of electrical systems and avionics hardware utilized in civil spaceflight initiatives.
And unfortunately, on July 22nd, 2025, LeBlanc died as a result of injuries sustained in a severe traffic accident. According to data released by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, LeBlanc was driving his personal vehicle on a state highway just outside of the city limits of Huntsville, and he was involved in a multi-vehicle collision. When I heard about this, my first thought was the Silkwood car accident and how she was run off the road. So that's, you know, the conspiracy angle starts to like rear its head at this point. Right. Karen Silkwood's story. Was that from the 60s or 70s? Certainly a while ago. I think the 70s. I know they made a movie about it, I think, starring Meryl Streep, if I'm not mistaken. Meryl Streep and Cher. Yeah. But also, like, that story is sort of commonly believed to be a murder, like that she was targeted for her role at her workplace. So, you know, if any of these have anything like that, you know, they would hearken that case, especially this one sounds familiar. But the state trooper report indicated that another vehicle crossed the center dividing line, resulting in a high-speed head-on impact.
and LeBlanc was transported via emergency medical services to a regional trauma center where he succumbed to his injury. State police investigation closed the case as a standard traffic fatality caused by vehicular negligence on the part of the opposing driver with no indications of premeditation, tracking, or external interference. But you gotta, if you're coming at this story and you want to come up with the conspiracies, this one is a pretty solid one to lean into. This wasn't him, say. inebriated and crossing a center line and hitting somebody. This was somebody who came across the line wrong way and struck him. So he was just driving and somebody else struck him. So I'm not trying to fuel any conspiracy here, but if this is playing into a narrative of conspiracy, then this one is pretty apropos. For sure. Okay, so the seventh case is Melissa.
And Melissa Casillas was a 53-year-old administrative professional and contract property custodian employed by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies, the primary managing contractor for the Kansas City National Security Campus. While the main Kansas City National Security Campus facility is located in Missouri, its personnel frequently interface with procurement, logistics, and non-nuclear component auditing at the Department of Energy's New Mexico operations, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory Corridor. So Huntsville, Alabama, Los Alamos National Lab. These have both come up multiple times already. So Casillas' daily responsibilities involved logistical oversight, inventory tracking of non-classified physical assets, and coordinating building maintenance records. She did not hold a research role or have access to nuclear weapon designs. And on the morning of June 27th of last year, 2025, in Taos country, New Mexico, Casillas vanished. According to vehicular tracking statements compiled by the New Mexico State Police, Casillas and her husband, Mark, who was also an employee, noted he was also an employee within the National Laboratory Network.
commuted together. So they're commuting together from the residence in the census designated place of Ranchos de Taos toward the Los Alamos area. Casillas drops her husband off at his designated facility and she unexpectedly turned her vehicle around and drove back home. So eyebrow raising moment here. By that afternoon, she had completely disappeared. Her husband returned home to discover that her wallet, her house keys and her personal vehicle were all parked on the property at that time. Crucially, investigators recovered her two personal cell phones.
inside the house. Both devices had been completely wiped to factory settings prior to her disappearance. This sparked a multi-agency investigation which reviewed regional surveillance infrastructure and discovered footage from a commercial establishment which captured Casillas walking entirely alone along Highway 518. This was at approximately 1 p.m. on the day she disappeared, and she was carrying a small lunch container. Yeah, very strange here. So I think she had stated when she was commuting to work that she had forgotten her badge and used that as an excuse to go home to retrieve her badge. That's what she told her husband, but ended up not being true.
And so while her extended biological family expressed severe suspicions regarding potential domestic foul play, a formal statement issued by New Mexico State Police in April indicated that evidence pointed to a voluntary departure. Financial audits and personal journals revealed that Casillas was experiencing extreme psychological stress due to severe undisclosed financial insolvency and personal hardships, leading investigators to conclude she intentionally chose to sever contact and walk away from her life. And Lance, I would agree, especially when considering the two wiped cell phones. Usually we don't see that unless the person is intending to disappear. However, there was a tragic update as of yesterday afternoon, June 1st, 2026. And over the weekend, a hiker alerted authorities to remains in Carson National Forest, and a handgun was found nearby. The medical investigator positively identified the body as Casillas. And the cause and manner of death have not been established as the investigation continues.
And Casillas' family sent a statement on Facebook, this is a lot to process, our hearts are heavy, and we fully intend to continue to pursue answers for justice. She was found in an area that was previously searched, supposedly. Which isn't to say that the search prior to that was bad. I mean, it just depends on so many factors when searching for somebody. There might have been a lot of, I don't know, overgrowth in some areas. So I know when one hears a statement like that, that she was found in an area previously searched, again, like the conspiracy, red flag starts going up and you think that somebody might have put her body in an area that was already searched in order to
make sure that her body's never found because that's checked off the list. But this happens all the time. We hear about it all the time that bodies are found in places that were already searched. I do think it was a little odd that she allowed herself to be seen walking alone on what I'm guessing is like a pretty well-traveled highway. But maybe she just knew that route. You know, maybe that was...
Maybe she didn't care. Maybe she didn't care if she was seen and she knew that route. I guess she didn't care because, yeah, she ended up taking her life. Until yesterday afternoon, I really thought that she was alive out there because, again, people going to lengths to wipe their phones and she had two of them. That tells me it's more of a runaway situation, not wanting to be tracked versus suicide, but certainly still a possibility in a lot of cases. We've heard victims of suicide will return clothing or sort of tie up loose ends in their lives. Yeah. And again, as far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, the handgun was found.
close to where she was found, but there hasn't been any official statement of suicide, right? Yeah, they haven't put out any cause or manner of death yet. I'm sure that's coming in the next day or two, though. Right, but it's safe to go with the assumption that this is most likely a suicide. I would say so. It's interesting that her cell phones were brought back to factory settings. Yeah. That does raise my red flag a little bit. I mean, it's interesting in that now that she appears to have committed suicide, it seems like she was trying to wipe some information so that her family couldn't find out certain messages, maybe. Not 100% sure on why. But again, as we said, it seems like somebody who would do that and then go missing, in my opinion, is more likely to have gone missing to continue living and not go missing to commit suicide. Right, right.
What do you make of her having two cell phones, two personal cell phones? I think it's more common these days than, you know, we probably realize. I have one. But there's like an extra one hanging around my house that's not, you know, attached to any network that we all use occasionally, just attached to Wi-Fi, you know. So, it's a thing. More common these days. I've seen people with two. Yeah. Okay, so Monica Reza. Monica Reza was an expert metalurgist, materials scientist, and aerospace engineer.
And that is someone who studies the physical and chemical properties of metals and their alloys. So she earned a bachelor's in metallurgical engineering from Columbia University and a master's in materials engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1997. Her professional career began in 1988 at Rocketdyne, then a division of Rockwell International, where she focused on solving material degradation issues in high-pressure, oxygen-rich... staged combustion cycle rocket engines. A lot of words here. There are a lot of professions here that we've gone over that really need me to really think about the sentence I just stated to fully understand what they're doing for a living.
In the mid-1990s, alongside her research partner, Dr. Dallas Hardwick, Resna co-invented Mondoloy, a revolutionary nickel-based superalloy engineered to withstand the extreme temperatures and oxidative environments inherent to next-generation liquid rocket propulsion. And this development was later scaled in collaboration with the Air Force, Research Lab, and NASA. And at the time of her disappearance, public records and congressional releases indicated she operated a materials processing and management role at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. So Reza was also rather young, 60 years old. And on June 22nd, Sunday, 2025, she disappeared in the morning of that Sunday. She was hiking in a rugged wilderness area of the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles County, California. Investigative reports from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department indicate that Reza was navigating a well-traveled trail near a cliff's edge on Mount Waterman. She was accompanied by a longtime friend. And according to the longtime friend's formal statement,
He was walking approximately 30 feet ahead of Reza due to the narrow terrain. And at approximately 9 a.m., he turned around to verify her position. Reza smiled and waved. This is all according to his statement. She smiled and waved and signaled that she was managing the hike without much difficulty. This companion turned back to continue along the path, but eventually he takes a second look back, and this is just moments later, takes a second look back. Reza had completely vanished off the trail.
The companion immediately contacted emergency services via a satellite signaling device. There was an extensive search and rescue operation. They utilized helicopters, drones, canines, mountaineering teams. They combed the steep, heavily forested terrain around Mount Waterman for weeks. And due to the treacherous drop-offs adjacent to that specific section of the trail, the search coordinators concluded that an accidental fall into an inaccessible ravine was the most likely outcome.
However, though, none of her remains or personal effects have ever been recovered. This is also a little bit like a David Politis situation. Yeah. I mean, kind of textbook David Politis situation. Yeah, this is a weird one. This one reminds me of like Polly Melton or, yeah, really Polly Melton's case. And that's from the Smoky Mountain, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, where an older woman was hiking and just went around a corner and was just gone. That park doesn't have the drop-offs that the Angelus Forest apparently has. Yeah, so this case sounds more...
I don't know, I guess, mysterious than most, in my opinion, because where is she? If their most likely outcome is that she fell into a ravine, I mean, they knew exactly where she was. So how couldn't they have found her or noticed wildlife, birds, you know, buzzards, things like that? So that is suspicious to me in that they couldn't find her even though they knew where she was. And even if she fell off the trail and down a ravine, I feel like they still should have, I don't know, been able to find some trace of her. I agree. And I have to ask the question about the companion who was with her. I didn't see anything where he says that he heard her scream or he heard her call out or anything. I mean, if...
You fall off the trail. I mean, you know the terrain, and you know that this is a steep cliff, a steep drop-off. I mean, you don't really fall silently, do you? You don't slip and fall silently. You try to, like, grab onto something, you yell. You have somebody right there to yell to. Yeah, it's strange to me. Also, that Angeles National Forest there, you know, it's got some other disappearances. We've covered at least one other case from a disappearance from there, Jonathan OJ. I don't know if you remember that case. Oh, yeah. He was a sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles County and disappeared on June 11th, 1998.
So some people think he kind of ran away or some people think he was murdered. Okay, and that is it for part one. We will be back with part two tomorrow. Let us know what you think on YouTube or Spotify and follow us on social media at MissingCSM. Thanks a lot for listening.