Anthony "Tony" Chavez

Former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee who vanished from his Los Alamos home in May 2025 — the first disappearance in what would become the New Mexico defense corridor cluster. Wallet, keys, and cigarettes left on the living room table. Car locked in the driveway. No cell phone to track. No forced entry. No blood. No signs of struggle. Cadaver dogs found nothing. He disappeared six weeks before Melissa Casias and seven weeks before Monica Reza.

Field	Details
Full Name	Anthony "Tony" Chavez
Born	~1947 (age 78 at disappearance)
Status	MISSING since May 4, 2025
Age at Disappearance	78
Last Known Location	37th Street, Denver Steels neighborhood, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Category	Disappeared

Assessment: SUSPICIOUS

Anthony Chavez's disappearance shares a precise physical signature with three other missing persons from the defense corridor: personal effects abandoned, negative searches with every technology deployed, zero confirmed sightings, zero bodies recovered. He was the first to vanish in the New Mexico cluster — six weeks before Melissa Casias, seven weeks before Monica Reza, and ten months before William McCasland. His specific role at LANL has not been publicly confirmed, and no direct UAP connection has been established. However, the shared signature across all four disappearances, the defense-corridor geography, and the complete absence of any trace elevate this case beyond a routine missing person.

Circumstances of Disappearance

Anthony Chavez's landline records show his last calls from home occurred on the evening of May 5, 2025. He did not carry a cell phone. On May 8, when his brother Dimas Chavez (living in Maryland) could not reach him by phone, he called a childhood friend and attorney, Carl Buckland, to check on him.

When the Bucklands arrived at Chavez's home on 37th Street in the Denver Steels neighborhood, his car was locked in the driveway but no one answered the door. Inside, his wallet, keys, and cigarettes sat on the living room table. According to friends, the scene suggested he "didn't plan on leaving for a long time."

Detective Ladislas Szabo, lead investigator with the Los Alamos Police Department, described the scene: "There was no evidence of a scuffle. There was no blood. There was nothing. It was just like he left."

Banking activity ceased around May 5. He has never been found.

Search Efforts

The Los Alamos Police Department conducted extensive searches:

• Thorough searches of known residences
• Hiked local trails including Pueblo Canyon (where Chavez hiked often)
• Distributed flyers to businesses
• Reviewed hours of surveillance footage
• Followed up on every tip received

On June 18, 2025, volunteers with trained cadaver-detection dogs from Sandia Search Dogs and Mountain Canine Corps searched his home, his sister's nearby house, and Pueblo Canyon bench trails. All searches returned negative.

The LAPD issued two missing-person announcements in mid-May 2025. According to The Sentinel Network, after May 20, all media coverage ceased. A single local Substack article from Boomtown Los Alamos, published June 25, 2025, remains the most detailed public account of the case until The Sentinel Network investigation in March 2026.

Background

Chavez was a longtime resident of Los Alamos, living on 37th Street in the Denver Steels — one of the oldest neighborhoods in the town. According to The Sentinel Network, the homes are prefabricated structures assembled from kits in the late 1940s by the Atomic Energy Commission to house workers during the postwar expansion of the nuclear weapons complex. The neighborhood exists because the laboratory exists.

According to reporting by Boomtown Los Alamos, Chavez worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory until approximately 2017, having returned to New Mexico in the late 1990s after spending years away from the state. His specific role or division at LANL has not been publicly confirmed. As The Sentinel Network noted: "That matters, and we are transparent about the limit."

Carl Buckland, the close friend and attorney who had known Chavez since childhood, publicly disputed the idea that he left voluntarily. He described Chavez as "healthy, and extremely [mentally] stable" and "active and intellectually engaged." Buckland called the disappearance "extremely unusual," stating it was "very much out of character for him to be out of touch with his family or friends for more than a day."

The Shared Signature

According to The Sentinel Network's investigation, Chavez's disappearance shares a precise physical signature with three other missing persons from the defense corridor:

• Chavez (May 2025, Los Alamos): Wallet, keys, cigarettes left on table. No cell phone to track. Negative cadaver dogs. "It was just like he left." Never found.
• Melissa Casias (June 2025, Taos): Both phones factory-reset. Carrying a backpack. Staggering on surveillance camera. Not a drinker. Never found.
• Monica Reza (June 2025, Angeles National Forest): Waved at her hiking companion from 30 feet, then ceased to exist. FLIR-negative search. Scent trail ended at a misplaced beanie. Never found.
• William McCasland (February 2026, Albuquerque): Red backpack missing. Phone, glasses, wearable devices left. "Mental fog" reported but investigators say no impairment. No confirmed video of departure. Nobody witnessed him leave. Never found.

As The Sentinel Network documented: "Personal effects abandoned in every case. Negative searches in every case. Zero confirmed sightings in every case. Zero bodies recovered in any case. Two states. One hundred miles of New Mexico desert and one California ridgeline. The same outcome every time."

Why This Disappearance Possibly Raises Questions

• The scene: No forced entry, no blood, no signs of struggle. Detective Szabo: "It was just like he left." But he left without wallet, keys, cigarettes, car, or hiking gear.
• No trace found: Cadaver dogs, trail searches, surveillance footage review, and extensive tip follow-up produced zero evidence. He simply vanished.
• No cell phone: Chavez did not carry a cell phone, making him impossible to track electronically — a detail shared with McCasland, who left his phone behind.
• First in the corridor: He was the first person to disappear from the New Mexico defense corridor in what became a cluster of four vanishings across two states.
• Media blackout: After two police announcements in mid-May, all media coverage ceased. No follow-up from any major outlet until The Sentinel Network investigation in March 2026.
• LANL connection: Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the most sensitive defense research facilities in the United States. A longtime employee vanished from a town that exists because of the laboratory.
• Part of broader pattern: The Sentinel Network and Congressman Tim Burchett have included Chavez in a broader pattern of scientists and defense-connected individuals who have died or disappeared since mid-2024. Burchett told the Daily Mail (March 22, 2026): "The numbers seem very high in these certain areas of research. I think we'd better be paying attention, and I don't think we should trust our government."

The Counterargument

• Chavez was 78 years old. Elderly people do go missing, sometimes due to cognitive decline, medical emergencies, or falls in remote terrain.
• Los Alamos is surrounded by rugged canyon terrain. A hiker who fell or became incapacitated in a remote area might not be found, even by cadaver dogs.
• His specific role at LANL is unknown. He may have held a non-sensitive position unrelated to classified research.
• No reporting has established a direct connection between Chavez and UAP programs, exotic physics, or any specific classified work.
• The Los Alamos Police Department initially stated he was "not believed to be endangered."
• The shared "signature" across the four disappearances could reflect coincidence — personal effects are commonly left behind by missing persons, and negative searches occur in difficult terrain.

Key Quotes

"There was no evidence of a scuffle. There was no blood. There was nothing. It was just like he left." — Detective Ladislas Szabo, Los Alamos Police Department, via The Sentinel Network

"[He was] healthy, and extremely [mentally] stable." — Carl Buckland, close friend and attorney, via Boomtown Los Alamos

"It is very much out of character or circumstance for him to be out of touch with his family or friends for more than a day." — Carl Buckland, via Los Alamos Reporter

"A longtime laboratory employee vanished from a town that exists because of the laboratory, six weeks before Reza and seven weeks before Casias, under circumstances that will look very familiar by the time you finish this briefing." — The Sentinel Network, March 2026

See Also

• Melissa Casias — DOE advisory board member connected to LANL, vanished from Taos ~6 weeks after Chavez
• Monica Jacinto Reza — Aerospace engineer who vanished hiking ~7 weeks after Chavez, June 22, 2025
• Frank Maiwald — JPL technical group supervisor who died July 4, 2024; extends the timeline backward
• Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland — Retired USAF Major General, vanished February 27, 2026; oversaw Reza's research
• Carl Grillmair — Caltech astrophysicist shot on porch, February 2026
• Nuno Loureiro — MIT plasma physicist shot at home, December 2025
• Jason Thomas — Novartis scientist, vanished December 2025

Other Shocking Stories

• Phil Schneider — Ex-government geologist strangled with catheter after lecturing about underground bases
• Mark McCandlish — Disclosure Project witness died of shotgun blast before Senate testimony
• Frederick Valentich — Pilot vanished over Bass Strait after radioing "It's not an aircraft"
• Ron Rummel — Ex-Air Force intel agent shot dead; no fingerprints on gun, wrong-hand note

Sources

• The Blind Spot — The Sentinel Network (March 2026)
• Los Alamos Resident Still Missing After 7 Weeks — Boomtown Los Alamos
• Social Media Pages Voice Concern About Anthony 'Tony' Chavez — Los Alamos Reporter
• Search Continues for Missing Person, Anthony Chavez — Los Alamos County
• Los Alamos Police Continue Search For Anthony Chavez — LA Daily Post
• Los Alamos Police Department Continues Search — Los Alamos Reporter
• Six Defense Scientists Dead Or Missing In Under A Year — IBTimes UK

This information was built by Grok and Claude AI research.