William McCasland
Retired USAF Major General and former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB. Missing since February 27, 2026 after leaving his Albuquerque home on foot without his phone or watch. FBI is assisting the search. Was reportedly a primary source for Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy and held some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. military related to advanced aerospace technology.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | William Neil McCasland |
| Born | c. 1957-1958 (age 68 at time of disappearance) |
| Status | MISSING since February 27, 2026 |
| Current Location | Unknown; last seen at his Albuquerque, New Mexico home |
| Category | Military Officer / Advanced Aerospace Research / UAP-Connected |
Assessment: HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS
The disappearance of Major General McCasland is deeply concerning on multiple levels. He held some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. military, including commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory (managing a $2.2 billion annual budget), chief engineer on the DoD's GPS program, system program director of the Space Based Laser Project Office, and director of special programs at the Pentagon. He left his home without his phone, prescription glasses, or wearable devices — items essential for a 68-year-old man with an unspecified medical condition. His hiking boots, wallet, and a .38-caliber revolver with holster are believed to be missing. An anonymous X account (@TMBSPACESHIPS) posting about plasma propulsion and advanced aerospace technology — whose technical profile overlapped significantly with McCasland's career — went silent approximately 30 minutes before he was last seen. Investigative journalist Ross Coulthart has called the disappearance a "grave national security crisis." President Trump had announced UFO file releases the week prior. As of March 13, 2026, no confirmed sightings or footage showing McCasland leaving the area have been identified.
Current Situation
On February 27, 2026, at approximately 11:00 a.m., William Neil McCasland left his Albuquerque home on foot and has not been in contact with family or friends since. The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office issued a Silver Alert the following day, which remains in effect.
McCasland left behind his phone, prescription glasses, and wearable devices. Investigators believe his hiking boots, wallet, and a .38-caliber revolver with a leather holster are missing from the residence. Authorities have noted he has an unspecified "medical issue" that has added urgency to the search.
Search efforts have included drones, helicopter support, ground searches with search-and-rescue teams and K-9 units. The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office is coordinating with the FBI Albuquerque Field Office and Kirtland Air Force Base. Despite extensive searching, investigators have not identified any confirmed sightings or footage showing McCasland leaving the area or indicating a direction of travel.
According to Ross Coulthart in a March 2026 update, McCasland was never seen leaving his home — no security camera footage, no witness sightings, no confirmed direction of travel. For a 68-year-old man walking on foot through a residential neighborhood, this absence of any visual trail is unusual.
McCasland's wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, has disputed characterizations that he was "confused and disoriented" when he went missing, according to reporting by the Albuquerque Journal. She stated in a Facebook post: "It is true that Neil had a brief association with the UFO community. This connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil. Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt."
Connection to Monica Jacinto Reza
As the search for McCasland continued, attention was drawn to the disappearance of aerospace engineer Monica Jacinto Reza, who vanished while hiking in the Angeles National Forest on June 22, 2025 — approximately eight months before McCasland. Reza was the co-inventor of Mondaloy, a nickel-based superalloy critical to U.S. national security rocket engines, and her research was directly funded under the AFRL budget that McCasland oversaw as commander.
According to reporting by The Sentinel Network, Reza was declared legally dead and given a "green burial" just four days after vanishing — while search-and-rescue helicopters were still in the air. No remains were ever recovered. Ross Coulthart raised "grave new questions" about the connection between the two disappearances.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department confirmed to Newsweek that detectives are "looking into this to see if there is any connection at all."
Background
Military Career
McCasland held an extraordinary series of sensitive positions during his military career:
- Commander, Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio — overseeing a total $4.4 billion portfolio ($2.2 billion annual science and technology budget plus $2.2 billion in customer-funded R&D) and the Air Force's entire science and technology portfolio. When he took command in May 2011, Dallis Hardwick was still one of his senior civilian scientists.
- Commander, Phillips Research Site at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico — home of AFRL's Directed Energy Directorate. According to The Sentinel Network's "THE LONG COUNT" investigation, Kirtland and Los Alamos National Laboratory, 100 miles apart, share joint programs in directed energy, weapons physics, and advanced materials. The New Mexico defense corridor is one continuous pipeline.
- Chief Engineer on the Department of Defense's Global Positioning System (GPS) program
- System Program Director of the Space Based Laser Project Office
- Director of Special Programs at the Pentagon
He holds degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is an astronautical engineer by training. According to The Sentinel Network, at the time of his disappearance he had approximately $450 million in active defense contracts across institutions he built and advised.
His wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, was an astronaut semifinalist — a career detail that, according to The Sentinel Network, went unreported in every article covering his disappearance.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has long been associated with UFO lore — it housed Project Blue Book and has been the subject of persistent claims regarding crash-retrieval programs.
Tom DeLonge and To The Stars Academy Connection
McCasland's name became publicly linked to UFO topics through the 2016 WikiLeaks release of emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. Calendar invites in Podesta's emails showed a virtual meeting involving Tom DeLonge (founder of To The Stars Academy), Rob Weiss (of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works), and retired Air Force General William N. McCasland.
DeLonge reportedly referenced McCasland multiple times in correspondence, claiming McCasland had advised him on disclosure matters and helped assemble an advisory team. According to available accounts, McCasland worked with DeLonge as an unpaid consultant on military and technical/scientific matters, though these claims come primarily from DeLonge and have not been independently confirmed by McCasland.
According to The Sentinel Network, his business partner — described publicly in every article as merely a community acquaintance — was in fact misidentified, a detail that went uncorrected across all major coverage.
The Anonymous X Account
An anonymous X account called @TMBSPACESHIPS (display name "ELECTRIC PROPULSIVE SPACECRAFT") had been posting about exotic electric propulsion, plasma physics, and ionized gas flight mechanics since November 2022. The account shared more than 1,600 posts on these topics. Its bio described the author as a "38 year Active Duty USAF PhD Engineer" with experience connected to Air Force research institutions.
The account's last post was published on February 27, 2026 — the same day McCasland disappeared — approximately 30 minutes before he was last seen. Researchers noted significant overlap between the technical topics discussed by the account (ionized helium propulsion, directed energy research, pulsed power systems) and McCasland's documented career.
According to The Sentinel Network's "THE LONG COUNT" investigation, researchers recovered a 1998 schematic from the @TMBSPACESHIPS archive along with a reverse-engineered propulsion component list from the bleed-through on the back of the page. The Sentinel Network assessed the attribution to McCasland as "probable, not confirmed."
It has not been confirmed whether McCasland operated this account.
Burchett on Intelligence Community Non-Cooperation
Congressman Tim Burchett told the Daily Mail (March 22, 2026) that he had been frustrated by the intelligence community's lack of cooperation, specifically calling out the "alphabet agencies" such as the FBI for being unhelpful in his attempts to find out the truth about what has happened to these scientists. Burchett said he had spoken with members of the intelligence community who claimed they had no knowledge about UFOs or the U.S. military's alleged work to reverse-engineer that technology, while others in different departments confirmed materials exist. "I honestly think that they both are telling the truth as far as they know it. It's a very compartmentalized issue," Burchett said. He also stated: "I think we ought to be paying attention to it" and warned that delays in taking the disappearances seriously had allowed "the trail to cool off."
Context: Trump UFO File Release
President Trump had announced the release of UFO-related government files approximately one week before McCasland's disappearance, adding to speculation about the timing.
Why This Person Matters
- Held some of the most sensitive advanced aerospace research positions in the U.S. military
- Commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB — a base central to UFO crash-retrieval narratives — and the Phillips Research Site at Kirtland AFB, home of the Directed Energy Directorate
- Was reportedly a primary source for Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy
- An anonymous X account with technical content matching his career went silent the same day he vanished
- Left without phone or wearable devices, making tracking impossible
- FBI involvement and Ross Coulthart's characterization as a "grave national security crisis" suggest this is not treated as a routine missing persons case
- His disappearance came one week after Trump announced UFO file releases
- No confirmed sightings or direction of travel have been established despite extensive search efforts
- According to Coulthart, he was never seen leaving his home — no security camera footage, no witness sightings
- A former colleague, aerospace engineer Monica Jacinto Reza, whose research he oversaw at AFRL, vanished while hiking eight months earlier under similarly mysterious circumstances — declared dead four days later while search helicopters were still flying
- His $4.4 billion AFRL portfolio paid for the Mondaloy alloy work — he directed the Hydrocarbon Boost program and assessment of Mondaloy for preburners, thrust chambers, and hydrostatic bearings
- Approximately $450 million in active defense contracts across institutions he built and advised at the time of his disappearance
The 2025-2026 Scientist Cluster
McCasland's disappearance is the latest in a cluster of five scientist deaths or disappearances between June 2025 and March 2026 that Congressman Tim Burchett has publicly linked as a pattern. The Daily Mail reported on March 22, 2026, that all five specialized in advanced technologies with a shared link to UAP-related research or defense contracts. The five are:
- Monica Jacinto Reza — Co-inventor of Mondaloy superalloy, funded under McCasland's AFRL budget. Missing since June 22, 2025.
- Jason Thomas — Novartis chemical biology director. Vanished December 12, 2025. Body found March 17, 2026.
- Nuno Loureiro — MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center director. Shot December 15, 2025.
- Carl Grillmair — Caltech astrophysicist. Shot on his porch February 16, 2026.
- William McCasland (this profile) — Retired USAF Major General, AFRL commander. Missing since February 27, 2026.
See Also
- David Grusch — UAP whistleblower who testified about recovered craft programs
- Lue Elizondo — Former AATIP director and disclosure advocate
- Bob Lazar — Physicist who claims to have worked on alien craft near Area 51
- Robert Frost (Area 51) — Area 51 contractor who died from toxic exposure
- Walter Kasza (Area 51) — Area 51 contractor who died from toxic waste exposure
- Monica Jacinto Reza — Aerospace materials scientist missing since June 2025; research funded under McCasland's AFRL budget
- Dallis Hardwick — Co-inventor of Mondaloy with Reza; led AFRL Materials Directorate gas turbine research; died of cancer 2014; completes the superalloy custody chain
- Nuno Loureiro — MIT fusion physicist murdered December 2025; part of the same five-scientist cluster
- Carl Grillmair — Caltech astrophysicist killed February 2026; part of the same cluster
- Jason Thomas — Novartis scientist found dead; part of the same cluster
- [AFRL Scientist Cluster (2025-2029)]# — The broader pattern of defense scientist deaths and disappearances
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Sources
- CNN: FBI involved in search for retired Air Force major general missing for nearly 2 weeks
- ABC News: FBI assisting in search for retired Air Force major general missing for 2 weeks
- ABC7: William Neil McCasland missing
- NewsNation: Disappearance of ex-general with UFO secrets a 'grave crisis': Ross Coulthart
- NewsNation: UFO experts share theories on Gen. Neil McCasland's disappearance
- IBTimes: Vanished Retired Air Force General Linked to Bizarre UFO-Themed X Account
- The Sentinel Network: THE DEAD DROP: An Anonymous X Account Went Silent the Day the General Vanished
- Albuquerque Journal: Wife of missing retired Gen. McCasland disputes dementia
- Wikipedia: Neil McCasland
- NewsNation: Search for missing Air Force officer at standstill, UFO journalist says
- NewsNation: William McCasland search — Ex-colleague Monica Reza went missing months before him
- Newsweek: Monica Reza Case Gains Attention After Disappearance of US General
- CNN: A retired general vanished from his home
- Military.com: Missing Air Force General Case Draws FBI and Online Conspiracy Theories
- Ross Coulthart on X: grave new questions about McCasland's former colleague
- The Sentinel Network: THE GREEN BURIAL — She Was Declared Dead Four Days After She Vanished
- Daily Mail: Mystery of five missing scientists sends chill across America
- THE LONG COUNT: We Started With Two Names. The List Didn't Stop. — The Sentinel Network (March 18, 2026)
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