Washington — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday it has launched a wide-ranging investigation into the deaths or disappearances at least 10 scientists and staff Are involved in highly sensitive research, including four people in the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is leading the effort to find connections to the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, the War Department, and our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced it would investigate reports of the scientists’ disappearances and deaths, sending letters seeking information to agencies involved in the federal investigation as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances could pose a serious threat to U.S. national security and to American personnel with access to scientific secrets,” committee chairmen James Comer (R-Ky.) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told journalists last week He was briefed about missing and dead scientists, which he described as “a very serious matter”. He said at the time that he expected to have an answer “in the next week and a half” about whether the deaths were linked.
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was revealed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at the age of 61, with no cause of death given.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of a series of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while hiking near Mount Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On February 16, Caltech astronomer Carl Grillmeyer was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrested 29-year-old Freddy Snyder in connection with the shooting. Snyder was previously arrested last December for trespassing on Grillmeyer’s property.
Snyder has been charged with murder.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances over the four-year period are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on Twitter that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with relevant agencies regarding the missing scientists.”
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokeswoman Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide as much information as possible.”
Caltech representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
