Since 2010, Israel has eliminated nearly two dozen Iranian nuclear scientists in targeted killings.
Even during the ongoing conflict, Iranian nuclear scientists, along with the country’s political and military leadership, were one of the main targets of Israeli air strikes.
These actions were part of a long-standing Israeli effort to delay or degrade Iran’s nuclear ambitions through targeted disruption of expertise, alongside sanctions, cyberattacks, and facility strikes.
Israeli logic was simple; while weapon systems and infrastructure could be easily replaced, human capital, once lost, is not easy to replace.
While the Israeli program of eliminating Iranian nuclear scientists through targeted killings is well known, there are apprehensions that a similar program of targeted killings of high-profile scientists working on sensitive national security projects is also underway in the US.
In fact, in the last two years, as many as 11 US scientists, tied to sensitive aerospace and nuclear research, have either been killed or disappeared in thin air.
Their disappearance, under suspicious circumstances, is now the subject of a high-profile, multi-agency probe, involving the FBI, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Department of Energy, and the National Nuclear Security Administration, with the federal government and even the White House overseeing the investigation.
While the killings/disappearances of these 11 scientists were the subject of individual probes, the FBI, now, under the direction of the White House, is also investigating whether all these cases are linked to each other.
In other words, the FBI is told to uncover whether there is a grand criminal conspiracy, strategically eliminating the most important minds in the US, working on the most sensitive national security projects.
Last week, the US President Donald Trump confirmed that he had participated in a White House meeting regarding a series of scientists, researchers, and personnel linked to sensitive US programs who have gone missing or been killed in recent years.
Trump spoke of a “fairly serious” matter, said he hoped it was a coincidence, and promised swift answers.
“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump said.
The White House subsequently confirmed that a broader review was underway with the relevant agencies and with the support of the FBI.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also confirmed the probe. Leavitt stated that the administration is working with the FBI and the Department of Energy to “identify any potential commonalities that may exist.”
“In light of the recent and legitimate questions about these troubling cases… the White House is actively working with all relevant agencies and the FBI,” Leavitt said.
Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer, on April 19, said the committee will investigate the deaths and disappearances of American scientists who all had links to U.S. nuclear or space research programs.
“We’re very concerned about this. This is a national security concern. This would suggest that something sinister may be happening,” Comer said on a Fox News program.
Comer added that the committee will seek briefings on the topic from the Pentagon, FBI, Department of Energy, and NASA.
At the outset, it must be clarified that at the moment, there is no public evidence with the FBI linking all these cases to a single grand conspiracy.
The only element of commonality, as of now, is that all these people had very high security clearances and were working on sensitive national security and research projects, including space research, fusion, national laboratories, advanced materials, aerospace, or defense.
However, the mere fact that the FBI had been directed to probe whether the cases are connected, and that the White House is monitoring the situation, is enough to spread panic and fear among the scientific community, who often work in pioneering national security projects but often lack an elaborate personal security cover, often given to political and military leadership.
The confirmation by President Trump, the FBI, and the Department of Energy means that this is no longer a conspiracy theory or media sensationalism, but rather that there are, indeed, sufficient circumstantial factors warranting a probe by the country’s premier investigative agencies into whether the cases are, in fact, connected.
The matter has indeed reached the presidential level.
Who Are the 11 Nuclear Scientists Who Have Disappeared
The 11 disappeared scientists include four prominent researchers from Los Angeles County with ties to top-tier institutions.
Monica Jacinto Reza, an aerospace engineer and materials processor who worked for both NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (JPL) and Aerojet Rocketdyne, has been missing since June 2025.
She disappeared while hiking with a friend near Mount Waterman in the Angeles National Forest. According to her companion, they were roughly 30 feet apart when they made eye contact; she smiled and waved to indicate she was fine. Moments later, when the friend turned around again, she had vanished.
Carl Grillmair, a renowned 67-year-old astrophysicist at Caltech’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), which partners with NASA, was gunned down at his home in Llano in the Antelope Valley in February this year.
Michael David Hicks, a veteran research scientist at JPL for 24 years, died in 2023 at the age of 59. His cause of death was never made public.
Frank Maiwald, a 61-year-old principal researcher at JPL, died in Los Angeles in July, 2024. His cause of death was never made public.
Amy Eskridge, who was working on anti-gravity and exotic physics at the Institute for Exotic Science, died on June 11, 2022, in Huntsville, Alabama.
Notably, in interviews and podcasts recorded prior to her death, Eskridge alleged that she and her team were being subjected to harassment and “psychological warfare.”
Nuno Loureiro, Director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and a world-renowned expert in nuclear fusion and magnetic reconnection, was fatally shot in his Brookline, Massachusetts home, in December last year.
The primary suspect, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire three days later, making the case highly suspicious.
Similarly, several other prominent scientists, working on high-profile space, aerospace, and nuclear projects, have either been killed or have disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
Political Impact of the Case
Though the investigation is in its preliminary stages, its political impact could be significant.
The mere apprehension that nearly a dozen US scientists, working on high-profile national security projects, could be eliminated strikes at the very heart of the US national security apparatus.
If the strongest and the richest country in human history is unable to protect its most important strategic minds, then the fate of the scientific community in third-world countries could only be imagined.
Further, after decades of a well-known and publicized Israeli strategy of targeting Iranian nuclear scientists, has the scientific community, working on sensitive security projects, become a fair game in geopolitical games?
And, is some US adversary country, such as China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran, running an elaborate targeted killing campaign to eliminate the most critical minds in the US?
It is entirely possible that the cases are entirely unconnected; however, even the mere suspicion of targeted killings of scientists warrants a thorough and transparent probe because the case could have a deep psychological impact on the scientific community.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
