The disappearance of retired Air Force Major General William Neil McCasland has renewed attention on the unsolved case of aerospace engineer Monica Reza, who vanished while hiking months earlier.
Reza once worked on a government-funded rocket materials project overseen by McCasland, and her unresolved disappearance has resurfaced in national media reports and online forums amid a widening, and rising public speculation about his past involvement with research into unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
It remains unclear whether the cases are connected. Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department told Newsweek, “Detectives are looking into this to see if there is any connection at all.”
Why It Matters
Reza’s disappearance nine months ago during a hike in a Los Angeles-area forest has drawn fresh scrutiny because she previously worked under McCasland on a government-funded aerospace project, NewsNation reported.
McCasland’s long career overseeing sensitive Air Force science and technology programs, and his involvement with the UFO community after he retired, has sparked speculation about whether his disappearance on February 27 may be related to the sensitive information he had access to.
What To Know
Reza was last seen in June, smiling and waving about 30 feet behind her hiking companion before she suddenly vanished, NewsNation reported.
An aerospace engineer, Reza developed a special metal used in rockets through a U.S. government-funded project overseen by McCasland, the outlet reported.
Meanwhile, on February 27, McCasland left his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on foot around 11 a.m. local time, and a Silver Alert was issued because of unspecified medical issues, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said.
While there is currently no known evidence of foul play, McCasland’s disappearance has caused a major stir in UFO circles, which have suggested that his vanishing is connected to his work.
Journalist Ross Coulthart, known for his work investigating UFOs, called the case a “grave national security crisis.” He said McCasland is a man “with some of the most sensitive secrets of the United States in his head.”
Coulthart also drew attention to the timing. The week before McCasland was last seen, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to begin identifying and releasing any government files related to UFOs and aliens.
Meanwhile, Republican Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri—who serves on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which has held hearings on UFOs and the government’s transparency related to them—said it was “really disturbing” for someone “that we believe has a lot of information” to disappear.
William Neil McCasland’s Wife Disagrees
McCasland’s wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, has pushed back against the ongoing speculation about his disappearance, saying she doubted McCasland was kidnapped over any classified information or his “brief association with the UFO community.”
After McCasland retired, he worked briefly with Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge, who founded the organization To The Stars, which previously did research on UFOs.
“Neil worked with Tom for a bit shortly after his Air Force retirement as an unpaid (Neil’s choice) consultant on military and technical/scientific matters to lend verisimilitude to Tom’s fiction book and media activities,” Wilkerson said.
She added that there was “less contact” between the men and the “UFO community” after a Russian hacking incident.
“Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt,” she said. “Though at this point with absolutely no sign of him, maybe the best hypothesis is that aliens beamed him up to the mothership.”
Wilkerson added, “However, no sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia Mountains have been reported.”
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