Professional Weirdo Podcast

Where I research strange stories and tell them to you. Because, let’s face it, I’m gonna research this anyway and blurt it to someone, might as well be a willing audience. Some of these stories might get dark, morbid, murdery…. so listener discretion is advised.

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Professional Weirdo Podcast

Episode 20 - The Tin Foil Hat

June 01, 2026 • Anonymous Narrator • Season 1 • Episode 20

0:00 | 30:45

In recent years scientists have been disappearing or dying. And it's not the first time in history that it's happened. Let's review what's happening.

This episodes songs are:

What’s Happening? By the Byrds
Dana Katherine Scully by Tacocat
And Weird Science, by Oingo Boingo

Sources:

Sound mixing performed by Brother Jay from The Rule of Scary podcast - check that out if you’re a horror movie fan! And hey! Thank you for listening to my stories. Keep it weird out there.

To find song recommendations for this podcast, check out the Spotify Professional Weird playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jIkaamOZlCwtd2peUk9lF?si=0238d524a374492d

Email me at professionalweirdopodcast@gmail.com

Episode 20 - The Tin Foil Hat

Hello again weirdos - welcome back. It’s been a busy time, lots of hustle and bustle. Spring has sprung where I live and school is wrapping up and summer is coming and it’s a whirlwind of activity! But that doesn’t stop us from taking a break now and then to dive into some weirdness. The latest thing that’s been riding in on my algorithm waves is news that multiple scientists, with access to different levels of sensitive information in the United States government, have died, or gone missing, over the last several years, with many happening just in the last year. Recently it’s gotten the attention of members of Congress, as well as several federal agencies, and the White House. And in April 2026 the Federal Bureau of Investigation started looking into it. Sounds like some X-files type stuff, so everyone decide - are you a Mulder, or are you a Scully? Is there a logical explanation to all of this? Or there’s a large scale secret conspiracy at work that multiple levels of government are missing, or perhaps a part of?

This is episode 20 - The Tin Foil Hat

In today’s episode I’ll walk you through the list of cases that have been brought up (so far), that have many concerned. A counter argument to the suspicion that these people are being targeted is that this type of stuff - meaning deaths and disappearances - happens to people regardless of their professions. In fact, there are more than 700,000 people working in top-secret-cleared roles in the US aerospace and nuclear sectors. If you apply the standard mortality rates the math should come out to about 250 people dying from various reasons over the same time period, so the total of 11 or 13, or whatever headlines list now, isn’t extraordinary. And It’s part of human nature to seek out patterns, especially now that it’s popping up in headlines and getting attention. But guess what? This latest batch isn’t the only time in history that something like this has happened. So we’ll look at these two events, and you can decide if this all seems like coincidence? Or if there’s something at work here. And I’ll be rating each event in 1 out of 5 Mulders. As in Fox Mulder. From the x-files. You know.

In the most recent batch, the first case referenced was in June of 2022.

Amy Eskridge - a researcher of anti-gravity technology, UFO, and extraterrestrial life died of what was said to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Amy left several text messages and video footage where she claimed she was under repeated attacks from a direct energy weapon. In a text message to a friend she wrote “If you see any report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not. If you see any report that I overdosed myself, I most definitely did not. If you see any report that I killed anyone else, I most definitely did not.” Amy had co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and when interviewed about it in 2020, she explained it was, quote, “a public-facing persona to disclose antigravity technology” and explained “if you stick your neck out in public, at least someone notices if your head gets chopped off.” In the video footage left behind, Amy is showing her hands, visibly reddened, and describes “My hands have been burned to hell and back as I’ve been typing” unquote, saying that someone was trying to get a 3D image of what she was typing, because she was doing her work on a computer that didn’t have a Wifi card that would allow it to be hacked. She claimed in the video that she had blocked the windows which also blocked the ability to carry the beam that was recording the movement of her hands and was feeling relief from the burning after doing this. It should be noted that her family does not suspect foul play in her death.

Moving to about one year later in July 2023 -This relates to Michael Hicks a research scientist who worked at JPL. Michael’s work focused on physical properties of asteroids and comets. He worked on the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which was the first ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact. He also worked on the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking project and the Deep Space 1 mission. He died at 59 in July 2023, but his cause of death was not publicly disclosed.

Later in October 2023 there was a disappearance. Ingrid Lane worked as a neuroscientist and bioengineer with the Mind Research Network at the University of New Mexico. Ingrid left for what was supposed to be a weeklong meditation retreat at a Zen Center she had visited many times before, but instead of the retreat, later that afternoon two hunters confirmed talking with her on a remote dirt road near the Jemez Mountains. Her car had broken down and sustained damage. The hunters offered to drive her back to a main road but she declined, saying she wanted to finish a day hike to the top of the nearby mountain. They said she was calm and coherent. When she failed to arrive at the retreat or home after 3 days, her husband tracked an Apple AirTag to locate her vehicle, which was still on the dirt road. Left in her car were the keys in the ignition, three laptops, an unactivated burner phone and a large boulder that had appeared to have gone through the rear hatch window, shattering it and lodging in her car. There was also major damage to the front of the car. Search dogs were unable to pick up a scent trail and there were no footprints that could be followed at this point to show where Ingrid may have gone. She’s been missing since.

During this same time Matthew Sullivan, a former US Air Force Intelligence officer was planning to testify in a federal whistleblower case about UFOs, but in May 2024 he died at 39. He passed away in his home in Virginia from what was determined to be an accidental overdose involving a mix of anti-anxiety medication, muscle relaxant, and other medications. His cause of death has raised some suspicions given that he had been scheduled to provide testimony to Congress about his time in a legacy US government UFO crash retrieval program, which had operated for years but only come to light in the last few. It was expected that he would give testimony related to UFO materials that he had witnessed in the government’s possession.

Just a couple of months later, in July 2024 - Frank Maiwald, died at the age of 61. Frank was another scientist that worked at JPL, this time in microwave radiometry, as well as working on Earth science missions including Surface Water and Ocean Topography and the Jason-3 satellite. He was the principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, performing a lot of studies aimed at better understanding climate change. An autopsy was not performed and his cause of death isn’t publicly disclosed.

About a year later in May 2025 - 79 year old Anthony Chavez disappeared. Anthony had worked as the construction foreman at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which was a lab that worked with the Department of Energy to support energy advancements and manufactured nuclear weapon components. It should be noted that he was out of the business for awhile, having retired in 2017, but his disappearance was strange. He was last seen leaving his home on foot. His keys and wallet had been left at home and his car was locked in the driveway. While investigators say there are no signs of foul play in his disappearance, they have also found no evidence that he had been planning to leave or any indication of his whereabouts over the last year.

And a second person who worked at this lab disappeared the next month. In June 2025 - Melissa Casias - who was an administrative assistant at the Los Alamos National Lab, disappeared at the age of 58. Melissa held security clearance in order to work at the lab, and her disappearance is also very strange. On the day of her disappearance, she and her husband, who also worked at this lab, drove to work. She had forgotten her employee badge, so decided to drop off her husband, return home and work from there for the day. Her daughter arrived at home later, finding Melissa’s car in the driveway, but Melissa was gone. Her phone, purse, and wallet were all there, and her phone had been factory reset. Reports came in saying she was last seen walking by herself along a busy highway. The investigation into her disappearance is ongoing.

That same month, but a different working location, Monica Jacinto Reza disappeared. She had worked as an engineer in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was the director of NASA Labs Materials Processing Group. She co-invented a nickel-based superalloy used in rocket engines. She was 60 in June 2025 when she went on a morning hike in Crescent Valley, north of Los Angeles, with two people - a man and woman from her yoga group. For reasons that weren’t clearly explained, Reza and the man she was with began running on the trail, which was risky given the terrain. She was last seen 30 feet behind her hiking partner, smiling and waving, but at some point when he called out to her she didn’t answer. When he turned around, she was gone. Search teams have used all their tools - drones, helicopters, and search dogs, but with no luck. Nearby homes have been able to offer surveillance footage, but no clear answers have been found.

The next case happened 2 months later in August 2025. Steven Garcia was a government contractor at Kansas City National Security Campus in New Mexico. Surveillance camera footage recorded the 48 year old leaving his home, walking on foot, and carrying a handgun. He’s never been found.

Later in December 2025 - A shooter killed two people on Brown University’s campus. He evaded capture and two days later shot and killed Professor Nuno F.G Loureiro. Nuno was a member of MIT’s departments of nuclear science and engineering and Physics as well as the director of Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Focused on theory and simulations of astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, Nuno was only 47 when he was killed. The shooter left two videos, but didn’t give a motive for his actions and later killed himself.

That same month Jason Thomas - a pharmaceutical researcher who worked in chemical biology at Novartis Institute of BioMedical Research in Massachusetts disappeared at the age of 45. Three months later his body was found in Lake Quannapowitt. Local investigators say there’s no foul play suspected, and it’s said he had been struggling with the recent death of both of his parents.

Now we’re entering 2026. In February Carl Grillmair, CalTech astrophysicist was also shot and killed. Carl researched dark matter, galactic structure, stellar populations, and exoplanets. One of his more notable discoveries was water on distant planets. He was 67 when he died, found on the porch of his home, shot to death. The person suspected in his death has only been arrested for trespassing at this time, and investigations say for now that he didn’t know the astrophysicist and the motive for the shooting is not clear.

That same month William “Neil” McCasland vanished. He was a retired US Air Force general and at the time of his disappearance, was the commander of the Air Force Research Lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. He was 68 years old and last seen in his home, but was thought to have gone hiking in the Sandia Mountains in New Mexico. When he disappeared, a Silver Alert was issued, which usually indicates a senior citizen who has medical or cognitive issues which elevates the urgency to find them. Regardless, investigators say McCasland didn’t have signs of cognitive struggles when he disappeared. Items left at his home were his prescription glasses, wearable devices, and his phone. But what wasn’t there were his hiking boots and a revolver. His wife refutes the theory that he was taken due to his scientific background, siting that the information he had access to was not at an uncommonly high level of security. He did oversee a rocket material project that Monica Reza had worked on. She was earlier in this list, disappearing in June 2025 while also hiking. It was said that they had a close professional connection and they disappeared within 8 months of each other.

And two more recent ones, happening in April 2026. James “Tony” Moffatt was a payload and flight crew support specialist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center Astronaut Office, where he participated in 14 Space Shuttle construction missions over his 21-year career. During his time in the Army, he worked on their Degraded Visual Environment Mitigation program and the Next Generation Unmanned Aircraft System technology demonstration. After retiring from the Army, he founded an aerospace consulting firm. His son Andrew was a research engineer and scientist at the University of Alabama’s in Huntsville’s Research and Engineering Support Center. Both Tony - 60, and Andrew, 30, were killed along with two other family members when the plane Tony was flying crashed near the runway in South Carolina.

And with that, I give you 4 out of 5 Mulders.

But as I said, this latest batch isn’t the only time this has happened. Between 1982 & 1990, there was another run of mysterious deaths, called the GEC-Marconi Scientist Deaths Theory. The common thread for the people on this list is that they were all British-based scientists and engineers who worked on the Sting Ray torpedo project and the Unites States Strategic Defense Initiative for GEC-Marconi, which was the defense arm of General Electric Company.

First on the list is 46 year old Keith Bowden, who was an Essex University senior computer scientist. In March of 1982 Keith attended a social gathering in London. All seemed normal to those who visited with Keith, but on his way home his car started veering across the lanes, then drove off a bridge and plunged 80 feet down into an old railway cutting station. He died on impact. The official report said he showed a high blood level content and he was driving on worn tires. But his wife, solicitor, and others at the party said he was not drinking heavily that night. It was also discovered that the worn tires didn’t belong there and had been swapped with new tires that had been on his vehicle.

Next was Anthony Godley. He was 49 and the Head of Work Study Unit at the Royal Collect of Military Science when he vanished in April 1983. No trace of him has ever been found, and his father even wrote $60,000 into his will, saying Anthony would have to claim it by 1987. But that never happened.

Nearly two years went by, and then in March 1985 49 year old Roger Hill, who was a radar designer, working on classified naval sonar and radar projects, was found dead in his home from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. But what made this assessment suspicious is that it listed four shotgun wounds to the head. And, well, how does that happen?

Later that year, in November 1985, Jonathan Walsh, a digital communications expert, died at the age of 29. He had been expressing a fear for his life and traveled to West Africa. While there, he fell to his death from a hotel window. The coroner who investigated couldn’t find evidence to determine if it was suicide or foul play, so left it with an open verdict.

Another person was killed in a fall the next year - August 1986. Vimal Dajibhai was 24 and a software engineer. He fell approximately 250-350 feet from Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge. When his body was recovered, his trousers were partially lowered to his ankles and a small, unexplained needle-sized puncture wound was on his left buttock. There wasn’t anything else in the investigation to explain it, and it was reported that there was no history of mental distress.

Then only 2 months later another truly bizarre death occurred. Ashad Sharif was a 26 year old computer analyst who died when, according to the reports, he tied a rope around his neck, tied the other end around a tree, then sped away from the tree in his car. This happened over 100 miles from where he lived, with no connection to the area where he died. When his relative came to identify the body on the scene, he noticed a metal shaft lying on the floor of the car near the gas pedal.

Noting here, we’re only 7 in on this list and there are 25 of them! It’s January 1987 and 37 year old Richard Pugh, who was a computer consultant, was found dead in his home from asphyxiation. He had a plastic bag over his head and a rope was tied around his neck and body 4 times. No signs of struggle were found and his death was blamed on sexual misadventure.

The next person on the list survived! Avtar Singh-Gida was a defense researcher, and 3 weeks away from completing his doctoral thesis on underwater acoustic signal processing when he disappeared at the age of 26. For four months he was missing, but was found in May 1987, working in a sweatshop in Paris under a different name. He claimed to have no memory of how he had disappeared or ended up where he did.

Just a few days after Avtar disappeared, Dr. John Brittan was found dead at 52 years old. He was found in his garage, where he had left his car running in the closed space, leading to death by carbon dioxide poisoning.

And then the next month, February 1987, avionics engineer David Skeels ALSO died from carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 43. He had attached a hose from the tailpipe of his car that fed into the car’s interior.

In that same month, Victor Moore, a 46 year old engineer died from an overdose of barbiturates. And ALSO in that month, another one related to carbon monoxide poisoning, but super bizarre. 46 year old scientist Peter Peapell was found in his garage, UNDER his car with his mouth around the exhaust pipe. If you’re baffled, so were the police, who immediately questioned the position of the body and why a person pursue such a method. The coroner left the verdict open on if the death was suicide.

A month later senior scientist David Sands died at age 37. As he was driving to work, he was seen making a U-turn on the road. It was determined later that he loaded his car with two full 5-gallon containers of petrol gas. From there he drove into a brick wall near an empty building at a high rate of speed, turning his car into a fireball. He was killed and identified through dental records. Because of the strange circumstances, the coroner refused to rule out foul play and left the verdict open.

The next month, 23 year old Stuart Gooding, a research student, was killed in Cyprus. He was there as part of exercises for the Royal College of Military Science when the car he was traveling in hit a lorry head on. On the same exact day, 46 year old David Greenhalgh, a defense division scientist suffered injuries that would result in his death a few days later. He was found at the base of a 40-foot railway bridge with his wrists slashed. He survived long enough to tell police he had QUOTE “no idea how or why” UNQUOTE he had been on the bridge.

Also in that month, systems analyst George Kountis was found dead in his car after it was found overturned in the River Mersey in Liverpool. How it got there was undetermined. On the same day, Shani Warren, a 26 year old working for GEC was found gagged, bound, and drowned in 18 inches of water in Taplow Lake. This death in particular is no longer considered part of the mysterious GEC-Marconi deaths, after DNA results in 2022 showed she had been murdered by a serial sex attacker who has since been convicted.

Still in April 1987, March Wisner, 24, who was a defense worker, was found dead with plastic cling wrap wound around his face and a plastic bag over his head. The coroner ruled his death as accidental, due to “sexual misadventure.”

A few days later, in May of 1987, Michael Baker, a defense communications specialist was killed in a car accident at 22 years old when his car crashed through a barrier.

The next month 60 year old Frank Jennings, an electronic weapons engineer, died of a heart attack. No inquest was held, which is maybe the only suspicious thing about this, given that at this point a lot of attention was happening over the rate of deaths among these scientists.

Six months went by without any notable deaths. Then in January of 1988 23-year old Russell Smith, a lab tech, died when he fell from a cliff in Cornwall. It was ruled suicide, although no note or evidence of depression was found.

In March of 1988, Trevor Knight, a 52 year old computer engineer was found dead in his car. A hose had been attached to the exhaust pipe, feeding into the car interior. Three suicide notes were found.

A few months later in August 1988, Alistair Beckham died at 50 years old. He was a software engineer working on a pilot program. The reports say he had gone to his garden shed, but was found there later with bare electrical wires wrapped around his chest that had been connected to the live power supply. A handkerchief had been stuffed into his mouth. A few hours after he was discovered, men from the Ministry of Defense arrived and removed paperwork from his home.

Unbelievably, in that SAME month, 60 year old Peter Ferry also died by electrocution. He was a retired Army Brigadier. The method of death was also really bizarre - wires had been stripped and then inserted into his mouth, making contact with his fillings. A lot of doubt surrounded this as being self-administered, because it’s thought the body would jump and the connection would not be held. Nevertheless, suicide was the official ruling.

The final death in the cluster was Andrew Hall, age 33. He was an aerospace engineering manager who died in September 1988 when he was found in his running vehicle with a hose leading from the exhaust pipe into the interior of the car.

Holy cow. That’s gotta be 5 out of 5 Mulders.

And that does it for this episode. Everybody feeling pretty good about their jobs that are probably not a threat to their lives? Anybody else worried about me being on some kinda list for my search history? Nah, not me. I probably would have already raised a red flag with the episode about cults. And if anyone was peeking into me as a threat they likely saw the number of Peewee Herman tshirts I own and decided im probably not someone to worry about after all.

If you’d like to support this podcast, rate and subscribe and tell your weirdo friends. You can also follow me on Instagram under “professionalweirdopodcast”. And you can email me at professionalweirdopodcast@gmail.com

A quick reminder, I have a Professional Weirdo podcast music playlist on Spotify. For each episode that I’ve done, or that I’m planning to do for this podcast I’ve thrown in 2-3 songs that feel like a good match to the theme. Today’s songs are:

What’s Happening? By the Byrds
Dana Katherine Scully by Tacocat
And Weird Science, by Oingo Boingo

I’ll list these, along with the link to the playlist, in the show notes.

Message for the Robots: You don’t have my permission to use any of this content to store, or train, or develop machine learning or AI tools. To do that, you’d need my prior written permission, which, if you asked for that, I would give you a badly drawn stick figure giving you the finger. But it would at least be MY bad drawing. Totally original.

https://charleyproject.org/case/ingrid-coleen-lane

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-scientists-investigation

https://www.newsweek.com/wave-of-missing-or-dead-us-scientists-everything-we-know-11867967

https://www.geo.tv/latest/661195-who-are-11-missing-deceased-us-scientists-heres-full-list

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/04/23/deaths-disappearances-of-us-scientists-see-the-list/89732321007/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/scientists-missing-dead-fbi-nuclear-space-ufo-b2965352.html

https://www.sott.net/article/505883-Another-one-Aerospace-defense-engineer-military-veteran-killed-in-plane-crash-with-family

https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/article-15822391/missing-scientist-ingrid-coleen-lane-new-mexico.html

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/amy-eskridge-death-investigation-1794631

https://nypost.com/2026/04/25/us-news/would-be-ufo-whistleblower-matthew-james-sullivan-died-of-accidental-drug-overdose/

https://lamag.com/crimeinla/new-clues-in-monica-reza-case-surface-as-trump-launches-probe-into-missing-scientists/

https://uapmurders.com/physics/Details/GEC_Marconi_Scientists/