A retired Air Force major general with deep ties to classified defense programs vanished from his Albuquerque home on Feb. 27, and newly released 911 audio reveals his wife told dispatchers she believed he had deliberately arranged to disappear. William "Neil" McCasland, 68, left behind his phone and prescription glasses but took hiking boots and a revolver, and more than a month later, neither local authorities nor the FBI have found a trace of him.
The 911 call, obtained by the Law&Crime Network, captures Susan Wilkerson, McCasland's wife, reaching out to dispatchers roughly three hours after her husband walked out of their home.
"My husband is missing. It's been about 3 hours and I have some indication that he must have planned not to be found."
That single sentence frames the entire case. This was not a confused retiree wandering off. By his wife's own account, McCasland left deliberately, shedding the tools that would make him trackable and taking the ones that would keep him mobile and armed.
Wilkerson told the 911 dispatcher that her husband powered down his phone and left it at the house, a move she found telling. As Fox News reported, his glasses, phone, and wearable devices were all found at the residence. His wallet, hiking boots, and a.38-caliber revolver were missing.
Wilkerson described the phone detail to dispatchers with visible unease:
"He turned it off and left it behind which seems kind of deliberate because he's always got his phone. He has a smartwatch. I don't know if that's with him or not."
She also told the dispatcher she believed he left on foot. "I think he's on foot. All of our cars and bicycles are in the garage," she said. Fox News reported McCasland disappeared within a one-hour window, between 11 a.m. and noon, while Wilkerson was out for an appointment.
That narrow timeframe, combined with the deliberate shedding of electronics, paints a picture of a man who moved with purpose and planning.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office issued a Silver Alert for McCasland and has led the investigation since late February. Newsmax reported that the FBI Albuquerque Field Office joined the case, with a Bureau spokesperson saying it is "standard practice for the FBI to assist our local law enforcement partners if we have a tool, tactic, or technique that could benefit their investigations."
A BCSO spokesperson, Jayme Gonzales, told reporters: "Due to his background and established partnerships, BCSO is coordinating closely with multiple agencies, including the FBI Albuquerque Field Office."
Despite the multi-agency effort, investigators have turned up nothing. The Washington Examiner reported that the sheriff's office said investigators "have so far uncovered no evidence of foul play." That statement cuts both ways. It means no one grabbed McCasland, but it also means no one has found him, alive or otherwise.
Wilkerson herself pushed back publicly on speculation that her husband was disoriented or suffering from dementia. "Neil is at some risk, but not from dementia," she wrote on Facebook. "He was not confused and disoriented." Fox News quoted her adding: "There has been no indication whatsoever of where he might be."
A retired Air Force general with access to classified UFO-related programs does not simply walk into the New Mexico landscape and vanish without generating serious questions in Washington.
McCasland's military résumé is what elevates this from a local missing-person case to a matter of national security concern. He served as commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where he oversaw classified space weapon programs. Newsmax noted he also previously commanded Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, the same city where he later retired and from which he disappeared.
Wright-Patterson carries its own weight in the UFO conversation. The base has long been rumored to possess fragments of extraterrestrial debris allegedly recovered from Roswell, New Mexico. Whether one takes those rumors seriously or not, McCasland's professional proximity to some of the most sensitive defense research in the country is not in dispute.
His wife acknowledged as much in her Facebook posts, even while trying to tamp down the more sensational theories. "It is true that when Neil was in the Air Force, he had access to some highly classified programs and information," she wrote. But she added: "He retired from the AF almost 13 years ago and has had only very commonly held clearances since. It seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him."
That framing, a wife simultaneously confirming her husband's access to top-secret programs while arguing he's been out of the game too long to be a target, captures the strange tension at the center of this case. The story of a retired general who oversaw a $2.2 billion research program and then walked into the desert with a revolver is not one that lends itself to easy answers.
Journalist Ross Coulthart, host of the podcast "Reality Check," has been among the loudest voices arguing that McCasland's disappearance is no ordinary missing-person case. Coulthart pointed to the general's deep knowledge of classified material and the broader political moment.
"This is a man with some of the most sensitive secrets of the United States in his head."
Coulthart said on his podcast that McCasland had been supportive of giving the public more information about classified topics, a stance that, if true, would place him at odds with elements of the defense and intelligence establishment that have long resisted disclosure. He described the timing as "screechingly relevant," linking McCasland's disappearance to what he characterized as the President making overtures about the U.S. government's UFO knowledge.
He went further, calling the situation a national security emergency:
"The fact that Gen. Neil McCasland has disappeared off the face of the earth is a grave national security crisis for the United States of America."
It is worth noting that Coulthart's claims about McCasland's views on disclosure and the political timing are his own characterizations. Neither the FBI nor the sheriff's office has publicly connected the disappearance to any national security matter. But the fact that a retired two-star general with Coulthart's described background can vanish without a trace, and stay vanished for weeks, is itself a serious question, regardless of one's views on UFOs.
The history of sensitive military and intelligence figures disappearing or defecting is not without precedent. Readers may recall the Air Force counterspy who defected to Tehran and handed Iran American secrets, a case that showed how much damage a single knowledgeable individual can cause when they go off the grid.
The open questions in this case are as striking as the known facts. Did authorities recover the.38-caliber revolver, or confirm independently that McCasland left with it? What evidence, beyond Wilkerson's observations, supports the conclusion that he "planned not to be found"? What specific areas in and around Albuquerque have search teams covered?
And the biggest question: where is he? A 68-year-old man on foot, without a phone, without glasses, carrying a handgun and a wallet, walked out of a house in a major American city in broad daylight. Weeks of searching by local law enforcement and the FBI have produced nothing, no sightings, no transactions, no body.
The absence of evidence of foul play does not mean foul play didn't occur. It also doesn't mean McCasland didn't leave of his own volition for reasons only he understands. Both possibilities remain open, and the authorities have publicly committed to neither.
This case bears some resemblance to other ongoing disappearances that have gripped the public, including the still-unresolved case of Nancy Guthrie, where weeks of searching have likewise failed to produce answers. The common thread is not conspiracy, it is the unsettling reality that people can still vanish in modern America, surveillance cameras and cell towers notwithstanding.
The American public deserves a clear accounting of what happened to William Neil McCasland. A man who commanded classified weapons programs, who held some of the most sensitive security clearances the Air Force grants, and who, by multiple accounts, walked away from his life with apparent forethought, cannot be allowed to simply remain a footnote.
If McCasland left voluntarily, the public interest in knowing why is legitimate. If something happened to him, the multi-agency search needs to produce results or explain why it hasn't. And if his disappearance has any connection to the classified programs he once oversaw, Congress should be asking hard questions, not waiting for podcast hosts to do it for them.
Wilkerson told the 911 dispatcher her husband "planned not to be found." So far, he's gotten exactly what she feared.
