A retired Air Force major general who was specifically identified this week as a critical, and "hostile", witness in the investigation of alleged secret UFO programs has been missing from his Albuquerque home since February 27, raising pointed questions about accountability and transparency in one of the most closely watched national security controversies in years.
David Grusch, the Air Force veteran and former intelligence officer who testified before Congress in 2023 about alleged government UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs, named retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland as one of the officers who had been in charge of those classified efforts. Grusch made the identification during an appearance on Judicial Watch with Chris Farrell, as reported by the Daily Mail.
McCasland, 68, disappeared just eight days after President Trump publicly ordered the Pentagon to release all files on UFO activity. He walked out of his New Mexico home carrying only a handgun and left behind his cellphone, wearable devices, and prescription glasses. He has not been seen or heard from since.
Grusch described the retired general as part of a group of individuals who had resisted congressional efforts to learn the truth about alleged non-human craft recovery programs.
"They already have the list of some of these hostile folks that ran those programs. Unfortunately, one of those individuals, Major General retired Neil McCasland, is currently missing, which is very concerning to me as well."
That word, "hostile", carries weight. In this context, Grusch used it to describe witnesses who had refused to cooperate with lawmakers seeking testimony about classified programs. McCasland was on a list of potential witnesses that Congress had compiled. His disappearance removes a named figure from the reach of any subpoena.
Grusch, who now serves as an advisor to Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison, recommended that Congress begin issuing subpoenas to current and former government and military officials who have refused to testify. He told Farrell that roughly 40 people had been helpful in the investigation and that about a dozen had given sworn testimony on classified projects to the Intelligence Community Inspector General.
But Grusch also painted a picture of active resistance inside the government. He described ongoing efforts by certain agencies to block or control the release of information, even as the White House pushed for full disclosure.
"I see a lot of power plays, a lot of games, a lot of positioning. Certain agencies are moving people into positions to kind of control the information release."
That claim, unverified but made publicly by a man who testified under oath before Congress, should concern anyone who believes elected officials have a right to oversee classified programs funded by taxpayer dollars.
The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office said McCasland was last seen around 11 a.m. on a Friday near Quail Run Court NE in Albuquerque. His wife, Susan Wilkerson, called 911 and told dispatchers it appeared the general "had planned not to be found." She also said she did not believe foul play was involved.
As we previously reported when the 911 call was released, Wilkerson's words suggested she believed her husband's departure was deliberate. But deliberate does not mean explained. A 68-year-old man leaving without his phone, his glasses, or any apparent means of communication, carrying only a firearm, is not a routine walkaway.
The Washington Examiner reported that the FBI joined the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office in the investigation. The sheriff's office stated in a Facebook post that investigators "have worked hand in hand with the FBI and other partner agencies, and have so far uncovered no evidence of foul play." The office added that "despite the collective efforts of law enforcement and the community, we still do not know what happened to Neil after he left home on February 27th."
McCasland is believed to have left on foot. Authorities have not identified a vehicle or any digital trail. Local police said they have had no updates in the case.
McCasland was not a minor figure. He served in senior Pentagon roles involving nuclear science, space research, and defense initiatives. He previously commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory, overseeing operations at both Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Wright-Patterson has been tied to rumors of secret UFO projects for decades. Former government scientists alleged that debris from an alien spacecraft that allegedly crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, was taken to Wright-Patterson for analysis. Whether one finds those claims credible or not, the base's long association with classified aerospace research is well documented, and McCasland sat at the center of it.
When we first covered McCasland's disappearance and the FBI's decision to join the search, the public focus was on his defense research background. Grusch's naming of McCasland as a specific witness, and a resistant one, adds a sharper dimension.
The New York Post reported that McCasland's case is being discussed alongside several other disappearances involving people connected to Los Alamos, nuclear weapons work, or aerospace programs. The Post noted there is no proven link among the cases but reported that a Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office source said of the FBI's involvement: "I'm not sure why they chose to come in on this one, but that was their request."
That the FBI requested involvement, rather than being asked, is worth noting. Officials in Washington have called for a broader FBI investigation into McCasland's disappearance and a string of missing person cases involving nuclear lab employees and NASA scientists who all had ties to the general's work.
Grusch said he believed UFO disclosure would reach a tipping point within the next 60 to 90 days. He described pressure building inside Congress to obtain what he called "the substantive empirical holdings", not videos or secondhand accounts, but physical evidence.
"I certainly know what Congress is doing, and I won't reveal that here, but I do see a lot of pressure to get the substantive empirical holdings that I've talked about, not videos or anything like that, out in the ether."
The Pentagon has been placed in charge of releasing decades of files on UFO encounters to the public, following President Trump's order. That order was a straightforward exercise of executive authority, the commander-in-chief directing his own Defense Department to comply with transparency. The fact that it was necessary at all tells you something about how tightly certain agencies have guarded this information.
McCasland's disappearance also fits a broader and deeply unsettling pattern. As we have reported on his career overseeing a $2.2 billion research program, the general's vanishing is not an isolated curiosity. It involves a man with direct knowledge of some of the most sensitive programs in the defense establishment, who disappeared precisely as political pressure to disclose those programs intensified.
And McCasland is not the only figure connected to UFO testimony whose availability has become an issue. An Air Force veteran tied to secret UFO claims died of an overdose before planned testimony, a case the FBI is also investigating. The accumulation of missing or deceased witnesses does not prove a conspiracy. But it does demand serious investigation, the kind that Congress has the authority and the duty to conduct.
Here is the core problem. Grusch testified under oath in 2023 that elements of the government had been hiding UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs for decades. He filed complaints with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. He named names. He recommended subpoenas.
Congress has the list. Congress has the testimony. Congress has the constitutional authority to compel witnesses and demand documents. And yet the man Grusch specifically identified as a key, and uncooperative, witness walked out of his house one morning and vanished.
Whether McCasland's disappearance is connected to the disclosure fight or is entirely personal, the effect is the same: a named witness is unavailable. The information he carried, about programs funded with public money, overseen in secret, and shielded from elected representatives, is now beyond reach.
Grusch's claims remain unverified in the public domain. He has not produced physical evidence in open settings. Skeptics have every right to demand proof. But the proper venue for resolving those questions is a congressional hearing room with witnesses under oath, not a bureaucratic stonewall backed by classification stamps and missing persons reports.
The American public funds these programs. Their elected representatives have a right to oversee them. And witnesses with direct knowledge have an obligation, legal and moral, to account for how that money was spent and what it produced.
When the witnesses keep disappearing, the questions don't go away. They get louder.
