In 1964 a British SciFi author Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978) wrote a novel “With A Strange Device” (aka “The Mind Warpers”) which now seems to have a certain prescient relevance to concerns raised recently in the highest circles of US government about an alarming number of American scientists working on classified projects who have inexplicably gone missing, or who have died in unexplained circumstances.

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

A nuclear physicist and MIT professor fatally shot outside his Massachusetts residence. A retired Air Force general missing from his New Mexico home. An aerospace engineer who disappeared during a hike in Los Angeles.

These are among at least 10 individuals connected to sensitive US nuclear and aerospace research who have died or disappeared in recent years, prompting concerns whether they are connected and fueling speculation online about the possibility of nefarious activity.

According to reports, the FBI are now leading an investigation to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists in tandem the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and with state and local law enforcement partners to try and find answers.

A separate investigation by the Republican House Oversight  Committee  into the same questions was announced on Monday.

The reports “raise questions about a possible sinister connection” between the deaths and disappearances, the committee said in its statement, seeking briefings on the matter from the FBI, the Defense Department, the Department of Energy and NASA.

https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-burlison-seek-information-on-missing-nuclear-and-rocket-scientists/

In Eric Frank Russell’s novel “With A Strange Device” inexplicable numbers of US scientists working in highly classified government weapons research are abandoning their jobs and careers for completely irrational reasons, then disappearing and refusing to explain why when traced  by the authorities The story is told from the perspective of a young metallurgist called Richard Bransome working in missile research.

https://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/eric-frank-russells-with-strange-device.html

One day a conversation overheard by chance in a lunch-diner discloses that the body of a young woman he strangled years earlier has been found hidden under the roots of a fallen tree. Filled with horror, he prepares to abandon his career and family and go on the run. But there is one problem - as he belatedly discovers no such murder ever took place. It’s a completely false memory implanted and triggered by post hypnotic suggestion - the chance conversation overheard in the diner.

As an FBI agent later explains to him -  “There are two ways of weakening the enemy. You can acquire his brains for your own use or, if that proves impossible, you can deprive him of the use of them."

Eric Frank Russell explored a similar theme - i.e. the inexplicable disappearances or deaths of leading scientific researchers in an earlier novel called “Sinister Barrier” (1939). He was said to have spent WW2 working for British military intelligence on wartime deception operations like ‘Operation Mincemeat’  (‘The Man Who Never Was’)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Never_Was

Russell later wrote another novel called “Wasp” (1957) about asymmetric terrorist warfare which was said to have become part of the CIA’s training manual on this subject.

Edited April 22Apr 22 by toucana
missing "of" in p.4

Something is definitely wrong when the real world starts imitating fiction.
So many events, lately, call reality into question.

1 hour ago, toucana said:

In 1964 a British SciFi author Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978) wrote a novel “With A Strange Device” (aka “The Mind Warpers”) which now seems to have a certain prescient relevance to concerns raised recently in the highest circles of US government about an alarming number of American scientists working on classified projects who have inexplicably gone missing, or who have died in unexplained circumstances.

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

A separate investigation by the Republican House Oversight  Committee  into the same questions was announced on Monday.

In Eric Frank Russell’s novel “With A Strange Device” inexplicable numbers of US scientists working in highly classified government weapons research are abandoning their jobs and careers for completely irrational reasons, then disappearing and refusing to explain why when traced  by the authorities The story is told from the perspective of a young metallurgist called Richard Bransome working in missile research.

https://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/eric-frank-russells-with-strange-device.html

One day a conversation overheard by chance in a lunch-diner discloses that the body of a young woman he strangled years earlier has been found hidden under the roots of a fallen tree. Filled with horror, he prepares to abandon his career and family and go on the run. But there is one problem - as he belatedly discovers no such murder ever took place. It’s a completely false memory implanted and triggered by post hypnotic suggestion - the chance conversation overheard in the diner.

As an FBI agent later explains to him -  “There are two ways of weakening the enemy. You can acquire his brains for your own use or, if that proves impossible, you can deprive him of the use of them."

Eric Frank Russell explored a similar theme - i.e. the inexplicable disappearances or deaths of leading scientific researchers in an earlier novel called “Sinister Barrier” (1939). He was said to have spent WW2 working for British military intelligence on wartime deception operations like ‘Operation Mincemeat’  (‘The Man Who Never Was’)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Never_Was

Russell later wrote another novel called “Wasp” (1957) about asymmetric terrorist warfare which was said to have become part of the CIA’s training manual on this subject.

What's the evidence this is statistically significant? Could it not just be the normal incidence, given the size of these research programmes.

Hofstadter's "paranoid style" in Right wing US politics was identified over 50 years ago. It is currently in the ascendant under Trump, who has encouraged conspiracist thinking as part of his drive to gaslight and bamboozle the public. We've just seen Trump announcing he's releasing a load of UFO "files", which is another load of distracting codswallop designed to make people distrust "elites", suspect conspiracies - and look in the wrong direction.

In such a climate, it is any wonder that a Republican politician starts yet another hare running? It could either be a deliberate ploy or simply genuine concern on his part, if he has himself become paranoid enough as a result of all this conspiracist campaigning.

Look, a squirrel!!

It's remarkable how many people can believe the median lifespan is somehow the allotted lifespan. Take any group of thousands of people (like nuclear and aerospace researchers), and you will most certainly get some disappearances (in the US, 500-600,000 people disappear every year, and tens of thousands of those stay disappeared) and some early deaths. I notice several of the disappeared were hikers or joggers, and lived in sparsely populated areas (like New Mexico) where one could have a heart attack and have one's remains consumed and bones scattered by scavenger species.

Edited April 22Apr 22 by TheVat

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Look, a squirrel!!

Where ?!?!
( what were we talking about ? )

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

What's the evidence this is statistically significant? Could it not just be the normal incidence, given the size of these research programmes.

Figures vary according to whether you specify scientists or engineers in the query, but online sources suggest that JPL in Pasadena California alone employs between 4,500 and 5,000 personnel. A somewhat smaller number work on fusion research projects, though quite a few of these are employed by private fusion companies rather than by the US government, with estimates of around 1,000  personnel in the USA in 2024, with a rough breakdown of  25% scientists and 48% engineers.

In the public sector, key labs like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (NIF), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and others employ hundreds of physicists and engineers dedicated to inertial and magnetic confinement fusion.

NASA employs some 18,000 people, with engineer as the largest job title.  But they are also bolstered by tens of thousands of contractors from the private aerospace and defense sector with up to half a million working on defense, space projects and missile systems.

So yes -  An unexplained mortality of 10 scientists/engineers within the last three years is unlikely to be statistically significant.

6 minutes ago, toucana said:

Figures vary according to whether you specify scientists or engineers in the query, but online sources suggest that JPL in Pasadena California alone employs between 4,500 and 5,000 personnel. A somewhat smaller number work on fusion research projects, though quite a few of these are employed by private fusion companies rather than by the US government, with estimates of around 1,000  personnel in the USA in 2024, with a rough breakdown of  25% scientists and 48% engineers.

In the public sector, key labs like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (NIF), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and others employ hundreds of physicists and engineers dedicated to inertial and magnetic confinement fusion.

NASA employs some 18,000 people, with engineer as the largest job title.  But they are also bolstered by tens of thousands of contractors from the private aerospace and defense sector with up to half a million working on defense, space projects and missile systems.

So yes -  An unexplained mortality of 10 scientists/engineers within the last three years is unlikely to be statistically significant.

Right. So either this is another "dead cat" tactic by Trumpy Republicans to distract and confuse the public, or they have been infected by the paranoia that the Trump administration likes to cultivate and actually believe it. What a waste of time.

Doesn't help that FBI is actively purging competence from its ranks.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Where ?!?!
( what were we talking about ? )

Here

https://connemara.ie/listing/wildlife-sculptures-connemara-national-park/

Sabine Hossenfelder has a comment on it on youtube:

23 hours ago, Eise said:

Sabine Hossenfelder has a comment on it on youtube:

The arch-debunker Mike West has different figures from Sabine's, with a far higher estimate of people engaged in work that might be thought in some way sensitive: about 700,000. So he says 10 deaths is well within expectations. His comments are a bit buried in this longer BBC article about this issue: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyw9rpdl4po

The quote is as follows:

"The US Top Secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce is ~700,000 people," science writer, investigator and pseudoscience debunker Mick West wrote on 16 April on his Substack.

"Ordinary mortality over 22 months predicts ~4,000 deaths, ~70 homicides, and ~180 suicides. The list has 10 … The deaths are real. The families' grief is real. The pattern is not."

This looks to me like just another of those American panics. I'm reminded of James Thurber's "The Day The Dam Broke"

Edited April 24Apr 24 by exchemist

On 4/22/2026 at 2:02 PM, exchemist said:

Right. So either this is another "dead cat" tactic by Trumpy Republicans to distract and confuse the public, or they have been infected by the paranoia that the Trump administration likes to cultivate and actually believe it. What a waste of time.

Republicans have shown themselves to be innumerate and they love a good conspiracy theory. Probably just a matter of time until they blame this on Biden.

Mick West joins the pantheon of great debunkers, with folks like Philip Klass, Michael Shermer, and James Randi. My only footnote would be on murder rates, and doesn't at all quarrel with West's conclusion. Homicide rates across a broad population sample tend to be inaccurate for many narrower cross sections. Some demographics have massively higher rates than others. (But yeah, even if we fine-slice the demographics of middle-aged and senior aerospace and nuclear professionals, a murder or two is expected.)

Intuitively, the absolute number is so small that I am not entirely sure whether rigorous applications of statistics really provide that much insight. At those levels I would (perhaps wrongly) assume that stochastic effects would dominate, even if the pool was much smaller.