By Another prominent rocket scientist who helped develop a critical material for U.S. rocket engines vanished during a hike in Southern California recently, and her disappearance is drawing renewed scrutiny following a second, similarly unexplained case involving a retired Air Force general tied to advanced aerospace research.
Her work was apparently connected to UFOs.
Monica Reza, 60, disappeared on June 22, 2025, while hiking the Mount Waterman Trail in the Angeles National Forest. An experienced outdoorswoman, she had been hiking with two companions but became separated from them. Despite a large-scale search effort—deploying helicopters, cadaver dogs, drones, radar, and volunteer teams over the course of months—no trace of Reza has been found. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department continues to list her as a missing person, reported The New York Post.
In her professional life, Reza—who worked under the name Monica Jacinto—was a leading materials scientist at Aerojet Rocketdyne. She developed Mondaloy, a patented family of nickel-based superalloys engineered to withstand the extreme heat and stress of rocket propulsion systems. Her work, funded in part by NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory, contributed to ongoing efforts to modernize U.S. rocket engine technology.
“Because Mondaloy is a family of alloys, I worked with the Air Force to scale up production, look at different processing methods and get the material ready for insertion into a rocket engine,” she said in a 2017 profile.
Her research intersected with broader Air Force initiatives led in the early 2000s by then–Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, who oversaw advanced materials and space vehicle programs at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Those efforts were aimed in part at improving propulsion systems for reusable space platforms and reducing reliance on foreign technology.
That objective was underscored in 2016, when Aerojet Rocketdyne marked a milestone in domestic rocket engine development. “An objective of this program is to help eliminate the United States’ reliance on foreign rocket propulsion technology. This is key to ensuring our national security, and the people of the Rocket Propulsion Division are making impressive strides in achieving our goal,” said Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello, then commander of AFRL.
Reza’s disappearance remained an isolated mystery—until February of this year.
On February 27, 2026, McCasland, 68, vanished from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. According to authorities, the retired general—also an experienced hiker—left behind his phone, wallet, and prescription glasses, taking only a backpack and a .38 caliber revolver. His wife last saw him late that morning. Extensive search operations, including the use of thermal drones, have failed to locate him.
McCasland’s career placed him at the center of Air Force aerospace research during a period of rapid technological development. In recent years, he has also been loosely associated in public discussion with government inquiries into unidentified aerial phenomena. In 2024, strange arial phenomena began happening around military bases. Trump has promised to release information about UFOs and the White House recently registered two new government website domains: alien.gov and aliens.gov, according to publicly available federal records.
Investigators have not publicly linked the two disappearances, and officials emphasize that both cases remain active but separate. Still, the similarities are difficult to ignore: two highly accomplished figures in advanced aerospace research, both seasoned outdoors enthusiasts, both vanishing abruptly without leaving evidence of foul play or clear indication of what went wrong.
In each case, the terrain presents challenges. The Angeles National Forest, where Reza disappeared, is rugged and heavily wooded, with steep drop-offs and shifting weather conditions. Albuquerque’s surrounding landscape, while less dense, includes vast open areas and mountainous terrain that can complicate search efforts.
For now, both investigations remain defined more by absence than evidence.
Months after Reza’s disappearance and weeks after McCasland’s, authorities have uncovered no definitive clues—no confirmed sightings, no recovered belongings, no clear timeline beyond their final known movements.
Over the last six months, two other American scientists have been murdered without explanation of motive. Nuno Loureiro, professor and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center was shot and killed outside of his home by Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who had driven hundreds of miles following his murder of a young Republican leader at Brown University.
A veteran California Institute of Technology astronomer whose career spanned decades of research into distant planets and the structure of the cosmos was shot and killed this week at his rural home outside Los Angeles, authorities said. Carl Grillmair, 67, died Monday from a gunshot wound to the torso at his residence in Llano, an isolated community in the Antelope Valley, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner, in a killing that has sent shockwaves through the scientific community. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said a suspect, 29-year-old Freddy Snyder, has been taken into custody in connection with the slaying, though details surrounding a motive remain unclear.
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