Amy Eskridge, 34, a researcher working on anti-gravity technology, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in Huntsville, Alabama on June 11, 2022. However, an interview and independent findings submitted to Congress have alleged the death was a murder conspiracy rather than suicide. Before her death, Eskridge had expressed concerns about escalating threats to her safety and stated she needed to publish her research soon. She co-founded The Institute for Exotic Science with her retired NASA engineer father, Richard Eskridge, to enable the public disclosure of anti-gravity technology.
Since Eskridge's death, five other notable researchers have passed away under suspicious circumstances. Nuno Loureiro, 47, was killed at his home in Boston on December 15, 2025; authorities attributed the shooting to a former schoolmate, though independent investigators suggest his nuclear fusion work may have made him a target. Astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, was shot dead on his front porch in California on February 16, 2026; the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department charged a person of interest with murder, carjacking and burglary. NASA scientists Michael David Hicks and Frank Maiwald, both employed at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California, also died under mysterious circumstances at young ages. Additionally, Jason Thomas, a pharmaceutical researcher at Novartis working on cancer treatments, was discovered dead in a Massachusetts lake on March 17, 2026, after vanishing three months earlier; local police have found no indication of foul play.
Several other individuals connected to space and nuclear research remain unaccounted for.