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Newly released police records show that retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, the UFO-linked Air Force officer who disappeared from his Albuquerque home on Feb. 27, had been actively seeking to withdraw from at least four advisory positions tied to classified government research programs in the days before he vanished, contradicting public statements made by his wife about the extent of his government ties.
The documents, released to Sara Bondink, a historical researcher and author who has been following the McCasland investigation, were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and shed new light on the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the 68-year-old retired officer, whose case has captivated the public because of his career-long proximity to the Pentagon's most sensitive aerospace and defense programs.
The new details emerged from a March 3 interview between McCasland's wife, Susan Wilkerson, and a detective from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office GHOST Unit, a specialized team normally focused on anti-gang and human trafficking operations that was brought in to assist the department's Missing Persons Unit.
The disclosures complicate an account Wilkerson had previously offered publicly. In social media posts shortly after her husband's disappearance, she stated that McCasland no longer held any top-secret clearances with the US government.
The newly released interview records indicate that at the time he vanished, McCasland was still an active member of at least four organizations with direct ties to national defense secrets, and that she was aware of his involvement.
Those organizations, according to the documents, include Sandia National Laboratories, Riverside Research, the Kirtland Partnership and a University Affiliated Research Center.
Each is involved in high-level research for the Department of Defense, with mandates spanning national security and advanced technology.
Wilkerson told investigators that McCasland had been making urgent moves to resign from several, and possibly all, of those groups, driven by fears that he was experiencing severe cognitive decline.
The "brain fog" he had described to those around him was cited as the primary reason for the attempted withdrawals.
McCasland's biography placed him near some of the most sensitive corners of the American national security apparatus.
An astronautical engineer who graduated from the US Air Force Academy and later earned advanced degrees from MIT and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he served as chief engineer on the Pentagon's Global Positioning System program, directed the Space Based Laser Project Office and held the position of director of special programs at the Pentagon, a role that made him executive secretary for the Special Access Program Oversight Committee, the body with oversight of America's most classified programs and capabilities.
He later commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, a facility long rumored in UFO circles to house extraterrestrial debris recovered from the 1947 Roswell incident, claims the US Air Force has consistently and categorically denied.
Following his retirement in 2013, McCasland briefly consulted, without pay, for To The Stars, Inc., a company co-founded by musician Tom DeLonge to study unidentified aerial phenomena.
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McCasland's case has become one of the most popular in what observers have taken to calling the "missing scientists" phenomenon, a loosely defined pattern involving NASA researchers, nuclear laboratory employees and military personnel who have either died or disappeared in recent years under circumstances their families and online investigators consider unexplained.
The House Oversight Committee announced an inquiry earlier this year into what it described as unconfirmed public reporting about the disappearance and deaths of individuals with access to sensitive US scientific information.
In a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, committee Chairman James Comer cited reports alleging that at least ten individuals connected to US nuclear secrets or rocket technology had died or vanished in recent years.
McCasland's disappearance came just days after President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that he was directing the Pentagon and other federal agencies to release government records related to UFOs and extraterrestrial life, a coincidence that intensified public scrutiny of the case.
Investigators have recovered a light green long-sleeve outdoor shirt and a pair of hiking boots believed to belong to McCasland, but his wallet, a .38-caliber revolver and its leather holster, and a red backpack remain unaccounted for. Authorities say they have found no evidence of foul play but have not ruled it out.
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