For the past several weeks, every sector of the media, from the fringe to the mainstream, has played host to allegations that a group of U.S. scientists are suspiciously missing or have died under mysterious circumstances, all of them supposedly with ties to UFO research. As tends to happen nowadays, those claims very quickly made their way to the to the halls of Congress and the White House, with President Trump directing FBI Director Kash Patel last month to investigate.

The issue, of course, is that the evidence that there’s any connection between the missing and deceased scientists is gossamer-thin. Even more interesting is the fact that this has, up to a point, happened before. A remarkably similar conspiracy theory has been circulating in alternative health circles for years, without significant breakthrough to the mainstream.

For at least ten years, people in natural health and anti-vaccine communities have been claiming that “holistic doctors” are being murdered; the implication is that the Deep State or Big Pharma fears their powerful knowledge. One of the most prominent purveyors of this conspiracy theory now claims that at least 100 unfortunate such doctors have met this fate.

The claims all involve people supposedly killed for knowing too much.

In some communities, the claim is now an article of faith, often referenced in passing at conferences and in newsletters as something everyone knows. But the story never went viral in the broader culture, was never picked up even by our most conspiracy-minded president, and never got the kind of widespread—and credulous—reception that this spring’s claim about missing purported UFO scientists has received. Among other things, the difference in the paths of the two stories shows how quickly and thoroughly our news ecosystem and political environment have mutated.

The missing scientists story began circulating in earnest in early April; the most prominent person to have been included is Major General William Neil McCasland, a 68-year-old retired U.S. Air Force official and former astronautical engineer who held a senior role on a base that’s long been linked to UFO lore. He was last seen on February 27 near his Albuquerque home, which sits near the edge of the vast Elena Gallegos Open Space trail system.

McCasland’s very real disappearance was soon connected with a variety of much more specious claims by people in the MAGA- and conspiracy-verse, as well as by outlets like the Daily Mail and New York Post. The Post has been particularly involved, running at least 14 stories identifying scientists and others whose death or disappearance they baselessly speculate are connected, including multiple people who died by suicide.

An early April Post story on the 2023 death of Michael David Hicks, a 59-year-old scientist who previously worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, appears to have been first time a........

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