‘They probably gonna fake alien invasion’: 9th NASA scientist’s mysterious death adds to a pattern raising eyebrows

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, has been in the news a lot lately. The Artemis II mission finally took man back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. But recent reports of NASA scientists either dying or vanishing, all within a span of three years, have made people more interested in what the agency has been working on behind closed doors.

According to the Daily Mail, Michael David Hicks was the first to die. Hicks’ cause of death was never announced, and there’s no public record of an autopsy. That alone caused considerable controversy with internet conspiracy theorists such as Candace Owens — but more on that later.

Hicks worked as a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was a veteran at the agency, having been there from 1998 to 2022 — just one year before he died under unclear circumstances. He’s reportedly one of the nine people connected to the agency, with intimate knowledge of America’s space or nuclear programs, to have died.

NASA is usually viewed as a unifying institution in the country. Scientists who work there are aware of this role and have often resisted making their political leanings public, even when things aren’t going well. What makes the situation more mysterious is that there are at least three other scientists with close ties to Hicks who worked on NASA missions with him and later went missing. That includes Monica Reza, the new Director of the Materials Processing Group at JPL, who vanished without a trace in June 2025.

In July 2024, Frank Maiwald died at 61. More recently, two other men with close ties to JPL also died. The deaths didn’t stop there. On Feb. 16, 2026, astrophysicist Carl Grillmair died at 67. Grillmair was a researcher at the California Institute of Technology whose work was heavily supported by NASA’s JPL. All of these deaths and missing-person cases have occurred with little public acknowledgment from the agencies involved.

A graphic compiling the missing persons and deaths has since circulated on X, and people have had wildly varying reactions. One user wrote, “They probably gonna fake alien invasion to establish one world government as a so-called earth defense force.” Another suggested, “Almost like the amount of deaths and suicides related to the Epstein circle.” Candace Owens tied it back to moon-landing conspiracy theories, ominously writing, “Gus Grissom might have a clue” about what could be happening.

they probably gonna fake alien invasion to establish one world government as so called earth defense force. sounds like 20th Century Boys Manga's plot.

Beginning with Terrorism,Cult,Virus,forced Vaccination, and finally fake Alien invasion to control the world

— הגויים הטובים ביותר (@reinac569200) April 8, 2026

Almost like the amount of deaths and suicides related to the Epstein circle

— Roberto Guiseppi (@RobertoGuiseppi) April 8, 2026

Hmmm…I wonder what these scientists could be discovering about NASA that would require them to be permanently silenced.
Gus Grissom might have a clue. https://t.co/jxE5kRVcpx

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) April 8, 2026

Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett also weighed in, saying, “There have been several others throughout the country that have disappeared under suspicious circumstances. I think we ought to be paying attention to it.”

What is actually going on is difficult to determine from the outside. Just the other week, Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama even had a tongue-in-cheek exchange suggesting they might have personal beliefs about aliens that the public isn’t ready to engage with yet. So, for now, there are still more questions than answers.

One thing is for sure, however: where there’s smoke, there’s fire. These are too many cases for it all to be a coincidence. It could be — but it seems unlikely.