GENERAL NEIL MCCASLAND

Opening

On Friday, 27 February 2026, retired US Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, walked out of his home in northeast Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has not been seen since. He left his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices behind. His wallet, a .38-caliber revolver with a leather holster, and a red backpack were gone. The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office (BCSO) leads the case, with FBI help, and as of September 2026 it remains an open missing person investigation.

Timeline

26 February 2026. A BCSO surveillance still shows McCasland at what Los Angeles Magazine describes as an apparent REI store in Albuquerque, carrying a large white parcel, a small boxed item and a yellow pack the magazine suggests is a first aid kit. It is the last known photograph of him.

27 February, about 10:00 a.m. A repairman deals with McCasland at the house. This is the last confirmed contact.

About 11:10 a.m. His wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, leaves for a medical appointment. She has said he was home when she left.

12:04 p.m. She returns and he is gone. He had changed clothes and switched off his phone, which stayed in the house.

3:07 p.m. She calls 911. BCSO issues a Silver Alert, citing medical concerns and his safety.

1 March. New Mexico Search and Rescue joins the effort.

3 March. The FBI joins the search.

6 March. Wilkerson posts a public statement rebutting rumours about the case.

7 March. Searchers find a gray Air Force sweatshirt about 1.25 miles from the house. The family has not confirmed it was his.

12 March. BCSO releases a timeline and says deputies have canvassed more than 700 homes for camera footage from 27 and 28 February.

Mid-March. The search extends to the couple's second home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where investigators find a light green long-sleeved shirt and hiking boots of the kind he was first thought to be wearing.

3 April. Law&Crime Network publishes the 911 recording.

15 to 20 April. The White House says it is reviewing a set of deaths and disappearances among scientists and cleared personnel, and the House Oversight Committee opens an inquiry that names McCasland.

12 June. Los Angeles Magazine publishes the 26 February photo, obtained through a public records request.

26 June and 4 August. BCSO corrects several published claims, then tells reporters it has no updates for release.

Key figures

McCasland graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1979, earned a PhD at MIT in 1988, and spent 34 years in uniform. He worked on GPS and space programs, commanded the AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland, served at the Pentagon on space acquisition and special access programs, and from 2011 to 2013 commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson. After retiring he worked in Albuquerque's defence technology sector.

Sheriff John Allen and Lt. Kyle Woods of BCSO have given most of the public updates. Allen said McCasland had described "a mental fog." Woods said there was no sign he was disoriented or confused on the day. Wilkerson, his wife, has been the family's public voice.

BCSO has worked the case with the FBI Albuquerque Field Office, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, New Mexico State Police and volunteer search teams.

Physical and documentary trail

On the paper: BCSO press releases and briefings, the 911 recording, the Colorado clothing find, the unconfirmed sweatshirt, and a 20 April House Oversight release stating that McCasland "remains missing." Searchers used helicopters with infrared cameras, drones, dogs and ground teams across the Sandia foothills, including Elena Gallegos Open Space and the Domingo Baca trail. Woods noted that one of the warmest winters in years weakened the thermal cameras. What is missing is just as important: no confirmed sighting, no camera footage of him leaving, no phone activity, and no trace of the revolver or backpack.

In the 911 call, Wilkerson told the dispatcher there was "some indication that he planned not to be found," and that it "seems kind of deliberate, because he's always got his phone." She told the dispatcher she got back "at noon"; BCSO's timeline puts her return at 12:04 p.m. She said they had been seeing a doctor together about anxiety, memory and sleep, and that he had recently been discouraged about his health. BCSO later said he had stepped back from several retiree working groups because of what he called brain fog.

At this time, we have not developed evidence establishing that Mr. McCasland's disappearance is connected to his classified work.

Competing explanations

He left on his own. This is the reading that fits the most documented facts: the changed clothes, the phone left switched off, the missing wallet and revolver, the health worries his wife described, and a man who knew the foothills trails well. Investigators have said they found nothing to suggest foul play. The case against it is simply that nothing has been found, despite months of air, ground and canine searches.

Claim: he was taken because of what he knew. The theory rests on his AFRL and special-programs career, on Wright-Patterson's place in Roswell lore, and on 2016 WikiLeaks emails in which Tom DeLonge told John Podesta that McCasland had helped assemble his To The Stars advisory team. Wilkerson answered this directly. She said the DeLonge link was a brief, unpaid consultancy on military and technical matters for his fiction projects, that her husband had held only "very commonly held clearances" since retiring, and that "this connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil." BCSO says he held a standard retiree clearance, not an active one.

Claim: he is part of a pattern of missing scientists. Online lists place him beside cases such as JPL engineer Monica Reza, who disappeared while hiking in the Angeles National Forest in June 2025. The FBI and House Oversight are reviewing these cases. BCSO says there is "no known connection" between McCasland's case and other missing scientist cases, and a CBS News review of the wider list found no links between them.

Later life of the case

The UFO angle moved the case from local news to Congress. Rep. Eric Burlison publicly suggested McCasland held significant UFO knowledge, and the Oversight inquiry followed. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was working "with all relevant agencies and the FBI to holistically review all of the cases together and identify any potential commonalities that may exist." FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News the bureau would look for connections to classified access or foreign actors, adding: "We will make the appropriate arrest if there's any connections that lead to nefarious conduct." No such connection has been announced. Wilkerson's 6 March statement tried to lower the temperature, and she dismissed a widely shared story about an alarming phone call that morning as "a complete fabrication." By summer the case had gone quiet, with BCSO confirming the investigation is open but offering no new findings.

Finding

The record is solid on the basics: when he was last seen, what he left, what he took, and how hard the county, state and federal teams have looked. The strongest reading of that evidence, and the one his wife and investigators have pointed to, is that he left the house himself on foot during a hard stretch with his health. No official has linked his disappearance to his past work, his UFO contacts or the other cases. Those remain unverified claims, and the public record does not support them.

What still will not resolve: where a fit, experienced hiker went in a one-hour window without appearing on a single camera, and why the revolver and red backpack have never been found. And a family without answers seven months on.