The toll of a ‘missing scientists’ conspiracy theory on the families left behind

[C C]

The toll of a ‘missing scientists’ conspiracy theory on the families left behind
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/...e_code=1.nVA.yMRB.AiV6rYexVlzL&smid=url-share

EXCERPTS: For weeks, online sleuths had been piecing together what became known as the “missing scientists” theory — based on an observation that 10 to 12 figures involved in nuclear, aerospace or extraterrestrial research had died or disappeared.

[...] Unlike the QAnon conspiracy theory, this is not purely a far-right phenomenon lapping at the edges of the mainstream. “These are just entirely too many cases to ignore,” Jennifer Welch, a progressive commentator, said on her podcast.

[...] There are 73.6 million Americans who work in scientific and science-related fields... Thousands of people have security clearances, too ... The idea that a small handful of scientists has access to a kind of shadow archive of secret knowledge (encounters with aliens, colonies on Mars) makes for good screenwriting copy but isn’t close to being true.

[...] our brains have an inherent bias toward sense-making; life would be too chaotic otherwise. Perhaps for this reason, the human mind is subject to the “clustering illusion,” which teases out patterns that don’t actually exist. ... It hasn’t helped matters that some of the deaths have indeed been the result of foul play. [...] “If you start looking for patterns, you will find them,” said Elizabeth Weiss... (MORE - details)
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[exchemist]

The toll of a ‘missing scientists’ conspiracy theory on the families left behind
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/...e_code=1.nVA.yMRB.AiV6rYexVlzL&smid=url-share

EXCERPTS: For weeks, online sleuths had been piecing together what became known as the “missing scientists” theory — based on an observation that 10 to 12 figures involved in nuclear, aerospace or extraterrestrial research had died or disappeared.

[...] Unlike the QAnon conspiracy theory, this is not purely a far-right phenomenon lapping at the edges of the mainstream. “These are just entirely too many cases to ignore,” Jennifer Welch, a progressive commentator, said on her podcast.

[...] There are 73.6 million Americans who work in scientific and science-related fields... Thousands of people have security clearances, too ... The idea that a small handful of scientists has access to a kind of shadow archive of secret knowledge (encounters with aliens, colonies on Mars) makes for good screenwriting copy but isn’t close to being true.

[...] our brains have an inherent bias toward sense-making; life would be too chaotic otherwise. Perhaps for this reason, the human mind is subject to the “clustering illusion,” which teases out patterns that don’t actually exist. ... It hasn’t helped matters that some of the deaths have indeed been the result of foul play. [...] “If you start looking for patterns, you will find them,” said Elizabeth Weiss... (MORE - details)
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This has come up before, either here on the .net site, though I'm having trouble finding the thread. In fact, given the huge numbers of scientists working in the USA the stats on suicides, accidental and natural deaths are not at all surprising. It's just the usual mindset of mistrust at work that social media and the Trump administration like to encourage.

 

[exchemist]

OK I've found the earlier thread on the .net site. The BBC ran a piece on this back in April: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyw9rpdl4po

This is what the arch-debunker Mike West had to say, according to the article:

"The US Top Secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce is ~700,000 people," science writer, investigator and pseudoscience debunker Mick West wrote on 16 April on his Substack.

"Ordinary mortality over 22 months predicts ~4,000 deaths, ~70 homicides, and ~180 suicides. The list has 10 … The deaths are real. The families' grief is real. The pattern is not."

Trump's FBI has now got involved. This almost certainly is part of the same pattern as the recent release of UFO "files". It's part of the Trump administration's strategy of gaslighting and bamboozling the public so that they don't know what or who to believe, they come to mistrust "elites" and established institutions and they start to believe in a mythical "deep state" that hides the truth from them, from which only Trump and his fellow wreckers of US democracy can save them. It's all of a piece with the antivax stuff and demonisation of Fauci, the denunciation of Gen. Milley as a traitor, the suing of independent media channels and universities, etc. etc.

All sources of authority in public life that are independent of the president and his henchmen (and henchbimbos - henchwenches?) must be called into question, denigrated and damaged, so that only he and they are left as the arbiters of truth and decision-making.