A high-ranking retired US Air Force major general who as soon as commanded a base lengthy associated with UFO lore has been missing for nearly two weeks, and authorities are interesting to the general public for assist finding him, in keeping with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico.
Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, left his Albuquerque residence on foot at roughly 11 a.m. February 27 and has not been involved with household or associates since, the sheriff’s workplace stated in a news release. His mobile phone was left behind, the sheriff’s workplace informed NCS.
The sheriff’s workplace issued a Silver Alert the following day, which stays in impact. An unspecified “medical issue” has added urgency to the search.
Authorities have carried out intensive neighborhood canvassing, interviews and coordinated search operations in an effort to seek out him. They contacted greater than 600 householders within the neighborhood, the sheriff’s workplace stated.
McCasland is 5-foot-11 with white hair and blue eyes, in keeping with the sheriff’s workplace. He is “an avid outdoorsman” who hikes, runs and cycles in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights neighborhood and the Sandia Mountains foothills.
“Due to his background and established partnerships, BCSO is coordinating closely with multiple agencies,” together with the FBI Albuquerque Field Office and Kirtland Air Force Base, the sheriff’s office said. The FBI has confirmed its involvement.
McCasland held a number of the most delicate positions within the US navy, according to the Air Force. An astronautical engineer with levels from the US Air Force Academy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, he held a sequence of high-level posts throughout his profession.
He served as chief engineer on the Department of Defense’s Global Positioning System program, system program director of the Space Based Laser Project Office and director of particular packages on the Pentagon. He additionally commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — a base lengthy rumored to accommodate extraterrestrial debris linked to Roswell, regardless of Air Force denials.
Following his retirement, McCasland labored with To The Stars, Inc., an organization co-founded by Blink-182 musician Tom DeLonge that claims it research details about unidentified aerial phenomena.
NCS has reached out to the Air Force and McCasland’s household for remark.
His disappearance got here simply days after President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social put up he was directing the Pentagon and different federal businesses to launch authorities data associated to extraterrestrial life and UFOs.
“I hope and pray this is not one of those cases where a former senior military officer was specifically targeted and that he will be found happy and healthy in the immediate near term for his sake and the sake of his loved ones,” Luis Elizondo, a former Department of Defense intelligence officer who now advocates for the discharge of labeled details about UFOs, informed NCS.
“Whether or not his disappearance had anything to do with any legacy involvement he may have had in UAP research, I prefer to allow law enforcement the necessary time to do their work before speculating,” he added.
“It is true that Neil had a brief association with the UFO community,” McCasland’s spouse, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, stated in a Facebook post. “This connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil. Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright-Patt.”
Wilkerson stated her husband doesn’t have dementia. “He was not confused and disoriented,” she stated.
McCasland retired nearly 13 years in the past, and Wilkerson stated it “seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him.”
Wilkerson thanked the neighborhood and authorities for their help, noting the “dozens of searchers on foot, both official and friends and neighbors of Neil’s … horseback searchers, drones with different capabilities, helicopters, three different types of search dogs, neighborhood canvassing and looking for Ring or wildlife videos.”
The sheriff’s workplace stated it has to this point “uncovered no evidence of foul play” however is “still considering all possible scenarios.”
Investigators have requested these within the space to contact them if they’ve any data. Footage and different information may be despatched to the sheriff’s workplace by means of a dedicated webpage.
“… Maybe the best hypothesis is that aliens beamed him up to the mothership,” Wilkerson stated in her put up. “However, no sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia Mountains have been reported.”
NCS’s Jason Morris contributed to this report.