At least 10 men and women who worked in high-security or advanced scientific fields and had access to some of America's top nuclear and space secrets have disappeared or turned up dead in the last 11 months.
Steven Garcia, a government contractor believed to have top-level clearance at a key nuclear facility, is the latest to be added to the growing list.
Aside from a loose connection in their work, he and the other nine individuals had very little in common.
"I hope it's random," President Donald Trump said when asked about it earlier this week. "We're going to know in the next week and a half. I just left a meeting on that subject. Pretty serious stuff. Hopefully, I don't know, coincidence, if you want it, whatever you want to call it, but some of them were very important people."
While authorities have not publicly connected the cases, the pressure is on for the Trump administration to investigate possible links.
National Security analyst Bob Maginnis supposes it could be coincidence, but a link could also be found to suggest espionage.
During his time in the military, the retired Army colonel remembers being trained to always keep an eye out for foreign agents looking to recruit spies.
"There's no question that we're constantly probed," he tells AFN.
Maginnis says it would be easy to throw this into the "conspiracy theory" bin, but with the current research into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, what used to be called UFOs, what is conspiracy and what is possible or likely has expanded over the last few years.
The individuals' expertise could be helpful in the field of UFO research, but that connection has not been made with all of them.
Maginnis says it is possible that there is an actual effort to kill, remove or disappear people that have special knowledge.
"That, of course, would be disconcerting, but not totally surprising," he concludes.
