Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), who sits on the House Oversight Committee, said late Monday that he would “not be surprised” if foreign adversaries were responsible for the mysterious deaths and disappearances of nearly a dozen American scientists over the past few years.

“I would not be surprised if our adversaries —China, Russia, Iran, or any other adversary—saw an opportunity to take out some of our nation’s top scientists, I would not be shocked,” Burlison told host Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation.

“It certainly is something that I would hope that our federal government is keenly aware of and trying to safeguard,” he added.

A string of at least 11 deaths and disappearances of U.S. experts in space, defense and nuclear topics has raised concern in the scientific community since the unconfirmed reports surfaced this month.

Authorities have not confirmed any official link between the cases, which date back to the July 2023 death of Michael David Hicks, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist who specialized in comets and asteroids. No cause of death has been disclosed, according to NewsNation.

NewsNation has also reported several cases this year, including the fatal shooting of California Institute of Technology astrophysicist Carl Grillmair in February; the disappearance of retired Air Force Gen. William Neil McCasland in New Mexico in February; and Novartis researcher Jason Thomas, whose body was recovered from a Massachusetts lake roughly three months after he went missing.

Other cases involved individuals who vanished from their homes, on hiking trails, and on a highway. At least one other person was shot to death in their home, and no cause of death was publicly provided for the remaining few.

Burlison said the individuals were “all read in at the highest security levels one could possibly imagine,” working on sensitive national security projects related to aerospace, including advanced propulsion and plasma research.

“That’s fascinating, but what’s really fascinating is the four individuals that stepped out of their home, left their phones behind, left their wallet, left everything behind and just completely disappeared and never came back,” he said.

“That’s not something that a normal person does, and the fact that it happened within one year, you know, four people walked out of their home never to be seen again, all of which were working together on these projects for the Department of Defense, that’s very mysterious,” Burlison added.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) signaled on Sunday that lawmakers would investigate the matter, two days after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt promised the Trump administration was working with the FBI to do the same.

“No stone will be unturned in this effort, and the White House will provide updates when we have them,” Leavitt wrote in a post on the social platform X on Friday.

President Trump told reporters last Thursday that he hoped the acts were “random” and not connected, saying more information was expected in the next week and a half.

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