FBI involved in search for retired U.S. Air Force major general missing for nearly 2 weeks

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland. (U.S. Air Force via CNN Newsource)

A high-ranking retired U.S. Air Force major general who once commanded a base long associated with UFO lore has been missing for nearly two weeks, and authorities are appealing to the public for help finding him, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, left his Albuquerque home on foot at approximately 11 a.m. February 27 and has not been in contact with family or friends since, the sheriff’s office said in a news release on March 6.

The sheriff’s office issued a Silver Alert the next day, which remains in effect. McCasland has an unspecified “medical issue” that has added urgency to the search, authorities said.

His phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices were left behind at the house, and investigators believe his hiking boots, wallet and a .38-caliber revolver with a leather holster are missing, the sheriff’s office said in a news release on Thursday.

Investigators also released a more detailed timeline showing a repairman interacted with McCasland at the home around 10 a.m. on February 27, and his wife returned shortly after noon to find him gone.

A gray US Air Force sweatshirt was found about 1.25 miles east of McCasland’s home during a search on March 7, though officials said it has not yet been confirmed to belong to him, according to the Thursday release. No blood was found on the sweater, the sheriff’s office said.

Authorities have conducted extensive neighborhood canvassing, interviews and coordinated search operations in an effort to find him, contacting more than 700 homeowners in the neighborhood, the sheriff’s office said.

McCasland is 5-foot-11 with white hair and blue eyes, the sheriff’s office said. He is “an avid outdoorsman” who hikes, runs and cycles in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights neighbourhood and the Sandia Mountains foothills.

Investigators released a photo on Thursday showing McCasland in a light green, long-sleeved button-up outdoor shirt he may have been wearing at the time he went missing.

Search efforts have also included drones, helicopter support, ground searches with search-and-rescue teams and K-9 units, though investigators say they have not identified any confirmed sightings or footage showing McCasland “leaving the area or indicating a direction of travel,” according to the Thursday release.

“Due to his background and established partnerships, BCSO is coordinating closely with multiple agencies,” including the FBI Albuquerque Field Office and Kirtland Air Force Base, the sheriff’s office said. The FBI has confirmed its involvement.

McCasland held some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. military, according to the Air Force. An astronautical engineer with degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, he held a series of high-level posts during his career.

He served as chief engineer on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Global Positioning System program, system program director of the Space Based Laser Project Office and director of special programs at the Pentagon. He also commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — a base long rumored to house extraterrestrial debris linked to Roswell, despite Air Force denials.

Following his retirement, McCasland briefly worked with Blink-182 musician Tom DeLonge, a co-founder of To The Stars, Inc., a company that says it studies information about unidentified aerial phenomena, his wife said.

CNN has reached out to the Air Force and McCasland’s family for comment.

His disappearance came just days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post he was directing the Pentagon and other federal agencies to release government records related 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 release of classified information about UFOs, told CNN.

“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 wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, said 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.”

A Silver Alert is an emergency notification pushed out statewide, similar to an AMBER alert, but for missing persons over the age of 50 who display a “deterioration of intellectual faculties,” according to the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. But Wilkerson said her husband does not have dementia. “He was not confused and disoriented,” she said.

McCasland retired nearly 13 years ago, and Wilkerson said it “seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him.”

Wilkerson thanked the community and authorities for their support, 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, neighbourhood canvassing and looking for Ring or wildlife videos.”

The sheriff’s office said it has so far “uncovered no evidence of foul play” but is “still considering all possible scenarios.”

Investigators have asked those in the area to contact them if they have any information. Footage and other files can be sent to the sheriff’s office through a dedicated webpage.

“… Maybe the best hypothesis is that aliens beamed him up to the mothership,” Wilkerson said in her post. “However, no sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia Mountains have been reported.”

By Chris Boyette, Jason Morris and Alaa Elassar