Missing Air Force general's alleged UFO ties with White House insider detailed in explosive interview

The mysterious disappearance of a retired Air Force general has drawn fresh attention after a UFO whistleblower made new claims about his connections.William Neil McCasland, 68, vanished from his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on February 27. His phone, wearable devices and prescription glasses were left behind.More than seven months later, he remains missing.McCasland once commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory, overseeing billions of dollars in military science and technology research, which has long been tied to conspiracy theories of the alleged storage of crashed UFO debris and alien bodies from Roswell.Now, UFO whistleblower David Grusch, who testified under oath in 2023 that the US government has secretly operated programs to recover and reverse-engineer non-human spacecraft for decades, has claimed the general was involved in an effort to prepare Americans for UFO disclosure.Speaking on Joe Rogan's podcast, the former intelligence officer linked that alleged effort to Hillary Clinton's pledge to release UFO files if elected president in 2016.'It's very bizarre. And it's within a week of Trump coming out,' said Grusch, referring to McCasland disappearing days after the president's February 19 announcement to release all files related to UFOs and extraterrestrials. William Neil McCasland, 68, vanished from his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on February 27. His phone, wearable devices and prescription glasses were left behindMcCasland held senior military research positions at both Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.He commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson and previously led its Phillips Research Site at Kirtland.His connections to UFO discussions attracted public attention in 2016, when WikiLeaks published hacked emails from Podesta’s account.One message, dated January 25, 2016, and titled ‘General McCasland,’ described former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge’s dealings with the retired general.DeLonge shifted his career to push for government disclosure on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP, co-founding To The Stars Academy, which explored UFOs and other phenomena. ‘I’ve been working with him for four months. I just got done giving him a four-hour presentation on the entire project a few weeks ago,’ DeLonge wrote.‘He not only knows what I’m trying to achieve, he helped assemble my advisory team.’In the same email, DeLonge repeated the longstanding claim that material from the Roswell incident had been taken to Wright-Patterson, linking that allegation to the laboratory McCasland had commanded. The message did not provide evidence to substantiate that claim. UFO whistleblower David Grusch, who testified under oath in 2023 that the US government has secretly operated programs to recover and reverse-engineer non-human spacecraft for decades, has claimed the general was involved in an effort to prepare Americans for UFO disclosure Grusch told Rogan: 'John Podesta greenlit a... I'll call it acclimatization activity, a popularization activity. And, you know, that's why Tom DeLonge got his advisors. 'That's why General McCasland talked to him.'Podesta recently publicly acknowledged UFO discussions involving DeLonge and McCasland.In an emailed response to PARADIGM, Podesta challenged Grusch’s explanation of their purpose.‘That is probably not how I would characterize our interaction,’ Podesta wrote.He recalled a conference call arranged by DeLonge that covered declassifying Defense Department files and reducing the stigma surrounding professionals taking UFOs seriously.‘I have always maintained that the American people could handle the truth about UAPs and didn’t really need to be “acclimated,"' Podesta wrote.Grusch claimed McCasland spoke with DeLonge because the former Blink-182 star could be of use. A surveillance image shows retired Air Force general William Neil McCasland the day before he vanished without a trace on February 27'It was because they were given top cover to see Tom as a public figure who had the touch of the youth, rightly or wrongly,' he told Rogan.'I mean, once again, there was an attempt, and I'm not going to judge them bad or good, but they were trying to prep the battlespace prior to 2016.' McCasland's wife, Susan Wilkerson, told local police in February that she does not believe there was any foul play involved in her husband's disappearance, but also told 911 dispatchers it appeared the general 'had planned not to be found.'Local police have not had any updates in the case.Grusch had previously claimed that McCasland was one of the officers who had been in charge of classified programs related to non-human craft recovery and reverse-engineering.The whistleblower also alleged that McCasland had not been cooperative with lawmakers seeking to interview individuals with knowledge of America's alleged contact with extraterrestrials.