Newly released bodycam footage has revealed a shocking meeting between a missing Air Force general and members of the Pentagon‘s shadowy space unit just hours before his disappearance.
Police officers in New Mexico were recording as they spoke with a witness who allegedly had dinner with William Neil McCasland the night before he vanished without a trace on February 27.
McCasland is a retired Air Force Major General who has been linked to both US nuclear research and classified UFO-related programs during his career.
The bodycam footage, obtained by the Law&Crime Network, captured a phone call with an unidentified woman who said McCasland met with her and members of the US Space Force at a restaurant in Albuquerque around 6pm local time.
Officially, the Space Force equips the military for operations in space, protecting satellites and other assets from threats, but the newest branch of the armed forces also tracks unexplained space objects, such as UFOs, as part of national security.
The unnamed caller claimed she worked with McCasland, who was still a member of the Kirtland Partnership, a nonprofit working to protect and expand Kirtland Air Force Base, a major military research facility and nuclear weapons lab.
Previously, McCasland’s wife, Susan Wilkerson, had posted online that the retired general only had ‘very commonly held clearances’ since retiring from the Air Force 13 years ago, but the new witness revealed that the 68-year-old was still a key figure in secretive government circles.
‘He was the head of Air Force Research Lab to the point the man’s names are in the UFO documents that are fixed to be released,’ the witness claimed. ‘He’s in that depth, so he has a very high security clearance.’
William Neil McCasland, 68, was last seen around 11am on Friday, February 27 near Quail Run Court NE in Albuquerque, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said
The sheriff’s office has issued a Silver Alert, a public notification system used in the US to locate missing seniors or individuals with Alzheimer’s, dementia or other mental disabilities
However, the woman who met with McCasland said something seemed wrong during the meeting with Space Force and the retired general was not acting like himself that night.
‘I was shocked this morning when I saw the alert because what I noticed Thursday evening [February 26] is he wasn’t his usual self. He was kind of spacey and quiet and you know that that happens with people.’
The newly obtained bodycam footage also revealed the conversation between officers from the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and Wilkerson, revealing that McCasland’s disappearance caught her completely off guard.
However, she noted that the retired general was just prescribed a new medication hours before he vanished which was supposed to help battle a number of symptoms he was having that may have been signaling cognitive decline.
‘Today he had taken a drug that the doctor prescribed last night that was supposed to help him sleep,’ she said in the bodycam recording obtained by Law&Crime Sidebar with Jesse Weber.
‘With weight gain, he’s lost about 20 pounds for no reason, and with anxiety, today he woke up and said, “Well, I have got better sleep, but it’s like the after effects of a bad hangover. I’m just foggy. I can’t get any motivation to do anything.”‘
McCasland was reportedly seeing doctors for his physical and mental difficulties. Before police arrived at the home, Wilkerson had told 911 dispatchers the military veteran feared his brain was ‘deteriorating.’
He was last seen leaving his home without his phone, wearable devices or any identification and his wife told authorities she believed McCasland ‘had planned not to be found.’
McCasland reportedly had ties to US government projects involving nuclear research and UFO-related technology. A witness claimed he met with the US Space Force on February 26
McCasland had changed his clothes and only took a pair of boots and his .38-caliber revolver before vanishing around 11am that morning. There has been no sign of the general since that time.
The general was previously in charge of both Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson in Ohio.
UFO enthusiasts have linked both facilities to secret studies of advanced aerospace technology and unexplained phenomena for decades, although officials maintain they focus on national security and experimental defense projects.
Since the unit’s creation in 2019, the military has publicly acknowledged that the Space Force has a major presence at both locations.
The branch uses Kirtland for its Space Systems Command and Space Rapid Capabilities Office. Meanwhile, Space Force runs the National Space Intelligence Center out of Wright-Patterson.
The Ohio military complex has a long history of UFO-related rumors, with former government scientists Hal Puthoff and Eric Davis claiming the debris from the alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 was taken to Wright-Patterson for examination.
Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett told WABC radio in March that McCasland was the key figure in America’s secret research into UFO and extraterrestrial technology.
Burchett said: ‘He’s the guy that had a lot of nuclear secrets. I’ve been told by several sources that he was the gatekeeper for the UFO stuff.’
Just days before the Pentagon began releasing declassified UFO files to the public in early May, Air Force veteran David Grusch specifically named McCasland as one of the officers who had been in charge of non-human craft recovery and reverse-engineering UFOs.
Grusch, who is now a UFO whistleblower and advisor to Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri, claimed that the general had not been cooperative with lawmakers seeking to interview individuals tied to America’s alleged contact with aliens.
Grusch told Chris Farrell on Judicial Watch: ‘They already have the list of some of these hostile folks that ran those programs. Unfortunately, one of those individuals, Major General retired Neil McCasland, is currently missing, which is very concerning to me as well.’
The new bodycam footage also revealed that officers spoke with McCasland’s neighbors after his disappearance, including a former subordinate of the general’s who lived in the area.
‘He used to be my boss. My boss’s boss’s boss,’ the man told the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s officers.
‘I briefed him back in 2000 when he visited Boston. And I briefed for him projects I had. He was this scary colonel. He’s a PhD. I’m a PhD, but like he’s a PhD in some other science engineering and then he ran the scientific lab and he’s smart as hell.’
Although he admitted to not seeing McCasland for a long time, the scientist described hi as ‘really straight laced’ and believed something would have been wrong for the general to walk off without warning.
Another New Mexico resident was seen telling police that she knew of possible trails and even an old horse tunnel under a nearby road that homeless people might now be using, but nothing pointed to foul play.
McCasland was last seen near Quail Run Court NE in Albuquerque just after leaving his own while his wife was out of the house at a doctor’s appointment.
