Joshua LeBlanc

While in college, LeBlanc interned at Pelican Engineering, an electronic hardware consulting company.^[4]

After graduating, he joined NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, where he worked as an electrical engineer.^[5] He worked on projects related to nuclear propulsion for use in spaceflight missions to Mars,^[6] including the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO).^[7]

On July 22, 2025, LeBlanc crashed in a rural area of Walker County outside of Huntsville, Alabama, aged 29. The vehicle caught fire after leaving the road and striking a guardrail and trees.^[8] After he failed to appear at work, his parents reported him missing at 4:32 AM, believing he had been abducted.^[8] His burned out Tesla vehicle was found burnt at 2:45 PM that day by police officers.^[4] His body was burned beyond recognition, and Alabama state forensic officials identified his remains days later.^[4]

Investigators used digital data from LeBlanc's vehicle to reconstruct his path.^[9] They discovered that his vehicle had been parked at Huntsville International Airport for four hours the morning prior to the accident.^[4] His family reported that he had not communicated any travel plans and had left his phone and wallet in his home.^[4]

Following the development of the missing scientists conspiracy theory, his death began to receive widespread media attention.^[3][9][10] In April 2026, Missouri state representative Eric Burlison claimed that his death fit a pattern of scientists connected to sensitive government projects who had recently died or disappeared under unclear circumstances. As a result, the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky urged federal agencies including the FBI, NASA, and the Department of Energy to share information with Congress. The White House announced a probe into people with high government clearance and scientists who have died or gone missing in recent years, including retired Air Force Major General Neil McCasland, NASA JPL engineer Monica Reza, Caltech astronomer Carl Grillmair, and MIT fusion scientist Nuno Loureiro, among others.^[11][12]