A retired general vanished from his home. An unseasonably warm spring is making him harder to find

By Chris Boyette, CNN

(CNN) — An experienced hiker and avid outdoorsman, William Neil McCasland isn’t the typical missing person, but the retired Air Force major general hasn’t been seen since he walked out of his Albuquerque home on the morning of February 27, leaving behind his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices.

As part of the search, authorities flew a helicopter equipped with infrared cameras over the cliffs and canyons near his home at night, hoping to spot him by his heat signature. But the unseasonably warm spring turned the landscape against them.

“The mountain was just lit up like a candle,” Lt. Kyle Woods of the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference Monday. “We couldn’t differentiate from heat signatures and the heat from the rocks.”

Seventeen days after his disappearance, officials still can’t say where the 68-year-old went, why he left or whether someone else was involved — a mystery deepened by public fascination with the retired general’s ties to UFO lore.

Surveillance cameras cover both ends of McCasland’s street, yet authorities said Monday they are still combing through that footage along with video provided by residents.

Asked if authorities believe something nefarious may have happened, Woods said, “We haven’t ruled anything out, but we have nothing pointing to it either.”

What McCasland did and didn’t take with him has become central to the investigation. Woods said it was uncommon for McCasland to leave without his phone or wearable devices, both of which were found at his home.

McCasland has a second home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, about 35 miles north of the New Mexico border and roughly 200 miles from his Albuquerque home. There, investigators recovered a light green long-sleeve button-up shirt and hiking boots, according to the sheriff’s office. Still unaccounted for are McCasland’s wallet, a .38-caliber revolver, a leather holster and a red backpack. Authorities have not said whether they believe he had those items when he left.

A gray US Air Force sweatshirt was found about 1.25 miles east of McCasland’s home on March 7 — eight days after he disappeared, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said. McCasland’s family hasn’t confirmed it was his, but no blood was detected on the shirt in initial testing and the discovery led investigators to target the area for additional searches.

‘The most intelligent person in the room’

During his career, McCasland was at the center of some of the Pentagon’s most advanced aerospace research and once commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. But he had reported experiencing “mental fog” before his disappearance, a condition he cited as the reason for stepping down from various groups he worked with, officials said Monday.

Allen declined to go into further detail out of respect for McCasland’s family.

Still, Woods pushed back against any suggestion that McCasland was impaired.

“There’s no indication, and we are not putting forward that Mr. McCasland was disoriented or confused,” Woods said. “Arguably, he would still be the most intelligent person in the room that any of us would be in. Highly intelligent, highly capable.”

Woods said that after authorities were made aware of the mental fog and considering McCasland’s age, they issued a Silver Alert “out of an abundance of caution” to attract as much public attention as possible.

A vast and unforgiving search area

Investigators have canvassed more than 700 homes and searched a vast stretch of terrain using dogs, drones and helicopters. “It’s vast, it’s a lot of square mileage, there’s a lot of hidden areas, there’s rocky areas, there’s areas where people can get injured in,” Allen said.

Woods said searchers have covered the entire canyon “except maybe some difficult to reach parts” using drones, helicopters and ground teams — but the combination of terrain and weather has left investigators without a breakthrough.

He also offered a sobering assessment of the timeline.

“If we receive information that would lead this to become a recovery mission, we would pursue that with the same vigor,” he said.

But he acknowledged the grim reality: “We are many weeks in, and if he were to have gone into the mountains, the likelihood of surviving this time frame would be very low.”

Officials have asked residents and businesses in the area to review surveillance video — including doorbell cameras, dash cams and trail footage — from February 27 and February 28. The priority window is between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on February 27. A repairman last interacted with McCasland at his home around 10 a.m. that day, and his wife returned shortly after noon to find him gone, according to a timeline previously released by investigators.

Allen said his office has received 74 tips, not including those sent to the FBI. Investigators are still working through a significant amount of video footage.

The base McCasland once commanded has long been rumored to house extraterrestrial debris linked to the Roswell incident, despite Air Force denials. His disappearance came just days after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was directing the Pentagon and other federal agencies to release government records related to extraterrestrial life and UFOs.

Allen said his office will “look into everything,” but stressed that investigators deal in facts, not conspiracy theories. Anyone with information can contact the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 505-468-7070.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.