The Cahill Thread: What Was Found in a UFO Drawing's Metadata
A name showed up in the metadata of a UFO drawing tied to the missing Air Force general. We pulled the thread.
For those following the u/TMBSPACESHIPS investigation (the X account widely attributed to retired Major General Neil McCasland before he disappeared from Albuquerque in February 2026) a researcher on r/UFOB found something buried in a NUFORC-submitted drawing posted to the account.
The image EXIF data lists a named Artist and Creator. That name belongs to a PhD chemist who spent 12 years doing classified nonlinear optical polymer research at Sandia National Laboratories inside Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. He then spent 19 years at Exciton Inc. in Dayton as the Air Force's Subject Matter Expert for Laser Eye Protection -- during the exact window McCasland commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson, two miles away.
His co-author network includes the Polymer Science Branch Head at Naval Weapons Center China Lake, whose own 1991 NASA technical report describes his research goal as "applications for missile systems involving signal modulation and laser beam deflection."
The drawing's digital file was created November 22, 2022 -- during active u/TMBSPACESHIPS operations. His most recent patent was filed October 2025, five months before McCasland vanished. No publicly available photograph of him exists anywhere on the indexed web.
We documented the full evidence chain, sourced everything to primary records, and kept a strict line between what is confirmed and what is inference.
Click the image above to read the full investigation.