Last week, the FBI announced it was investigating the deaths and mysterious disappearances of at least ten scientists and engineers with government ties who either died or disappeared within the last four years.

One of these scientists, retired Air Force Research Laboratory commander William Neil McCasland, had close ties to an Ohio base that’s steeped in UFO lore, sending conspiracy theorists into a tailspin.

While there’s still no credible evidence of any foul play or a throughline that connects these deaths and disappearances — many of the individuals appear to have died of natural causes — the list continues to grow.

Most recently, UFO expert Nick Pope, who investigated “unexplained aerial phenomena” on behalf of the UK’s Ministry of Defense, passed away at the age of 60 from esophageal cancer, as the New York Times reports. While it’s unclear whether his ties to the British military exclude him from the scope of the FBI’s ongoing investigation, his high profile involvement in looking into unexplained sightings is certain to pour fuel on the flames for conspiracists.

After his stint with the government from 1984 to 1994, Pope wrote several books on UFO sightings and made countless TV appearances, likening himself to FBI agent Fox Mulder from “The X-Files” in his 1996 autobiography, “Open Skies, Closed Minds.” (In fact, he consulted on a TV series reboot of the show.)

According to the NYT, he was a “much-feted speaker on the ufology lecture circuit,” making many appearances at UFO-centric conferences.

Nonetheless, despite having access to inside information, he “was smart enough to avoid the pitfalls in this field where people, if they have even a little bit of knowledge, can get really fringy and weird,” as former NYT reporter and author Ralph Blumenthal told the newspaper.

The timing of his tragic passing comes as lawmakers pressure the US government to look into “scientists and other personnel connected to US nuclear secrets or rocket technology who have died or mysteriously vanished in recent years.”

They claim there could be a “possible sinister connection,” which could “represent a grave threat to US national security and to US personnel with access to scientific secrets.”

But let’s be real: the most likely explanation is that people are now on the lookout for the death of anyone with a UFO connection, making it seem like there’s a pattern when it’s really just statistical noise.

More on the investigation: FBI Investigating Series of Deaths Among Top Scientists With Very Specific Specialties