5 Scientists Died Mysteriously After Making These Major Discoveries

Okay, say you're the leader of a country and a few scientists discover something that could change the world. You could bribe the researchers to keep their mouths shut, but wouldn't it be easier just to kill them?

I'm not saying that this happens a lot, but there has definitely been some shadiness afoot over the years. Let's take a look at five eyebrow-raising cases of scientists dying after making important discoveries.

Back in the '80s, Ronald Reagan introduced an ambitious defense program called Strategic Defense Initiative (nicknamed Star Wars), which was designed to shoot lasers at incoming missiles from space should the Russians attack. Between 1982 and 1990, 25 British scientists who worked for GEC-Marconi, the British wing of the program, mysteriously died. Some believe that they were killed by Soviet spies, and others believe that their own government had a hand in it.

In 2003, biological warfare expert David Kelly anonymously leaked that the British government had falsified information regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When Prime Minister Tony Blair found out it was Kelly, a parliamentary committee was formed to question him. He was found dead in his apartment two days later. The police said it was a suicide, but because a judge ruled that the evidence had to be sealed for 70 years, we won't know what truly happened for a long time.

Don Wiley was a leading expert in chemical weaponry, most notably anthrax. During the 2001 anthrax epidemic, Wiley's car was found on a bridge with the keys still in the ignition. His body was later found in the Mississippi River. Another anthrax scientist named Vladimir Pasechnik also died around the same time.