Not the movies, but the Strategic Defense Initiative proposed under Reagan.
Fifty-year-old Alistair Beckham was a successful British aerospace- projects engineer. His specialty was designing computer software for sophisticated naval defense systems. Like hundreds of other British scientists, he was working on a pilot program for America’s Strategic Defense Initiative–better known as Star Wars. And like at least 21 of his colleagues, he died a bizarre, violent death.
It was a lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon in August 1988. After driving his wife to work, Beckham walked through his garden to a musty backyard toolshed and sat down on a box next to the door. He wrapped bare wires around his chest, attached the to an electrical outlet and put a handkerchief in his mouth. Then he pulled the switch.
With his death, Beckham’s name was added to a growing list of British scientists who’ve died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances since 1982. Each was a skilled expert in computers, and each was working on a highly classified project for the American Star Wars program. None had any apparent motive for killing himself.
Each death was apparently under suspicious circumstances, and things have gotten even more so since people started asking questions:
“My solicitor instructed an accident specialist to examine the automobile,” Mrs. Bowden explains. “Somebody had taken the wheels off and put others on that were old and worn. At the inquest this was not allowed to be brought up. Someone asked if the car was in a sound condition, and the answer was yes.”
Hillary, in a state of shock, never protested the published verdict. Yet, she remains convinced that someone tampered with her husband’s car. “It certainly looked like foul play,” Hillary maintains.
And
Investigating journalists found discrepancies in other evidence. “A police report noted a puncture mark on Dijabhai’s left buttock after his fall from the bridge,” explains Tony Collins, who covered the story for Britain’s COMPUTER NEWS magazine. “Apparently, this was the reason his funeral was halted seconds before the cremation was to take place.
[...]
“It’s been almost impossible to get to information about deaths that should be in the public domain,” Tony Collins laments. “I’ve been given false names or incorrect spellings, or I’ve not been told where inquests have taken place. It’s made it very difficult for me to try to track down the details of these cases.”
Here’s the full article. A very interesting read, particularly for those with paranoid inclinations.