A report published on Monday revealed what former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Aber, 43, who was found dead over the weekend, had been investigating and prosecuting.
According to the New York Post, Aber “had been in charge of some of the biggest cases targeting leaks in the CIA and Russian nationals carrying out fraud in America.”
Authorities are investigating Aber’s cause of death, other reports noted. She was found unresponsive at her home by Alexandria police just before 9:20 a.m. on Saturday.
Before stepping down in January following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Biden-nominated attorney secured one of her most high-profile courtroom victories when former CIA analyst Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to leaking top-secret documents detailing Israel’s plan to strike Iran last year.
The high-profile case involved Rahman posting classified documents on Telegram that revealed details of Israel’s planned October strike, ultimately forcing the Israeli government to delay its retaliatory attack on Tehran.
Aber shredded Rahman’s actions as a “violation of his oath, his responsibility, and the law,” as she said the leak “placed lives at risk, undermined U.S. foreign relations, and compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.”
Aber also led the prosecution against Eleview International Inc., a Virginia-based company whose two top executives were accused of orchestrating “three separate schemes to illegally transship sensitive U.S. technology to Russia,” according to the Department of Justice.
In November, executives Oleg Nayandin, 54, and Vitaliy Borisenko, 39, were charged with illegally exporting over $6 million worth of goods—including telecommunications equipment—to Russia. Prosecutors say the shipments were routed through ports in Turkey, Finland, and Kazakhstan to circumvent U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine, The Post reported.
The case came just two months after Aber secured indictments against two Russian nationals on charges of fraud and money laundering, said the outlet.
Sergey Ivanov and Timur Shakhmametov, whom the government had placed a $10 million reward, were allegedly involved in one the most extensive money laundering operations online that “catered to major cybercrime marketplaces and ransomware groups, and to prolific hackers responsible for some of the largest data breaches targeting critical U.S. financial infrastructure,” according to the Secret Service.
In addition to handling high-profile fraud and leak cases, Aber played a key role in the Justice Department’s unprecedented indictment of four Russian soldiers accused of committing war crimes against an American citizen in Ukraine.
According to the DOJ, the unnamed victim was abducted from his home in the Kherson region, where he was brutally beaten, tortured, and subjected to a mock execution, The Post noted further.
The defendants include commanding officers Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, 45, and Dmitry Budnik, along with two lower-ranking soldiers identified in the indictment only by their first names, Valerii and Nazar, the outlet reported.
“We are proud to be at the forefront of the Justice Department’s effort to hold perpetrators of war crimes violations accountable in Ukraine and will continue to pursue them,” Aber said at the time.
Alexandria authorities said Saturday that the cause and manner of Jessica Aber’s death will be determined by the medical examiner. However, a family friend told NBC News that police believe she died from a longstanding medical condition.
Two former senior Justice Department officials familiar with the situation also told the outlet that investigators have found no indication of foul play.
Born and raised in Virginia, Aber graduated from the University of Richmond in 2003 and went on to earn her law degree from William & Mary Law School in 2006.
Before being appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), she served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the same district beginning in 2009.
From 2015 to 2016, she also served as counsel to the assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division, The Post noted.
It was supposed to be a routine flight. The sky was clear, the horizon stretched endlessly, and only a few thin clouds drifted lazily above. No one watching the passenger plane ascend could have imagined that within minutes they would witness something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
The aircraft was climbing steadily, engines humming with confidence, when suddenly an impossible phenomenon occurred. High above, a perfect black circle appeared in the sky. It was unnaturally precise, as if someone had drawn it with a compass against the blue canvas of the heavens. And then—before anyone could fully comprehend what was happening—the plane began to vanish into it.
“I blinked, and the plane was gone. It didn’t crash—it was as if it slipped behind a curtain. My body went cold. I couldn’t breathe. I’ve never seen anything more terrifying in my life.”
Attempts to record the phenomenon were futile. Phones pointed at the sky showed only an empty horizon, as though the circle itself resisted being captured.
Illusion or Something Beyond Science?
Experts were quick to respond with theories. Some suggested a rare optical illusion caused by atmospheric light refraction. But this explanation immediately raised doubts: the circle was far too perfect, its boundaries unnervingly sharp, to be dismissed as a trick of light.
Others proposed that the witnesses had fallen victim to mass hallucination. Yet how could that account for the complete disappearance of a plane that never sent another signal, never returned to radar, and left behind no wreckage?
Conspiracies and Dark Theories
Speculation soon spread. Some whispered of portals to other dimensions, briefly opening and swallowing anything caught in their path. Others spoke of secret military experiments—classified technologies capable of tearing space apart.
Several witnesses insist the circle was not just an object but something alive. They described it as pulsing, expanding and contracting, like a living void drawing the aircraft into its depths.
Terror Among the Witnesses
For days after the event, people reported feeling restless, plagued by nightmares and an eerie sound—like the distant roar of engines—that seemed to echo in the night. Psychologists who later examined them observed symptoms of trauma similar to those experienced by survivors of disasters.
The Vanished Plane
The most chilling detail remains: the plane was never found. No debris. No emergency beacon. Nothing. The aircraft simply vanished from existence, leaving families of passengers without answers and investigators with nothing but silence.
Radar systems reported no abnormal readings. It was as though the plane had been erased from reality itself.
The Unanswered Question
Was it a rare atmospheric illusion, a phenomenon science cannot yet explain, or proof that reality is far stranger than we believe? Witnesses are certain of what they saw, and their terror cannot be dismissed.
And perhaps the most disturbing question is this: if such a circle appeared once, what will happen if it appears again?