There's always the alternative "Anomalous Health Incident" terminology that the federal government uses, although it's an incredibly vague term that makes me feel uncomfortable using.
I think the presence of other cases in multiple countries kind of invalidates this analysis. Have all patients been stationed in Havana prior to exhibiting symptoms?
Geopolitical naming of maladies carries unnecessary political baggage that can be unhelpful in root-causing a disease.
(Perhaps more importantly, they often prove historically inaccurate in hindsight. Spanish Flu didn't originate in Spain; Spain was the first place where news was able to report on the disease because they weren't under a wartime press embargo).
Yeah it should have been called Kansas Flu. That pandemic was one of the more disastrous aspects of the multifaceted disaster that was Wilson's dishonest entry into WWI.
FYI, The WHO "best practices for naming new human infectious diseases" (2015) are the reason why COVID-19 has that name, not any Geographically-linked name. Times have moved on since the "Spanish" flu.
We? Nah the US is done. We're a weakening power that's not going to be doing anything about these countries. They're going to continue to do what they want without consequence.
We're still at the phase of this story where we don't actually know what's going on. WSJ is reporting on it like it's understood, but the conclusion of NASEM (https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-diplomats-illnesses-likely-...) was that more research is needed.
Hard to detect "directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy" when you have no idea what you're actually looking for. If you go looking at the bulk of the electromagnetic spectrum for correlators to a vague symptom list, you'll definitely find them but be no closer to explaining causality (or finding culprits).
If you don't know where in the frequency band your signal is or what it's shaped like, then if you go hunting, you'll find something. Many things, in fact. You now have the task of taking all those correlations and making a causal story for them causing your sick patients' symptoms.
Depending on how wide the net is you're casting (in frequencies, time, locations of target, and possible attack signal patterns), this is SETI@Home stuff. And if we have no idea what we're looking for, we're going to have to cast a wide net.
I think that, between the earlier articles about this effect happening in the mainland US[1] and now Germany, it's safe to say that at this point the hypothesis that this is some benign phenomenon (e.g. cricket noises[2]) has been sufficiently debunked.
Given that, the current interesting question is whether this effect is unintentional (e.g. two newly-deployed RF technologies that interact with each other in a harmful way) or whether it's flat-out a weapon. Given that almost exclusively US officials have acquired these symptoms, I would like to hear the arguments that one would give for it not being a weapon.
> I would like to hear the arguments that one would give for it not being a weapon.
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but when it does the simplest correlation is often pointing at the correct causation.
Could be a weapon... Or, could be two technologies the US regularly deploys to its own bases interfering with each other (perhaps some standard-issue State Department tech and some classified self-snooping tech the NSA or CIA deploys to monitor its own agents who are considered sensitive national assets?). That would explain why the incidents happen only on US bases and not, say, to any other adversaries of the Russian or Chinese state.
Essentially, for whatever reason, people working in the Cuban embassy started feeling ill with mysterious symptoms and that caught on. It could have originally been something like sick building syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome
But then people latched on to the idea that it was caused by some kind of sonic device or hitherto unknown weapon targeting embassies. Someone starts to feel sick? Oh my god, it could be Havana Syndrome! Now that you mention it Becky, I'm starting to feel queasy too...
A parallel is how the notion that MSG causes headaches caught on. One doctor suggested that there is a link between eating Chinese restaurant food flavored with MSG and headaches. But "Thirty years after the Chinese restaurant syndrome was debunked, stigmas about MSG persist." People who believe this will legitimately start to feel sick if you feed them MSG, even if you didn't actually put any MSG in and lie that you did.
Now I'm not saying this is what is actually happening because we just don't know yet.
Edit: And, most of the symptoms, headache, nausea, anxiety, insomnia, are all really common side effects and can be caused by just about anything.
This was the leading hypothesis for years, including for me, but even about a year ago I was considering betting a lot of money on a prediction market that it's indeed an intentional deployment of a weapon. I've found myself arguing the case with people on HN on several occasions, in part because I'm extremely conspiracy theory-skeptical in general and felt like people were wrong to dismiss this as any other silly conspiracy theory circulating around.
One factor worth noting is the consistency of the self-reports of the phenomenon and the symptoms, subsequent brain scans showing concussive injury, and medical diagnoses of brain damage.
At this point I'd definitely bet if I could find a way to. I'd say I'm about 85% confident it's a weapon. And unless there's an elaborate false flag or psyop going on, then if the claims in this article are true, it seems Russian intelligence officers are likely the ones responsible for at least some of the attacks: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro... (Oct 2020).
Claiming it's an intentionally-designed, secretly-deployed weapon seems like more of a "conspiracy theory" than that it's a result of delegating facilities construction and maintenance to private corporations with security clearances. How welcome are "Russian intelligence officers" in Guangzhou?
It certainly is, yes. I'm basing this in part on the claims in the GQ article. My point was that I view any kind of conspiracy allegation with a huge grain of salt, so when I think there actually likely is one, I feel outspoken about it.
If the claims in the GQ article are true, then I think Russian intelligence officers are likely responsible for at least some of the attacks in some of the locations. For example, in Russia. If the claims are false, I'd still lean towards an attack but with an indeterminate perpetrator. The probability of a deliberate attack seems pretty high, to me, even if the exact nature and culprits are still mysterious.
How welcome are they? Possibly very welcome, possibly not welcome; who knows. There could be a lot of branching possibilities, here, including perhaps the ability to place remotely-controlled devices in or near embassies so they don't need to be physically nearby to conduct an attack. Or they could've received approval from some governments (though that seems quite unlikely, except maybe for Cuba). Or there could be multiple groups involved. Or it could be done at such a long distance that they felt comfortable violating countries' sovereignty with plausible deniability (though that seems fairly improbable and brazen even for them, even if I think it's plausible).
There are also some allegations of attacks around the DC area. I'm sure at least some of the reports may be psychogenic, and the DC ones seem the most likely to fall into that category. But if those actually turn out to be real, then that'd be good evidence of how brazen the attackers are.
(Not that I say it isn't a weapon, I have no clue)
This happens in embassies, where people are a closed community and people move from one embassy to another. And they talk about their symptoms all the time I would assume, at work, in private and on parties and events because it is a life defining thing. Everyone is scared.
So for sure the self-reports would be consistent, wouldn't they?
The argument would be stronger if this happend in embassies and in military outposts at the same time, where the personal do not mix and meet.
Very true. It's the combination of that plus the seeming consistency in some of the medical findings that I find pretty compelling. If it were merely reports of phenomena without any kind of medical abnormalities discovered, I'd definitely assume it was psychogenic in nature.
>Neuroimaging findings differed between controls and US government personnel who experienced neurological signs and symptoms after potential directional phenomena exposure in Havana, Cuba, although the clinical relevance of these differences is uncertain and may require further study.
The WSJ article published today states the following:
>One patient who recently transferred from a posting in a European capital to be treated at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland said doctors there had diagnosed a brain injury of the type seen in people exposed to shock waves from explosions.
>This person told the Journal the symptoms were preceded by piercing ear pain, high-pitched electronic noise and pressure in the ears. These occurred while the person was at home at night or early in the morning in March.
>The patient initially believed the symptoms were related to a Covid-19 vaccine received earlier. After the condition persisted, the embassy flew the worker back to Washington, embassy officials said.
I don't think WSJ is reporting on a patient who was previously included in one of these 2018/2019 analyses, because they claim the patient initially believed the symptoms were related to a COVID-19 vaccine.
It also appears to be hearsay from the patient, but according to WSJ in the citation above, the patient claims that doctors did specifically diagnose him with a brain injury.
It appears this patient wasn't included in the 2018 JAMA study. However, he did read the 2018 JAMA study and went to the same lab that was part of the study, so if you assume the lab is using faulty methodology, then that would cast additional doubt. It's unclear if he was part of the 2019 one.
The critique you posted states:
>The thrust of the criticism is a very simple one: most of the ‘cognitive dysfunction’ reported in the JAMA study wasn’t actually dysfunction. Della Sala and Cubelli argue that Swanson et al. relied on a very broad definition of ‘impairment’ that would generate many false positives.
The GQ article states:
>They evaluated 21 of the Havana victims and found the kind of damage to cognitive, balance, motor, and sensory functions associated with a severe concussion. Unlike with most concussions, however, these symptoms did not quickly dissipate. Instead, they lasted for months, waxing and waning over time.
Which would be invalid if the critique is justified. (I assume they're just summarizing the findings of the study.)
It also states:
>In the spring of 2018, a private neurologist gave Polymeropoulos a diagnosis: occipital neuralgia, a condition resulting from damage to the two nerves that run from the base of the skull, curving toward the front of the head.
So there's additionally the diagnosis from that neurologist.
There's a lot to sift through, here. At the very least, there's:
- The credibility of the 2018 JAMA study and the validity of that critique
- The credibility of the 2019 JAMA study and what critiques there could be of that
Robert W. Baloh and Robert E. Bartholomew criticizes both studies and much more in their book Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the. Please refer to that book for details.
Stories about this mysterious illness first appeared in the press in early 2017. At that point, many of the symptoms reported were auditory. Diplomats reported suffering from tinnitus, loss of hearing, and of hearing noises. Some of the diplomats recorded the sound they heard and in this AP segment you can hear the sound being played:
Note that the segment is rife with speculation. The reporter speculates about there "possibly" being additional inaudible frequencies too low or too high for recording devices to pickup "when these attacks occur".
Two years later, entomologists perfectly matched the sound the diplomats heard to the sound of Cuban crickets:
Thus, the only tangible evidence of these "sonic attacks" turned out to be false. That should have been the end of the story, but, alas, it was not.
Regarding the 2018 and 2019 studies, while the author list is organized slightly differently, both have the same authors. So if the 2018 study is "shoddy" it reflects poorly on the 2019 study too. Baloh and Bartholomew writes about the 2019 study:
"On July 23, 2019, JAMA published a second study of US Embassy diplomats who fell ill under mysterious circumstances while working in Cuba. A team of scientists including some who were involved in the original 2018 JAMA study, conducted sophisticated MRI scans on the brains of 40 diplomats who reported symptoms. The real mystery of this study was how, after receiving a torrent of criticism of their earlier publication, the editors could have approved such a flawed second study. Once again, their findings generated alarming international headlines as researchers found that their white matter volume had shrunk by about 5 percent, while their auditory networks exhibited a 15 percent reduction in function. The researchers wrote that “imaging revealed significant differences in whole brain white matter volume, regional gray and white matter volumes, cerebellar tissue microstructural integrity, and functional connectivity in the auditory and visuospatial subnetworks” when compared to a group of healthy controls [18, p 336]. To the layperson and journalists who were not neurologists or experts on brain function, this highly technical study could easily be seen as confirmation that something sinister had transpired in Cuba. Indeed, publication of the study prompted a flurry of media reports which gave credence to the acoustical attack claims. For instance, Britain’s Sun newspaper reported that the mysterious ‘sonic attacks’ had left US embassy staff in Cuba “with shrunken brains” [19]. The New York Post proclaimed: “Cuba ‘Sonic Attacks’ Changed US Diplomats’ Brains, Study Finds” [20]. New Scientist heralded: “Brain Scans Hint the Mysterious ‘Sonic Attack’ in Cuba was Real” [21]. Reuters quoted the study’s lead author, Dr. Ragini Verma, as describing differences in the brains of the two groups as “jaw-dropping” [22]. However, this was not borne out by the data as differences between the two groups were relatively minor. This finding was buried in the limitations section where the researchers were forced to acknowledge that “…it cannot be determined whether the differences…are due to individual differences between patients o...
I agree there's no verifiable evidence of the existence of such a deployed weapon or any other method of causing harm.
The fact that cases keep being reported outside of Cuba is interesting, though. Crickets can't explain the noises heard elsewhere.
Also, importantly, some of the affected diplomats in Cuba didn't report hearing a sound and only reported the other symptoms. The crickets' presence in/near some of their rooms could have just been a confounder (weird onset of symptoms; weird onset of noise; must be connected). So the case for the existence of the "syndrome" probably doesn't hinge on perception of a sound. If everyone reported a sound, then I agree the cricket thing would make it seem more likely to be psychogenic.
Those studies potentially being dubious would be the strongest evidence against use of something like a microwave weapon. However, we do know the Russians did develop microwave weapons which can be deployed against individuals, so even though evidence is lacking for their use, it's not a totally far-fetched theory given we know such weapons probably exist.
Also, since those studies are a big part of this story, their being discredited would certainly deflate a lot of this, but I don't know if there's any kind of consensus around it. There are many political incentives to support or to critique the findings, and while the critiques may be very valid, I'm not at all qualified to judge that.
Another more "mundane" explanation here besides mass psychogenic illness could simply be a campaign of poisoning diplomats through their food or drinks. The poison could be something that breaks down quickly or otherwise is not easily detectable, and could potentially have lasting neurological effects.
I know anecdotes don't mean much, but the story reported in the WSJ yesterday and Polymeropoulos's story in GQ make me think something serious and real did happen to those two individuals, whether or not it's due to an attack or related to what other people were reporting.
I think you are putting way to much stock in what the media writes. Remember that last year the WSJ uncritically ran a story about how Russians were paying the Taliban to kill American troops. The story turned out to be false. And prior to that the paper claimed that that the Russians were aiding Bernie Sander's presidential campaign because they thought he would lose to Donald Trump.
I urge you to read the book which you can find online. It is written by a medical sociologist and a neurologist and is a bit more reliable than the mainstream press.
True, very good point. My confidence in the claims have definitely decreased. However, I do think there is a slight distinction between these things. One is a controversial claim of fact that you basically have to take their word for ("secret operation by foreign adversary") and the others are ultimately subjective anecdotes from real individuals ("I'm suffering from something and it's affecting my life").
Even if one thinks the suffering may be psychogenic or just caused by something completely unrelated, the suffering is likely real; I find it doubtful the media or the sufferers are just completely fabricating their subjective experiences. I am distrustful of the media and distrustful of anecdotes, but in this case I trust at least that part of the story, even if it ends up basically amounting to some sort of nocebo effect from people who may have already had some unrelated neurological issues or who may be experiencing a purely psychogenic phenomenon.
There's additionally the WSJ article subject's claimed diagnosis from a neurologist, which could be just as faulty as the JAMA studies if those are indeed faulty, or could be real but could have a cause unrelated to any kind of embassy attack. But I think that, at the least, it increases the chance that the patient is experiencing something that's negatively affecting their quality of life and functioning, whatever it might be.
I'll do some more research and probably post this in another place that I know has experts on topics like these.
The article mentions that one patient has an unexplained brain injury comparable to that caused by the shockwave of an explosion. I'm sure the embassy isn't going to release this info to the press, but I'd really like to know what kind of injury we're talking about here, whether it's something that could just occur spontaneously (I mean, if we're talking intracerebral bleeding, that does just happen sometimes), and if it's been tested for or seen in anyone else complaining of these symptoms.
There's a HUGE difference between "some people are getting unexplained headaches and brainfog" (yeah, so are half my patients right now, during this time of unprecedented stress) and "some people are getting unexplained brain bleeds" (YIKES)
It appears they’re referring to Breachers Syndrome or something very similar. With service members who were exposed to small repetitive explosions, some studies have found astroglial scarring between the white and gray matter of the brain. Essentially shearing forces pass through the tissue, the tissues move at different rates because of the difference in densities which leads to tissue damage at the interface. Causes symptoms somewhat similar to CTE
> Given that almost exclusively US officials have acquired these symptoms, I would like to hear the arguments that one would give for it not being a weapon.
Only US officials work in US military/intelligence (which all embassies are to an extent) installations. If it's something they deployed, e.g. some new surveillance or security tech, it makes sense that it would affect people working there. And the US intelligence community would probably rather have a few people get inconvenienced than not use their toys.
Note that many of the 'attacks' happened when staff were at home, not in the embassies. So this would have to be some sort of spytech deployed in diplomats' homes.
How do you know that? If they all work at the same embassy, it seems much more likely that an attack was made on the embassy that manifested into symptoms later on, at home.
"What no one disputes is that, beginning in late 2016 and continuing until August 2017, a total of 24 US diplomatic personnel stationed in Havana, Cuba, experienced audible or sensory phenomena emanating from a distinct direction. When they moved, the sensation disappeared or lessened. Some described pressure-like or vibratory stimuli akin to air “baffling” inside a moving car when a single window is partially rolled down. The stimuli lasted for as little as 20 seconds to as long as 30 minutes.
"The diplomats experienced the stimuli in their homes or hotel rooms, although family members and other hotel guests remained unaffected. Immediately or in the days and weeks after, the subjects reported an array of neurological impairments, including disorders of balance, sleep, vision, hearing or cognition. Headaches were also frequently reported." [1]
I want to echo your concerns. This thread is full of gaslighting and a lazy and strange assumption that organizations are maliciously accepting friendly fire due to their own tech or tools. Same with "government workers wanting an early medical retirement to get their pensions".
How exactly do you justify this? If mass psychogenic illnesses were so easy to instantiate, they would be extremely common. That's just not how the world works.
We still want people to go to the doctor (or at least an NP) when they think they might be sick. Making this a big point of emphasis in a non-selective educational setting would probably harm overall public health. It could be discussed in psychology classes, because everyone attending is assumed to be capable of discussing that topic.
I think a large part of his has been people misattributing their real illness to a harmless sound which was actually there, however. Which has made the whole thing a big mess with confusion around "sonic" weaponry.
From the 1950s to the 1990s or so, it was well-known that mind control was a real thing. If someone got hold of you, they could literally go into your brain and program you to think whatever they wanted, and unless a "deprogrammer" turned you back you'd be in their thrall forever. An American of the 1980s would have no trouble listing off examples of people who've been successfully mind controlled in this way: Patty Hearst, the Manson family, the Peoples Temple...
I think this has to be seen in that light. There's something happening, and we should investigate it, but that's no guarantee it's at all like what we're thinking.
At this point, it's either mass hysteria, a weapon of some kind or something common within this group. Are these officials forced to carry some kind of equipment that can cause this? Were they required to get some shots/drugs, implants or training that causes mental/auditory/etc issues? It's also remotely possible it's just another ploy to foster more fear in population.
It is odd that it apparently affects a particular specialized group of people and that they would make this public without figuring things out first.
It seems the only way it could not be a weapon is if the unintentional side effect was coming from some other kind of device (ex. surveillance) that is also specifically targeted at U.S. diplomats.
Surveillance of diplomatic missions does tend to use cutting edge technologies, so that's not entirely improbable, but if harming people wasn't the goal then it seems they would be concerned about it drawing attention to their technique.
Probably blankets embedded with a conductive metal mesh in a pattern designed to block microwaves could be issued to all US personnel in foreign countries.
I think the main reason traditional faraday cage style tech isn't deployed is the missions of these facilities. It's not just about blocking signals from the outside, you may be limiting or mitigating collection equipment or even broadcast equipment. I will say, anyone that's worked with portable broadcast / collection equipment (microwave or sat) are given clear directions to watch where you walk and no "cross the beams" because of various side effects to include sterility.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's some weird counter effect from multiple systems internally that have been deployed at these sites.
Why do you guys insist on posting paywalled links here? Is it too much of an intellectual effort to post the outline link for this article, like I am doing now? https://outline.com/tprV7Z
The link to the original site is at least canonical. The link to the original site is at least canonical. Should OP have posted your link, or https://archive.is/JeJDP?
Disagree. We should go with the original source as the article might be updated. Not sure if Outline automatically updates, but archive sites would not and they seem to be the more common paywall bypass here.
>nausea, severe headaches, ear pain, fatigue, insomnia and sluggishness
all these symptoms are virtually indistinguishable from any meal at The Cheesecake Factory, so call me skeptical. Its also an attack that cannot be detected by the worlds most sophisticated military, so, occhams razor.. the question im interested in hearing the answer to:
can you retire with full pension early from civil service in the embassy if you can prove a medical affliction or disability.
also worth noting the research on the matter isnt exactly concrete. no peer reviewed studies exist to even corroborate an attack at all.
Well it's not June 2018, is it? There are hundreds of people now saying they're suffering from this. There's a chance that some of them are lying, and some of them are misinformed, but it's incredibly unlikely that all of them are incorrect.
People have, and possibly, some of the people here have done so, but it is INCREDIBLY unlikely that HUNDREDS of people have all decided that they're just going to make it up and lie to try and get a medical retirement. That's utter nonsense. There have been medical examinations of these people that have confirmed brain trauma. Nor have these people all even tried to retire early as a result. Some (many? MOST?) of them still want to work, though some are still medically unable.
This is a bad theory. It's really fucking stupid to be frank.
We should feel 100% comfortable calling out nonsense as such. I'm aware this comes off as arrogant. But "There is nothing wrong, it's just hundreds of people making up a disease / international attack to get out of work" is so pathetically ungrounded that such aggressiveness is, imo, justified, if the broad consensus isn't immediately that the idea is nonsense.
Sure, the most powerful intelligence agency in the World has no idea what they are doing. We should instead trust some tinfoil conspiracy from nobodies like you.
What else? NASA is lying about the shape of the Earth?
Don't get emotional. NASA shows us pictures and publishes scientific data. CIA leaks anonymously to sockpuppet access journalists. Can you really not tell the difference? They claim they lie because it's their job to do so. [0] Actually they lie so that their employers (that's us!) won't be forced to acknowledge how little CIA knows about anything.
If CIA actually had "powerful intelligence", they would occasionally be right about something. A month ago they were sure the Afghan government could control Taliban for at least a week. 15 years ago they were sure Osama was actually in Afghanistan. 20 years ago they had no idea he was planning terrorism. 35 years ago they had no idea that Soviet communism was in a weak position.
Of course, some CIA reptiles might have known about all of those things. Since they didn't communicate that knowledge to USA elected officials or the USA public, that doesn't really count.
They are also indistinguishable from the symptoms of overworking for months. Or severe depression for that matter. I think it bears investigating but I agree with you that there is such a simple answer of pyschosomatic illness here that we must have some real proof. Otherwise I worry that all this hyperbolic coverage will do is increase the number of people experiencing symptoms.
"As the officer pulled his car into a busy intersection, he suddenly felt as though his head were going to explode. His two-year-old son, in a car seat in the back, started screaming. As the officer sped out of the intersection, the pressure in his head ceased, and his son went quiet."
"In 2019, a White House official reported experiencing debilitating symptoms while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb of Washington; the incident was publicly reported in 2020."
The most common explanation is microwave radiation. So, how large of a device do people think it would take to induce these symptoms?
Speculate, what would this device look like?
----
EDIT: China used microwave weapons against India in a border dispute. How similar are the symptoms?
This always smells like the US Govt knows exactly what's going on, but it's too sensitive to come right out and say "The Chinese spy agency is microwaving our brains, but we've been microwaving them back". Better to drop a bit of news and hint at it to put some political pressure, but not get the US population upset enough to demand sanctions or something economically disastrous.
What I don't understand about discussions in this thread is that RF is treated as almost magic and 'new technology' can make it do anything. Electromagnetism is virtually perfectly understood and there is nothing more it can do, definitely not responsible for nausea ffs without burning you from the outside... (unless it's ionizing radiation at the other side o the spectrum from RF but radiation sickness is also well understood and would be super hard to miss). Not to mention sound that apparently is being heard...
If someone really is targeting US diplomats worldwide, with those sets of symptoms, why does it have to be a sci-fi tech instead of, old as time itself, plain poisoning
There is a skin and a skull in front of it. Of course you can fry someone with microwaves, magnetrons are all sort of dangerous at high enough power (lasers are too) but what they are not is selective and a cause of weird brain effects
And also, the only thing you need to detect it is a very simple antenna, you can't hide radiation
This is a reference to the Princeton study. The authors claimed to have found "brain abnormalities" by inspecting MRIs of the diplomats. Other neuroscientists criticized the study. The MRIs themselves are classified and has not been released to the public.
If Russia had a secret sci-fi weapon like this it would be very stupid (and completely useless) to waste it on US-diplomats.
If it exists, it is likely is an unintended side effect. Either something is more toxic than expected, more contaminated, or more physically damaging to people.
Or the effect is quite common if one just looks closely at (a specific group of) people, because „healthy“ just means „not properly diagnosed, yet“.
> If Russia had a secret sci-fi weapon like this it would be very stupid (and completely useless) to waste it on US-diplomats.
...like...you are aware the Russians used polonium traceable to their reactors to publicly poison individuals they disagreed with, right? Using special stuff to explicitly trace back to them is kind of their MO.
What I do not understand, if this is a weapon, how can a country which deploys the most sensitive sensors in their embassies to listen in on their host country (sound, electromagnetic, gravitonic, ...), not detect this?
And if it is radiation/waves that there are no sensors for, why aren't new sensors installed? So the CIA scrambles around and installs a myriad of new sensors in every embessay, and nothing after years?
The opponent has not only some new kind of weapon, but a new kind of energy or rays that are not gravitational, electromagnetic or sonic? So they have a Nobel prize winning physics discovery and use it to make people in embassies sick?
"At least two [!] U.S. officials stationed in Germany sought [...]and some [!] victims were left unable to work".
I'm not a native speaker, but two officials had troubles, and "some" of these two are unable to work.
"“There is no evidence about what happened to us, but it is striking that some of us had worked on Russia-related issues,” said the worker, who declined to be named."
So the weapon also knows on what people work on?
Or should we assume a perfect infiltration of the US intelligence aparatus by the Russians so they know what person is working on what? Or who is sitting where?
But not only that, but
"In some cases, the symptoms have persisted after the relocation, leading security services to believe that the people targeted have been tracked down to their new residence."
And the weapon can detect nationality (if not targetting appartments but the embassy), as
"Some 20 American officials in Austria have reported the mysterious symptoms—the largest number since Cuba" and no Austrian is affected.
I do think this is a really badly written article.
No, multiple officials had troubles, and the number (beyond that it is multiple) is not being released because they were (in part) in sensitive intelligence work and revealing the number affected would itself be providing valuable information to hostile intelligence actors.
> So the weapon also knows on what people work on?
More likely, the people using the weapon do, or know the particular specific locations where that work is done, or know what work someone is doing and are targeting others by association.
> Or should we assume a perfect infiltration of the US intelligence aparatus by the Russians so they know what person is working on what?
It wouldn't be unprecedented for the Russians (or, at least, their Soviet predecessors) to have high-level penetration of major Western (counter/)intelligence services. Ames and Hanssen in the US, the Cambridge ring in the UK, etc.
Workplace injuries. Common denominator is that (almost) all of the victims are US Officials. The countries where this 'problem' is happening are both allied and adversary nations, (even happened in Washington DC).
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] threadGeopolitical naming of maladies carries unnecessary political baggage that can be unhelpful in root-causing a disease.
(Perhaps more importantly, they often prove historically inaccurate in hindsight. Spanish Flu didn't originate in Spain; Spain was the first place where news was able to report on the disease because they weren't under a wartime press embargo).
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_... https://www.who.int/news/item/08-05-2015-who-issues-best-pra...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
Hard to detect "directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy" when you have no idea what you're actually looking for. If you go looking at the bulk of the electromagnetic spectrum for correlators to a vague symptom list, you'll definitely find them but be no closer to explaining causality (or finding culprits).
Hard to believe, any source for this?
If you don't know where in the frequency band your signal is or what it's shaped like, then if you go hunting, you'll find something. Many things, in fact. You now have the task of taking all those correlations and making a causal story for them causing your sick patients' symptoms.
Depending on how wide the net is you're casting (in frequencies, time, locations of target, and possible attack signal patterns), this is SETI@Home stuff. And if we have no idea what we're looking for, we're going to have to cast a wide net.
The only situation where it wouldn't make sense to do this is if we already knew the cause, and it was something we had built.
Given that, the current interesting question is whether this effect is unintentional (e.g. two newly-deployed RF technologies that interact with each other in a harmful way) or whether it's flat-out a weapon. Given that almost exclusively US officials have acquired these symptoms, I would like to hear the arguments that one would give for it not being a weapon.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/mysterious-health-in... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837561
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but when it does the simplest correlation is often pointing at the correct causation.
Could be a weapon... Or, could be two technologies the US regularly deploys to its own bases interfering with each other (perhaps some standard-issue State Department tech and some classified self-snooping tech the NSA or CIA deploys to monitor its own agents who are considered sensitive national assets?). That would explain why the incidents happen only on US bases and not, say, to any other adversaries of the Russian or Chinese state.
Essentially, for whatever reason, people working in the Cuban embassy started feeling ill with mysterious symptoms and that caught on. It could have originally been something like sick building syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome
But then people latched on to the idea that it was caused by some kind of sonic device or hitherto unknown weapon targeting embassies. Someone starts to feel sick? Oh my god, it could be Havana Syndrome! Now that you mention it Becky, I'm starting to feel queasy too...
A parallel is how the notion that MSG causes headaches caught on. One doctor suggested that there is a link between eating Chinese restaurant food flavored with MSG and headaches. But "Thirty years after the Chinese restaurant syndrome was debunked, stigmas about MSG persist." People who believe this will legitimately start to feel sick if you feed them MSG, even if you didn't actually put any MSG in and lie that you did.
Now I'm not saying this is what is actually happening because we just don't know yet.
Edit: And, most of the symptoms, headache, nausea, anxiety, insomnia, are all really common side effects and can be caused by just about anything.
One factor worth noting is the consistency of the self-reports of the phenomenon and the symptoms, subsequent brain scans showing concussive injury, and medical diagnoses of brain damage.
At this point I'd definitely bet if I could find a way to. I'd say I'm about 85% confident it's a weapon. And unless there's an elaborate false flag or psyop going on, then if the claims in this article are true, it seems Russian intelligence officers are likely the ones responsible for at least some of the attacks: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro... (Oct 2020).
If the claims in the GQ article are true, then I think Russian intelligence officers are likely responsible for at least some of the attacks in some of the locations. For example, in Russia. If the claims are false, I'd still lean towards an attack but with an indeterminate perpetrator. The probability of a deliberate attack seems pretty high, to me, even if the exact nature and culprits are still mysterious.
How welcome are they? Possibly very welcome, possibly not welcome; who knows. There could be a lot of branching possibilities, here, including perhaps the ability to place remotely-controlled devices in or near embassies so they don't need to be physically nearby to conduct an attack. Or they could've received approval from some governments (though that seems quite unlikely, except maybe for Cuba). Or there could be multiple groups involved. Or it could be done at such a long distance that they felt comfortable violating countries' sovereignty with plausible deniability (though that seems fairly improbable and brazen even for them, even if I think it's plausible).
There are also some allegations of attacks around the DC area. I'm sure at least some of the reports may be psychogenic, and the DC ones seem the most likely to fall into that category. But if those actually turn out to be real, then that'd be good evidence of how brazen the attackers are.
(Not that I say it isn't a weapon, I have no clue)
This happens in embassies, where people are a closed community and people move from one embassy to another. And they talk about their symptoms all the time I would assume, at work, in private and on parties and events because it is a life defining thing. Everyone is scared.
So for sure the self-reports would be consistent, wouldn't they?
The argument would be stronger if this happend in embassies and in military outposts at the same time, where the personal do not mix and meet.
JAMA conducted a study in 2018 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168) and another in 2019 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2738552). The critique you linked addresses only the 2018 study. It does appear the conclusion of the 2019 study isn't very definitive, though:
>Neuroimaging findings differed between controls and US government personnel who experienced neurological signs and symptoms after potential directional phenomena exposure in Havana, Cuba, although the clinical relevance of these differences is uncertain and may require further study.
The WSJ article published today states the following:
>One patient who recently transferred from a posting in a European capital to be treated at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland said doctors there had diagnosed a brain injury of the type seen in people exposed to shock waves from explosions.
>This person told the Journal the symptoms were preceded by piercing ear pain, high-pitched electronic noise and pressure in the ears. These occurred while the person was at home at night or early in the morning in March.
>The patient initially believed the symptoms were related to a Covid-19 vaccine received earlier. After the condition persisted, the embassy flew the worker back to Washington, embassy officials said.
I don't think WSJ is reporting on a patient who was previously included in one of these 2018/2019 analyses, because they claim the patient initially believed the symptoms were related to a COVID-19 vaccine.
It also appears to be hearsay from the patient, but according to WSJ in the citation above, the patient claims that doctors did specifically diagnose him with a brain injury.
There's also this October 2020 GQ story, which speaks to someone else who reports a similar claim: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...
It appears this patient wasn't included in the 2018 JAMA study. However, he did read the 2018 JAMA study and went to the same lab that was part of the study, so if you assume the lab is using faulty methodology, then that would cast additional doubt. It's unclear if he was part of the 2019 one.
The critique you posted states:
>The thrust of the criticism is a very simple one: most of the ‘cognitive dysfunction’ reported in the JAMA study wasn’t actually dysfunction. Della Sala and Cubelli argue that Swanson et al. relied on a very broad definition of ‘impairment’ that would generate many false positives.
The GQ article states:
>They evaluated 21 of the Havana victims and found the kind of damage to cognitive, balance, motor, and sensory functions associated with a severe concussion. Unlike with most concussions, however, these symptoms did not quickly dissipate. Instead, they lasted for months, waxing and waning over time.
Which would be invalid if the critique is justified. (I assume they're just summarizing the findings of the study.)
It also states:
>In the spring of 2018, a private neurologist gave Polymeropoulos a diagnosis: occipital neuralgia, a condition resulting from damage to the two nerves that run from the base of the skull, curving toward the front of the head.
So there's additionally the diagnosis from that neurologist.
There's a lot to sift through, here. At the very least, there's:
- The credibility of the 2018 JAMA study and the validity of that critique
- The credibility of the 2019 JAMA study and what critiques there could be of that
- This credibility of the sp...
Stories about this mysterious illness first appeared in the press in early 2017. At that point, many of the symptoms reported were auditory. Diplomats reported suffering from tinnitus, loss of hearing, and of hearing noises. Some of the diplomats recorded the sound they heard and in this AP segment you can hear the sound being played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbnZG85IRo
Note that the segment is rife with speculation. The reporter speculates about there "possibly" being additional inaudible frequencies too low or too high for recording devices to pickup "when these attacks occur".
Two years later, entomologists perfectly matched the sound the diplomats heard to the sound of Cuban crickets:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/06/sonic-attack-o... https://orthsoc.org/sina/492a.htm
Thus, the only tangible evidence of these "sonic attacks" turned out to be false. That should have been the end of the story, but, alas, it was not.
Regarding the 2018 and 2019 studies, while the author list is organized slightly differently, both have the same authors. So if the 2018 study is "shoddy" it reflects poorly on the 2019 study too. Baloh and Bartholomew writes about the 2019 study:
"On July 23, 2019, JAMA published a second study of US Embassy diplomats who fell ill under mysterious circumstances while working in Cuba. A team of scientists including some who were involved in the original 2018 JAMA study, conducted sophisticated MRI scans on the brains of 40 diplomats who reported symptoms. The real mystery of this study was how, after receiving a torrent of criticism of their earlier publication, the editors could have approved such a flawed second study. Once again, their findings generated alarming international headlines as researchers found that their white matter volume had shrunk by about 5 percent, while their auditory networks exhibited a 15 percent reduction in function. The researchers wrote that “imaging revealed significant differences in whole brain white matter volume, regional gray and white matter volumes, cerebellar tissue microstructural integrity, and functional connectivity in the auditory and visuospatial subnetworks” when compared to a group of healthy controls [18, p 336]. To the layperson and journalists who were not neurologists or experts on brain function, this highly technical study could easily be seen as confirmation that something sinister had transpired in Cuba. Indeed, publication of the study prompted a flurry of media reports which gave credence to the acoustical attack claims. For instance, Britain’s Sun newspaper reported that the mysterious ‘sonic attacks’ had left US embassy staff in Cuba “with shrunken brains” [19]. The New York Post proclaimed: “Cuba ‘Sonic Attacks’ Changed US Diplomats’ Brains, Study Finds” [20]. New Scientist heralded: “Brain Scans Hint the Mysterious ‘Sonic Attack’ in Cuba was Real” [21]. Reuters quoted the study’s lead author, Dr. Ragini Verma, as describing differences in the brains of the two groups as “jaw-dropping” [22]. However, this was not borne out by the data as differences between the two groups were relatively minor. This finding was buried in the limitations section where the researchers were forced to acknowledge that “…it cannot be determined whether the differences…are due to individual differences between patients o...
The fact that cases keep being reported outside of Cuba is interesting, though. Crickets can't explain the noises heard elsewhere.
Also, importantly, some of the affected diplomats in Cuba didn't report hearing a sound and only reported the other symptoms. The crickets' presence in/near some of their rooms could have just been a confounder (weird onset of symptoms; weird onset of noise; must be connected). So the case for the existence of the "syndrome" probably doesn't hinge on perception of a sound. If everyone reported a sound, then I agree the cricket thing would make it seem more likely to be psychogenic.
Those studies potentially being dubious would be the strongest evidence against use of something like a microwave weapon. However, we do know the Russians did develop microwave weapons which can be deployed against individuals, so even though evidence is lacking for their use, it's not a totally far-fetched theory given we know such weapons probably exist.
Also, since those studies are a big part of this story, their being discredited would certainly deflate a lot of this, but I don't know if there's any kind of consensus around it. There are many political incentives to support or to critique the findings, and while the critiques may be very valid, I'm not at all qualified to judge that.
Another more "mundane" explanation here besides mass psychogenic illness could simply be a campaign of poisoning diplomats through their food or drinks. The poison could be something that breaks down quickly or otherwise is not easily detectable, and could potentially have lasting neurological effects.
I know anecdotes don't mean much, but the story reported in the WSJ yesterday and Polymeropoulos's story in GQ make me think something serious and real did happen to those two individuals, whether or not it's due to an attack or related to what other people were reporting.
I urge you to read the book which you can find online. It is written by a medical sociologist and a neurologist and is a bit more reliable than the mainstream press.
Even if one thinks the suffering may be psychogenic or just caused by something completely unrelated, the suffering is likely real; I find it doubtful the media or the sufferers are just completely fabricating their subjective experiences. I am distrustful of the media and distrustful of anecdotes, but in this case I trust at least that part of the story, even if it ends up basically amounting to some sort of nocebo effect from people who may have already had some unrelated neurological issues or who may be experiencing a purely psychogenic phenomenon.
There's additionally the WSJ article subject's claimed diagnosis from a neurologist, which could be just as faulty as the JAMA studies if those are indeed faulty, or could be real but could have a cause unrelated to any kind of embassy attack. But I think that, at the least, it increases the chance that the patient is experiencing something that's negatively affecting their quality of life and functioning, whatever it might be.
I'll do some more research and probably post this in another place that I know has experts on topics like these.
Possibly prompted by historical precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal
There's a HUGE difference between "some people are getting unexplained headaches and brainfog" (yeah, so are half my patients right now, during this time of unprecedented stress) and "some people are getting unexplained brain bleeds" (YIKES)
Only US officials work in US military/intelligence (which all embassies are to an extent) installations. If it's something they deployed, e.g. some new surveillance or security tech, it makes sense that it would affect people working there. And the US intelligence community would probably rather have a few people get inconvenienced than not use their toys.
"The diplomats experienced the stimuli in their homes or hotel rooms, although family members and other hotel guests remained unaffected. Immediately or in the days and weeks after, the subjects reported an array of neurological impairments, including disorders of balance, sleep, vision, hearing or cognition. Headaches were also frequently reported." [1]
[1] https://journals.lww.com/neurotodayonline/Fulltext/2018/0322...
I mean I would guess this is self inflicted.
[I'm a bit baffled by the comments that are simply assuming incompetence from these organizations.]
Maybe read some history and be less baffled?
I think this has to be seen in that light. There's something happening, and we should investigate it, but that's no guarantee it's at all like what we're thinking.
It is odd that it apparently affects a particular specialized group of people and that they would make this public without figuring things out first.
Surveillance of diplomatic missions does tend to use cutting edge technologies, so that's not entirely improbable, but if harming people wasn't the goal then it seems they would be concerned about it drawing attention to their technique.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/cancer-fear-of-south-american...
https://www.yshield.com/en/
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's some weird counter effect from multiple systems internally that have been deployed at these sites.
all these symptoms are virtually indistinguishable from any meal at The Cheesecake Factory, so call me skeptical. Its also an attack that cannot be detected by the worlds most sophisticated military, so, occhams razor.. the question im interested in hearing the answer to:
can you retire with full pension early from civil service in the embassy if you can prove a medical affliction or disability.
also worth noting the research on the matter isnt exactly concrete. no peer reviewed studies exist to even corroborate an attack at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome#Studies_regard...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-diplomats/us-say...
so uh, yeah, im guessing there are a few dozen people who might want out.
This is a bad theory. It's really fucking stupid to be frank.
We should feel 100% comfortable calling out nonsense as such. I'm aware this comes off as arrogant. But "There is nothing wrong, it's just hundreds of people making up a disease / international attack to get out of work" is so pathetically ungrounded that such aggressiveness is, imo, justified, if the broad consensus isn't immediately that the idea is nonsense.
Russian agents have allegedly been using directed energy microwave weapons for years. That's a known fact.
I don't see a problem with the sentence.
What else? NASA is lying about the shape of the Earth?
If CIA actually had "powerful intelligence", they would occasionally be right about something. A month ago they were sure the Afghan government could control Taliban for at least a week. 15 years ago they were sure Osama was actually in Afghanistan. 20 years ago they had no idea he was planning terrorism. 35 years ago they had no idea that Soviet communism was in a weak position.
Of course, some CIA reptiles might have known about all of those things. Since they didn't communicate that knowledge to USA elected officials or the USA public, that doesn't really count.
[0] https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/We-Lied-Cheated-and-Stol...
https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2019/july/ad...
Given these anecdotes from Wikipedia:
"As the officer pulled his car into a busy intersection, he suddenly felt as though his head were going to explode. His two-year-old son, in a car seat in the back, started screaming. As the officer sped out of the intersection, the pressure in his head ceased, and his son went quiet."
"In 2019, a White House official reported experiencing debilitating symptoms while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb of Washington; the incident was publicly reported in 2020."
The most common explanation is microwave radiation. So, how large of a device do people think it would take to induce these symptoms?
Speculate, what would this device look like?
---- EDIT: China used microwave weapons against India in a border dispute. How similar are the symptoms?
https://eurasiantimes.com/has-india-finally-acknowledged-tha...
If someone really is targeting US diplomats worldwide, with those sets of symptoms, why does it have to be a sci-fi tech instead of, old as time itself, plain poisoning
And also, the only thing you need to detect it is a very simple antenna, you can't hide radiation
Right in the first half they mentioned that there was a physical representation of the illness in the brain tissue when they did a MRI scan.
This is NOT a shared paranoia, because you can't see them on a brain scan. This seems like a very real and frightening disease.
If it exists, it is likely is an unintended side effect. Either something is more toxic than expected, more contaminated, or more physically damaging to people. Or the effect is quite common if one just looks closely at (a specific group of) people, because „healthy“ just means „not properly diagnosed, yet“.
...like...you are aware the Russians used polonium traceable to their reactors to publicly poison individuals they disagreed with, right? Using special stuff to explicitly trace back to them is kind of their MO.
And if it is radiation/waves that there are no sensors for, why aren't new sensors installed? So the CIA scrambles around and installs a myriad of new sensors in every embessay, and nothing after years?
The opponent has not only some new kind of weapon, but a new kind of energy or rays that are not gravitational, electromagnetic or sonic? So they have a Nobel prize winning physics discovery and use it to make people in embassies sick?
I'm not a native speaker, but two officials had troubles, and "some" of these two are unable to work.
"“There is no evidence about what happened to us, but it is striking that some of us had worked on Russia-related issues,” said the worker, who declined to be named."
So the weapon also knows on what people work on?
Or should we assume a perfect infiltration of the US intelligence aparatus by the Russians so they know what person is working on what? Or who is sitting where?
But not only that, but
"In some cases, the symptoms have persisted after the relocation, leading security services to believe that the people targeted have been tracked down to their new residence."
And the weapon can detect nationality (if not targetting appartments but the embassy), as
"Some 20 American officials in Austria have reported the mysterious symptoms—the largest number since Cuba" and no Austrian is affected.
I do think this is a really badly written article.
No, multiple officials had troubles, and the number (beyond that it is multiple) is not being released because they were (in part) in sensitive intelligence work and revealing the number affected would itself be providing valuable information to hostile intelligence actors.
> So the weapon also knows on what people work on?
More likely, the people using the weapon do, or know the particular specific locations where that work is done, or know what work someone is doing and are targeting others by association.
> Or should we assume a perfect infiltration of the US intelligence aparatus by the Russians so they know what person is working on what?
It wouldn't be unprecedented for the Russians (or, at least, their Soviet predecessors) to have high-level penetration of major Western (counter/)intelligence services. Ames and Hanssen in the US, the Cambridge ring in the UK, etc.
Something at their job is doing this.