Havana Syndrome: "Sonic Attacks" at the US Embassy in Cuba - Mass Hysteria?

JMartJr

Senior Member
Embassies typically are loaded with RF communications equipment...
True, but they do not typically reveal a lot of details about their communications gear, nor of details of suspected attacks. (Full disclosure -- I lean heavily into the mass(ish) hysteria explanation, I just don't think it tells us much that government entities are not open about some aspects of embassy operations or security!)
 

Mendel

Senior Member.
Has anyone produced any evidence, other than self-reported symptoms?
I recommend going back a few months to this post and the one after it, and studying the JASON report.

There are some real neurological symptoms, but due to a lack of a baseline, it's impossible to say that they were caused by the "sonic attacks".

Apparently there's no sensor evidence at all.
 
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FatPhil

Senior Member.
True, but they do not typically reveal a lot of details about their communications gear, nor of details of suspected attacks. (Full disclosure -- I lean heavily into the mass(ish) hysteria explanation, I just don't think it tells us much that government entities are not open about some aspects of embassy operations or security!)

From what I know of Sonic Attacks, I'm blaming drugs: Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgUYq_QAkw4
 

Z.W. Wolf

Senior Member.
This is much too long for me to summarize, other to say that the possibility of psychogenic illness is being dismissed absolutely... and with some asperity.


The comments section is interesting.




Cued to 20:03
They talk about the sound associated with an attack in Havana.

This former official ... recorded the sound at his home in Havana.


Does this not sound like the "calling song" of the male Indies short tailed cricket heard here?

 
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Mendel

Senior Member.
Cued to 20:03
"It is a byproduct, like the sound of a gun, which is not what does the harm." I understand what he's going for, but actually loud noises like gunshots do damage, with symptoms similar to the Havana syndrome, ironically.


The comments section is interesting.
Obviously unreliable (could all be Russian disinfo agents), but still...
Ethan
This happened to a civilian I know in his own home around 2017, in Ohio suburbs. Mid 20’s male, otherwise healthy. It nearly killed him and has taken years to recover (mostly) from. I wonder if this isn’t happening to people in general at a similar rate to that of federal employees. Seems if someone was nefariously targeting these 1000+ people who reported this, some physical evidence would have been collected. I believe the symptoms are very real.
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Emmanuel Bikorimana
I have experienced same symptoms in 2019 and 2020, and I am not and have never been a USA government employee. That raises a question on the truth whether its targeted towards US service personnel or it's simple a wide spread phenomenon that hasn't been well identified yet
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LM741

New Member
A possible "Havana Syndrome" microwave weapon is covered in Russian Patent No. 2,526,478:

Method and Device of Microwave Electromagnetic Impact at Trespasser

"The technical result is achieved by the fact that it is proposed to use directional radiation modulated by amplitude of the microwave electromagnetic waves. The impact on the intruder is due to the occurrence of painful mechanical thermoelastic phenomena in individual elements of the human auditory apparatus at their resonant frequencies"

"Resonance phenomena in the 'radio sound' are due to the size of individual elements of the human auditory apparatus and are observed in the range of modulation frequencies of 6 ... 12 kHz."

"1. The method of microwave electromagnetic exposure to the intruder, characterized in that the effect is carried out by an amplitude-modulated microwave electromagnetic field with a changing modulation frequency, while the amplitude modulation frequencies are taken in the range of mechanical resonant frequencies of the intruder's head and individual elements of his hearing organ. 2. A microwave device for electromagnetic influence on an intruder, comprising a microwave generator with a radiating antenna, characterized in that an amplitude modulator and a low-frequency tuner are introduced into it, configured to tune to the mechanical resonant frequency of the intruder's head and individual elements of its hearing organs. The output of the low-frequency tuning unit is connected to the control input of the amplitude modulator, the output of which is connected to the control input of the microwave generator."


It utilizes the "microwave auditory effect" with a modulation at the resonant frequency of the target's skull (6-13 kHz) to "disable a trespasser."

Some additional information and notes are here: http://www.gbppr.net/mil/havana
 

JFDee

Senior Member.
A detailed article on the current state of the story. Basically, there seems to be considerable dispute, with many people claiming the government is not taking things seriously enough, along with claims of political maneuvering.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/politics/diplomat-attacks-havana-syndrome.html

User @greg51361570 on Twitter just posted a reference which refers to the "chemical agents, like pesticides" mentioned in that article. For completeness sake, this should be in the thread (I couldn't find it with the forum search). The study was done in 2019.

News link (one of numerous):
https://scienceblog.com/511061/pest...-syndrome-that-affected-cuba-based-diplomats/

A new interdisciplinary study on the “Havana Syndrome” led by Dr. Alon Friedman M.D. of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel and Dalhousie University Brain Repair Center in Nova Scotia, Canada, points to overexposure to pesticides as a likely cause for neurological symptoms among Canadian diplomats residing in Havana, Cuba in 2016.
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Link to paper (also one of several):
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/19007096v1
 

yoshy

Member
‘Havana syndrome’ not caused by energy weapon or foreign adversary, intelligence review finds

New update on Havana Syndrome:

The mysterious ailment known as “Havana syndrome” did not result from the actions of a foreign adversary, according to an intelligence report that shatters a long-disputed theory that hundreds of U.S. personnel were targeted and sickened by a clandestine enemy wielding energy waves as a weapon.

The new intelligence assessment caps a years-long effort by the CIA and several other U.S. intelligence agencies to explain why career diplomats, intelligence officers and others serving in U.S. missions around the world experienced what they described as strange and painful acoustic sensations. The effects of this mysterious trauma shortened careers, racked up large medical bills and in some cases caused severe physical and emotional suffering.
 

Mick West

Administrator
Staff member
The new reports:

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsr...the-intelligence-community-assessment-on-ahis
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/docu..._Assessment_of_Anomalous_Health_Incidents.pdf
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/docu...Involvement_in_Anomalous_Health_Incidents.pdf

Based on the results of these three lines of inquiry, most IC agencies have concluded that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels, with two agencies at moderate-to-high confidence while three are at moderate confidence. Two agencies judge it is “unlikely” an adversary was responsible for AHIs and they do so with low confidence based on collection gaps and their review of the same evidence
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Attachments

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  • IC_Targeting_and_Collection_Efforts_Point_Away_From_Adversary_Involvement_in_Anomalous_Health_...pdf
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Mendel

Senior Member.
Excerpts:
The IC pursued three separate lines of inquiry: the first encompassed work determining whether available data points to the involvement of a foreign adversary in the incidents; the second focused on the feasibility and existence of deliberate mechanisms that an adversary might use against US personnel to cause AHIs; and the third evaluated whether medical analysis can help determine if an outside actor is involved in the broad range of phenomena and symptoms associated with AHIs. Based on the results of these three lines of inquiry, most IC agencies have concluded that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs.

• Agencies employed an array of collection and investigative efforts that spanned hundreds of reported incidents—within the United States and abroad—and explored a range of potential indicators of hostile activity, from identifying suspicious persons near incident sites to searching for a pattern among affected personnel. These efforts could not identify an adversary as being responsible for any incident and in some key cases, IC agencies and partners had comprehensive information on the location where an AHI occurred but found no evidence of adversary activity.

• A review of intelligence reporting, open-source information, and scientific and medical literature about foreign weapons and research programs, as well as engagement with researchers inside and outside the US Government have led IC agencies to judge that there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon or collection device that is causing AHIs. [...] All agencies acknowledge the value of additional research on potential adversary capabilities in the RF field, in part because there continues to be a scientific debate on whether this could result in a weapon that could produce the symptoms seen in some of the reported AHI cases.

• IC agencies assess that medical analysis of AHIs has evolved since the first reported incidents in ways that point away from adversary involvement. While initial medical studies concluded AHIs represented a novel medical syndrome or consistent pattern of injuries similar to traumatic brain injury (TBI), a combination of medical and academic critiques pointed to methodological limitations in that work. Furthermore, the JASON panel’s review of preliminary data from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) longitudinal study on AHIs in 2021 does not convey a consistent set of physical injuries, including neurologic injuries such as TBI. This shift is notable because the initial medical opinions formed a central part of the IC hypothesis that US personnel had sustained injuries that were unlikely to be explained by natural or environmental factors and shaped the IC’s approach to AHIs.

IC agencies assess that symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. IC confidence in this explanation is bolstered by the fact that we identified medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain many AHIs reported by US officials.

The IC considered a range of other possibilities we deemed less likely, and identified types of information that, if found, would prompt us to revisit our assessment, such as new medical analysis that identified a syndrome linked to affected personnel or the identification of a specific device that both caused the harmful effects described in AHI reports and was fielded by an adversary during the timeframe of the incidents.
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There's also a helpful overview on the meaning of "likely" or "confidence" as used by the intelligence agencies:
SmartSelect_20230302-003754_Samsung Notes.jpg
SmartSelect_20230302-003828_Samsung Notes.jpg
 
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Mendel

Senior Member.
from the "probably not bunk" department:
Article:
The Army in September awarded Wayne State University in Michigan a $750,000 grant to study the effects of radio frequency waves on ferrets, which have brains similar to humans, according to information on the grant posted on USASpending.gov. The aim is to determine whether this exposure induces similar symptoms to those experienced by U.S. government personnel in Havana, Cuba, and China, the documents show.

DoD has also recently tested pulsed radio frequency sources on primates to try to determine whether their effects can be linked to what the government calls “anomalous health incidents,” according to one former intelligence official and a current U.S. official who were briefed on the effort. Both were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive work. It is not clear whether these studies, which were done internally, are ongoing.

My prddiction is that whatever results from these studies come forth, the 5G activists are going to be very scared.
 

John J.

Member
With thanks to Mendel, above (sorry, I can't find a way of posting a 'Quote' link in "edit").

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/...-experiments-animals-havana-syndrome-00086393
Politico.com, Lara Seligman. 09-03-23 (9th March), "The Pentagon is funding experiments on animals to recreate 'Havana Syndrome"

Quote from the above source,

"DoD spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman confirmed that the grant to Wayne State University, with collaborators from the University of Michigan, “will develop and test a novel laboratory animal model to mimic mild concussive head injury.”

“Behavioral, imaging, and histological studies will determine if the model is comparable to the abnormalities seen in humans following concussive head injury,” Gorman said, adding that: “The model may subsequently be used to test potential treatments to alleviate the deficits associated with traumatic brain injury.” "

Concussive head injury is obviously of legitimate interest to the medical profession, including those caring for wounded service personnel (as is the wider field of traumatic brain injury).
Hypothetical EMF weapons would not cause direct concussive injury, unless focussed emissions cause proximal blast effects on-target.
Concussion requires an application of kinetic energy; EMF devices do not directly deliver significant kinetic energy.

An animal model of concussion- injury resulting from rapid forced acceleration/ deceleration of the head- would appear to be a poor model for EM radiation injury, presumably resulting from heating or ionization effects.
If one wanted to have an animal model of EMR-induced injury in humans, exposing animals to EMR would have fewer confounding variables.

Lt. Cmdr. Gorman, the government / defence source cited in the Politico article, does not mention RF waves, any other EMF radiation, or "Havana syndrome". He does refer to "AHI", anomalous health incidents, a phrase which seems to have become a shorthand for symptoms reported by US embassy staff claiming to have experienced "Havana syndrome", but the term AHI could be applied to many other things.

Maybe the DoD is researching whether "anomalous health incidents" reported by those with Havana syndrome are actually sequelae of earlier events unconnected with current (or recent) employment, e.g. post-concussion syndrome.


Edited to add: Would like to make clear that I am NOT in favour of animal experiments in the context of "Havana syndrome". I don't believe that there is anything like sufficient evidence of EMR-induced injury to justify the inevitable suffering and despatch of animals.

 
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