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posted by FatPhil on Thursday October 19 2017, @01:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the hawkwind-fans dept.

The State Department has not provided further details about the medical condition of the affected staffers. But government officials have suggested anonymously that the diplomats may have been assaulted with some sort of sonic weapon.

Experts in acoustics, however, say that's a theory more appropriate to a James Bond movie.

Sound can cause discomfort and even serious harm, and researchers have explored the idea of sonic weaponry for years. But scientists doubt a hidden ultrasound weapon can explain what happened in Cuba.

"I'd say it's fairly implausible," said Jürgen Altmann, a physicist at the Technische Universität Dortmund in Germany and an expert on acoustics.

Once again, the New York Times gets it wrong. James Bond is not the movie genre they're looking for.

mrpg also brings us this less-critical AP report, What Americans Heard in Cuba Attacks: The Sound.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday October 19 2017, @05:39PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 19 2017, @05:39PM (#584686)

    We know they exist because they were deployed in 2009 [youtube.com] against protesters at the G20 summit, and several other times since.

    That said, I doubt the Cubans would use them against the US embassy. Raul Castro has always been more moderate than his brother Fidel, and never been particularly inclined to pick a fight with the US. Particularly over something this stupid. And it's entirely possible that the national security state who has been trying to re-take Cuba for nearly 60 years saw a chance to make the whole thing up to get Americans ready to demand Bay of Pigs round 2. After all, those Cuban exiles in Miami who believe (probably falsely) they'd be able to take over if the US knocked out the Castro government are dying off, so it's now or never.

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