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A U.S. government health alert has sparked comparisons to symptoms experienced by State Department employees in Cuba:
US officials have issued a health alert after a US government employee stationed in southern China reported "abnormal sensations of sound and pressure" that indicated a mild brain injury.
The official, assigned to the city of Guangzhou, reported a range of physical symptoms from late 2017 through to April 2018, and was sent back to the United States for assessment, the State Department said. The US Embassy in Beijing learned on May 18 that the clinical findings of the evaluation matched that of a "mild traumatic brain injury," an embassy spokeswoman told CNN.
The alert will raise comparisons with a series of unexplained incidents in Cuba that led to the withdrawal of most US personnel from the embassy in Havana. The cause of those incidents, reported in late 2016 and early 2017, still remains a mystery.
[...] The State Department said in its Wednesday statement that anyone who experienced "unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena" while in China should move away from the source of the noise.
Also at BBC, CNBC, South China Morning Post, and MarketWatch.
Related: US Embassy Employees in Cuba Possibly Subjected to 'Acoustic Attack'
U.S. State Department Pulls Employees From Cuba, Issues Travel Warning Due to "Sonic Attacks"
A 'Sonic Attack' on Diplomats in Cuba? These Scientists Doubt It
Cuban Embassy Victims Experiencing Neurological Symptoms
Computer Scientists May Have Solved the Mystery Behind the 'Sonic Attacks' in Cuban Embassy
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 23 2018, @11:34PM (17 children)
What possible motivation could the Chinese (or the Cubans) possibly have for attacking the US Consulate or Embassy with some sort of secret "sonic weapon".
What could they possibly gain? It is just nonsense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:02AM
They have to provide some excuse for things....
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:04AM (3 children)
I wouldn't be surprised to learn, 25 years from now, that some US spying device is backfiring on its users...
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:32AM (1 child)
Or that the State Department recruits, for various (maybe unintended) reasons, brain-damaged employees.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:36AM
Diplomatic posts in Cuba and China ... It's probably a new not-quite-commie vaccine formula, with side-effects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @03:18PM
The "Cone Of Silence" is broken.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:47AM (4 children)
No, but that doesn't mean it's made-up. As someone else said, it could be a US device that's backfiring, but it could also be someone else targeting US personnel, but not working with the permission of either the Chinese or Cuban governments. In fact, it could be a false-flag attack, with the intention of harming relations between those countries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:56AM (3 children)
It isn't likely we'd be messing up our own embassy employees.
The obvious is a 3rd party. Countries routinely spy on embassies that are neither their own nor in their own country. Example: France can spy on the Malaysian embassy in Vietnam.
The next most obvious is China. Cuba was the testing ground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @01:14AM (1 child)
Once, I met a German girl in England who was going to school in France.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 24 2018, @09:38AM
Even more of a reason it is blindly obvious the Chinese were testing the soil in Cuba. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 24 2018, @02:55AM
FTFY
I don't see it as obvious. Perhaps you want to come with a p-hacking model, maybe it will gain some credibility?
(this is an "failure of imagination" argument: I can't imagine other causes, so you must accept my assertion as obvious).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @01:57AM (3 children)
Why doesn't the embassy install some microphones so we know if accoustic attacks are occuring? I'm getting tired of hearing how people might have been attacked, since it would be trivial to detect.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 24 2018, @02:05AM (2 children)
And what if the acoustic weapon is only focused on an individual's ears?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_amplification_by_stimulated_emission_of_radiation [wikipedia.org]
Not so trivial to detect anymore.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 24 2018, @02:32AM (1 child)
If that person is in an embassy, it would make the sonic attack very detectable as a result. Keep in mind that embassies tend to have a lot of sound dispersing materials in them. Even a well-aimed attack is go to lose energy going through these materials which can then be picked up by microphones.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 24 2018, @02:37AM
Maybe it would be easier to pick them off when they enter or exit the building.
Whatever the case, there isn't much evidence to go on (or maybe the evidence is under wraps, since there are diplomatic implications).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday May 24 2018, @05:11AM (1 child)
The trauma aspect is suspected to be a side effect of a spying apparatus.
Still it doesn't say much about our highly vaunted NSA/CIA that they remain totally clueless about the cause this while at the same time spying on american citizens at home and poking around in presidential campaigns, and blaming ZTE for spying without a shred of evidence.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday May 24 2018, @04:00PM
It was probably a spin dash [sonicretro.org].
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 24 2018, @07:43AM
Possibly they are testing brain control stuff, contextually sending a message like "watch out, we are doing it too, succesfully".
The USA is not new to completely made up casi belli, but this kind of incidents is not grave enough to warrant a full scale reaction, so I'd discard this possibility.
Account abandoned.