CIA director "fuming" after Havana syndrome strikes team member in India
A US intelligence officer traveling in India earlier this month with CIA director William Burns reported experiencing a mysterious health incident and symptoms consistent with so-called Havana syndrome, according to a report by CNN. The officer received immediate medical care upon returning to the US.
The case raises fears that such incidents are not only increasing, but potentially escalating, unnamed officials told CNN and The New York Times. The new incident within Burns' own team reportedly left the CIA chief "fuming" with anger.
The director's schedule is tightly guarded, and officials do not know if the affected intelligence officer was targeted because the officer was traveling with the director. If the health incident was an attack carried out by an adversarial intelligence agency—as feared—it's unclear how the adversarial agency learned of the trip and was able to prepare an attack. It's also possible, however, that the officer was targeted for other reasons and without knowledge that the officer was traveling with the director.
[...] The incident is the second high-profile case in less than a month. On August 24, another so-called "anomalous health incident" affecting US embassy staff in Hanoi, Vietnam, came to light. It is still unclear how many staff members were affected in that incident, but NBC News reported that two US personnel were medevaced out of the country.
Previously:
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"
Latest Explanation for Cuban Embassy Symptoms: Microwave Weapons
"Sonic Attack" Recording Made by Diplomats is Actually a Recording of Crickets
Mysterious health "attack" cases rise to 130, US officials confirm
Related Stories
The US believes several State Department employees at the US embassy in Havana were subjected to an "acoustic attack" using sonic devices that left at least two with such serious health problems they needed to be brought back to the US for treatment, several senior State Department officials told CNN. One official said the employees could have suffered permanent hearing loss as a result.
The employees affected were not at the same place at the same time, but suffered a variety of physical symptoms since late 2016 which resembled concussions.
Conspiracy theory fodder, or actually possible?
alt links:
https://archive.fo/yZB5q
https://web.archive.org/web/20170809231552/http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/us-cuba-acoustic-attack-embassy/index.html
State Department orders nonessential diplomats and families out of Cuba following mysterious attacks
The US State Department is pulling out all families of employees and nonessential personnel from Cuba, after a string of mysterious attacks against US diplomats.
Several US officials tell CNN that 21 US diplomats and family members became ill after apparent sonic attacks. The American embassy will continue to operate with a 60% reduction in staff. The officials said the US will stop issuing visas in Cuba effective immediately because of the staff reductions and the decision is not described as a retaliatory measure. Officials say there will still be consular officials in the embassy available to assist US citizens in Cuba.
The State Department is also issuing a travel warning, urging Americans not to travel to Cuba because they could also be at risk as some of the attacks against diplomats have taken place at hotels where Americans stay, a senior State Department official told reporters Friday.
Also at the Miami Herald, BBC, and NYT:
Some of those attacked have suffered significant injuries, with symptoms including hearing loss, dizziness, tinnitus, balance and visual problems, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues and difficulty sleeping. But despite an intensive investigation by the F.B.I., the cause and perpetrators of the attacks remain a mystery, with some experts speculating that some kind of sonic weapon or faulty surveillance device may have been at fault.
Related: US Embassy Employees in Cuba Possibly Subjected to 'Acoustic Attack'
Spooky Theory on Ills of U.S. Diplomats in Cuba (archive)
During the Cold War, Washington feared that Moscow was seeking to turn microwave radiation into covert weapons of mind control. More recently, the American military itself sought to develop microwave arms that could invisibly beam painfully loud booms and even spoken words into people's heads. The aims were to disable attackers and wage psychological warfare.
Now, doctors and scientists say such unconventional weapons may have caused the baffling symptoms and ailments that, starting in late 2016, hit more than three dozen American diplomats and family members in Cuba and China. The Cuban incidents resulted in a diplomatic rupture between Havana and Washington.
The medical team that examined 21 affected diplomats from Cuba made no mention of microwaves in its detailed report [open, DOI: 10.1001/jama.2018.1742] [DX] published in JAMA in March. But Douglas H. Smith, the study's lead author and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a recent interview that microwaves were now considered a main suspect and that the team was increasingly sure the diplomats had suffered brain injury. "Everybody was relatively skeptical at first," he said, "and everyone now agrees there's something there." Dr. Smith remarked that the diplomats and doctors jokingly refer to the trauma as the immaculate concussion.
Strikes with microwaves, some experts now argue, more plausibly explain reports of painful sounds, ills and traumas than do other possible culprits — sonic attacks, viral infections and contagious anxiety. In particular, a growing number of analysts cite an eerie phenomenon known as the Frey effect, named after Allan H. Frey, an American scientist. Long ago, he found that microwaves can trick the brain into perceiving what seem to be ordinary sounds.
Mentioned in the article: JASON, which is also investigating the attacks and considering the possibility of microwaves causing the symptoms.
Previously: 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
The Sounds That Haunted U.S. Diplomats in Cuba? Lovelorn Crickets, Scientists Say
In November 2016, American diplomats in Cuba complained of persistent, high-pitched sounds followed by a range of symptoms, including headaches, nausea and hearing loss.
Exams of nearly two dozen of them eventually revealed signs of concussions or other brain injuries, and speculation about the cause turned to weapons that blast sound or microwaves. Amid an international uproar, a recording of the sinister droning was widely circulated in the news media.
On Friday, two scientists presented evidence that those sounds were not so mysterious after all. They were made by crickets, the researchers concluded.
That's not to say that the diplomats weren't attacked, the scientists added — only that the recording is not of a sonic weapon, as had been suggested.
Alexander Stubbs of the University of California, Berkeley, and Fernando Montealegre-Z of the University of Lincoln in England studied a recording of the sounds made by diplomats and published by The Associated Press. "There's plenty of debate in the medical community over what, if any, physical damage there is to these individuals," said Mr. Stubbs in a phone interview. "All I can say fairly definitively is that the A.P.-released recording is of a cricket, and we think we know what species it is."
Recording of "sonic attacks" on U.S. diplomats in Cuba spectrally matches the echoing call of a Caribbean cricket (open, DOI: 10.1101/510834) (DX)
Previously: US Embassy Employees in Cuba Possibly Subjected to 'Acoustic Attack'
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
Sonic Attack? U.S. Issues Health Alert After Employee Experiences Brain Trauma in Guangzhou, China
Two US Diplomats Evacuated From China Amid 'Sonic Attack' Concerns
Latest Explanation for Cuban Embassy Symptoms: Microwave Weapons
Biden signs bill to help victims of 'Havana syndrome'
President Biden on Friday signed into law a bill that provides financial support to U.S. government officials who have fallen victim to "Havana syndrome," mysterious health symptoms that have affected U.S. personnel in various parts of the world.
"We are bringing to bear the full resources of the U.S. Government to make available first-class medical care to those affected and to get to the bottom of these incidents, including to determine the cause and who is responsible," Biden said in a written statement Friday. "Protecting Americans and all those who serve our country is our first duty, and we will do everything we can to care for our personnel and their families."
Havana Syndrome: 'Attacks have stepped-up in their brazenness,' says national security expert
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday September 23 2021, @02:55AM
Audience reaction?
*Crickets* [phys.org]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @03:06AM (3 children)
It's like karmic retribution. Spend the better part of a century raping the world and doing evil things, eventually people will figure out a way to make your lives hell too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:42PM (2 children)
Our own lives are in no way safe from those same people, or from any other criminals/politicians/businessmen/... obtaining the same weapon.
As long as you are above the ground, you are inconvenient to someone. An untrackable tech for removing inconveniences will inevitably get ever-widening use.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @08:39PM (1 child)
If they want to kill me, I can be killed. There's no reason to be scared about what can't be changed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @06:53AM
Sure they are not already doing this....
And calling it "covid"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @03:31AM (16 children)
I don't know, deploy Faraday cages. For all we know the "mysteriousness" is entirely because the US is doing it to its own employees, because it's that fucking desperate to get into a "great power conflict."
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday September 23 2021, @04:15AM (8 children)
Tin foil hats would suffice [matthey.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Funny) by Unixnut on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:58AM (3 children)
I so wish this to be the only true solution to this ailment, just so I can watch all the politicians and diplomatic staff walk around with tin foil on their heads. It would look so fitting with the western worlds current descent into collective insanity.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @09:36AM
Engineering-wise, this is the most effective solution in both cost and protection terms. For these very reasons, I don't expect they'll follow it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @11:32AM (1 child)
This is just silly. Obviously they will need tin-foil bracelets around their wrists and ankles as well
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @03:11AM
And be put in steel cages lockable from the outside. For their protection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @11:29AM
lol you beat me to it
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @02:57PM (2 children)
uhm ... this episode of Kick farted begs to differ
$40 Tinfoil Hat?? - KICKFARTED Ep. 2
Linus Tech Tips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJJENB1UsIU [youtube.com]
It turns out that wearing a tin foil hat could actually make the problem worse because it reflects the radiation that went to your head back to your head again. You might need something like a tin foil helmet? I would like to see the experiments on that. Imagine CIA agents walking around wearing tin foil helmets ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @03:10PM
In all seriousness what you probably need is a tin foil hat with some inside padding that absorbs the unwanted radiation and doesn't let it get reflected back. Or just a hat made out of said material ...
uhm ... maybe I can sell such a product, I'm sure there are enough suckers willing to buy it to make me rich. The CIA might even be interested.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:05PM
Perhaps all that concentrated radiation from the tin foil hats is what's responsible for the fuming.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:04AM
It'll never work. You put popcorn in the nuker for 20 minutes, the building gets condemned. It's that simple. No cage will prevent it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HammeredGlass on Thursday September 23 2021, @11:22AM (1 child)
They don't actually have to do anything to their people. All they have to do is report to the world that something happened to their people. It's not like they are going to parade their classified agent out to a press pool to answer questions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @03:15AM
Exactly. What if Russia started reporting agitators on their Western border. All of a sudden there's soldiers in Crimea and a landslide vote to become part of Russia. I guess it must be true.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:24PM (1 child)
People who actually get whacked with accidental microwave exposure tend to have more interesting skin, eye, and general thermal problems. It just seems odd that ONLY these microwave victims get this entire class of weird effect.
Seriously the most realistic proposal I've ever seen is during the Zika virus propaganda they supposedly sprayed Havana with all kinds of crazy anti-bug shit and historically insecticides have had a troubling relationship with the human nervous system, so after they figured it out maybe they continue using bug spray as a weapon or just to F with the CIA in general.
"whoopsie guess we discovered the hard way that cans of SUPER-RAID anti-mosquito spray makes people kinda chronically sick? Well we got plenty of cans of the shit sitting around, and they got plenty of CIA agents, so lets F with them"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @01:21AM
You may have some troubling world views but this is a great theory.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:48PM (1 child)
Sci Fi movie plot:
We thought we invented a simple improvement to the polygraph test we give our higher level personnel; whoopsie, it makes them horribly sick a half decade later.
Could be a secondary thing too. Maybe their magic truth serum drug refined from opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms works perfectly fine, but the dumb bastards used a solvent accidentally contaminated with (insert some nasty as hell solvent here that has neurological symptoms). Damnfino maybe DMSO plus a metric shitton of raw benzene is a bad idea but it works great if uncontaminated.
Then the next layer of the onion is the dumb bastard who used contaminated solvent was a Chinese agent paid by the Chinese govt to kill all those CIA bastards so there was a plausibly deniable lab accident and then the wrong beaker was dumped in the wrong test tube and half a decade later you got a hundred slowly dying mid to upper level spies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @03:19AM
OK stop now.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Thursday September 23 2021, @04:45AM
My understanding of international politics is that assaulting diplomatic personnel in an embassy is act of war stuff. I realize the CIA stages out of embassies too, but the big boy countries don't tend to assault agents in the embassy.
Of course damaging\ disabling a country's infrastructure via hacking is an act of war too. So maybe not.
'Putin does the slow clap.'
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:49AM (2 children)
Why would any intelligence agency deliberately and very publicly announce any such incidence? Such a stupid move no matter which way one looks at it. Firstly, it reveals to any perpetrator that the targeted "intelligence" agency is (pretending to be) totally clueless. Secondly, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by revealing anything to the new media, unless it is intentional misinformation. How is the news media or the public supposed to help remedy the situation? What is the point of announcing this?
But the announcement does appear to be supportive of the theory that the total planet has gone completely bananas.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @06:59AM (1 child)
It's all about politics. The CIA wants to appear as a victim filled with righteous fury, which will no doubt excuse their "retaliation".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @03:23AM
No doubt they employed pre-emptive retaliation, and now the terrorists need to be killed with an expensive toy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @06:01AM (2 children)
Is there really no technology available to detect potentially harmful emissions across the relevant portions of the spectrum?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @11:09AM
When I were young, we used an instrument known as a "rectum paralyser" although I believe, HP called it a Spectrum Analyser"
It covered 100kHz to 100GHz. If its not somewhere in there, its not radio waves (EM waves).
Its most likely something they inhaled.
--
You have the right to remain dead
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @12:00PM
A focused MASER could go undetected. The detector is the person getting Havana'd.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:20AM (2 children)
Take any fool, and marinate him in the ultra bullshit nonsense of Washington for a few years. Send him out in the field, where there is no bullshit. Like any drunk being dried out, he has withdrawal pains. That's all that's probably happening with these agents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @06:41PM (1 child)
Sure going all hurr-durr gubmint stupid and bad is a pretty well received sentiment around here, but really 3 people modding that up as interesting? At least the funny mod makes sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @03:27AM
To be fair, I get Havana'd every Friday night and wake up feeling like a dog shit in my mouth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:37AM (1 child)
Or, perhaps, a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or an Irritable Bowel Syndrome? At least he did not encounter an Israeli robot machine gun truck designed to kill his ass. Or a Hellfire missile that was intended for an aid worker and his children? Hard to find sympathy for the people that water-boarded someone 184 times, and now have a hard time trying him, 20 years later, in violation of the Constitutions right to a speedy trial facing your accusers. I now Barfbriet!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 23 2021, @04:40PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday September 23 2021, @12:42PM (5 children)
How many are these now? The Havana syndrome attacks are starting to rack up. It has been reported over multiple countries, multiple postings, extended periods of time. So either someone is following them around which would at least sort of imply that it's a big player (or opponent) or it's something new and cool that they are lugging around themselves and doing to themselves even thou that would be quite stupid to try and blame on someone else.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Dr Spin on Thursday September 23 2021, @12:45PM (1 child)
Cuba is now the worlds largest super-power.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1, Redundant) by looorg on Thursday September 23 2021, @01:04PM
No they are not. That said it's not like they are inconsequential either, or doesn't have big red nefarious super-power(ish) friends. Did some searching and it appears they are now investigating over 200 cases in total of this "Havana syndrome" all over the globe. The name is just from the current starting position -- Cuba, Canada, USA, India, Austria ... list goes on. So if it's some kind of device it travels around (or there are more then one of them). Could it be a side effect of some device the CIA (or some other lovely three letter agency) has installed at their own location?
In May it was just 130 cases, so in just four months they found another 70 cases to investigate. Not necessarily tho that those 70 cases happened in the last couple of months. Just that they are finding more and more of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/21/havana-syndrome-cia-officer-india [theguardian.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/13/havana-syndrome-brain-injury-130-incidents [theguardian.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @01:14PM
Remember, these are bureacrats. Once one figures out how to get some extra paid holidays, word travels around quickly and next thing you know the entire civil service is trying to game the system.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:05PM
China could do it. Their military doctrine [defense.gov] has been pursuing unconventional warfare against America for several decades now. Economic warfare, cyberwarfare, psyops, and others in addition to conventional forces. Congress publishes white papers on it that are publicly accessible. Stratfor [stratfor.com] has covered it for years, too.
In other words, China has been gunning for the United States for a long time across many avenues. Using a microwave weapon to disrupt American diplomats falls entirely within that spectrum.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:32PM
But they all must hang out at HQ once in a while, right?
Just something to think about. If someone's spraying cans of "super raid", assuming multiple enemies who don't usually cooperate all over the world suddenly teaming up james bond villainy style seems less likely than one staged hit at the Wash DC Christmas party one year, and then chronic neurological symptoms sit in years later.
Kind of like the HIV/AIDS thing. Suddenly all these dudes dying in rando hospitals and rando apartment buildings all over, no point in trying to find targetted hits, the problem seems to be they were all in the same bathhouse in SF at the same time years ago. THEN it all makes sense. Likewise I suspect all these poor CIA bastards were all in the same diversity class or christmas party or war briefing or whatever back in 2015 and nobody has noticed it yet. I'm not saying they gave each other super AIDS but more likely some hired help sprayed a can of SuperRAID to "clean the banquet table" or fumigate the kitchen or something, and six years later they're all dying slowly all over the world.
I would further theorize they all seem to be of a similar organizational level, nobody is talking about rando IT guys or lunchroom cooks or receptionists dying. So it was probably a briefing that hit them all at once a couple years back, not some rando "all hands on deck" HR training or holiday party.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @01:23PM (1 child)
Perhaps the state department bought $600 defective Tempest microwave ovens for their installations.
Seems wearing some RF warning devices would find the issue fairly quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @03:16PM
Recent mods to the "Cone Of Silence" are to blame.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday September 23 2021, @03:30PM (3 children)
I'm still not convinced this is real. Ok, maybe there was something in the air in Havana - it's not impossible. But since then? The cases have been vague, the symptoms hard to nail down.
It frankly reminds me of people (like, um, someone I know) who claim that WiFi makes them sick. As long as they don't know you have WiFi, they feel great. Then they find out, and - whoa - suddenly they feel weak, dizzy, or whatever.
Take someone with that mentality, stick them in a US embassy, and - Havana Syndrome?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 23 2021, @04:50PM
That is entirely possible. I'm not convinced either way, but lean towards the possibility that doesn't rely on magic tech.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 23 2021, @05:33PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by linuxrocks123 on Thursday September 23 2021, @11:53PM
MRIs have confirmed brain damage similar to concussions. It's not psychosomatic.
https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks [gq.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 23 2021, @07:47PM (3 children)
Why should I believe the CIA isn't making this entire thing up, or is doing it to their own men? They've lied so much already about so many things, I would have to be a complete retard to take anything they claim at face value. Is that unpatriotic of me? Is it unpatriotic to doubt the word of officials with a track record of lying? If that is unpatriotic, I don't want to be patriotic.
Even if they are getting their brains zapped, these assholes doubtlessly deserve it. The CIA has done much worse to many more people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @01:27AM (1 child)
Right?
A CIA spook giving two shits about anyone? Something hinky going on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @03:30AM
Your subversive tendencies have been noted, Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 28 2021, @03:28AM
I was skimming your comment and saw the words, 'brain zapped;' and my first thought was SSRI withdrawal. If you ask ANYONE what it's like to withdrawal from an SSRI, it's absolutely wicked, makes heroin withdrawal look like a joke. I kept thinking about this over and over and wondering along the lines of some kind of EM spectrum attack, perhaps a gamma laser, or some new tech. However, sneaking 20mg's of Zoloft into a persons daily drinking water over a period of 1 to 2 weeks, is A: likely something they wouldn't notice; unless they had taken an SSRI before, and B: would make them feel VERY strange, off, and sick, after they stopped ingesting the substance.
Interesting puzzle..
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @02:08AM
The system is imploding so they invent a new problem every now and then to keep the public from questioning authority.
The authority here consists of self-appointed jewish infiltrators with an agenda.
(Score: 1) by unhandyandy on Friday September 24 2021, @02:26AM
Fuming represents an escalation, previously it just caused headaches.