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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
(Score: 4, Funny) by RamiK on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:44AM (2 children)
Maybe, interrogators? [dailymail.co.uk]
Nah... Can't be. That's senate approved. Completely safe. Clearly, the Cubans did something sneaky. Maybe using Mambo, Swing and all that Jazz...
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:09PM
The daily mail? Really?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @05:15AM
Didn't Obama close down Gitmo?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:42AM (1 child)
It seems possible, but I don't understand the motive or whether or not the devices were built for that purpose.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:12PM
#FakeNoise
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday August 10 2017, @12:24PM (2 children)
Isn't this kind of odd. If only two people are affected but it is supposed to be sound generated. So either other people are immune or not as effected by it or they are somehow creating a very narrow sound beam that only hits certain targeted people? At least it wasn't brown note generators ...
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Thursday August 10 2017, @12:37PM (1 child)
they probably tried to listen in on something they should not have, and in return, got punished.
Besides, why else bring them to the US, Cuba has a better health care system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:46PM
You probably nailed it. Eavesdropping on audio from a windowpane which had audio anti-eavesdropping measures causing sickness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @12:35PM (3 children)
Great plot for a movie.
Seems like with an acoustic attack, you might hear it?
Unless it was really low frequency in which case you would feel it.
So that leaves really high frequency?
Perhaps mask the attack with other noise.
Did the victims like a particularly loud night club?
Fortunately in the case of Cuba, the solution is simple.
Just move to this century and normalize relations.
Could use the classic spy movie staple
a booth in the back in the corner in the dark.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:51PM (1 child)
Read up on infrasound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound#Infrasonic_17_Hz_tone_experiment [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:17PM
Making a person feel uneasy is a much lower bar than making them sick.
My experience is you feel low freq a long time before it causes serious harm.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:57PM
And did he often hit his head on the floor when he fell over after drinking too much rum?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves