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Mystery of sonic weapon attacks in Cuba deepens
- quotha 9y agoI think it was the X-37B http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/09/06/us-air-forces-x-37b-space-plane-to-launch-on-secret-mission-sept-7.html http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/09/06/us-air-forces-x-37b-s...
- badcede 9y agohttps://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-diplomats-cuba-dont-rush-conclusions/ https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-diplomats-c...
- Osmium 9y agoGreat link. This is just incredible: > However, the substance was at least a step up from earlier Russian tracking devices like radioactive nails hammered into the tires of U.S. diplomatic vehicles, allowing Russian surveillance vehicles to hang back unseen and follow along by using special equipment to track targets’ tire residue. The method of identifying moles is ingenious too.
- liberte82 9y agoWhat is it about Russia that makes them so partial to espionage as a preferred method? From the Cold War to today's cyberattacks, they manage to use intelligence gathering and espionage as a method of maintaining disproportionate world power. Is it cultural? If so where does it come from, and when did it start? America has great intelligence capabilities as well, but in general you tend to think of it as more of a "brute force", or "diplomacy" type of nation, while Russia's strategies tend to be more asymmetric.
- robotresearcher 9y ago> Is it cultural? It's cheap. You need a few people and clever ideas rather than enormous capital. Russia has people and education.
- Giorgi 9y agoIt is partially cultural too, Stalin started it, he though knowledge was most important resource and he was right too.
- jonnathanson 9y agoThe tradition of Russian espionage predates Stalin and, in fact, predates the USSR altogether. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhrana During the Cold War, the USSR stepped up the size and sophistication of its covert operations and intel apparatus dramatically. But the Russians have always believed in espionage as an effective, asymmetrical advantage.
- cat199 9y agowhat country hasn't, ever?
- jonnathanson 9y agoThere's a difference between theory and praxis that we need to consider here. Most countries "believe" in espionage; the Russians have always invested in it as a sort of national discipline. Russia 'specializes' in spycraft, you might say.
- dmix 9y agoI would still put this into the cultural camp. But I tend to see culture as a reflection of many factors including social, genetics, generational (which includes technological which is itself influenced by the overall culture), evolutionary aspects, and competition factors (which positively influence evolutionary and social aspects vs -say- a dormant passive society), not just social factors which culture is typically view as a product of.
- 24gttghh 9y agoMaybe they read The Art of War and actually took it seriously? The entire final chapter is about espionage. And chapter III: > It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles;
- SZJX 9y agoOr is it? If the operations are truly intended to be espionage and thus covert of course you won't hear it in the mass media, which would only tend to report busted enemy operations. CIA has massive operations everywhere. Basing everything you think on the mass media would not be smart to say the least.
- lvoudour 9y agoGreat read, gives a logical theory and really puts things into perspective. While government sponsored surveillance is still going strong, the cold war was crazy. Imagine for a moment if the internet (correction: the web) was invented and became popular during a cold war era. that would be fun
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoThe predecessor of the internet (ARPANet) was invented during the cold war, I wouldn't doubt if there were attempts to use it by both the US and Russia. Also I'd argue that the cold war is still very much active on the internet, "russian hackers" is a common subject in the news. Whether that's really Russian hackers or just playing the blame game is up for debate of course. Blaming things on the Russians was another common thing during the cold war.
- nl 9y agoWhether that's really Russian hackers or just playing the blame game is up for debate of course. If you are implying there's any doubt about Russian involvement in hacking aimed at the US election, there really isn't any credible doubt about that. No one argued that ATP-28 and ATP-29 weren't Russian when they hacked the IOC and drug testing labs right after the Russian athletes were banned from the Olympic games. Nor back in 2014[1] when the FireEye assessment was first done. Nor in 2015, when they hacked the White House[2] Nor during 2016, prior to the election when they were identified[3] It's only after the election that people suddenly don't want to believe it. [1] https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a-window-into-russias-cyber-espionage-operations.html https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/apt28-a... [2] http://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-to-putin-stop-hacking-me http://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-to-putin-stop-hacking-me [3] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
- rorykoehler 9y agoHow can you be sure?
- rantanplan 9y ago> A less high-tech component of the attack reportedly included using a dwarf to scale inside the embassy wall and emplace listening devices. Amazing
- kbart 9y agoThis sounds more like a scene from Agent007 movie than real world events. I'm interested what techniques are used today, as we have so many advanced technological means..
- freeflight 9y agoThe human element will always beat technology, cheaper simpler and more effective. It's far simpler to just sent in some dude, who pretends to be a common burglar should get caught, instead of building super fancy nano-drones which could fail/crash, then serve as evidence and would be studied for their technology. It's the same reason why social engineering is one of the most common attack vectors for high-profile breaches, some persuasiveness can go a long way.
- koffiezet 9y agoThat might work for stuff like industrial espionage, but when it comes down to embassies and diplomats, where there is awareness of social engineering, this is not that obvious. And when someone would break into an embassy, nobody is going to believe he's just a common burglar.
- samstave 9y agoWhat was that movie where the guy was given a remote controlled electronic beetle he flew into the house via a cell phone controller in order to ID a terrorist for the drone bombing?
- booleandilemma 9y agoEye in the Sky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_in_the_Sky_(2015_film)
- huhtenberg 9y ago> The Russian security services were also known to flood the U.S. embassy in Moscow with electromagnetic radiation. They would beam concentrated microwaves and electronic pulses at the Embassy in an attempt to eavesdrop on U.S. typewriters and conversations. In the 1970s, a U.S. Ambassador contracted and died of a blood disease that many assumed to be a result of the attacks. This goes both ways. From what I remember there was _exactly_ the same case reported of the US security services blasting Soviet embassy in Washington with EM radiation, which led to several cases of blood cancer in personnel, all of which were ultimately lethal.
- xattt 9y agoBut microwaves are non-ionizing and do not cause damage to the DNA to cause a cancer to develop.
- huhtenberg 9y agoNo idea, mate. I read this more than 20 years ago, so the "EM" part might be off, but the article revolved around the fact that there was an abnormally high number of former Washington embassy employees from certain time period that died of blood cancer. The cause was stated to be some kind of external irradiation.
- 13years 9y agoCertainly there could be other pathways to cancer. We know there are lots of things that contribute to cancer other than ionizing radiation. For example, improperly functioning immune system can lead to cancer. It could be there is a pathway using EM not well understood.
- kafkaesq 9y agoKeep in mind that Sipher's post, while interesting for the historical context, significantly pre-dates (by about 3 weeks) the AP findings, which bring significant new details into the picture (about both the severity of the symptoms, and what exactly people experienced in their hotel rooms). So while we still don't know exactly what happened, the plot does seem to be thickening.
- dmix 9y ago> While I have not served in Cuba, my experience in a number of similar hostile, high counterintelligence threat countries suggests that this is more likely a surveillance effort gone wrong, than the use of an offensive sonic weapon. Considering it happened in a hotel room in a targeted fashion I believe this is the most obvious answer. The story about the extreme lengths Russian's put into tapping the Moscow embassy is a classic: > Even the sidewalks and streets throughout the neighborhood were embedded with electronic collection gear which was designed to turn the embassy building into a giant antenna.
- duxup 9y agoAs they note it also seems like an odd time for Cuba (if it is them) to choose to deploy a weapon with such obvious negative results. They're not getting anything out of this obviously and if you wanted to harm diplomats in a novel way... you'd probabbly save that for a better time and not expose it now.
- addHocker 9y agoThere is psych warfare- which wins by depriving a diplomat of sleep.
- cairo_x 9y agoI'd be sleeping in a lead lined Faraday cage for sure.
- dmix 9y agoYou would most certainly be working in one (or the equivalent) at least, I'm not so sure about sleeping or living in one after work. Which is why I said the hotel connection leads me to believe it was a surveillance op gone wrong.
- Osmium 9y ago> And no single, sonic gadget seems to explain such an odd, inconsistent array of physical responses. Is it possible the sounds heard were illusory, as a result of whatever caused the brain damage? So not a sonic weapon, but some other mechanism of action? > The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. So something that can be focused at a specific point. If not a sonic weapon, then it has to be electromagnetic? Talk about bizarre. Whole thing reads like a conspiracy theory. Presuming the reporting is accurate, it's hard not to believe people were specifically targeted with the internet to harm them (rather than the alternative explanation of an espionage technology gone wrong), if the effects were localized on their beds (i.e. a specific physical location where they would be known to be for several hours).
- FreeFull 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect It's definitely possible for electromagnetic radiation to cause audible sounds. The thing that's confusing me is what sort of motive one would have to do this.
- SolarNet 9y agoAs another person posted. It's probably a surveillance attempt gone awry.
- baq 9y agothose passive bugs need power to operate
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rotrux 9y agoSeveral small devices with low-powered microwave-beams might be able to do interesting things at beam-intersection points: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0ahUKEwiApuqO0qfWAhUpqVQKHdVcDXUQFghJMAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cockcroft.ac.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F12%2Fbeambeam-werner.pdf https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- 0898 9y agoDirectional audio has been possible for about a decade now. Holosonics.com is one manufacturer but there are others.
- im3w1l 9y agoWhat about walls? And how would you target only one room in a hotel? Multiple intersecting beams?
- jm6 9y agoThis not possible with sound waves. EM yes because they work in magic extra-dimensional ether that no one has explained yet. But sound needs an uninterupted physical medium to propagate.
- amaranth 9y agoNo ether, no magic, no extra dimensions, just radiation. Check out http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae175.cfm http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae175.cfm for an explanation of how it can pass through walls and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether if you want to know why we know there isn't an aether/ether and how things work without it.
- drazvan 9y agoAn old KickStarter-backed project that does the same thing is currently available at http://www.soundlazer.com/ http://www.soundlazer.com/ . The physics behind it are explained at http://www.soundlazer.com/what-is-a-parametric-speaker/ http://www.soundlazer.com/what-is-a-parametric-speaker/ .
- sasas 9y agoI have one of the soundlazers. Hardly use it because it's particularly punishing on the ears even at low volumes. Was fun bringing into the office and reflecting sounds off the roof into other cubicals...
- diminish 9y agoBeyond sonic a conclusive list of options could also include: attacks with gas form, liquid form, radioactive form, solid form - could be through the meals they ate, the booze they drank, a drug they took, a sea or other animal. I'm curious if there are any links to independent explanations or investigations maybe from local sources? [1] this from another thread. [1] https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-diplomats-cuba-dont-rush-conclusions/ https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-diplomats-c...
- basicplus2 9y agoSounds most likely a microwave attack, you dont damage the brain that way with audio
- im3w1l 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
- 20after4 9y agoIndeed, the apparent sound heard by victims could be auditory hallucinations or inner-ear injury rather than an actual sonic attack.
- jlebrech 9y agoam I the only one that feels slight discomfort when a microwave oven is on? it's probably psychosomatic (for me) tho
- pluma 9y agoUnless the microwave oven is severely damaged, the shielding should prevent any "leakage" so it's probably just psychological. If you somehow manage to remove the door and still keep it running, though, things get fun.
- quickthrower2 9y ago"fun"? :-0
- pluma 9y agoUsing the Dwarf Fortress definition of "fun" there. http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Fun http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Fun
- owly 9y agoYou should probably replace that oven ASAP, or get rid of it completely to be a retro hipster. :)
- dharma1 9y agoSanteria spells, or too many mojitos. Joking aside, mostly likely overpowered microwave espionage equipment they got from Russians a long time ago, and that is still in use. Google "US Embassy microwave moscow" to find out what happened back in the 70s.
- userbinator 9y agoThere's also this from several decades earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
- khazhou 9y agoThe Thing was designed by Soviet Russian inventor Léon Theremin, best-known for his invention of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument.
- gcb0 9y agoit probably wasn't. yes, Theremin invented it, but the patent and production is from American firms. and cmon, if you're bugging a high profile country diplomat, you don't make a bugging device with a freaking opening mechanism! if that were indeed from Russians, it would have been at least glued shut and not have a hinge.
- owenmarshall 9y agolmfao i'm pretty sure the image you're looking at is a reproduction of the original for display in a museum and am a bit surprised that i need to have this conversation, but here we are
- KGIII 9y agoI'm guessing (hoping?) their comment was being facetious.
- 9y ago
- gras 9y agoPerhaps it was HAARP or different kind of electromagnetic phased array?
- henearkr 9y agoCould it be a powerful sonic transmission of data? I mean, EM waves are hugely monitored, so if somebody had to send data secretly, an ultrasonic way may be used. And there may have been a side effect due to too much power and the diplomats being in the middle of the beam.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- qubex 9y agoDepends whether you are aiming to conceal the fact that a signal is being transmitted or whether you "merely" wish to conceal the contents of those signals. The latter is (as I am sure any NH reader knows all too well) achieved my means of encryption, at least some of which, paranoia aside, is widely regarded to be pretty solidly robust to just about anything known (even most of the NSA-quantum-computer speculation is focussed on public key cryptography being attacked by factorisation attacks... lattice algorithms and lots of stream ciphers are not directly attackable by this means if the session key is not exchanged by "potentially vulnerable" public key cryptographic means).
- henearkr 9y agoYeah I was thinking more about concealing the fact there was a signal at all. More like stegano, then. Moreover, that could be in an environment of intense EM jamming: ultrasonic signals would pass but not EM signals.
- projectant 9y agoCould it be a chemical agent combined with RF or micowave field that activates it? Seems like pure microwave would cause a range of random hallucinations and sensations. And also accidentally target people who were not spies / employees. I think biological agent that's activated by EMF is more likely.
- bhouston 9y agoI think microwave. Heating of the ear could cause perceptions of sound.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y agoCould it be the attacks are at night because that’s when the diplomats’ cell phone rests on their nightstand? Maybe their electronic devices are the target and it just so happens that the diplomats are close by and become collateral damage. Edit: I assume an electromagnetic attack. The sounds the victims hear could be caused by that, see Wikipedia links in this thread.
- Ice_cream_suit 9y agoCollective hallucination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria#Tanganyika_laughter_epidemic_.281962.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria#Tanganyika_laugh...
- scandox 9y agoAlways been fascinated by these. Certainly seems like a possible explanation. It's always hardest to believe about a group of people who one views as more reliable - I mean diplomats, spies etc...one can't help thinking of them as sceptical and rational - but rationality of course is not always a defence against this kind of delusion. In addition I view Satanic Ritual Abuse as an example of a kind of massively extended verison of the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
- Gatsky 9y agoYes this is the most likely explanation.
- jwilk 9y agoHow does it explain mild traumatic brain injury?
- dgut 9y agoOdd this explanation doesn't get more attention. I suppose the media wants to milk the story for as long as they can.
- scrrr 9y agoMy first thought: Look, this is Cuba. Home of con artistry. They will stage a UFO landing to get more tourists spend convertible pesos. For me P(heard-in-havana-and-true) is around 0.1, max.
- salimmadjd 9y agoI'm puzzled by the motivations behind these attacks. It makes no sense. Who is going it and why? Is it Cuba's version of deep state? Do they feel threatened they would lose control because there is no longer a western enemy? Is it people within our own government (our deep state) that feels we need to have this enemy or somehow they're benefiting from it? Is it the Russians that want to creat this division to have the option of having a place close to US? Is it factions within our own government wanting to blame this on Russia and take us back to the Cold War and find an excuse for expansion of intrusion, etc?
- Quanttek 9y agoWhile the "deep state" idea is only a conspiracy prupoted by right-wing pundits to explain how the Republicans fail to get anything done even though they control all branches of the government, I think there's some credibility to the idea of Rogue faction in the Cuban government or failed surveilance attempts. At least this seems to be the only credible explanation for the fact that Canadians were also attacked
- wallace_f 9y ago>While the "deep state" idea is only a conspiracy prupoted by right-wing pundits That is not true. See Glenn Greenwald or Amy Goodman, for example, both well-known left wing (and also some of the most award winning) journalists-[1]. 1-https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_state_to https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_...
- wyager 9y agoAs I understand it, "deep state" is just a scary-sounding phrase used to mean "unelected career officials". It doesn't mean "shadow government" or whatever you're suggesting might be going on in Cuba.
- jrochkind1 9y agoIt is a phrase meant to suggest that those unelected career officials are conspiratorially involved in running things autonomously from the elected officials. I think it's a very partial truth, and agree the scary-sounding phrase 'deep state' probably doesn't really help us understand how things work, in the U.S. at least. The phrase 'deep state' was originally used, I think, about the Turkish government, where it may be more useful/accurate, I dunno.
- farseer 9y agoI wonder how one would go about detecting that such a sonic attack is in progress. What would the equipment to detect such an attack even look like?
- soufron 9y agoHave they thought about cuban rum and spirits? It looks like a far more plausible explanation for these night attacks
- pilsetnieks 9y agoCuba is not the only country in the world with alcohol. If they really were stationing drunks in embassies, I'd think that alcohol hallucinations would first appear in the worst places, where they send the worst performing people as punishment.
- girvo 9y agoI'm going to assume you're joking, but after spending a couple months in Cuba and drinking far too much Cuban rum and spirits (while smoking cigars made by the farmer out in Viñales overlooking the most amazing countryside I've ever seen), the only brain damage I got was the hangover the next day.
- subroutine 9y agoI was skeptical whether sound could be focused into a beam, but apparently inventor Woody Norris has developed a technology called Hyper Sonic Sound that accomplishes this feat. As one experiencer puts it - In the sound beam's direct line, you hear the audio signal as if through headphones, regardless of background noise. Outside the beam, you hear nothing. HSS works by generating two types of ultrasonic waves, both inaudible to the human ear. Once those waves reach an object (like your head), they crash together and re-create the original sound. Ultrasonic waves also conserve sound for 150 yards without distortion or volume loss. Here is his TED talk demo... https://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things/up-next https://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_thing... edit: so I've been reading about this Woody Norris guy; I don't think anyone could possibly be more conceited. From his own website (http://www.woodynorris.com/WhoIsWoodyNorris.htm http://www.woodynorris.com/WhoIsWoodyNorris.htm): Who is Woody Norris? Quite simply, Woody Norris is a visionary, a futurist. He looks into the future, gathers insights into what will make life better, and applies them to the world of today. He sees things that the rest of us do not. And, as the future arrives, it finds his inventions and products already in place.
- secfirstmd 9y agoI did work experience in secondary school at the MIT Media Lab Europe in late 1990s and someone there had built directional speakers like this, so its really not that unique a piece of tech.
- subroutine 9y agoIn your experience would it be possible to generate such a beam of sound powerful enough to cause brain trauma, but keep it focused enough so that it is hardly audible outside the beam?
- jokoon 9y agoThis kind of news makes me think that wars are not deadly like they were in world wars. Weapons are being so accurate, I don't think world war 3 (if it happens) will result in so many casualties. So in a way technological weaponry will save civilians. Militarily and strategically, there will no point in using nuclear weapons against civilians too, like it was done in japan. This kind of news reassures me that conflict is getting "cleaner".
- Razengan 9y ago> Militarily and strategically, there will no point in using nuclear weapons against civilians too, like it was done in Japan. You underestimate the potential of a people for desiring and inflicting misery, suffering, humiliation and "vengeance" upon a perceived enemy. Just the other day I was reading about the Rwandan Genocide from barely 20 years ago [1]: > over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. There was extensive use of propaganda through both print and radio to incite violence against women, with both mediums being used to portray Tutsi women as untrustworthy. > During the conflict Hutu extremists released hundreds of patients from hospitals, who were suffering from AIDS, and formed them into "rape squads". The intent was to infect and cause a "slow, inexorable death." There are depressingly large groups of people in Pakistan who would rejoice a nuclear attack on India, and the other way around as well. Same with people in Korea and China against Japan. I don't know about now, but not long ago in South Korea even children were indoctrinated in hate campaigns [2], something you'd expect from Jihadi religious extremists. ---- If technology really could prevent wars, then we would just have remotely-controlled miniature robots directly assassinating enemy leaders and generals, and there would be no need to maintain militaries and weapons of mass destruction. But the only thing that would truly prevent wars is not allowing people to sow the seeds of hatred, generation after generation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_Rwandan_Genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_Rwandan_Genoci... [2] http://peterpayne.com/post/61389588306/writing-about-issues-between-japan-and-south http://peterpayne.com/post/61389588306/writing-about-issues-...
- wallace_f 9y agoIt seems like a lot of war these days is for profit. Afghanistan, Iraq and now finally Syria have all been proven to be primarily about that. From not long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15238683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15238683 And see here: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...
- qubex 9y agoI have, on occasion, inadvertently taken combinations of medication that caused extremely disorientating and apparently very loud "buzzing" in my ears as soon as I woke up, combined with a strange sense of immobility. Of course that entailed no brain damage or loss of hearing, but it was a very compelling sensation, and it caused massive panic (the first time at least, the second time... somewhat less so, but I do get the feeling that I had an emotional response that was in some sense 'synthetic' and due to the pharmacological reaction). Hence, a subset of these symptoms might be pharmacological, but not all of them. That leaves open the question of motive. (Yes, I understand that a partial explanation of symptoms and no explanation of motive makes for a totally bankrupt theory, but hey, I just thought I'd throw in my anecdote - and I'd really rather not explain the particular combination of medications.)
- mikkom 9y agoThis doesn't explain the very local nature of the "attack". From the first paragraph: > The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room.
- pxndx 9y agoMaybe rotating your head affects how you perceive the noise.
- qubex 9y agoIn my experience, yes: as soon as I willed myself to move my head, the sound disappeared. But unlike these people are reporting, it never reappeared in the same session. Nor did it have a "structure" in space: it just happened when I regained consciousness.
- CapsAdmin 9y agoI remember one trick to get out of sleep paralysis was to turn my eyes (you're always able to open your eyes and look around) and head until the movement was big enough to snap out of it. Once I got out of it and I didn't move much (like if I just turn around in bed) it could easily happen again. The best way to avoid this is to try doing something that requires concentration, like getting up and do something that requires concentration for a minute and then go back.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago>>The State Department detected high levels of radiation in the embassy staff, and provided hazard pay to personnel who worked in Moscow. While this is harsh, these guys are soldiers, working night and day to essentially destroy that country. (we can argue till the cows come home about what system is the "right one") Live by the sword, die by the sword.
- CapsAdmin 9y agoSome of the sound descriptions in this article sounds very similar to an on going experience I had, although without the health problems (I hope?) It turned out to just be a bad phone charger. I would charge my phone at night (samsung s4 at the time) and when fully charged and idle it would make a very high pitch and faint sound that sounds like "morse code" or digital noise (I believe the sound characteristics is the CPU doing stuff and drawing power?) The sound was only be audible in some places of my appartment and it would depend on how my head was turned. I remember hearing this sound even in my dreams. I've heard this sound outside as well depending on how I turn my head. But lately I haven't heard or maybe noticed anything. I'm also getting older though so maybe I've lost the abiltiy to hear high pitched sounds like that. Googling "keep hearing morse code" and similar terms reveals that many people have had similar experiences but many wild conclusions. There might be something shady going on in Cuba but it wouldn't suprise me if bad adapters and sockets would get lumped together with it.
- pjc50 9y agoA common cause of this especially in power supplies is "coil whine", and it's caused by someone choosing a PWM frequency for their design in the audible range, or the design emitting harmonics in that range.
- 83457 9y agoI get something very similar from my laptop. Only hear it if in a really quiet room. I thought it might be from my SSD but discussions online seem to indicate some sort of high frequency vibration somewhere else in system. Will try unplugging next time I hear it.
- IshKebab 9y agoThat's just a coil or capacitor vibrating at high frequency. The switch mode power supply changes frequency depending on the load, and when your phone is fully charged the load is low so the normally-ultrasound drops into the audible range. Nearly all chargers get like that eventually, I guess as the glue or capacitors start to fail. The reason you can only hear it in some places is because it causes standing waves, and you move your head in and out of the nodes. Basically constructive and destructive interference. Anyway it is almost certainly totally unrelated. It's always very quiet and doesn't cause any brain damage or any other symptoms.
- dsiegel2275 9y agoMy first thought was that it is JavaScript fatigue.
- m12k 9y agoI'm reminded of the Sonic Tank from the old Dune 2 RTS. I wonder if sound is finally being weaponized or if it's actually microwaves as others have suggested? But just as curiously, what is the motivation for this, what could someone achieve by doing this? Is it a form of gaslighting? Or someone trying to sour the relationship between Cuba and US/Canada? (either dissidents or another state) In some ways this has a similar "shooting pigeons with cannons" high-tech overkill smell to it as the polonium poisoning of that Russian in the UK a decade ago.
- partisan 9y ago> I wonder if sound is finally being weaponized or if it's actually microwaves as others have suggested? Yes, sound has been weaponized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon
- pferde 9y ago> Yes, sound has been weaponized. Of course it has. Ever tried listening to dubstep?
- zero_intp 9y agomy name is a killing word
- rgrieselhuber 9y agoThis is something that would have sounded like a conspiracy theory if not reported in a mainstream publication. Amazing what just a little corporate cachet can do for a story.
- rogerthis 9y agoI saw it reported first in conspiracy sites citing also very doubtful news sites. The typical conspiracy theorist goes from "wow those f* commies" when such story appears, to "false flag" when it gets to big news. It has some logic, considering last 100 years. Personally, I just entertain my self, as I don't have the skin in the game and I am not paid to give opinions.
- aqsalose 9y agoI think the main difference is not the media, but the fact that the US government acknowledges that the incidents really happened, and that they are investigating.
- PerilousD 9y agoThere were some studies converting audio to inaudible audio when sent over over pulsed microwaves. This would resolve the size and distance issues for the alleged device and the fact that this was at night and in bed could play into the original studies for using this tech.
- bhouston 9y agoSounds like directional microwaves that heated up the brain.
- clavalle 9y agoOr some sort of proton or neutron beam.
- heisenbit 9y agoVery localized sound could that be some resonance effect related to the building? The building looks like it consists of a very regular structure.
- johnhenry 9y ago> ...baffling US officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up This is a long shot, but Cuba is pretty close to the Bermuda Triangle -- a place with a history of strange incidents supposedly involving physical anomalies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bermuda_Triangle_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bermuda_Triangle_incid...
- brandon272 9y agoSo is Florida.
- phkahler 9y agoThat's why Florida has its own tag on fark.com
- throwawaylalala 9y agoWhy has LRAD never come up?
- JKCalhoun 9y agoI wonder at this point if the data isn't being polluted by psychosomatic "symptoms" from the diplomats that are now aware of the mysterious events in Cuba.
- duncanawoods 9y agoYep. Made me think of MPI. Such a paranoid community as overseas embassy staff might be particularly vulnerable, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness MPI can be difficult to differentiate from bioterrorism, rapidly spreading infection or acute toxic exposure We might need to add "sonic weapons" to that list.
- cerealbad 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System a lot of moonshot movie weapons don't get mentioned too often, mostly because they suck (and were incredibly expensive to develop). there was another one in the 80s that could beam images to your brain or something, it's on youtube as a cnn report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgJ6SpHZir8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgJ6SpHZir8 of course youtube has a whole sub-culture of people who are 'targeted individuals' and post from inside their makeshift faraday cages as their are bombarded by beams from their CIA agent neighbours, torturing them remotely. it's probably just interference of some kind.
- graphitezepp 9y agoAh the internet. Where descriptions of outlandish bizarre groups of people must be prepended with "of course".
- aaron695 9y agoHysteria also affects people who work for the government, great story. Christ, sheeple. Are people also stealing penis's in Cuba? We think in Africa people worry about crazy things, but ..... Fuck, can we not see the exact storylines here are the same that we think are crazy in other countries? Cuba had advanced tech that can cause brain damage(by accident, not even weaponised!) better than USA military tech knows about. HN FTW
- perseusprime11 9y agoTo me, it sounds like a new kind of weapon somebody is testing. We better quickly get to the bottom of it before they scale it.
- FiatLuxDave 9y agoI was talking about this with a friend last night, and I'm very surprised that no one in the media has even mentioned a technology like ultrawideband through-wall imaging (https://ll.mit.edu/mission/space/Real-time%20Through-wall%20Imaging.pdf https://ll.mit.edu/mission/space/Real-time%20Through-wall%20...). I suspect that this or something similar is what was being attempted.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoOddly enough it would have been super awesome if dolphin scientists were using sonar to attack humans. Ah well that one stays in the realm of fiction.
- spraak 9y agoI would definitely read that as a scifi novel
- dv_dt 9y agoWhy are they so focused on sound? Couldn't there be some other transmitted phenomena (RF?) that affected the bodily functions at high strengths. At least that seems like a more plausible turn of events.. orient a huge RF dish at the embassy to listen on comms with high sensitivity, oops - someone flipped on the xmit gear and intermittently baked the surveillance targets...
- cat199 9y ago> Why are they so focused on sound? The reporting and public statements are focused on sound. As to what the investigators are focused on, I doubt we are getting the full picture since it probably involves lots of things which are restricted info..
- kelvin0 9y agoWhales and Dolphins are finally getting their revenge on humankind.
- jefe_ 9y agoSounds like some experimental device broadcasts signals that don't behave well with bed springs.
- indubitable 9y agoWhy wouldn't this be classified? It is incredibly bizarre that we're reading what is ostensibly the report of a new poorly understand device (perhaps a weapon) used extremely recently against US interests from an unknown source. We classify everything under the sun and 'no-comment' anything that could in any way be remotely related to intelligence. But in this situation, that is genuinely directly related to national security and international relations, we spread this about to be headline news to the point that you may as well have the state department on Oprah? This seems inexplicable and illogical.
- NikolaNovak 9y agoThat's a good question, so what do you think might be the answer? If we work with assumption it's not an accident/idiocy/etc, what is the state of relationships between US & Cuba? Does this send any kind of message and if so who is the audience: Cuban leadership, or local (US) readership, or international readership? Does it change the conversation in any upcoming meeting? Does it alter a stance in some negotiation? Alternatively, and perhaps closer to where you were going, is there a sub-government entity that benefits - a department or an organization? If intelligence community is not in good relationship with or respected by the government does this help them? "We're under a thread, we need more autonomy/financing/powers"? Alternatively does it hinder them - "we give you all this equipment and money, yet you cannot prevent this"? etc etc. I honestly don't have an answer - but as much as I like to rant against any given gov't as much as the next person (and perhaps more), I imagine there exists one rather than being fully inexplicable and illogical...
- jhki 9y agoThis has Russia written all over it. They've been participating unconventional "warfare" for many years now. Think of cyber/social media activities against the West, propaganda, invading Crimea without admitting to having troops in the area, covert assassinations of adversaries in the West, and psychological operations against Western diplomats in Russia. NATO restricts their regular military options, so they exert influence in any way they can. I believe the only reason we haven't been told Russia is number one suspect is Trump administration's warm ties to that direction.
- mkempe 9y agoLacking from all reporting so far: What is the purpose of these purported attacks? Who benefits from such attacks and how?
- blabla42 9y agoI dont think it is audio frequency, it must be microwave or just plain old chemical poisoning.
- dogma1138 9y agoUltrasonic power delivery gone wrong?
- Giorgi 9y agoSo, who has close ties to Cuba and has capability to design such weapon and would test it on US diplomats and would win if there was some confusion between US and Cuba relations? Always look at who has to gain from it and who is capable of
- memracom 9y agoAt one time the USA discovered that the Soviets were bombarding their Moscow embassy with radio waves. Decades later it was learned that a genius names Theremin had built a device that acted as both microphone and transmitter, when bombarded with a specific frequency of radio waves. There has been some writing on how it used wave guide effects to transmit, but not so much on the microphone part. Some of you may know that many speakers can be wired up as microphones. One wonders whether a device intended to be a microphone, might in some circumstances act as a speaker as well. If the Cubans are following an evolutionary path from the device concealed in the Great Seal in the 50's then one could easily imagine something built into the structure of the building itself that is accidentally generating sound energy. As a thought experiment, imagine that you could build a window frame that would pick up sound from inside a room, shift it to an inaudible frequency and then emit that sound. Furthermore, what if a double pane window intended to block sound from leaving the room, had a pickup attached to the inner glass pane and emitted the high frequency sound from the outer pane so that an external laser could pick it up. Then further imagine that the window was installed wrong way around so that the constant street noise was broadcasting high frequency sounds into the building. I expect that the Russians don't do this stuff anymore because they get better results from HUMINT, especially deep cover agents.
- tritium 9y agoIf the Cubans are following an evolutionary path from the device concealed in the Great Seal in the 50's then... That is the furthest idea from my conceptual model of what this all might be. I don't think any of this is accidental. I think deliberate harm is being done, and that willful animosity has permitted the rationale that U.S. officials represent a population of human test subjects, as expendable resources, for a weapon with unknown neurological effects to be used against aggressive enemy combatants. I think it's a directed energy weapon. I think kinetic energy is being applied in a novel way, such that patterns of constructive interference are created by alligning harmonic waveforms so that their intersection creates high-signal regions with deleterious effects for biological tissue within said region. Much in the way electromagnetic directed-energy-weapons can be combined and focused to achieve greater effect, either ultrasound or infra-sound is being used as a kinetic analog with similar results. This is not "The Brown Sound" but something worse.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- floatingatoll 9y agoThe mistake is assuming that sound waves are being used here. You can make the human brain hear sound by transmitting electronic frequencies at it. If someone is transmitting to a satellite using a narrow-band beam that intersects someone’s brain, they’ll be lucky to survive without brain damage from the microwaves alone. At the very least, I would hope that diplomats are being advised by the government to try and record the effect with their phones, to see if it is truly sound-based or if it is actually EM-based transmissions affecting the brain. I microwaved my skull once with a 0.5 degree beamwidth 15-inch yagi antenna at 1 watt of 2.4 gigahertz once by accident. It was a directional sensation that lasted less than a clock second, as I reflexively snapped around and ripped every wire out of the assembly to kill it with my reptile brain before it killed me. I remember exactly what it felt like, but I can’t say if it triggers hearing or not because it was too brief. The migraine that resulted lasted for hours and I still get sympathetic twinges remembering it. I’ve also heard stories of a datacenter having a daily failure in a specific rack on weekdays only, that was resolved by moving the satellite dish transmitter next door to point elsewhere than directly through a building. Combine those two stories and you have a lot more interesting options than just ‘sound’ alone. I hope they’re being investigated.
- floatingatoll 9y agoSee also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15332122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15332122