7 ms·

>they now can't admit that it was "absolutely nothing". It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randoml

>they now can't admit that it was "absolutely nothing". It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms and all showing brain abnormalities? I think it’s a lot more likely intelligence agencies know exactly what caused it. Public releases of sound clips of strange sounds claiming to be the cause, later publications proving those sounds to be crickets and nothing Nefarious all reads like something out of an intelligence playbook to misdirect the public and other governments. Unless you are intimately familiar with intelligence operations it sounds like conspiracy theory, until you come full circle to 24 staff members with brain abnormalities. At minimum that doesn’t result from absolutely nothing.

rdtsc 8y ago
> It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms and all showing brain abnormalities? Were there any physical injuries to the brain found? As in leisures, damaged nerves etc. Or was it all self-rerpoted stuff. "I can't see, can't hear, losing my balance etc." Consider these are CIA employees in an embassy that was going to probably be wound down eventually. Now they have to leave for another post or back to a desk job. So someone came up with an idea that they have been attacked and reported headaches, so maybe they could retire early or get extra compensation based on injuries in the line of duty. They wouldn't even have to conspire with others, as they could have just understood what to do by observing. Remember lying and making up stuff is they day job. Just another thing to consider...
- will_brown 8y ago
  These are physical changes. Medical testing has revealed the embassy workers developed changes to the white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate.
  - wyldfire 8y ago
    How did we, the public, get the evidence of the medical testing? Do we have the actual imaging or the testimony of the physicians who treated them? Aside: wouldn't they need permission from the patients in order to reveal the diagnosis?
    - will_brown 8y ago
      Because 21 of 24 of them were treated by UPenn doctors who published an article about it in the Journal of The American Medical Association. As you might expect the government was screwing these employees on treatments and reimbursements, so a number of them hired a lawyer who is pretty well known for these types of cases against the government. He has also been on record about what’s really going on and even represented another government employee in the 90’s who had similar issues, where the NSA confirmed they have knowledge microwaves have been actively used against us. I believe many of the people and their spouses (who are also having these issues) want full transparency.
      - nyolfen 8y ago
        do you have a link about the previous case? i'd like to read about it
        will_brown 8y ago
        The lawyer is Mark Zaid. I’m guessing you can search the former client Mike Beck and see what you come up with, but I think due to his position and it not being 24 people from an embassy, most of the facts remain confidential/classified. The following is a excerpt from a Miami Hearld news article: In a separate case, another Zaid client — Mike Beck, a retired National Security Agency counterintelligence officer — suffered a "potentially similar attack" in the 1990s when he traveled to an unidentified country. Years later, Beck and a companion on the trip were found to be suffering from Parkinson's disease. A confidential report convinced him that his illness was linked to a covert attack with a weapon that used microwaves, Beck told The Washington Post last year. "My gut is that this has been going on for a while," said Zaid. "The NSA has revealed to me in an unclassified setting that a foreign power has used a microwave weapon against people."
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    >These are physical changes. Well, you say changes, but really all we have is that these 24 people were scanned later but not before taking that assignment. You can’t really say changes, you have no idea what these brains looked like before Cuba. You know, if you care about scientific method and all...
    - will_brown 8y ago
      I’m not saying changes the treating physicians and scientists at UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair are saying changes. You can apply the scientific method and let me know how likely it is that 24 random people became government employees and all had the same/similar brain abnormalities, further this random group with brain abnormalities were all randomly assigned to the same embassy and around the same time they all began to complain of the same/similar symptoms and none of them ever had prior mris/hearing tests/balance tests dispute all of them living their entire lives with brain abnormalities.
      - cjhopman 8y ago
        No, the treating physicians aren't saying changes. They are saying, of the 21 patients given an MRI, 3 had abnormalities.
      - aylmao 8y ago
        > 24 random people became government employees and all had the same/similar brain abnormalities Only 21 were checked afaik, and out of those only 3 showed something significant in the MRI, which the researches concluded "the findings could perhaps be attributed to other preexisting disease processes or risk factors", according to their published report [1]. [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168
  - aylmao 8y ago
    Did it though? I commented this on another sub-thread, but it seems to be relevant here too. Straight from the report: > MRI neuroimaging was obtained in all 21 patients. Most patients had conventional imaging findings, which were within normal limits, at most showing a few small nonspecific T2-bright foci in the white matter (n =9, 43%). This sounds to me like the MRI showed most people were normal. It continues: > There were 3 patients with multiple T2-bright white matter foci, which were more than expected for age, 2 mild in degree, and 1 with moderate changes. Three out of 21 patients doesn't sound like a lot. The researches agree that 3 people showing something somewhat unexpected isn't significant, and it's probably due to other diseases or conditions: > The pattern of conventional imaging findings in these cases was nonspecific with regard to the exposure/insult experienced, and the findings could perhaps be attributed to other preexisting disease processes or risk factors. Advanced structural and functional neuroimaging studies are ongoing. So it's not that "MRIs are subjective" or "are as bogus as lie detectors". Rather, it's the people forming an interpretation of what the results mean (especially those who are not experts, as we can see that the experts agreed only three of the 21 people examined show something, and it's probably unrelated). [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168
bjourne 8y ago
> It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms and all showing brain abnormalities? I haven't followed the story in detail, but the claim of "brain abnormalities" appear to come from a small number of doctors who likely were primed with irrelevant information. "Doctor, take a look at these CT scans of diplomats in Cuba who might have been attacked using a sonic weapon." It is not far-fetched to imagine that this priming caused the doctors to see brain abnormalities where none existed. Oh, and someone who was down-voted to dead status already linked to an article from 2017 in which the Cubans said they believed crickets were the culprit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837926 See also this blog post, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2018/04/07/bad-science-havana-attack/#.XDIhHVxKg2x http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2018/04/07/ba..., which in not so kind words calls the original study junk: "The condition suffered by the US diplomats in Cuba has been labelled “mysterious” (Rubin, 2018). The real mystery though is how such a poor neuropsychogical report could have passed the scrutiny of expert reviewers in a first class outlet."
- will_brown 8y ago
  >the claim of "brain abnormalities" appear to come from a small number of doctors who likely were primed with irrelevant information The study was published by the UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair (I’d recommend reading it) by the treating physicians. It’s funny you would opine the treating physicians have irrelevant information. Yet, like many in this thread you tend to gravitate towards doctors/scientist making diagnoses sight unseen who have no patient information. I’d say the real mystery is how anyone on HN could ignore the study from the UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair who examined and evaluated the patients completed with objective tests like MRI and hearing. As if that’s not enough you say >it’s not far fetected this priming caused the doctors to see brain abnormalities where none existed I’d like to know how the doctors bias manifested to the MRI and hearing testing. And I’m wondering why your logic doesn’t get applied to the scientists and the neurologist (who is clearly biased) who hasn’t examined the patients and has diagnosed them as suffering from psychosomatic mass hysteria.
  - 8y ago
cpncrunch 8y ago
You mean this very flawed study? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/14/cuban-acoustic-attack-report-on-us-diplomats-flawed-say-neurologists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/14/cuban-acoustic...
- will_brown 8y ago
  Ok on one hand there is a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Brain Injury and Repair by doctors who examined and treated the patients (clearly you haven’t read the study). Yet you are dismissing the study based on an article with a few quotes from scientist who haven’t examined the patients yet are diagnosing them with psychosomatic mass hysteria. I notice your article/those scientist have nothing to say about the objective tests such as MRIs/hearing tests. Clearly the UPenn Center for Brain injury and Repair has no idea what the hell they are doing or how to run a study...clearly the right way to debunk a study and diagnosis patients with mass hysteria is to shoot from the hip without exaimination of the patients.
  - dwaltrip 8y ago
    An MRI isn't a clear cut test. It is an imaging technique. The images must then be interpreted. There is room for mistakes in this interpretation process. As an example, here is a NYtimes article about MRIs being misused and misinterpreted in sports medicine: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/health/mris-often-overused-often-mislead-doctors-warn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/health/mris-often-overuse... Obviously, I have no idea if that is happening in this case. But we must admit the possibility, especially if other more rigorous medical evidence is not present.
    - mattkrause 8y ago
      It doesn't even need to be a "mistake". My lab does MRIs of humans and animals. There's a crazy amount of variability in the structure and function of an allegedly "normal" subject's brain. For example, a good friend has what looks like an extra little bump near the vertex. He's normal enough though, and will probably finish his PhD this year. The Brain Imaging Center does refer people with weird scans to (clinical) neurologists. They've caught a few things, but the vast majority of those are also "weird, but apparently fine" too.
gameswithgo 8y ago
>what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptom that scenario happens all the time. read up on mass hysteria. >showing brain abnormalities What we know is that some unknown number of the 24 diplomats showed "white matter tract" abnormalities, not all of them. Since they only had brain scans after the incident, we don't know what caused them. Was the number of diplomats that had these abnormalities much greater than one would expect by change? We don't know.
nonbel 8y ago
> "24 staff members with brain abnormalities. At minimum that doesn’t result from absolutely nothing." I wouldn't be too surprised. If the baseline is some average brain, then that brain does not exist. Everyone has "brain abnormalities", instead it is a matter of how "abnormal" each of our brains is compared to the average.
DoctorOetker 8y ago
I don't understand, it's impossible not to hear the crickets. At some point someone jokes/suspects/postulates the presence of accoustic warfare. (tangentially, why do crickets spend so much energy creating that power level of noise? is it to annoy other species away and claim the area as theirs?) Up to there I can follow with how the embassy reacted. But the moment you suspect and attach importance to the possibility of accoustic warfare, why just send them to the doctor? Medicine works on subtle percentages with large sample sizes. They save lives and livelihood mostly statistically, and not individually in the context of new threats (new virus strain, new weapon, newly recognized cancer...) It was impossible not to hear the crickets before, so at that point the most rational question becomes: what power spectrum should we expect from those annoying crickets outside? Why didn't they simply sollicit help from people with actual domain knowledge? normal engineers and sound engineers, physicists, biologists, ...? Why not rent a thermal camera, and survey the local environment, map out the location and density of individual crickets, estimate the total number etc. Then isolate a bunch of crickets and keep them fed, and transport them to a place without crickets (ship them to a ship or whatever), then record a few thousand of their individdual chirps at different distances. Then you can simply calculate/simulate the total sum of both synchronized and unsyncronized chirping behaviours, not sure how to model the synchronization? look at that shelf with the Steven Strogatz book, and if necessary just ask him if he (or one of his grad students) can help out... ffs this whole kindergarten drama can be viewed as an inadvertent leak (poor tradecraft) revealing you organizationally don't even try to get at the bottom of things anymore! All the leet access to backdoors has made the agencies lazy and complacent. It appeared like you no longer needed to select the best and the brightest, ... so you just put your daughter and son in the organization?? pfff
oldgradstudent 8y ago
It was reported[1] that these were not random embassy staff members: > The first four Americans to report being struck by the phenomenon — including the fit-looking man in his 30s — were all CIA officers working under diplomatic cover, as were two others affected later on. Ignoring the terrible operational security in effectively leaking the identities of intelligence officers, this could point out a more mundane explanation - an occupational injury, maybe as a result of operating specific equipment. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/diplomats-in-cuba https://www.propublica.org/article/diplomats-in-cuba
raptordamus 8y ago
I think China definitely did it and now the US is covering it up because they have made an under the table agreement to “stop doing that.” This is an exceptionally clumsy attempt at covering it up.
droussel 8y ago
> but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms Could simply be the Nocebo effect: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200001133420206 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200001133420206

rdtsc 8y ago

> It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms and all showing brain abnormalities? Were there any physical injuries to the brain found? As in leisures, damaged nerves etc. Or was it all self-rerpoted stuff. "I can't see, can't hear, losing my balance etc." Consider these are CIA employees in an embassy that was going to probably be wound down eventually. Now they have to leave for another post or back to a desk job. So someone came up with an idea that they have been attacked and reported headaches, so maybe they could retire early or get extra compensation based on injuries in the line of duty. They wouldn't even have to conspire with others, as they could have just understood what to do by observing. Remember lying and making up stuff is they day job. Just another thing to consider...

will_brown 8y ago
These are physical changes. Medical testing has revealed the embassy workers developed changes to the white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate.
- wyldfire 8y ago
  How did we, the public, get the evidence of the medical testing? Do we have the actual imaging or the testimony of the physicians who treated them? Aside: wouldn't they need permission from the patients in order to reveal the diagnosis?
  - will_brown 8y ago
    Because 21 of 24 of them were treated by UPenn doctors who published an article about it in the Journal of The American Medical Association. As you might expect the government was screwing these employees on treatments and reimbursements, so a number of them hired a lawyer who is pretty well known for these types of cases against the government. He has also been on record about what’s really going on and even represented another government employee in the 90’s who had similar issues, where the NSA confirmed they have knowledge microwaves have been actively used against us. I believe many of the people and their spouses (who are also having these issues) want full transparency.
    - nyolfen 8y ago
      do you have a link about the previous case? i'd like to read about it
      - will_brown 8y ago
        The lawyer is Mark Zaid. I’m guessing you can search the former client Mike Beck and see what you come up with, but I think due to his position and it not being 24 people from an embassy, most of the facts remain confidential/classified. The following is a excerpt from a Miami Hearld news article: In a separate case, another Zaid client — Mike Beck, a retired National Security Agency counterintelligence officer — suffered a "potentially similar attack" in the 1990s when he traveled to an unidentified country. Years later, Beck and a companion on the trip were found to be suffering from Parkinson's disease. A confidential report convinced him that his illness was linked to a covert attack with a weapon that used microwaves, Beck told The Washington Post last year. "My gut is that this has been going on for a while," said Zaid. "The NSA has revealed to me in an unclassified setting that a foreign power has used a microwave weapon against people."
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  >These are physical changes. Well, you say changes, but really all we have is that these 24 people were scanned later but not before taking that assignment. You can’t really say changes, you have no idea what these brains looked like before Cuba. You know, if you care about scientific method and all...
  - will_brown 8y ago
    I’m not saying changes the treating physicians and scientists at UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair are saying changes. You can apply the scientific method and let me know how likely it is that 24 random people became government employees and all had the same/similar brain abnormalities, further this random group with brain abnormalities were all randomly assigned to the same embassy and around the same time they all began to complain of the same/similar symptoms and none of them ever had prior mris/hearing tests/balance tests dispute all of them living their entire lives with brain abnormalities.
    - cjhopman 8y ago
      No, the treating physicians aren't saying changes. They are saying, of the 21 patients given an MRI, 3 had abnormalities.
    - aylmao 8y ago
      > 24 random people became government employees and all had the same/similar brain abnormalities Only 21 were checked afaik, and out of those only 3 showed something significant in the MRI, which the researches concluded "the findings could perhaps be attributed to other preexisting disease processes or risk factors", according to their published report [1]. [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168
- aylmao 8y ago
  Did it though? I commented this on another sub-thread, but it seems to be relevant here too. Straight from the report: > MRI neuroimaging was obtained in all 21 patients. Most patients had conventional imaging findings, which were within normal limits, at most showing a few small nonspecific T2-bright foci in the white matter (n =9, 43%). This sounds to me like the MRI showed most people were normal. It continues: > There were 3 patients with multiple T2-bright white matter foci, which were more than expected for age, 2 mild in degree, and 1 with moderate changes. Three out of 21 patients doesn't sound like a lot. The researches agree that 3 people showing something somewhat unexpected isn't significant, and it's probably due to other diseases or conditions: > The pattern of conventional imaging findings in these cases was nonspecific with regard to the exposure/insult experienced, and the findings could perhaps be attributed to other preexisting disease processes or risk factors. Advanced structural and functional neuroimaging studies are ongoing. So it's not that "MRIs are subjective" or "are as bogus as lie detectors". Rather, it's the people forming an interpretation of what the results mean (especially those who are not experts, as we can see that the experts agreed only three of the 21 people examined show something, and it's probably unrelated). [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673168

bjourne 8y ago

> It may or may not have been an attack but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms and all showing brain abnormalities? I haven't followed the story in detail, but the claim of "brain abnormalities" appear to come from a small number of doctors who likely were primed with irrelevant information. "Doctor, take a look at these CT scans of diplomats in Cuba who might have been attacked using a sonic weapon." It is not far-fetched to imagine that this priming caused the doctors to see brain abnormalities where none existed. Oh, and someone who was down-voted to dead status already linked to an article from 2017 in which the Cubans said they believed crickets were the culprit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837926 See also this blog post, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2018/04/07/bad-science-havana-attack/#.XDIhHVxKg2x http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2018/04/07/ba..., which in not so kind words calls the original study junk: "The condition suffered by the US diplomats in Cuba has been labelled “mysterious” (Rubin, 2018). The real mystery though is how such a poor neuropsychogical report could have passed the scrutiny of expert reviewers in a first class outlet."

will_brown 8y ago
>the claim of "brain abnormalities" appear to come from a small number of doctors who likely were primed with irrelevant information The study was published by the UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair (I’d recommend reading it) by the treating physicians. It’s funny you would opine the treating physicians have irrelevant information. Yet, like many in this thread you tend to gravitate towards doctors/scientist making diagnoses sight unseen who have no patient information. I’d say the real mystery is how anyone on HN could ignore the study from the UPenn Center for Brain Injury and Repair who examined and evaluated the patients completed with objective tests like MRI and hearing. As if that’s not enough you say >it’s not far fetected this priming caused the doctors to see brain abnormalities where none existed I’d like to know how the doctors bias manifested to the MRI and hearing testing. And I’m wondering why your logic doesn’t get applied to the scientists and the neurologist (who is clearly biased) who hasn’t examined the patients and has diagnosed them as suffering from psychosomatic mass hysteria.
- 8y ago

cpncrunch 8y ago

You mean this very flawed study? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/14/cuban-acoustic-attack-report-on-us-diplomats-flawed-say-neurologists https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/14/cuban-acoustic...

will_brown 8y ago
Ok on one hand there is a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Brain Injury and Repair by doctors who examined and treated the patients (clearly you haven’t read the study). Yet you are dismissing the study based on an article with a few quotes from scientist who haven’t examined the patients yet are diagnosing them with psychosomatic mass hysteria. I notice your article/those scientist have nothing to say about the objective tests such as MRIs/hearing tests. Clearly the UPenn Center for Brain injury and Repair has no idea what the hell they are doing or how to run a study...clearly the right way to debunk a study and diagnosis patients with mass hysteria is to shoot from the hip without exaimination of the patients.
- dwaltrip 8y ago
  An MRI isn't a clear cut test. It is an imaging technique. The images must then be interpreted. There is room for mistakes in this interpretation process. As an example, here is a NYtimes article about MRIs being misused and misinterpreted in sports medicine: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/health/mris-often-overused-often-mislead-doctors-warn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/health/mris-often-overuse... Obviously, I have no idea if that is happening in this case. But we must admit the possibility, especially if other more rigorous medical evidence is not present.
  - mattkrause 8y ago
    It doesn't even need to be a "mistake". My lab does MRIs of humans and animals. There's a crazy amount of variability in the structure and function of an allegedly "normal" subject's brain. For example, a good friend has what looks like an extra little bump near the vertex. He's normal enough though, and will probably finish his PhD this year. The Brain Imaging Center does refer people with weird scans to (clinical) neurologists. They've caught a few things, but the vast majority of those are also "weird, but apparently fine" too.

gameswithgo 8y ago

>what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptom that scenario happens all the time. read up on mass hysteria. >showing brain abnormalities What we know is that some unknown number of the 24 diplomats showed "white matter tract" abnormalities, not all of them. Since they only had brain scans after the incident, we don't know what caused them. Was the number of diplomats that had these abnormalities much greater than one would expect by change? We don't know.

nonbel 8y ago

> "24 staff members with brain abnormalities. At minimum that doesn’t result from absolutely nothing." I wouldn't be too surprised. If the baseline is some average brain, then that brain does not exist. Everyone has "brain abnormalities", instead it is a matter of how "abnormal" each of our brains is compared to the average.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

I don't understand, it's impossible not to hear the crickets. At some point someone jokes/suspects/postulates the presence of accoustic warfare. (tangentially, why do crickets spend so much energy creating that power level of noise? is it to annoy other species away and claim the area as theirs?) Up to there I can follow with how the embassy reacted. But the moment you suspect and attach importance to the possibility of accoustic warfare, why just send them to the doctor? Medicine works on subtle percentages with large sample sizes. They save lives and livelihood mostly statistically, and not individually in the context of new threats (new virus strain, new weapon, newly recognized cancer...) It was impossible not to hear the crickets before, so at that point the most rational question becomes: what power spectrum should we expect from those annoying crickets outside? Why didn't they simply sollicit help from people with actual domain knowledge? normal engineers and sound engineers, physicists, biologists, ...? Why not rent a thermal camera, and survey the local environment, map out the location and density of individual crickets, estimate the total number etc. Then isolate a bunch of crickets and keep them fed, and transport them to a place without crickets (ship them to a ship or whatever), then record a few thousand of their individdual chirps at different distances. Then you can simply calculate/simulate the total sum of both synchronized and unsyncronized chirping behaviours, not sure how to model the synchronization? look at that shelf with the Steven Strogatz book, and if necessary just ask him if he (or one of his grad students) can help out... ffs this whole kindergarten drama can be viewed as an inadvertent leak (poor tradecraft) revealing you organizationally don't even try to get at the bottom of things anymore! All the leet access to backdoors has made the agencies lazy and complacent. It appeared like you no longer needed to select the best and the brightest, ... so you just put your daughter and son in the organization?? pfff

oldgradstudent 8y ago

It was reported[1] that these were not random embassy staff members: > The first four Americans to report being struck by the phenomenon — including the fit-looking man in his 30s — were all CIA officers working under diplomatic cover, as were two others affected later on. Ignoring the terrible operational security in effectively leaking the identities of intelligence officers, this could point out a more mundane explanation - an occupational injury, maybe as a result of operating specific equipment. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/diplomats-in-cuba https://www.propublica.org/article/diplomats-in-cuba

raptordamus 8y ago

I think China definitely did it and now the US is covering it up because they have made an under the table agreement to “stop doing that.” This is an exceptionally clumsy attempt at covering it up.

droussel 8y ago

> but what’s the explaination for 24 embassy staff members randomly experiencing the same symptoms Could simply be the Nocebo effect: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200001133420206 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200001133420206