7 ms·

The Havana Embassy Mystery: Conversion Disorder

18 points by amaccuish 8y ago

ipunchghosts 8y ago
So all the brain imaging scans that showed concussions were nothing?
- aaron695 8y ago
  No brain imaging scans showed any issues except "perhaps" for one or two people. The media, if you read it correctly, reported this correctly from day dot. At no point was there evidence coming from brain imaging for the staff that showed any problems, everything was consistent with what we know it is..... mass hysteria.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Those don't exist. The workers displayed concussion like symptoms, but most of the MRIs reported conventional findings in the normal ranges.
lvs 8y ago
This article reads as irresponsible gaslighting, and the magazine should have known better than to publish it in this snarky voice. The referenced reports that raise the possibility of psychosis are maintaining a scientific voice: that one must keep an open mind to alternative explanations for an observation so long as they remain viable and not falsified. The writer was wrong to read psychological illness as the most viable explanation -- and surely wrong to assert to readers that this is the case.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Given the currently known evidence, conversion disorder is the most viable explanation. While new evidence could change that, there's nothing wrong with reporting on what currently seems to be correct. The referenced reports do the same thing, state what they find most likely and say that further evidence could change this. They aren't just printing their guess.
  - lvs 8y ago
    The only team who has published results based on direct examination of patients did not draw that conclusion. You can read the JAMA paper yourself. The rest of the peanut gallery is simply speculating off that single report.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      That report's stated objective does not include diagnosis, just to describe the neurological manifestations of the people involved. Other teams used that report as evidence to make reports, they don't need more direct examination of the patients.
- zxcvzsdfgsery 8y ago
  The sound of someone with something to lose, this comment right here. It's just really obvious, the tone of this comment. You urgently scramble to peg an opinion on this thread. You protest too much.
herostratus101 8y ago
The New Yorker story is still the most thorough and best reported story I have read on this subject: >> Smith rejected this explanation [of mass hysteria]. “To artificially display all of these symptoms, you’d have to actually go and research, practice, be the most consummate actor ever, and convince one expert after another,” he said. But he acknowledged that more data were needed to convince skeptics that the syndrome was real. He said his team was awaiting “potential tangible evidence” from a new neuroimaging study involving the victims. In addition, experts from the National Institutes of Health were examining the JAMA results. “Let the scientific process play out,” Smith said. It is also suspicious to me that the Cuban government has refused to provide surveillance footage from the alleged scenes of the attacks: >> Investigators, arriving months after the incidents, had to contend with the fact that such attacks would leave no physical evidence at the scene: no shell casings, no burn marks, no chemical residue. There might have been video evidence, however. Agents visiting the two hotels saw surveillance cameras in the lobbies and hallways, which might help determine if anyone was outside the rooms during the incidents. The F.B.I. asked for access to footage from the hotels, and from cameras near the Americans’ residences. According to U.S. officials, the Cubans have yet to provide it. It's kind of pathetic and lazy for an article like this to assume that this is some elaborate Trump-fueled plot against Cuba.
- herostratus101 8y ago
  (link here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of-the-havana-syndrome https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of...)
2Ccltvcm 8y ago
It seems microwave frequencies can travel through the dermal layer of the head and into the cochlear of the inner ear, where transduction can then occur. It's similar to how hearing implants work. Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17495664 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17495664 --- https://patents.google.com/patent/US4877027A/ https://patents.google.com/patent/US4877027A/ Abstract: "Sound is induced in the head of a person by radiating the head with microwaves (...) The bursts are frequency modulated by the audio input to create the sensation of hearing in the person whose head is irradiated." --- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6470214B1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US6470214B1 Abstract: "(...) intelligible subjective sound is produced when the encoded signal is demodulated using the RF Hearing Effect (...)" --- Voices or harsh music carried by microwave signals can be transmitted into your head, bypassing your ears going directly into the center of the brain so that they can be much louder than ordinary sound can be and last until they turn it off. There is no time limit. You won't sleep until they let you sleep. If this ultra insistent voice demands you do something, you will do it.
toiletBomber 8y ago
Alternative Theory: running interference to distract attention and mask some other crisis. If it’s nothing, but extremely convincing nothing, maybe there’s a strong motive to produce an incredibly opaque smoke screen. In situations where an unexpected event becomes a threatening incident (an accident that might get you fired if it gets noticed) you sometimes improvise and find creative ways to give people other things to look at. This improvisation is usually just really weird to the unsuspecting observer. Unless, of course, the real situation is discovered. But it all comes down to timing, location, and the audience to be distracted, and by whom. We know the people operating the distraction (diplomats), we know where (Cuba), we know when (on the heels of a presidential election upset). In my case, we had just destroyed a ceramic toilet with a waterproof fire cracker, at a friend’s house. Oh shit! It’s leaking water and unusable. Oh shit! Friend’s parents just got home! Oh shit! Anything to hide this! Keep them away from the upstairs bathroom. WE NEED EPOXY FROM THE BASEMENT TO GLUE THE CERAMIC FRAGMENTS BACK TOGETHER. The solution: “Wow! Hey mom and dad! Check out this AWESOME Britney Spears dance routine we’ve been working on ALL AFTERNOON.” The toilet got epoxied, and no one noticed for years, except to occassionally comment about how the upstairs bathroom was always so incredibly clean and never in need of the Mom’s effort to freshen up.
srge 8y ago
The subject is interesting but man this article is so long! It could have been a tenth of its current size and still give us more than enough information.

18 points by amaccuish 8y ago

ipunchghosts 8y ago

So all the brain imaging scans that showed concussions were nothing?

aaron695 8y ago
No brain imaging scans showed any issues except "perhaps" for one or two people. The media, if you read it correctly, reported this correctly from day dot. At no point was there evidence coming from brain imaging for the staff that showed any problems, everything was consistent with what we know it is..... mass hysteria.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
Those don't exist. The workers displayed concussion like symptoms, but most of the MRIs reported conventional findings in the normal ranges.

lvs 8y ago

This article reads as irresponsible gaslighting, and the magazine should have known better than to publish it in this snarky voice. The referenced reports that raise the possibility of psychosis are maintaining a scientific voice: that one must keep an open mind to alternative explanations for an observation so long as they remain viable and not falsified. The writer was wrong to read psychological illness as the most viable explanation -- and surely wrong to assert to readers that this is the case.

boomboomsubban 8y ago
Given the currently known evidence, conversion disorder is the most viable explanation. While new evidence could change that, there's nothing wrong with reporting on what currently seems to be correct. The referenced reports do the same thing, state what they find most likely and say that further evidence could change this. They aren't just printing their guess.
- lvs 8y ago
  The only team who has published results based on direct examination of patients did not draw that conclusion. You can read the JAMA paper yourself. The rest of the peanut gallery is simply speculating off that single report.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    That report's stated objective does not include diagnosis, just to describe the neurological manifestations of the people involved. Other teams used that report as evidence to make reports, they don't need more direct examination of the patients.
zxcvzsdfgsery 8y ago
The sound of someone with something to lose, this comment right here. It's just really obvious, the tone of this comment. You urgently scramble to peg an opinion on this thread. You protest too much.

herostratus101 8y ago

The New Yorker story is still the most thorough and best reported story I have read on this subject: >> Smith rejected this explanation [of mass hysteria]. “To artificially display all of these symptoms, you’d have to actually go and research, practice, be the most consummate actor ever, and convince one expert after another,” he said. But he acknowledged that more data were needed to convince skeptics that the syndrome was real. He said his team was awaiting “potential tangible evidence” from a new neuroimaging study involving the victims. In addition, experts from the National Institutes of Health were examining the JAMA results. “Let the scientific process play out,” Smith said. It is also suspicious to me that the Cuban government has refused to provide surveillance footage from the alleged scenes of the attacks: >> Investigators, arriving months after the incidents, had to contend with the fact that such attacks would leave no physical evidence at the scene: no shell casings, no burn marks, no chemical residue. There might have been video evidence, however. Agents visiting the two hotels saw surveillance cameras in the lobbies and hallways, which might help determine if anyone was outside the rooms during the incidents. The F.B.I. asked for access to footage from the hotels, and from cameras near the Americans’ residences. According to U.S. officials, the Cubans have yet to provide it. It's kind of pathetic and lazy for an article like this to assume that this is some elaborate Trump-fueled plot against Cuba.

herostratus101 8y ago
(link here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of-the-havana-syndrome https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of...)

2Ccltvcm 8y ago

It seems microwave frequencies can travel through the dermal layer of the head and into the cochlear of the inner ear, where transduction can then occur. It's similar to how hearing implants work. Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17495664 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17495664 --- https://patents.google.com/patent/US4877027A/ https://patents.google.com/patent/US4877027A/ Abstract: "Sound is induced in the head of a person by radiating the head with microwaves (...) The bursts are frequency modulated by the audio input to create the sensation of hearing in the person whose head is irradiated." --- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6470214B1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US6470214B1 Abstract: "(...) intelligible subjective sound is produced when the encoded signal is demodulated using the RF Hearing Effect (...)" --- Voices or harsh music carried by microwave signals can be transmitted into your head, bypassing your ears going directly into the center of the brain so that they can be much louder than ordinary sound can be and last until they turn it off. There is no time limit. You won't sleep until they let you sleep. If this ultra insistent voice demands you do something, you will do it.

toiletBomber 8y ago

Alternative Theory: running interference to distract attention and mask some other crisis. If it’s nothing, but extremely convincing nothing, maybe there’s a strong motive to produce an incredibly opaque smoke screen. In situations where an unexpected event becomes a threatening incident (an accident that might get you fired if it gets noticed) you sometimes improvise and find creative ways to give people other things to look at. This improvisation is usually just really weird to the unsuspecting observer. Unless, of course, the real situation is discovered. But it all comes down to timing, location, and the audience to be distracted, and by whom. We know the people operating the distraction (diplomats), we know where (Cuba), we know when (on the heels of a presidential election upset). In my case, we had just destroyed a ceramic toilet with a waterproof fire cracker, at a friend’s house. Oh shit! It’s leaking water and unusable. Oh shit! Friend’s parents just got home! Oh shit! Anything to hide this! Keep them away from the upstairs bathroom. WE NEED EPOXY FROM THE BASEMENT TO GLUE THE CERAMIC FRAGMENTS BACK TOGETHER. The solution: “Wow! Hey mom and dad! Check out this AWESOME Britney Spears dance routine we’ve been working on ALL AFTERNOON.” The toilet got epoxied, and no one noticed for years, except to occassionally comment about how the upstairs bathroom was always so incredibly clean and never in need of the Mom’s effort to freshen up.

srge 8y ago

The subject is interesting but man this article is so long! It could have been a tenth of its current size and still give us more than enough information.