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A CIA Officer Visits Moscow, Returns with Mysterious, Crippling Headaches
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- MikeTheGreat 6y agoThe title should say Office_r_, not an entire office :) Also - to the other person who posted this fix: jinx! :)
- keeganpoppen 6y agois it wrong that i hear about these attacks and i am utterly disgusted? i get that american CIA operatives aren't exactly the cleanest of the clean, but he was on a diplomatic mission and basically had the rest of his life ruined. is that just how life goes? same goes for the Havana cases, which are so obviously connected that it hardly even needs further evidence to substantiate at this point (and seem even more dubious than this one from a moral standpoint?). i guess what i'm saying is that if i knew Putin were doing this to my people i would be apoplectic-- what am i missing? are we up to dirty stuff like this too? i mean, i guess something like Guantanamo counts as "dirty", but seems somehow in a different circle of hell from this... (maybe this is just my own ignorance talking).
- PrinceKropotkin 6y ago> are we up to dirty stuff like this too? Yes.
- Ericson2314 6y agoWell the US's M.O. would normally be regime change leading or regime propping leading to tons of abuse of civilians. Clearly in utilitarian terms that is way worse. But I don't know of an example of messing with the personal well-being of diplomats/spies/goons/whoever who are in their country's compound rather than deployed in the field? Perhaps a taboo is being violated here? No one got hurt by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device).
- eptcyka 6y agoInter national politics is a cruel mistress. I think this is just a way to deter peaceful missions from the US without being actively aggressive.
- free_rms 6y agoYes, we and they are up to lots of dirty stuff way worse than this. This is resonant because it's educated-class people. Not latin-american nuns being killed by death squads, harder to relate to that.
- keeganpoppen 6y agothats a really fair point (and part of what i tried to hint at with the chalking it up to my ignorance bit at the end)
- Bahamut 6y agoThe Cuba cases were likely crickets: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/sound-haunted-diplomats-cuba-crickets/579637/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/sound-ha...
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- dilyevsky 6y agohttps://www.bellingcat.com/uncategorized/2020/08/28/cholinesterase-inhibitors-alexei-navalny/ https://www.bellingcat.com/uncategorized/2020/08/28/cholines...
- acqq 6y agoI suggest everybody to search the older news stories which quote the said “officer”. He seems to be very active in giving his opinions on many issues and, it appears to me, seeking media attention under any possible premise. Often, the background story to a mystery is: there’s a motivation for presenting it as such.
- stevehawk 6y agomaybe, but this isn't the first report of this. russia has been pulling this crap in several countries for several years now. Our Cuban embassy is making the news every six months for this same problem.
- monoideism 6y agoIt's widely acknowledged and understood that Russia is deploying some kind of acoustic weapon: the damage among multiple Cuban embassy staff has been quantified and described in medical journals. All these recent attacks on the CIA and other government officials by Russians in Russia and elsewhere in Europe have just confirmed that they were behind the Cuba attacks, and some originally suspected. Edit: Looking into the research, there are dissenting voices who believe that explanations other than a weapon are possible. But the authors of the two studies I saw published leaned toward some type of offensive weapon. After WMD debacle, I should be more careful with my conclusions.
- acqq 6y ago> It's widely acknowledged By whom? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba-crickets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba... “a recording of one “sonic attack” actually is the singing of a very loud cricket, a new analysis concludes.”
- klipt 6y agoThe brain damage is real though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome > Subsequent studies of the affected diplomats in Cuba, published in the journal JAMA in 2018, found evidence that the diplomats experienced some form of brain injury, but did not determine the cause of the injuries. The crickets may have just happened to be singing at the time. Or some person had the brilliant idea of making a brain damaging weapon also produce cricket noises to send investigators down the wrong track.
- sudosysgen 6y agoThe proposed mechanism of microwave or sonic waves is completely implausible, to the point of absurdity. The only way either could incur brain damage would be through either heat or mechanical stress, both of which would be readily apparent. If this is a genuine issue then the mechanism is almost assuredly completely different, and personally I don't think it is some scary communist death ray that they would, for some reason, use on US and Canadian diplomats. Unless the diplomats are all actually covert staff, in which case there would be a motive, but then some kind of chemical is much likelier. This is IMO so implausible as to put the entire story into question. There is no way this is a microwave or sonic weapon. A microwave or sonic weapon could not cause occipital nerve damage so specific and without leaving any obvious traces of mechanical trauma and/or heat damage. It would also very probably be quite notioeable.
- techsin101 6y agoundiscovered physics?
- sudosysgen 6y agoUndiscovered physics that somehow only Leninist states have their hands on? Which, in this case, would have to be discovered before the Sino-Soviet split of 1956, but not by anyone else?
- Johnythree 6y agoUndiscovered bullshit. A wideband electromagnetic (or acoustical) detector is trivial to construct, especially if the levels are high enough to cause physical damage.
- dontcarethrow2 6y agoIsn't it obvious? adjusts tinfoil cap The ruskies have figured out a way to attack anyone who has breathed in our freedom air. They pumped their censored/locked air with specific anti-freedom(terror loving) characters which causes immediate discomfort to our free minds. Freedom.
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- mandragon 6y agoFormer NSA employee Bill Binney talked about these weapons. He said there are acoustic versions and electromagnetic versions of such weapons/devices. Apparently, the sonic versions work both inside and ouside the range of human hearing. Similarly, the electromagnetic version of the device apparently also works on a wide variety of frequencies. As for defense, it seems that detecting full spectrum weapons requires highly specialized and expensive equipment. It may not be practical to deploy such equipment in the field. As for treating the inflicted officers, it seems strange that our premier front line agency would not err on the side of caution and allow these patriots to receive treatment from Walter Reed. Could there be more to the story than DCI Haspel remaining skeptical as justification to decline such treatment?
- Johnythree 6y ago> it seems that detecting full spectrum weapons requires highly specialized and expensive equipment. This is nonsense. If the power level is high enough to do damage, detecting it would be trivially easy. Just a wire dipole, a diode, and a simple meter will do the job. At most it would require a set of dipoles to cover each band of interest. Most radio hobbyists could make a set of dipoles from an a old coat-hanger in a few minutes.
- ChuckMcM 6y agoSee Steve Perlman's efforts at making a cellular radio system that can focus a 'bubble' of cellular energy around the user.[1] Call 'pCell' or 'pRadio' in various press releases it basically is a MIMO setup that uses many cell towers to transmit a pre-distorted signal that converges into a power signal at a particular point in space. At the time it was announced I suggested it sounds like something that could be weaponized if you wanted to. Being able a turn a microwave on around a person without anyone nearby noticing anything is a pretty capable thing. [1] https://patents.justia.com/patent/20080130790 https://patents.justia.com/patent/20080130790
- XorNot 6y agoSure but then you have a targeting problem, which in the radio range is not trivial particularly when you've got intervening objects and no receiver providing feedback about signal strength.
- vesche 6y agoI'm reminded of Daniel J. Bernstein's post "My trip to Russia / Maybe jail isn't such a bad option" from 2000: https://cr.yp.to/conferences/russia.html https://cr.yp.to/conferences/russia.html He woke up in the middle of the night not able to breathe with some sort of toxic gas permeating his hotel room.
- darepublic 6y agoReminds me of Dracula, and the stagecoach trip through the Carpathians
- jamestimmins 6y agoVery entertaining read, but the gas is wild. Did he ever get any more information on what occurred? Is this just a thing that happens in Russia? Was it a broken pipe?
- chrisco255 6y agoIs there any research available into these alleged microwave weapons?
- milquetoastaf 6y agoYes. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/search/site/PSYCHOTRONIC%20WEAPONS https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/search/site/PSYCHOTR... http://mindjustice.org/rustrans.htm http://mindjustice.org/rustrans.htm http://mindjustice.org/#4 http://mindjustice.org/#4
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- cwwc 6y ago> Walter Reed is cutting-edge when it comes to treating traumatic brain injuries, a testament to its vast experience in dealing with wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. "I've asked [the CIA] repeatedly over the last year to send me to Walter Reed, and they have actively rejected this, which to me is is kind of mystifying," he said. curious
- nyolfen 6y agoan undetectable self-reported major disability is quite a potential liability, to say nothing of whether it is real
- cwwc 6y agoque the toxic tort "operational exposure" claims. and there goes the CIA's budget.
- XMPPwocky 6y agoWhat would you estimate the ratio of, say, the highest award ever granted in the US for damages due to personal injury to the CIA's annual budget is? Scientific notation is OK.
- AndrewBissell 6y agoIt depends, are we including in this budget the off-the-books cash the CIA gets from trafficking drugs to fund its black operations?
- vulcan01 6y agoI'm interested to know the motivation behind the CIA's refusal to send him to Walter Reed. My theory is that they fear that this might turn into a diplomatic incident. Also, questions might be asked as to whether the CIA/intelligence community even know or are able to detect whatever it is that the Russian government did here.
- mberning 6y agoRegardless of the origin this is a terrible outcome to live with. If it is being used as an offensive weapon it is truly diabolical. In many ways it is much worse than simply killing somebody. Not only have they degraded the performance of an operative they are also causing us to consume resources on medical treatment. There is also the mental and psychological terror of knowing you may be next.
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoIf neural interfacing technology (such as neuralink) becomes mainstream and widespread, let's hope they are properly grounded and tuned else you will be walking with a timebomb in your head.
- ehnto 6y agoIt's the US medical complex that makes medical expenses even a remote concern. For other first world nations, the medical costs would be a drop in the bucket. That said, even for America the costs would fade away into the intense military spending budget if they were willing to spend it.
- throwaway888abc 6y agoInteresting. Possible wide spread. Spoke in person with HR office couples years back and finished with crippling headache for days. Then car dealership. Then bank office. Then airlines office. Stay safe
- clusterfish 6y agoWhy do people immediately assume death rays? Poisoning agents designed to avoid detection are pretty much Russia's specialty. They might have something that the CIA is unable to detect, or is unwilling to advertise its ability to detect.
- chrisco255 6y agoWhy would they go through the trouble of poisoning someone just to give them migraines?
- verroq 6y agoBecause it disables a person that CIA has spent years and countless $$$ training. Since symptoms are psychological, there no way to even prove that you did anything.
- chrisco255 6y agoOne person. That's an awful lot of coordination and risk and planning to pull it off for one guy. No offense, but he can't be that important. There's tens of thousands of agents in the CIA. He still has his memory, so it's not as if there's some secrets being protected there.
- verroq 6y agoLooks like it scales fine to an embassy in Cuba.
- Inconel 6y agoAs someone who suffers from infrequent migraines, I can attest to the fact that they are completely debilitating to me. That seems reason enough. I haven’t had the time to read this particular story but a recent one I did read claimed that this led to the retirement of a CIA officer.
- dvsfish 6y ago
- Threeve303 6y agoSend the “not loyal” officers to places where your friends in the foreign countries can neutralize them and make them ineffective to the point of quitting. Nah, that would be too convenient. Also Pompeo said the suggestion is “patently false”. So there you have it folks.
- jorblumesea 6y agoWhy would you "neutralize" an entire embassy of employees, many of which are state department and not even CIA? Cuba, for example. A far more prosaic explanation is that Russia plays dirty. Is it that unrealistic to think a nation that sends "little green men" to carve off parts of sovereign nations, is above disruptive methods?
- XorNot 6y agoWhy did Richard Armitage and Scooter Libby conspire to burn Valerie Plame? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame) The history of intelligence officers being screwed over in the interests of internal politics anywhere in the world is a long and storied one.
- Threeve303 6y agoAll Valid points. We can only really speculate since any information that could answer it definitively is not available. For example, how many officers or operatives have come back from these countries with no symptoms. Is it simply people whose job it is to keep an eye on Russia? Or maybe it’s more weighted towards people with certain known political views. It could be as simple as Russia watching Pompeo tear down the state department and then saying, let’s do that to the CIA too.
- chrisco255 6y agoThe president can just fire people. There's hundreds of agents and state officials in Russia. You're falling for the journalist's framing of the story while only having an extremely tiny window into the big picture and all sides of the story...and you're extrapolating from there.
- whoisthisguy 6y agoProbably it is the Havanna syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome
- dicomdan 6y agoThat's what the article says.
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- 99_00 6y agoPeople seem to be taking it for granted that these medical conditions are the result of a weapon, despite no evidence of a weapon being used.
- xvector 6y agoConnect the dots. You don’t need evidence to realize that Cuba/China/Russia are fucking with US agents. Whatever they use to do this is a ‘weapon.’
- 99_00 6y ago>The State Department commissioned a study last year by the National Academies of Sciences, which handed in the report in early August. >Dr. Relman expects the report to be made public, as is the tradition of work done by the academies. When the report is made public it will show no evidence of any malicious action. The idea that there is some microwave or sonic weapon being used against agents is a sensationalistic conspiracy theory.
- xvector 6y ago> will show no evidence of any malicious action. Does not mean that there isn’t any malicious action. Clearly someone is hurting US agents in a very similar manner. The whole reason this is an issue to begin with is because we can’t figure out how they are hurting our agents.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoThere's a real possibility that many of the problems are a result of the placebo effect. If you started hearing that your workplace had potentially been attacked by some secret weapon, it would not be surprising if the stress caused many of the listed symptoms. It's also possible some US training or accident is involved. Just because a trip to Russia or Cuba was when the problems became unbearable doesn't mean those trips were at fault. Years in combat zones can eventually cause problems.
- rishabhd 6y agoIsn't this an old one? I remember reading a report by guardian some time back. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/mystery-of-sonic-weapon-attacks-at-us-embassy-in-cuba-deepens https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/mystery-of-son...
- Cauchon 6y agoThere are a few other good recent articles about this in the last week or two: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/politics/diplomat-attacks-havana-syndrome.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/politics/diplomat-atta... https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...
- _trampeltier 6y agoThe GQ article was even here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833757
- s5300 6y agoWhile I very much believe in Russian political maleficence (and am aware of Cuba incidents) This could honestly just be something like a very small CSF leak caused by the plane trip. It's a legit thing that can happen, especially in older folks (for it being brought on by a plane trip, that is) It's a condition that is very often missed by even the best of medical professionals. While there's an absolutely miniscule chance this is the case, I just sent him a message with a large amount of info in how to look into this with the centers pioneering treatment (Stanford, Cedars-Sinai, Duke) as it's a very fucking shitty condition to deal with. But yeah, not to put on a tinfoil hat... I believe we're most definitely past the point of technological ability to do something like this. However, using it in a case like this does seem a bit odd to me. I can also believe there would be reasons the CIA has long standing beef with Walter Reed. Politics are unfathomably nasty.
- RomanPushkin 6y agoFolks should know that Russia is currently occupied by a criminal gang. Criminals do stuff, so adjust expectations: you can be poisoned if you're working for American (or allies) government. Citizens are trying to eliminate the gang (Khabarovsk, Minsk protests), but it's nowhere near the end.
- annadane 6y agoLots of downvoted comments in this thread
- salawat 6y agoWasn't there a bit of research on viruses that could introduce genetic material capable of producing light sensitve ion channels in neurons? Mayhaps that combined with near or far infrared? Might explain the uncontrollable migraines due to the relative prevalence of thermal sources, and over stimulation of neurons is definitely an invitation to metabolic stress. The body's reaction may very well be vasodilation to remove excessive waste product. We're firmly in wild-ass guess territory though.
- sterlind 6y agoYou'd have to crack open the skull for photopsins to work. Infrared would scatter wildly unless it were modulated like a hologram. Getting a virus to cross the blood-brain barrier and widely and precisely transfect neurons without killing the victim from encephalitis is extremely challenging. I started writing a sci-fi story about taking this approach to telepathy a while back. Giving your victims chronic health conditions rather than outright killing them is quite an effective tactic though. Organizations are terrible at accommodating chronic illnesses, and they're seen as not serious if you're not visibly disabled.
- salawat 6y agoOptogenetic stimulation I think was the term, if I recall AAV was mentioned as a vector for introducing the requisite genetic changes, and if I recall, results were claimed outside of any sovereign defense context of 7mm depth. I really wish I could remember where I was reading about it, because it was novel enough to leave an impression, but also at the time I was going through it I had other things I was thinking through.
- aaron695 6y agoThis is mass hysteria. But it's also a big deal. If you've been a ex-pat you will have seen it before, if you look. Mass hysteria is about the health of populations. Often about stresses that are not necessarily obvious but also obvious. Travel and living in a foreign country is stressful. (Havana syndrome) Working in a factory on a low wage is stressful (mass fainting) Sex Stuff (Penises stealing) But while you ignore the real reason and blame something else, that's not good. It's why we still hurt witches for instance. Which you will see articles on HN that are witchcraft and people still believe them and worse people don't call them out as untrue.
- l0b0 6y agoThat's "officer", not "office".
- cosmiccatnap 6y agoImagine being a government agency experimenting with unethical weapons and practices carried out on foreigners. Now imagine an amarican thinking that's unheard of...
- antisthenes 6y agoCould it be terrible air quality?
- galaxyLogic 6y agoMaybe CIA knows what it is but does not want to tell Putin that they know. Isn't that the modus operandi of most intelligence operations, you try to learn their secrets and protect your own and one of your secrets may be you have discovered theirs?
- edogg 6y agoA Canadian study linked the illness symptoms of Canadian and American diplomats in Havana to heavy use of the pesticide used against mosquitoes for Zika virus. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-enqu%C3%AAte-1.5288609 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-en...
- mclightning 6y agoThis would make the funniest "superpower", what's your ability? I give people migraines.... None is asking, why would they do this? what do you get out of it?
- doublerabbit 6y agoIt allows you to send a nice message of "piss off".
- 18af219e 6y agoI just assume most if not all CIA members have headaches?
- mrlonglong 6y agoJust how does an "office" goes visiting?
- simonblack 6y agoThis has happened in Cuba, China, Russia but also in Australia. The common denominator is these people are working for the US Government. My guess: Workplace Systems-Related Injuries. In other words, an occupational hazard.
- amai 6y agoCrickets in Moscow? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba-crickets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba...