16 ms·
'Havana syndrome' likely caused by directed microwaves – US report
- fsflover 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25322040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25322040
- ipunchghosts 6y agoI thought this was shown to be from pesticides. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.h...
- GuB-42 6y agoPesticides are mentioned in the paper, but it doesn't consider it a convincing explanation, except, maybe, as a contributing factor. But the most important part is in the summary: > Multiple hypotheses and mechanisms have been proposed to explain these clinical cases, but evidence has been lacking, no hypothesis has been proven, and the circumstances remain unclear. Pulsed, directed microwaves just seem to be "the most plausible mechanism". So, nothing conclusive.
- goodcanadian 6y agoFrom my point of view, pesticides beats directed microwaves by several orders of magnitude in the Occam's razor plausibility test.
- sudoaza 6y agoThey are also hiding the Iraqui weapons of mass destruction.
- rendall 6y agoWhat would the purpose be? I can't imagine a motive or a rational end goal. Would it be in the hopes that sickened diplomats could cause an incident that the hosting country could exploit in some way? I'm not saying that countries always act rationally, I just don't see what could be gained by doing this. Petty sadism?
- newsclues 6y agoCubans want the Americans to leave Cuba.
- rendall 6y agoWell, yes, if you mean Guantanamo. As for the embassy itself, it is there only at the pleasure of the hosting government and of the United States. If Cuba wants the embassy gone, it merely has to tell them to leave. Sickening or crippling the staff does nothing to, say, help the cause of recovering Guantanamo Bay. I know I'm missing something, because I don't think this would happen if there weren't an advantage of some sort somewhere. I just don't see how it's to the advantage of the hosting country. In fact, I would think it works against the interests of the hosting country.
- contingencies 6y agoPossible means of wireless power transmission to a covert device?
- swayvil 6y agoRaise stress level. Reduce efficiency. Decrease morale. That's mere sabotage there. A very good reason to do it. There could be more specific reasons too. The effects of all that on certain procedures and decisions. Part of a larger plan. And such a convenient technology. It begs to be used.
- matthewdgreen 6y agoSeems like this plan would work better if it didn't leave a big trail of breadcrumbs back to its perpetrator.
- hedora 6y agoSpeculation from actual victims suggests it was intimidation from Russian agents who knew there would be no response as long as Trump was in the White House. Some victims were approached by the Russians and told to go back to the US immediately before (within a day or two) of the attacks. Such warnings are apparently extremely unusual, and a violation of professional etiquette between the US and Russian intelligence agencies.
- tt433 6y agoI still think cicadas are more likely than malevolence
- dxdm 6y agoWhy?
- tt433 6y agoI think the federal government and the corporate news media have a lot of credibility issues when it comes to Cuba.
- hedora 6y agoThe attacks also happened in China, Russia, and elsewhere. It started in Cuba, but isn’t limited to a particular geometry. It does seem to be limited to US agents and people in their immediate vicinity.
- tt433 6y agoI have a much higher skepticism of self reported symptoms like this than the average person. I know a lot of hypochondriacs personally, so that may be a factor in my judgement. I think the human brain is excellent at coming up with little stories about how we are victims of bad actors.
- rtx 6y agoIf I have to draw conclusions, I would think some defensive measures going wrong.
- papito 6y agoThe federal government and the "corporate news media" have a lot more to lose by making shit up. They have actual jobs. What are your sources of information? A rando on Facebook under a fake handle?
- 6y ago
- rhodo 6y agoHere's the NAS report https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/20420409-nas-assessment-of-illness-of-us-government-employees-and-their-families-at-overseas-embassies/?embed=1&title=1 https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/20420409-nas-asses...
- zrav 6y agoA more personal account: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...
- Cieplak 6y agoWonder if the nefarious party used magnetrons or masers to carry out the attack. Guessing magnetrons given that this seems very similar to other documented cases [1] before the development of room-temperature solid-state masers. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/
- the_only_law 6y agoReminds me a while back on eBay I saw a magnetron by one of the big military industrial manufacturers with a potential output frequency matching what was used in some recently controversial microwave weapon.
- rtx 6y agoDid it just pop-up or you searching for one.
- the_only_law 6y agoI was probably searching for magnetrons in general at the time. I browse eBay occasionally to poach lab equipment or retro computing stuff related to whatever I’ve been reading about / working on.
- throwaway4good 6y agoExactly what is the evidence of this directed microwave weapon? As far as I can see there is absolutely none. A list of symptoms, based on interviews and self-reporting, no clinical measurement of any kind. And report that speculates on a cause in east and west. Nothing beyond that. The professionals signing off on this really should think carefully whether they are being used for political purposes.
- kube-system 6y agoThe source report that the professionals signed off on does explicitly recognize these weaknesses.
- throwaway4good 6y agoThe media replicating the study will not emphasise these weaknesses; they will instead go with the sensational speculation: A secret microwave weapon. The purpose of the release of this sensational and unsubstantiated report is for the outgoing administration to box in the incoming Biden administration on foreign policy. This will make it harder for Biden to normalise relations with Cuba.
- chokeartist 6y ago> The professionals signing off on this really should think carefully whether they are being used for political purposes. The professionals signing off are doctors, investigating repeated claims from a wide range of sources. Frankly, your baseless speculation under a throwaway account is telling.
- cpncrunch 6y agoAnd yet, as the OP mentioned, there is simply no evidence. Many other professional doctors have pointed this out.
- chillwaves 6y agoWhat does the status of the person's account have to do with their comment? It's remarkable to me what a low standard for evidence people have when it confirms their biases.
- neom 6y agoI'd love to know how we went from it being a neurotoxin to it being a microwave: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-enqu-te-1.5288609 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-en...
- kube-system 6y agoIt didn’t. The source report lists both of those.
- neom 6y agoSorry, the article or the report? I don't see anything in the article.
- kube-system 6y agoThe summary of the report is the first hyperlink in the article. It mentions: > Multiple hypotheses and mechanisms have been proposed to explain these clinical cases, but evidence has been lacking, no hypothesis has been proven, and the circumstances remain unclear.
- neom 6y agoI missed that. Thank you kindly. :)
- boomboomsubban 6y agoWhich is very different than the press stories stating that it was "likely caused by directed microwaves." I guess "Havana syndrome report has no clue what happened" isn't as catchy.
- rcsggey 6y agoAgree total BS cover up again the American public or not stupid just the left democrats!
- boomboomsubban 6y agoReposting from an earlier post. Here's a pair of twitter threads detailing why this seems like unsubstantiated nonsense, one posted after this was announced and one with access to the report. https://mobile.twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1335096557079842817 https://mobile.twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1335096557079... https://mobile.twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1335304431756341248 https://mobile.twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1335304431756... Just a ton of hot air blown for no purpose
- hedora 6y agoThe Russians definitely were working on this fifty years ago, and it produced symptoms consistent with many independent reports from US agents and people that suffered collateral damage. The twitter thread’s main objection seems to be that the US is not publishing plans describing the secret Russian weapon. In other news, the CIA was politically unable to do anything about these attacks for fear of angering Trump. Now that he’s on the way out, it’s not surprising they’re beginning to take action. It is sickening that the US government was unable to protect its own agents for the last four years because of interference from the White House.
- fastball 6y ago> It is sickening that the US government was unable to protect its own agents for the last four years because of interference from the White House. Citation needed.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago>The Russians definitely were working on this fifty years ago, and it produced symptoms consistent with many independent reports from US agents and people that suffered collateral damage The twitter thread mentions this. It involved a bombardment of microwave rays that was detected. How would a similar attack evade detection now? >The twitter thread’s main objection seems to be that the US is not publishing plans describing the secret Russian weapon. Even without publishing the plans, if you think a microwave weapon caused this event you should be able to explain how it would function. >Now that he’s on the way out, it’s not surprising they’re beginning to take action. Taking action is a report that took months to complete with no strong conclusion?
- rlt 6y agoI wonder if embassies now have equipment to monitor for this type of thing. It seems like it should be easy to detect.
- hedora 6y agoThey’re also apparently long range and easy to aim. I imagine agents could carry microwave detectors, though it’s not clear how long the exposure needs to last, and the only recourse seems to be running toward the interior or other side of whatever building you are in (if indoors). That might create a lot of false positives unless calibrated correctly, so everyone would need to carry logging devices or something, and then wait for a few attacks.
- chillwaves 6y agoSo somehow they do not have the ability to tease out malicious radiation from just background noise, and yet we are to believe this is some kind of high intensity targeted attack?
- ajsnigrutin 6y agolong range + easy to aim means very very high frequency, means very shallow skin effect dept, means bruning skin and not all the other symptoms.
- xxpor 6y agoI don't get the physics of how it could possibly be a microwave weapon. Microwaves (mostly) just heat things up. Even the area denial "giant microwave generator" on a truck weapons simply make you feel like you're burning up. How could they possibly find a frequency or modulation that A) Only affects the brain B) Isn't stopped by exterior walls C) Doesn't cause heating effects on the rest of the body (and everything else around you, or at least between you and the source of the radiation) D) Isn't incredibly obvious when it's sitting around. Either this would have to be fairly high power, i.e. physically large, or it would have a high gain antenna (also large). If the power is low, it'd have to be close to the victim, like in the same room. The other problem is how do you hide the antenna? It can't sit in a van because the metal exterior would attenuate it.
- admiralspoo 6y agoIt depends on the frequency. The brain is mostly water, but there are clear differences in the dielectric constant of air, the skull (bone) and the sweet delicious gray matter inside the cavity. By tuning the frequency of the waves, you can set up resonances in the cavity. For a related effect, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrtk-pyP0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCrtk-pyP0I
- xxpor 6y agoHm resonance inside the skull isn't something I'd considered, that's a fair point.
- CamperBob2 6y agoBecause it's not an issue. A bag of saltwater makes a really terrible resonant cavity.
- emmelaich 6y agoYou'd think grapes would make a poor resonant cavity too. But you can create plasma with grapes in a microwave oven.
- nimbius 6y agoOcchams razor: A magic weapon is causing brain damage for every diplomat in a country that, conveniently, happens to be on the presidents short list of evil places he does not like. or After taking office in 2016 the president sought to roll back the cuban thaw and needed a convenient pretext. suspiciously this weapon was never deployed against a single person at Guantanamo bay.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 6y agoYour home router is emitting 0.1 Watt of 2.4 GHz radiation, your microwave uses the same frequency at 1000W. Overheating your brain with 10000W nanosecond GHz pulses could have very strange health effects.
- sudosysgen 6y agoIt would also fry your electronics and be incredibly noticeable and very easy to prove. Also, 10 000W wouldn't be enough because that power isn't into a single resonant cavity, we'd be talking about pulses with instantaneous power an order of magnitude higher at the very least.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoOne could beam form to focus a pulse that substantially dissipates in the human body through water absorption vibration modes. https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/8/1804/htm https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/8/1804/htm
- sudosysgen 6y agoThe pulse was still nowhere near directional enough to only impact a single person over long ranges and not essentially act as a massively detectable EMP.
- amelius 6y ago> incredibly noticeable and very easy to prove. Didn't the incident happen at night?
- sudosysgen 6y agoBy noticeable, I mean as in electronics being destroyed, and any kind of equipment the US would have obviously deployed to attempt to detect it would register an absolutely massive signature.
- pcdoodle 6y agoAnd this folks is why we demand full transparency and power consumption firewalls on any new transmitting infrastructure being deployed in in the USA.
- sakopov 6y agoRecording of “sonic attacks” on U.S. diplomats in Cuba spectrally matches the echoing call of a Caribbean cricket [1] [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/510834v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/510834v1
- jlmorton 6y agoI find it interesting that that Havana Syndrome has been experienced by American and Canadian embassy officials in multiple outposts, but apparently no other NATO allies. One thing Americans and Canadians have in common is that we're both English-language readers who consume much of the same media.
- ardy42 6y ago> One thing Americans and Canadians have in common is that we're both English-language readers who consume much of the same media. If that were the case, then I'd expect British and Australian diplomats would be affected as well.
- goodcanadian 6y agoA much earlier thread with a much more plausible explanation (in my opinion): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21017914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21017914 Having briefly lived in the Caribbean, I can confirm this kind of fumigation for mosquitos is common. The time period matches the Zika virus outbreak when even more fumigation than usual might have been done . . . it certainly was in Grenada where I was living at the time.
- jstarfish 6y ago> Staff and some of their relatives complained of symptoms ranging from dizziness, loss of balance, hearing loss, anxiety and something they described as "cognitive fog". It became known as "Havana syndrome". These symptoms are also present in everything from Lyme disease to minor/asymptomatic COVID. They are also associated with positional vertigo. Unless US intelligence knows something they have not shared, I don't see the "sonic attack" angle. We don't know what happened, we don't know what caused it, but it's an embassy, so it must be the fault of spies? Suppose someone left a fork in their container while reheating their lunch in a microwave with a failing magnetron. It is an embassy-- suppose a bug interfered with a jammer. Suppose any other freak occurrence occurred that would emit this sort of energy. Literally anything that disrupts the inner ear calcium deposits could produce these symptoms. Sound vibration or changes in air pressure could do it too. It happens to people who don't work at the US embassy in Cuba too, but that results in a vertigo diagnosis instead of accusations of theoretical attacks by unknown adversaries for unclear purpose. The Russians studied this sort of thing 50 years ago? Ok. But what is the connection to the current political relationship between the USSR and Cuba? Why apply 50-year-old research--now--in Cuba, specifically? Why not test this on a control group that would not put the attacker in-scope of US intelligence? We will look like idiots if this turns out to be an intern fooling around with a directional microphone they found while cleaning out a supply closet. Sure, something happened in Cuba that produced these symptoms in a group of people. But fuck me, if anything the mass hysteria seems to be coming more from US intelligence than the actual victims.
- bjourne 6y agoHere is a HN thread about the subject from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18837561 > A 2019 US academic study found "brain abnormalities" in the diplomats who had fallen ill, but Cuba dismissed the report. BBC writes that "Cuba dismissed the report" but failed to mention that many others did too: > The latest brain scans may provide fresh evidence of some injury, but the study was not without critics and some researchers have questioned whether there was any kind of attack at all. > “Finding evidence of brain change doesn’t provide evidence of brain injury or damage,” said Dr. Jon Stone, a professor of neurology at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study. > Dr. Sergio Della Sala, a professor of human cognitive neuroscience also at the University of Edinburgh, in an email called the study “half baked.” > He noted that 12 of the affected workers who had a history of concussion prior to going to Cuba were included in the analyzes. “In comparison, none of the controls declared previous brain injury. This in itself could cause statistical group differences,” Della Sala said. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/scans-show-changes-to-brains-of-injured-havana-u-s-embassy-workers https://nationalpost.com/news/world/scans-show-changes-to-br... The microwave thingy is just so far-fetched. If such a weapon exists, wouldn't the US intelligence agencies already have developed it? Sounds implausible that China, Cuba, and presumably also former Soviet states, would have access to this super-sneaky microwave weapon but not the US.
- ypzhang2 6y agoAnecdotally, this has happened in a lot of different places than just Cuba. This article goes into in-depth detail on one particular person's experience: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...
- Animats 6y agoHow could a strong microwave beam not have been detected? It's not hard. Just clip a multimeter across a diode and see if it detects anything. You can buy microwave leakage detectors, but that's all they really are. Embassies are routinely swept for much lower power RF emitters.
- Jenda_ 6y agoI'd expect embassy in a potentially "hostile" country would have basic detectors for common suspects - ionizing radiation, ultrasound, strong EM waves, common toxins etc. Especially once the suspicion is there: detecting microwaves that are strong enough to cause biological effects isn't hard (wideband antenna, detector. The energy density must be immense), even outside of the main beam - it will scatter all around.
- alavesto 6y agoThis HN discussion is pretty worthless. "It's not peer reviewed," "I didn't read the paper and I don't know much about microwaves but I personally don't think microwaves work that way", "But I read something else about pesticides two years ago." Anyone want to read the paper and respond to it instead of racking their brains for weird meta-arguments?