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I was a little skeptical at first, too, and I saw the same report, but at this point I'd bet serious money that the majority of cases are real and not psychosom

I was a little skeptical at first, too, and I saw the same report, but at this point I'd bet serious money that the majority of cases are real and not psychosomatic. The psychological explanations have increasingly had less support over the past few years. It's definitely quite bizarre that there are now at least 3 reports of it happening in the DC area. In one case, someone's dog was also reported as simultaneously being affected. There were also unrelated reports of another dog being affected (vomiting blood, among other things) in a hotel overseas. In both cases, humans and adults were simultaneously affected, and the symptoms both were experiencing wouldn't make sense if it were just a dog reacting to their owner's anxiety. I have no idea if it's microwaves, and I'm not quite sure if the DC attacks are real, but I think there likely are some sort of deliberate attacks occurring against US diplomats and spies. Maybe a collection method that's inadvertently causing harm, at least. Here's an interesting article on it: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro.... I wouldn't be surprised if some of the cases are psychogenic (someone hears about it and then thinks they have it, etc.), but I suspect the majority are real.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
>It's definitely quite bizarre that there are now at least 3 reports of it happening in the DC area No it's not. DC is one of the most paranoid areas around, a significant portion of the population constantly thinks someone is out to get them. Three of those people now have symptoms without a clear medical cause. >wouldn't make sense if it were just a dog reacting to their owner's anxiety But it would make sense that the sick, stressed owner accidentally fed the dog something bad, or accidentally kicked the dog without realizing it, or forgot to feed the dog forcing it to eat something bad. As for Polymeropoulos, he felt sick, completely got over it, then started worrying that the illness may have been the Havana syndrome. Only then did the more serious ailments occur.
- meowface 5y ago
  I definitely acknowledge the DC cases are the ones that are most likely to be psychogenic. I just found it interesting that different dogs were allegedly affected both there and overseas. And as for Polymeropoulos in particular, I'm not sure.
- raman325 5y ago
  Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that “a significant portion of the DC population constantly thinks someone is out to get them”? Admittedly anecdotal but I live in DC and I wouldn’t characterize myself or anyone I know in the area that way
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    > Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that “a significant portion of the DC population constantly thinks someone is out to get them”? Not OP, but I'd point to people working in Fort Meade and Langley who are paranoid by trade.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Being the center of political and military power means a lot of people have to constantly worry that their political and geopolitical enemies are trying to get one over on them. I'm not saying they're like Dale Gribble, but a certain part of them is professionally paranoid.
    - raman325 5y ago
      Sure. While there is a higher concentration of those type of people in DC than elsewhere, that is not the same thing as the DC population.
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        We disagree on what constitutes a "significant portion of the population" means then. Even at 1% of the population fitting that description would be ~50,000 people, meaning 3 of them with weird symptoms would not be surprising.
coliveira 5y ago
Your account only make the whole thing to be made out of thin air. There are numerous conditions that will make some people or animals to feel bad/vomit. The fact that there are only 3 in the DC area means nothing, go to any large city and you'll find multiple people with similar symptoms from different causes.
- meowface 5y ago
  Please read the GQ article I linked above if you haven't (https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...). I understand if you're still skeptical after reading it, but it'd be helpful if we could be working off of the same information so that we won't need to use any contrived example scenarios. But I definitely acknowledge the DC cases are the ones that are most likely to be psychogenic. I just found it interesting that different dogs were allegedly affected both there and overseas.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    >I just found it interesting that different dogs were allegedly affected both there and overseas. Affected in completely different ways, with no symptoms in common. That's terrible evidence, yet it seems to be the primary reason you went from skeptical to convinced.
    - meowface 5y ago
      It isn't, at all. It's just one of many little details. I wrote more in some other comments in this thread. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27190430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27190430 And, again, I'm more skeptical of the DC cases than the overseas one, and I think it's likely that a decent percentage of the cases are psychogenic. Here are the dog references, for anyone else curious: (Alleged Virginia attack) >Then, shortly after Thanksgiving 2019, according to three sources familiar with the incident, a White House staffer was hit while walking her dog in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. According to a government source familiar with the incident, the staffer passed a parked van. A man got out and walked past her. Her dog started seizing up. Then she felt it too: a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face. (Alleged China attack) >Meanwhile, the roster of victims was growing ever longer. In June 2018, the U.S. State Department evacuated nearly a dozen people from Guangzhou, China, where American diplomats and trade representatives reported feeling symptoms eerily similar to those their colleagues had experienced in Cuba. One victim, Catherine Werner, said that her symptoms began in late 2017, just as Polymeropoulos’s had: a splitting headache, nausea, loss of balance. When her mother went to Guangzhou to help her, she, too, fell ill. Even Werner’s dogs were affected, her mother told NBC News. They began vomiting blood and avoiding the room where Werner and her mother heard the sounds and felt the symptoms start. These two scenarios definitely did not adjust my confidence about any of this. The reported symptoms are indeed different. I just think it's interesting. It absolutely could be a red herring.

boomboomsubban 5y ago

>It's definitely quite bizarre that there are now at least 3 reports of it happening in the DC area No it's not. DC is one of the most paranoid areas around, a significant portion of the population constantly thinks someone is out to get them. Three of those people now have symptoms without a clear medical cause. >wouldn't make sense if it were just a dog reacting to their owner's anxiety But it would make sense that the sick, stressed owner accidentally fed the dog something bad, or accidentally kicked the dog without realizing it, or forgot to feed the dog forcing it to eat something bad. As for Polymeropoulos, he felt sick, completely got over it, then started worrying that the illness may have been the Havana syndrome. Only then did the more serious ailments occur.

meowface 5y ago
I definitely acknowledge the DC cases are the ones that are most likely to be psychogenic. I just found it interesting that different dogs were allegedly affected both there and overseas. And as for Polymeropoulos in particular, I'm not sure.
raman325 5y ago
Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that “a significant portion of the DC population constantly thinks someone is out to get them”? Admittedly anecdotal but I live in DC and I wouldn’t characterize myself or anyone I know in the area that way
- meepmorp 5y ago
  > Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that “a significant portion of the DC population constantly thinks someone is out to get them”? Not OP, but I'd point to people working in Fort Meade and Langley who are paranoid by trade.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Being the center of political and military power means a lot of people have to constantly worry that their political and geopolitical enemies are trying to get one over on them. I'm not saying they're like Dale Gribble, but a certain part of them is professionally paranoid.
  - raman325 5y ago
    Sure. While there is a higher concentration of those type of people in DC than elsewhere, that is not the same thing as the DC population.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      We disagree on what constitutes a "significant portion of the population" means then. Even at 1% of the population fitting that description would be ~50,000 people, meaning 3 of them with weird symptoms would not be surprising.

coliveira 5y ago

Your account only make the whole thing to be made out of thin air. There are numerous conditions that will make some people or animals to feel bad/vomit. The fact that there are only 3 in the DC area means nothing, go to any large city and you'll find multiple people with similar symptoms from different causes.

meowface 5y ago
Please read the GQ article I linked above if you haven't (https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...). I understand if you're still skeptical after reading it, but it'd be helpful if we could be working off of the same information so that we won't need to use any contrived example scenarios. But I definitely acknowledge the DC cases are the ones that are most likely to be psychogenic. I just found it interesting that different dogs were allegedly affected both there and overseas.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  >I just found it interesting that different dogs were allegedly affected both there and overseas. Affected in completely different ways, with no symptoms in common. That's terrible evidence, yet it seems to be the primary reason you went from skeptical to convinced.
  - meowface 5y ago
    It isn't, at all. It's just one of many little details. I wrote more in some other comments in this thread. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27190430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27190430 And, again, I'm more skeptical of the DC cases than the overseas one, and I think it's likely that a decent percentage of the cases are psychogenic. Here are the dog references, for anyone else curious: (Alleged Virginia attack) >Then, shortly after Thanksgiving 2019, according to three sources familiar with the incident, a White House staffer was hit while walking her dog in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. According to a government source familiar with the incident, the staffer passed a parked van. A man got out and walked past her. Her dog started seizing up. Then she felt it too: a high-pitched ringing in her ears, an intense headache, and a tingling on the side of her face. (Alleged China attack) >Meanwhile, the roster of victims was growing ever longer. In June 2018, the U.S. State Department evacuated nearly a dozen people from Guangzhou, China, where American diplomats and trade representatives reported feeling symptoms eerily similar to those their colleagues had experienced in Cuba. One victim, Catherine Werner, said that her symptoms began in late 2017, just as Polymeropoulos’s had: a splitting headache, nausea, loss of balance. When her mother went to Guangzhou to help her, she, too, fell ill. Even Werner’s dogs were affected, her mother told NBC News. They began vomiting blood and avoiding the room where Werner and her mother heard the sounds and felt the symptoms start. These two scenarios definitely did not adjust my confidence about any of this. The reported symptoms are indeed different. I just think it's interesting. It absolutely could be a red herring.