41 ms·

CIA director says he is escalating efforts to solve 'Havana Syndrome'

104 points by crackercrews 5y ago

rasz 5y ago
This turned out just like mysterious Gatwick drone, mass hysteria in higher places followed by a lot of ass covering. https://hackaday.com/2021/07/20/the-gatwick-drone-little-by-little-the-story-continues-to-unravel/ https://hackaday.com/2021/07/20/the-gatwick-drone-little-by-...
- caddemon 5y ago
  My understanding was that objective physiological differences were found in the original group reporting "Havana Syndrome", and clearly the government is still claiming it is real. Your link doesn't mention Havana at all - why do you think this case was mass hysteria? I'm aware that hysteria can cause physiological symptoms to some extent, but this doesn't read to me like something that was purely psychosomatic.
  - cpncrunch 5y ago
    FND is very real and is as prevalent as MS [1]. Why are CIA operatives somehow different from the rest of the human race? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6306282/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6306282/
    - caddemon 5y ago
      We understand so little about the brain I'm not sure how meaningful a label like FNSD is. I bet there are a bunch of issues that could be classified as FNSD today but will be one day understood as different well-defined disorders. And there are a lot of diseases with complicated interplay between inherent biology and the environment.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
    So they did MRIs, but I read some pretty intelligent commentary from someone that worked with MRIs in a lab setting. Essentially what they said is there's enough variation in brains and MRI data that if you go looking for differences in an open ended way, you'll find them. That's apparently why the criteria for diagnosing based on MRI are very narrow and specific. Additionally, everyone keeps insinuating this is Russia, but I have yet to see a single person articulate an answer to "what does this actually accomplish?" that wasn't empty blather. Moreover, to carry out some similar attack in a variety of nations around the world would take an enormous investment in resources, and would carry a grave risk of exposure. Again, to accomplish what exactly? The proposed mechanisms don't hold water either. Ultrasound doesn't go through masonry walls. Microwaves struggle to as well, but also embassy's are bristling with spectrum monitoring equipment. If someone was blasting buildings with RF they'd know it. My personal view is something did happen in Havana, and organophosphate exposure seems the most likely to me. They fumigate way over health limits in the rich part of the city, and I could see embassy staff not acclimatized to it having a reaction. Once the idea of a mystery weapon attacking embassy staff idea was planted in the minds of our diplomatic core, at that point I think it turned into hysteria. Suggestion is powerful and the human mind is definitively irrational. I'll be glad to change my mind if anyone comes up with evidence that motivates it. Absent that I'm not going to assume an elaborate clandestine attack vs more banal explanations.
    - caddemon 5y ago
      Interesting, I could definitely see it being some sort of weird environmental effect, I'm not convinced it's an attack.
    - Goety 5y ago
      >If someone was blasting buildings with RF they'd know it. I believe in Havana they told us that it was their own equipment as that would make the most sense. But you're right there are a lot of unknowns and wild reporting on it.
    - wahern 5y ago
      Don't forget that the high-pitched sound some of them claimed to hear and directly attributed to their immediate discomfort and subsequent symptoms seems to have been crickets. See https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/01/10/recorded-sounds-that-plagued-u-s-diplomats-in-cuba-just-crickets-hard-at-work/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/01/10/recorded-sounds-that-pl... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbnZG85IRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbnZG85IRo
  - colordrops 5y ago
    Many people seem to have this irrational bias that "nothing ever happens". If they hear of an event or phenomenon that doesn't fit into their model of the world, then it must be that the event was hallucinated, regardless of how much evidence there is.
throwaway-0734 5y ago
American embassies affected? Microwaves? This is new communication equipment. Improperly shielded or malfunctioning. They can't admit it at this point in time.
maxbond 5y ago
It's disturbing that our intelligence apparatus seems unable to accept the obvious conclusion that Havana Syndrome is mass hysteria. I fear they're caught in some sort of loop where investigating it _creates_ cases, which increases their certainty, which causes them to allocate more resources to investigating it, etc.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  Maybe. They are also possibly just ginning up more reasons to block normalizing relations with Cuba.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    The fact they're a fascist dictatorship is reason enough. No need to "gin" up anything.
    - favorited 5y ago
      The US has diplomatic and economic relationships with plenty of oppressive regimes around the world, not sure why Cuba should be an exception. Aside from some 60-year-old egg on their face related to failed coup attempts, that is (though in this case, bacon may be the better breakfast food analogy).
  - salt-thrower 5y ago
    You're being downvoted as if the U.S. intelligence apparatus hasn't done this before. Using media statements to sway public opinion on specific issues is a standard part of their playbook and has been for decades.
    - brianberns 5y ago
      Using media statements to sway public opinion is… a totally normal thing for organizations to do.
      - 5y ago
testfoobar 5y ago
I thought it was solved in 2019 as likely caused by a pesticide: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.h...
- excalibur 5y ago
  I thought they said microwaves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- seppin 5y ago
  Pesticides in the middle of Vienna? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322
- fortuna86 5y ago
  Pesticides in the middle of Vienna? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322
wildrhythms 5y ago
I've been fasciated by this story since it was first reported on in 2016. What better threat to America than one that's invisible, difficult to detect, and strategically only seems to affect American citizens?
- seppin 5y ago
  Canadians too.
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  Not just Americans, Canadian diplomats have also been affected[1]. Additionally, it's reported by American diplomats in Vienna now as well[2]. [1]: https://globalnews.ca/news/7809823/havana-syndrome-canadian-recent-cases/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7809823/havana-syndrome-canadian-... [2]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unexplained-health-incidents-diplomats-vienna-1.6106915 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unexplained-health-incident...
  - simonblack 5y ago
    And don't forget Washington, DC. Perhaps we should be calling it "Washington Syndrome".
- mpd 5y ago
  I see it as a new hack (against the human body), really, like in the original MIT sense.
monsecchris 5y ago
Remove the beryllium plate and mount one of these in your car boot https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/product/type/L10101/index.html https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/product/type/L10101/index.ht... and you've got an invisible cone of destruction which would cause the symptoms described.
- gruez 5y ago
  x-rays? So it would cause a cone of slightly increased cancer rates a few decades later?
  - monsecchris 5y ago
    Possible symptoms include: Nausea and vomiting, Diarrhea, Headache, Fever, Dizziness and disorientation https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/radiation-sickness/symptoms-causes/syc-20377058 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/radiation-sic... Watts to sieverts: https://www.unitconverters.net/radiation/watt-kilogram-to-sievert-second.htm https://www.unitconverters.net/radiation/watt-kilogram-to-si... For example, a single one sievert (1,000 mSv) dose causes radiation sickness such as nausea, vomiting, hemorrhaging, but not death. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-quake-radiation-idUSTRE72E14R20110315 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-quake-radiation-idU...
salt-thrower 5y ago
I take every CIA press release with a huge grain of salt as it is. But a presser about a mysterious ailment heavily suggested to be an attack perpetrated by Cuba, at a time when American media is hyping "anti-government" protests in Cuba, and U.S. officials are calling for more action to be taken against Cuba as a result? I'll take the whole salt shaker.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  This phenomenon has been observed for quite a while (at least a few years) now, so there goes that theory.
  - salt-thrower 5y ago
    And aggression against Cuba by the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus has been going on for six decades. Accompanying that has been numerous press releases, op-eds, and articles over the years attempting to sway public opinion towards U.S. intervention in Cuba. This fits right into that pattern. I'm not saying it DEFINITELY is that, hence the "grain of salt" phrase - I just view any CIA statement relating to Cuba with a huge degree of skepticism. That's all.
    - jonnybgood 5y ago
      There is no sway and if so by who? I think you may be nitpicking. Don’t forget the Cuban thaw under Obama. Instead of following the media, follow actual policy. I have no doubt Biden will follow suit with Obama’s policy on Cuba.
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
        I am not sure if we will see Biden follow suit. Biden's Homeland Security director said >Allow me to be clear: if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States At a minimum they don't want the refugees from Cuba. It seems quite clear they won't relax the immigration rules for Cubans. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-homeland-security-secretary-cuba-haiti-boats-no-refuge https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-homeland-security-secretary-...
narrator 5y ago
Russia says they've been working on "psychotronic weapons" that sound very similar to Havana Syndrome[1]. Nobody in the mainstream media believes this is real though. Since the consensus seems to be that it's not real, they will never ever get to the bottom of it, at least officially. BTW, this all started after a whole bunch of mysterious deaths of Russian diplomats.[2]. What I think is going on here is that there's some spy war that involves weapons that the people conducting it would rather the public didn't know about, so they are dancing around the issue and act like they wish people would stop asking about it. [1]https://www.nbcnews.com/science/cosmic-log/reality-check-russias-zombie-ray-gun-program-flna677150 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/cosmic-log/reality-check-rus... [2]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-diplomats-deaths-theories-putin-kremlin-a7602201.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-diplo...
- Aboh33 5y ago
  Yeah nobody thought remote viewing was a thing until it was said to be real, and Russia was experimenting with it I think before the U.S. did according to a documentary I passively watched. EDIT modified said to be real.
  - rasz 5y ago
    The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) documentary? Yes, I still remember Randi handing over one $million award to the team proving remote viewing.
  - r3trohack3r 5y ago
    > it was shown it was real Curious where it was shown. A search didn’t turn up anything convincing.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jimhi 5y ago
      The government asked random people to remote view Mars in the year 1 million B.C. and then wrote it down. That's the whole story. Enough proof to believe though, right?
beerandt 5y ago
>'Havana Syndrome' Mystery So we're back to naming based on geography again?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Are you thinking about the naming of COVID variants? That was a decision by the WHO - that's not relevant here, and 'Havana Syndrome' was named before that decision anyway.
crackercrews 5y ago
This related article was on the front page earlier today but seems to have been flagged off: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27921934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27921934
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I don't believe any kind of microwave theory. It's a US embassy. It's full of spy equipment. If it was microwaves, they'd have a full recording of the spectrum and would have probably triangulated it by now. If I had to guess, my guess would be on the countermeasures deployed there. Critical enough to keep secret even if they knew what was the cause.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  I agree that if it was just EM even a undergrad physics lab could've found it in 10 minutes, worth keeping in mind all the wacky shit the KGB used to track people (radioactive dust on shoes for example) - spy tech was insane multiple careers ago, it's probably not gotten worse (although I imagine the internet has killed off a lot of physical spying).
  - mc32 5y ago
    If Los Alamos Labs is any indication, physical spying is still around and kicking but doesn't use traditional movie inspired "agents" just regular people willing to sell to a bidder or who believe in something other than the US.
    - mhh__ 5y ago
      I'm always slightly lost when people use movies as a reference when talking about espionage because I even as entertainment pretty much all I consume is non-fiction. When I did eventually consume some le Carre (RIP) I think I enjoyed it much more than I would've done because I understood why he decided to write and the parallels he drew.
    - sennight 5y ago
      Spies have historically been unhappy people with personality problems or emotional issues that put them at odds with their own countrymen. Almost 20 years ago I had to go through a bunch of background investigations in the military, and after a couple of interviews a theme emerges making it clear that they were trying to filter out people who basically had self-esteem issues. They definitely try to keep you unaware of what they're really after though, which yields some really weird results. I wonder how that is going now... probably not well. Anyway, Hollywood spies do kind of exist - but they aren't the Rosenbergs breakdance fighting on a rooftop. They're active duty military on "loan" to the NSA's Special Collection Service. They rarely return to the military, not because a life of blackbag jobs and no stability is fun, but because the military really doesn't want them after the CIA has potentially screwed them up.
trenning 5y ago
Does anyone else consider the effect of having a politically charged name used to describe this "phenomenon" as distracting from it's legitimacy?
- trenning 5y ago
  I should've read the comments first! I guess other people are now having the same thoughts on this.
mikedilger 5y ago
If you hire medical personnel to determine if havana syndrome is real, and if they say its not real then their position goes away, of course they will say it is real and serious.
simonblack 5y ago
Workplace injuries. It's a lot cheaper to blame 'adversaries' than to admit liability and be on the hook for millions (billions?) in Workers' Compensation claims..
- dgrin91 5y ago
  So a bunch of government employees all somehow trip and fell on the job and got the same exact injury, but only in specific geographic locations, mostly in Cuba. Got it, makes perfect sense </sarcasm>
  - simonblack 5y ago
    only in specific geographic locations, mostly in Cuba. As well as Washington DC, Australia, China, Austria and possibly other places I'm not aware of. Occam's Razor.
  - rdtsc 5y ago
    One trips and falls, maybe a few more. The rest are not stupid and realize they too can claim they heard sounds, felt dizzy, had weakness and difficulty concentrating. Especially, if they watched their highly sought after post in Havana now possibly shutting down with the new administration at the time. They get to retire early and get extra benefits for being injured on the job by the “enemy”. </totes-serious>
- rdtsc 5y ago
  Ah interesting. I’ve been wondering if the victims could have at the time expected any extra compensation, early retirement or monetary for being injured on the job. Does the State Department or CIA make that public? I can believe some were injured by one of the methods discussed. But I can also believe many noticed they could also claim to have been affected too.
aaron695 5y ago
It's important to realise long covid is a large part the same as the Havana Syndrome. You'll notice the similar symptoms in many cases. Like foggy memory. People have been hurt by the lockdown mentally. Lost friends and so much more. Mass psychogenic illness (mass hysteria is the old name) is a legitimate disease. But if you don't address it head on, you help no one.
amai 5y ago
"The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

104 points by crackercrews 5y ago

rasz 5y ago

This turned out just like mysterious Gatwick drone, mass hysteria in higher places followed by a lot of ass covering. https://hackaday.com/2021/07/20/the-gatwick-drone-little-by-little-the-story-continues-to-unravel/ https://hackaday.com/2021/07/20/the-gatwick-drone-little-by-...

caddemon 5y ago
My understanding was that objective physiological differences were found in the original group reporting "Havana Syndrome", and clearly the government is still claiming it is real. Your link doesn't mention Havana at all - why do you think this case was mass hysteria? I'm aware that hysteria can cause physiological symptoms to some extent, but this doesn't read to me like something that was purely psychosomatic.
- cpncrunch 5y ago
  FND is very real and is as prevalent as MS [1]. Why are CIA operatives somehow different from the rest of the human race? [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6306282/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6306282/
  - caddemon 5y ago
    We understand so little about the brain I'm not sure how meaningful a label like FNSD is. I bet there are a bunch of issues that could be classified as FNSD today but will be one day understood as different well-defined disorders. And there are a lot of diseases with complicated interplay between inherent biology and the environment.
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  So they did MRIs, but I read some pretty intelligent commentary from someone that worked with MRIs in a lab setting. Essentially what they said is there's enough variation in brains and MRI data that if you go looking for differences in an open ended way, you'll find them. That's apparently why the criteria for diagnosing based on MRI are very narrow and specific. Additionally, everyone keeps insinuating this is Russia, but I have yet to see a single person articulate an answer to "what does this actually accomplish?" that wasn't empty blather. Moreover, to carry out some similar attack in a variety of nations around the world would take an enormous investment in resources, and would carry a grave risk of exposure. Again, to accomplish what exactly? The proposed mechanisms don't hold water either. Ultrasound doesn't go through masonry walls. Microwaves struggle to as well, but also embassy's are bristling with spectrum monitoring equipment. If someone was blasting buildings with RF they'd know it. My personal view is something did happen in Havana, and organophosphate exposure seems the most likely to me. They fumigate way over health limits in the rich part of the city, and I could see embassy staff not acclimatized to it having a reaction. Once the idea of a mystery weapon attacking embassy staff idea was planted in the minds of our diplomatic core, at that point I think it turned into hysteria. Suggestion is powerful and the human mind is definitively irrational. I'll be glad to change my mind if anyone comes up with evidence that motivates it. Absent that I'm not going to assume an elaborate clandestine attack vs more banal explanations.
  - caddemon 5y ago
    Interesting, I could definitely see it being some sort of weird environmental effect, I'm not convinced it's an attack.
  - Goety 5y ago
    >If someone was blasting buildings with RF they'd know it. I believe in Havana they told us that it was their own equipment as that would make the most sense. But you're right there are a lot of unknowns and wild reporting on it.
  - wahern 5y ago
    Don't forget that the high-pitched sound some of them claimed to hear and directly attributed to their immediate discomfort and subsequent symptoms seems to have been crickets. See https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/01/10/recorded-sounds-that-plagued-u-s-diplomats-in-cuba-just-crickets-hard-at-work/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/01/10/recorded-sounds-that-pl... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbnZG85IRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbnZG85IRo
- colordrops 5y ago
  Many people seem to have this irrational bias that "nothing ever happens". If they hear of an event or phenomenon that doesn't fit into their model of the world, then it must be that the event was hallucinated, regardless of how much evidence there is.

throwaway-0734 5y ago

American embassies affected? Microwaves? This is new communication equipment. Improperly shielded or malfunctioning. They can't admit it at this point in time.

maxbond 5y ago

It's disturbing that our intelligence apparatus seems unable to accept the obvious conclusion that Havana Syndrome is mass hysteria. I fear they're caught in some sort of loop where investigating it _creates_ cases, which increases their certainty, which causes them to allocate more resources to investigating it, etc.

tehjoker 5y ago
Maybe. They are also possibly just ginning up more reasons to block normalizing relations with Cuba.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  The fact they're a fascist dictatorship is reason enough. No need to "gin" up anything.
  - favorited 5y ago
    The US has diplomatic and economic relationships with plenty of oppressive regimes around the world, not sure why Cuba should be an exception. Aside from some 60-year-old egg on their face related to failed coup attempts, that is (though in this case, bacon may be the better breakfast food analogy).
- salt-thrower 5y ago
  You're being downvoted as if the U.S. intelligence apparatus hasn't done this before. Using media statements to sway public opinion on specific issues is a standard part of their playbook and has been for decades.
  - brianberns 5y ago
    Using media statements to sway public opinion is… a totally normal thing for organizations to do.
    - 5y ago

testfoobar 5y ago

I thought it was solved in 2019 as likely caused by a pesticide: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.h...

excalibur 5y ago
I thought they said microwaves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
seppin 5y ago
Pesticides in the middle of Vienna? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322
fortuna86 5y ago
Pesticides in the middle of Vienna? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57875322

wildrhythms 5y ago

I've been fasciated by this story since it was first reported on in 2016. What better threat to America than one that's invisible, difficult to detect, and strategically only seems to affect American citizens?

seppin 5y ago
Canadians too.
BeefWellington 5y ago
Not just Americans, Canadian diplomats have also been affected[1]. Additionally, it's reported by American diplomats in Vienna now as well[2]. [1]: https://globalnews.ca/news/7809823/havana-syndrome-canadian-recent-cases/ https://globalnews.ca/news/7809823/havana-syndrome-canadian-... [2]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unexplained-health-incidents-diplomats-vienna-1.6106915 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unexplained-health-incident...
- simonblack 5y ago
  And don't forget Washington, DC. Perhaps we should be calling it "Washington Syndrome".
mpd 5y ago
I see it as a new hack (against the human body), really, like in the original MIT sense.

monsecchris 5y ago

Remove the beryllium plate and mount one of these in your car boot https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/product/type/L10101/index.html https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/product/type/L10101/index.ht... and you've got an invisible cone of destruction which would cause the symptoms described.

gruez 5y ago
x-rays? So it would cause a cone of slightly increased cancer rates a few decades later?
- monsecchris 5y ago
  Possible symptoms include: Nausea and vomiting, Diarrhea, Headache, Fever, Dizziness and disorientation https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/radiation-sickness/symptoms-causes/syc-20377058 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/radiation-sic... Watts to sieverts: https://www.unitconverters.net/radiation/watt-kilogram-to-sievert-second.htm https://www.unitconverters.net/radiation/watt-kilogram-to-si... For example, a single one sievert (1,000 mSv) dose causes radiation sickness such as nausea, vomiting, hemorrhaging, but not death. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-quake-radiation-idUSTRE72E14R20110315 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-quake-radiation-idU...

salt-thrower 5y ago

I take every CIA press release with a huge grain of salt as it is. But a presser about a mysterious ailment heavily suggested to be an attack perpetrated by Cuba, at a time when American media is hyping "anti-government" protests in Cuba, and U.S. officials are calling for more action to be taken against Cuba as a result? I'll take the whole salt shaker.

anigbrowl 5y ago
This phenomenon has been observed for quite a while (at least a few years) now, so there goes that theory.
- salt-thrower 5y ago
  And aggression against Cuba by the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus has been going on for six decades. Accompanying that has been numerous press releases, op-eds, and articles over the years attempting to sway public opinion towards U.S. intervention in Cuba. This fits right into that pattern. I'm not saying it DEFINITELY is that, hence the "grain of salt" phrase - I just view any CIA statement relating to Cuba with a huge degree of skepticism. That's all.
  - jonnybgood 5y ago
    There is no sway and if so by who? I think you may be nitpicking. Don’t forget the Cuban thaw under Obama. Instead of following the media, follow actual policy. I have no doubt Biden will follow suit with Obama’s policy on Cuba.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      I am not sure if we will see Biden follow suit. Biden's Homeland Security director said >Allow me to be clear: if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States At a minimum they don't want the refugees from Cuba. It seems quite clear they won't relax the immigration rules for Cubans. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-homeland-security-secretary-cuba-haiti-boats-no-refuge https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-homeland-security-secretary-...

narrator 5y ago

Russia says they've been working on "psychotronic weapons" that sound very similar to Havana Syndrome[1]. Nobody in the mainstream media believes this is real though. Since the consensus seems to be that it's not real, they will never ever get to the bottom of it, at least officially. BTW, this all started after a whole bunch of mysterious deaths of Russian diplomats.[2]. What I think is going on here is that there's some spy war that involves weapons that the people conducting it would rather the public didn't know about, so they are dancing around the issue and act like they wish people would stop asking about it. [1]https://www.nbcnews.com/science/cosmic-log/reality-check-russias-zombie-ray-gun-program-flna677150 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/cosmic-log/reality-check-rus... [2]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-diplomats-deaths-theories-putin-kremlin-a7602201.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-diplo...

Aboh33 5y ago
Yeah nobody thought remote viewing was a thing until it was said to be real, and Russia was experimenting with it I think before the U.S. did according to a documentary I passively watched. EDIT modified said to be real.
- rasz 5y ago
  The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) documentary? Yes, I still remember Randi handing over one $million award to the team proving remote viewing.
- r3trohack3r 5y ago
  > it was shown it was real Curious where it was shown. A search didn’t turn up anything convincing.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jimhi 5y ago
    The government asked random people to remote view Mars in the year 1 million B.C. and then wrote it down. That's the whole story. Enough proof to believe though, right?

beerandt 5y ago

>'Havana Syndrome' Mystery So we're back to naming based on geography again?

chrisseaton 5y ago
Are you thinking about the naming of COVID variants? That was a decision by the WHO - that's not relevant here, and 'Havana Syndrome' was named before that decision anyway.

crackercrews 5y ago

This related article was on the front page earlier today but seems to have been flagged off: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27921934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27921934

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

I don't believe any kind of microwave theory. It's a US embassy. It's full of spy equipment. If it was microwaves, they'd have a full recording of the spectrum and would have probably triangulated it by now. If I had to guess, my guess would be on the countermeasures deployed there. Critical enough to keep secret even if they knew what was the cause.

mhh__ 5y ago
I agree that if it was just EM even a undergrad physics lab could've found it in 10 minutes, worth keeping in mind all the wacky shit the KGB used to track people (radioactive dust on shoes for example) - spy tech was insane multiple careers ago, it's probably not gotten worse (although I imagine the internet has killed off a lot of physical spying).
- mc32 5y ago
  If Los Alamos Labs is any indication, physical spying is still around and kicking but doesn't use traditional movie inspired "agents" just regular people willing to sell to a bidder or who believe in something other than the US.
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    I'm always slightly lost when people use movies as a reference when talking about espionage because I even as entertainment pretty much all I consume is non-fiction. When I did eventually consume some le Carre (RIP) I think I enjoyed it much more than I would've done because I understood why he decided to write and the parallels he drew.
  - sennight 5y ago
    Spies have historically been unhappy people with personality problems or emotional issues that put them at odds with their own countrymen. Almost 20 years ago I had to go through a bunch of background investigations in the military, and after a couple of interviews a theme emerges making it clear that they were trying to filter out people who basically had self-esteem issues. They definitely try to keep you unaware of what they're really after though, which yields some really weird results. I wonder how that is going now... probably not well. Anyway, Hollywood spies do kind of exist - but they aren't the Rosenbergs breakdance fighting on a rooftop. They're active duty military on "loan" to the NSA's Special Collection Service. They rarely return to the military, not because a life of blackbag jobs and no stability is fun, but because the military really doesn't want them after the CIA has potentially screwed them up.

trenning 5y ago

Does anyone else consider the effect of having a politically charged name used to describe this "phenomenon" as distracting from it's legitimacy?

trenning 5y ago
I should've read the comments first! I guess other people are now having the same thoughts on this.

mikedilger 5y ago

If you hire medical personnel to determine if havana syndrome is real, and if they say its not real then their position goes away, of course they will say it is real and serious.

simonblack 5y ago

Workplace injuries. It's a lot cheaper to blame 'adversaries' than to admit liability and be on the hook for millions (billions?) in Workers' Compensation claims..

dgrin91 5y ago
So a bunch of government employees all somehow trip and fell on the job and got the same exact injury, but only in specific geographic locations, mostly in Cuba. Got it, makes perfect sense </sarcasm>
- simonblack 5y ago
  only in specific geographic locations, mostly in Cuba. As well as Washington DC, Australia, China, Austria and possibly other places I'm not aware of. Occam's Razor.
- rdtsc 5y ago
  One trips and falls, maybe a few more. The rest are not stupid and realize they too can claim they heard sounds, felt dizzy, had weakness and difficulty concentrating. Especially, if they watched their highly sought after post in Havana now possibly shutting down with the new administration at the time. They get to retire early and get extra benefits for being injured on the job by the “enemy”. </totes-serious>
rdtsc 5y ago
Ah interesting. I’ve been wondering if the victims could have at the time expected any extra compensation, early retirement or monetary for being injured on the job. Does the State Department or CIA make that public? I can believe some were injured by one of the methods discussed. But I can also believe many noticed they could also claim to have been affected too.

aaron695 5y ago

It's important to realise long covid is a large part the same as the Havana Syndrome. You'll notice the similar symptoms in many cases. Like foggy memory. People have been hurt by the lockdown mentally. Lost friends and so much more. Mass psychogenic illness (mass hysteria is the old name) is a legitimate disease. But if you don't address it head on, you help no one.

amai 5y ago

"The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect