5 ms·

It could possibly be a modern "Folie à deux" or shared delusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux

It could possibly be a modern "Folie à deux" or shared delusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux Essentially, for whatever reason, people working in the Cuban embassy started feeling ill with mysterious symptoms and that caught on. It could have originally been something like sick building syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_building_syndrome But then people latched on to the idea that it was caused by some kind of sonic device or hitherto unknown weapon targeting embassies. Someone starts to feel sick? Oh my god, it could be Havana Syndrome! Now that you mention it Becky, I'm starting to feel queasy too... A parallel is how the notion that MSG causes headaches caught on. One doctor suggested that there is a link between eating Chinese restaurant food flavored with MSG and headaches. But "Thirty years after the Chinese restaurant syndrome was debunked, stigmas about MSG persist." People who believe this will legitimately start to feel sick if you feed them MSG, even if you didn't actually put any MSG in and lie that you did. Now I'm not saying this is what is actually happening because we just don't know yet. Edit: And, most of the symptoms, headache, nausea, anxiety, insomnia, are all really common side effects and can be caused by just about anything.

jamil7 5y ago
I don't understand why this comment is downvoted, this is far more believable than a magic space ray that... makes people a little nauseous?
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Perhaps my wording was poor. I went back in and cleaned it up a bit and added a little more context about my MSG parallel.
- baby 5y ago
  Don’t disagree, but “magic spaceray”? Really? We’re in 2021
meowface 5y ago
This was the leading hypothesis for years, including for me, but even about a year ago I was considering betting a lot of money on a prediction market that it's indeed an intentional deployment of a weapon. I've found myself arguing the case with people on HN on several occasions, in part because I'm extremely conspiracy theory-skeptical in general and felt like people were wrong to dismiss this as any other silly conspiracy theory circulating around. One factor worth noting is the consistency of the self-reports of the phenomenon and the symptoms, subsequent brain scans showing concussive injury, and medical diagnoses of brain damage. At this point I'd definitely bet if I could find a way to. I'd say I'm about 85% confident it's a weapon. And unless there's an elaborate false flag or psyop going on, then if the claims in this article are true, it seems Russian intelligence officers are likely the ones responsible for at least some of the attacks: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro... (Oct 2020).
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Claiming it's an intentionally-designed, secretly-deployed weapon seems like more of a "conspiracy theory" than that it's a result of delegating facilities construction and maintenance to private corporations with security clearances. How welcome are "Russian intelligence officers" in Guangzhou?
  - meowface 5y ago
    It certainly is, yes. I'm basing this in part on the claims in the GQ article. My point was that I view any kind of conspiracy allegation with a huge grain of salt, so when I think there actually likely is one, I feel outspoken about it. If the claims in the GQ article are true, then I think Russian intelligence officers are likely responsible for at least some of the attacks in some of the locations. For example, in Russia. If the claims are false, I'd still lean towards an attack but with an indeterminate perpetrator. The probability of a deliberate attack seems pretty high, to me, even if the exact nature and culprits are still mysterious. How welcome are they? Possibly very welcome, possibly not welcome; who knows. There could be a lot of branching possibilities, here, including perhaps the ability to place remotely-controlled devices in or near embassies so they don't need to be physically nearby to conduct an attack. Or they could've received approval from some governments (though that seems quite unlikely, except maybe for Cuba). Or there could be multiple groups involved. Or it could be done at such a long distance that they felt comfortable violating countries' sovereignty with plausible deniability (though that seems fairly improbable and brazen even for them, even if I think it's plausible). There are also some allegations of attacks around the DC area. I'm sure at least some of the reports may be psychogenic, and the DC ones seem the most likely to fall into that category. But if those actually turn out to be real, then that'd be good evidence of how brazen the attackers are.
simonbyrne 5y ago
> But then people latched on to the idea that it was caused by some kind of sonic device or hitherto unknown weapon targeting embassies. Possibly prompted by historical precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal
Cass 5y ago
The article mentions that one patient has an unexplained brain injury comparable to that caused by the shockwave of an explosion. I'm sure the embassy isn't going to release this info to the press, but I'd really like to know what kind of injury we're talking about here, whether it's something that could just occur spontaneously (I mean, if we're talking intracerebral bleeding, that does just happen sometimes), and if it's been tested for or seen in anyone else complaining of these symptoms. There's a HUGE difference between "some people are getting unexplained headaches and brainfog" (yeah, so are half my patients right now, during this time of unprecedented stress) and "some people are getting unexplained brain bleeds" (YIKES)
- nnlsoccer 5y ago
  It appears they’re referring to Breachers Syndrome or something very similar. With service members who were exposed to small repetitive explosions, some studies have found astroglial scarring between the white and gray matter of the brain. Essentially shearing forces pass through the tissue, the tissues move at different rates because of the difference in densities which leads to tissue damage at the interface. Causes symptoms somewhat similar to CTE

jamil7 5y ago

I don't understand why this comment is downvoted, this is far more believable than a magic space ray that... makes people a little nauseous?

BitwiseFool 5y ago
Perhaps my wording was poor. I went back in and cleaned it up a bit and added a little more context about my MSG parallel.
baby 5y ago
Don’t disagree, but “magic spaceray”? Really? We’re in 2021

meowface 5y ago

This was the leading hypothesis for years, including for me, but even about a year ago I was considering betting a lot of money on a prediction market that it's indeed an intentional deployment of a weapon. I've found myself arguing the case with people on HN on several occasions, in part because I'm extremely conspiracy theory-skeptical in general and felt like people were wrong to dismiss this as any other silly conspiracy theory circulating around. One factor worth noting is the consistency of the self-reports of the phenomenon and the symptoms, subsequent brain scans showing concussive injury, and medical diagnoses of brain damage. At this point I'd definitely bet if I could find a way to. I'd say I'm about 85% confident it's a weapon. And unless there's an elaborate false flag or psyop going on, then if the claims in this article are true, it seems Russian intelligence officers are likely the ones responsible for at least some of the attacks: https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-microwave-attacks https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro... (Oct 2020).

jessaustin 5y ago
Claiming it's an intentionally-designed, secretly-deployed weapon seems like more of a "conspiracy theory" than that it's a result of delegating facilities construction and maintenance to private corporations with security clearances. How welcome are "Russian intelligence officers" in Guangzhou?
- meowface 5y ago
  It certainly is, yes. I'm basing this in part on the claims in the GQ article. My point was that I view any kind of conspiracy allegation with a huge grain of salt, so when I think there actually likely is one, I feel outspoken about it. If the claims in the GQ article are true, then I think Russian intelligence officers are likely responsible for at least some of the attacks in some of the locations. For example, in Russia. If the claims are false, I'd still lean towards an attack but with an indeterminate perpetrator. The probability of a deliberate attack seems pretty high, to me, even if the exact nature and culprits are still mysterious. How welcome are they? Possibly very welcome, possibly not welcome; who knows. There could be a lot of branching possibilities, here, including perhaps the ability to place remotely-controlled devices in or near embassies so they don't need to be physically nearby to conduct an attack. Or they could've received approval from some governments (though that seems quite unlikely, except maybe for Cuba). Or there could be multiple groups involved. Or it could be done at such a long distance that they felt comfortable violating countries' sovereignty with plausible deniability (though that seems fairly improbable and brazen even for them, even if I think it's plausible). There are also some allegations of attacks around the DC area. I'm sure at least some of the reports may be psychogenic, and the DC ones seem the most likely to fall into that category. But if those actually turn out to be real, then that'd be good evidence of how brazen the attackers are.

simonbyrne 5y ago

> But then people latched on to the idea that it was caused by some kind of sonic device or hitherto unknown weapon targeting embassies. Possibly prompted by historical precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal

Cass 5y ago

The article mentions that one patient has an unexplained brain injury comparable to that caused by the shockwave of an explosion. I'm sure the embassy isn't going to release this info to the press, but I'd really like to know what kind of injury we're talking about here, whether it's something that could just occur spontaneously (I mean, if we're talking intracerebral bleeding, that does just happen sometimes), and if it's been tested for or seen in anyone else complaining of these symptoms. There's a HUGE difference between "some people are getting unexplained headaches and brainfog" (yeah, so are half my patients right now, during this time of unprecedented stress) and "some people are getting unexplained brain bleeds" (YIKES)

nnlsoccer 5y ago
It appears they’re referring to Breachers Syndrome or something very similar. With service members who were exposed to small repetitive explosions, some studies have found astroglial scarring between the white and gray matter of the brain. Essentially shearing forces pass through the tissue, the tissues move at different rates because of the difference in densities which leads to tissue damage at the interface. Causes symptoms somewhat similar to CTE