4 ms·

The thing is, as touched on in the article, microwaves and ultrasound are trivially easy to detect. So if it was either of those I expect it would have been mea

by bb123 5y ago

The thing is, as touched on in the article, microwaves and ultrasound are trivially easy to detect. So if it was either of those I expect it would have been measured pretty quickly by even the most cursory investigation. Which I think means the most likely explanation is that it’s a solved phenomenon, but the information just hasn’t been made public.

tyingq 5y ago
Narrow beams, pulsed at different windows per night, noise floor from other nearby legitimate sources, etc. Could have been harder to detect than you might think.
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  Beams bounces
  - tyingq 5y ago
    If I understand correctly, the buildings are mostly stone and concrete. And sit on the waterfront, so the beams could have been from ships that can come and go.
grayfaced 5y ago
One explanation for ultrasound/microwave is that it's for powering a recording device. If it's solved secret, I would expect them to locate and remove/disable the devices. Then at that point the signals should stop shortly after because there is no point in powering devices that are no longer working.
- bongoman37 5y ago
  Not a spook, but often known devices are not removed because they are a great way to pass on false information. If you know they are listening and they don't know you know they are listening, you could have fake meetings with fake information for them to waste their resources on.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Then at that point the signals should stop shortly after because there is no point in powering devices that are no longer working. I think we can think of some good reasons why an adversary might want to continue powering them. Think about it: if we find listening devices, disable them, and the ultrasound/microwaves abruptly stop this would strongly suggest that (1) we've found all the devices (2) the microwaves were indeed specifically for the listening devices (3) the planter of the listening devices is also the party responsible for the ultrasound/microwaves, which is significant because the number of parties that could have physically planted the devices is surely lower than the near-infinite number of parties that could be broadcasting the ultrasound/microwaves. An adversary would surely want to keep us guessing, and would not want us to see such a clear correlation unless that too was an attempt to fool us. So they would likely want to continue with the ultrasound/microwaves even if they weren't getting a response from the listening devices.
joe_the_user 5y ago
Which I think means the most likely explanation is that it’s a solved phenomenon, but the information just hasn’t been made public. This seems like an "appeal to secrecy" fallacy. There's no obvious reason to keep such information secret (cue ten people speculating something random but no hypothetical here is clear here and the US government's incentive to show seems fairly high). The simple explanation is that it is psychosomatic and the arguments against that are weaker than they seem (as has often been the case over the years).
- rdtsc 5y ago
  > The simple explanation is that it is psychosomatic That’s what it seems to me as well. Could long term stress cause white brain matter to reduce in mass, for example? Another possibility is that some are just fabricated. Many of these individuals are CIA or other intelligence agencies employees. Telling lies and making up cover stories is what some do professionally. Here they are in an embassy which with a new Trump presidency was not that awesome of a place to be. They see one of their colleagues say they heard a sound, have headaches, difficulty concentrating. That person perhaps got a medical leave with pay. Perhaps extra pension for injury on the job, on foreign soil. They just have to say they too have those symptoms. Well you get the idea…
  - Kranar 5y ago
    >That person perhaps got a medical leave with pay. Until last month, there was no medical leave or compensation of any kind for such injuries (psychological or mental health related injuries) so there's little incentive to make up such injuries. Furthermore the initial set of reports were submitted confidentially, so unless a large group of employees were colluding with one another and to this day never managed to get caught about it, it's unlikely to be that either. It's worth noting that the CIA highly scrutinizes its employees and is incredibly selective about who they hire, which doesn't mean that some of them wouldn't lie or even commit crimes... but it would be very difficult for them to successfully collude with one another for such little benefit since all it takes is one person to decide not to go along with it and then everyone is in some deep shit. There is some plausibility that it's psychogenic, induced by stress. The FBI originally came to this conclusion in their investigation but some later studies conclude that while stress was likely a major component, it does not explain the auditory phenomenon. Certainly it's possible for some people feeling stress to hear phantom noises, but for a large group of people to all hear noises within the same geographical location and over the same period of time is quite unusual. I mean there are plenty of stressful and ordinary jobs people work everyday but you don't hear about how a mass group of nurses working overtime due to COVID are all of a sudden having auditory hallucinations, or other stressful jobs resulting in large groups of people all experiencing somewhat similar symptoms.

by bb123 5y ago

tyingq 5y ago

Narrow beams, pulsed at different windows per night, noise floor from other nearby legitimate sources, etc. Could have been harder to detect than you might think.

TeeMassive 5y ago
Beams bounces
- tyingq 5y ago
  If I understand correctly, the buildings are mostly stone and concrete. And sit on the waterfront, so the beams could have been from ships that can come and go.

grayfaced 5y ago

One explanation for ultrasound/microwave is that it's for powering a recording device. If it's solved secret, I would expect them to locate and remove/disable the devices. Then at that point the signals should stop shortly after because there is no point in powering devices that are no longer working.

bongoman37 5y ago
Not a spook, but often known devices are not removed because they are a great way to pass on false information. If you know they are listening and they don't know you know they are listening, you could have fake meetings with fake information for them to waste their resources on.
JohnBooty 5y ago
Then at that point the signals should stop shortly after because there is no point in powering devices that are no longer working. I think we can think of some good reasons why an adversary might want to continue powering them. Think about it: if we find listening devices, disable them, and the ultrasound/microwaves abruptly stop this would strongly suggest that (1) we've found all the devices (2) the microwaves were indeed specifically for the listening devices (3) the planter of the listening devices is also the party responsible for the ultrasound/microwaves, which is significant because the number of parties that could have physically planted the devices is surely lower than the near-infinite number of parties that could be broadcasting the ultrasound/microwaves. An adversary would surely want to keep us guessing, and would not want us to see such a clear correlation unless that too was an attempt to fool us. So they would likely want to continue with the ultrasound/microwaves even if they weren't getting a response from the listening devices.

joe_the_user 5y ago

Which I think means the most likely explanation is that it’s a solved phenomenon, but the information just hasn’t been made public. This seems like an "appeal to secrecy" fallacy. There's no obvious reason to keep such information secret (cue ten people speculating something random but no hypothetical here is clear here and the US government's incentive to show seems fairly high). The simple explanation is that it is psychosomatic and the arguments against that are weaker than they seem (as has often been the case over the years).

rdtsc 5y ago
> The simple explanation is that it is psychosomatic That’s what it seems to me as well. Could long term stress cause white brain matter to reduce in mass, for example? Another possibility is that some are just fabricated. Many of these individuals are CIA or other intelligence agencies employees. Telling lies and making up cover stories is what some do professionally. Here they are in an embassy which with a new Trump presidency was not that awesome of a place to be. They see one of their colleagues say they heard a sound, have headaches, difficulty concentrating. That person perhaps got a medical leave with pay. Perhaps extra pension for injury on the job, on foreign soil. They just have to say they too have those symptoms. Well you get the idea…
- Kranar 5y ago
  >That person perhaps got a medical leave with pay. Until last month, there was no medical leave or compensation of any kind for such injuries (psychological or mental health related injuries) so there's little incentive to make up such injuries. Furthermore the initial set of reports were submitted confidentially, so unless a large group of employees were colluding with one another and to this day never managed to get caught about it, it's unlikely to be that either. It's worth noting that the CIA highly scrutinizes its employees and is incredibly selective about who they hire, which doesn't mean that some of them wouldn't lie or even commit crimes... but it would be very difficult for them to successfully collude with one another for such little benefit since all it takes is one person to decide not to go along with it and then everyone is in some deep shit. There is some plausibility that it's psychogenic, induced by stress. The FBI originally came to this conclusion in their investigation but some later studies conclude that while stress was likely a major component, it does not explain the auditory phenomenon. Certainly it's possible for some people feeling stress to hear phantom noises, but for a large group of people to all hear noises within the same geographical location and over the same period of time is quite unusual. I mean there are plenty of stressful and ordinary jobs people work everyday but you don't hear about how a mass group of nurses working overtime due to COVID are all of a sudden having auditory hallucinations, or other stressful jobs resulting in large groups of people all experiencing somewhat similar symptoms.