[HN Gopher] Havana syndrome: NSA officer's case hints at microwa...
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Havana syndrome: NSA officer's case hints at microwave attacks
since 90s
Author : samizdis
Score : 166 points
Date : 2021-05-02 09:14 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| grouphugs wrote:
| the nsa and cia are not victims in this story, neither are u.s
| diplomats. these are weapons that the nazis have touted for
| decades as their secret weapon. i've had weapons like this used
| on me a lot
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Absurd that groups as well resourced as the intelligence agencies
| aren't taking care of their people who've seemingly been injured
| in enemy attacks.
|
| Also, I don't understand the point of using this weapon. It seems
| like it causes debilitating issues, sometimes years later, but
| it's intermittently used on relatively low level personnel?
| What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and
| Cuba?
|
| I also wonder if we have a similar weapon and if there is
| retaliatory microwaving going on. e.g. You microwaved our bug
| checkers, now we're going to microwave your <Russian equivalent>.
| pydry wrote:
| >What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and
| Cuba?
|
| Wouldn't you want to deter spies from a fairly terrifying
| hostile power?
|
| It's unclear if they did it (evidence seems thin) but the
| motive is definitely there, just as the motive for the Latin
| American "cancer gun" was definitely there:
|
| https://english.pravda.ru/world/120158-south_america/
| [deleted]
| enkid wrote:
| It's possible it's a side effect of something else. Maybe they
| are using directed microwaves to power eavesdropping equipment,
| and the individuals in proximity to that equipment are getting
| sick.
| ogurechny wrote:
| Probably the most obvious explanation. I suppose that both
| attacking a diplomatic staff with a knife and just
| intentionally serving them contaminated food that puts them
| on the toilet for a couple of days would lead to some
| response. If something that can be easily identified with
| technical means produces no diplomatic response, then,
| despite the consequences, it's not considered an attack.
| Seems to be part of the job description. Most likely, they
| couldn't even ask politely, behind the curtains, to stop that
| because the answer would be "Sure, if you stop doing the
| same, too". And none of that can be discussed openly because
| of the secrecy of spying technologies, so they have to invent
| stories about non-lethal weapons when the case could probably
| be described as "Major Ivanov, increase the power until we
| get a clear signal".
|
| When you start paying attention to these stories, it becomes
| clear that these secrets are kept first and foremost from the
| general public of the native countries, mostly for both
| public image and non-accountability privilege. It makes no
| sense to deny something that has been known to secret
| services of every developed country otherwise. It's quite
| ironic that before Snowden, military insurgents trained by
| this or that superpower, and mafia bosses who hired ex-
| special-agents had a more clear picture on, say, phone
| surveillance than law-abiding citizens.
| teachingassist wrote:
| This makes it seem like friendly fire is a reasonable
| hypothesis - as some side-effect of physical security
| measures taken by the US government.
|
| Since the reported attacks generally happen within a radius
| of US locations requiring physical security - and apparently
| not in any other location.
|
| It's otherwise difficult to explain why the USA would be the
| singular target of these alleged attacks, for a period
| stretching across decades.
| rvba wrote:
| Your post looks like disinformation. Something bad happens
| to US and Canadian diplomats in a foreign country, yet you
| find a way to blame USA.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| No, it's that based on the scant material evidence here,
| almost any explanation is just as reasonable as, it's a
| secret Cuban ray weapon.
| dasudasu wrote:
| Canadian diplomats were also affected in the case of
| Havana. They have good relationships with Cuba, send a good
| flow of tourists, and have no sanctions in place.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| If the attack takes years or decades to have full cognitive
| detrimental effect, then it makes sense to attack the currently
| low-to-mid level staff.
| mc32 wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. This isn't baseball and you're
| scouting for good prospects to sabotage.
|
| As someone else pointed out it might be a side effect to
| something else.
| XorNot wrote:
| How widespread can this equipment be though that none has
| ever been recovered as a weapon of the enemy?
|
| If you have enough resources to start targeting low to mid
| level staff, then you have to have a lot of practical devices
| which are mobile.
|
| While it's plausible the US has in fact recovered a whole
| bunch of them and kept it secret...why? The microwave attack
| rumor is _common_ which means _everyone_ is looking into
| whether it can be done. Announcing you found the device and
| not showing pictures even - but instead nothing. No detectors
| either and as noted above detecting RF would be extremely
| cheap - deploy a couple of devices and you 've got a
| direction finder telling you exactly where it's coming from.
|
| Havana syndrome could be a lot of things: the US is a big
| place, and decades ago food safety standards and additives
| were very different - MRE composition or catered food service
| would have had regional characteristics, but so would just
| random events happening randomly - on a long enough timescale
| you'd get a cluster of health issues from the people you sent
| through one part of the world but not another. Once you're
| into talking about multi-decadal outcomes this gets even
| fuzzier.
| 13415 wrote:
| It could be extremely widespread if it is used by
| intelligence agencies, especially if the attacks are
| conducted by official embassy staff with diplomatic
| immunity abroad or by domestic intelligence operatives in
| the country.
|
| For example, I don't think CIA operatives could easily
| snatch a car full of FSB agents on the streets of Moscow,
| confiscate their equipment, and get away with it. The same
| for Havana. (If they had a way to detect the attacks, they
| might try, but the point is even then it wouldn't be easy.
| AFAIK, operatives generally do not attack each other
| directly on foreign soil.)
| tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
| Can you please explain in more detail why it makes sense to
| attack low-level staff? I can't follow. Is it because low-
| level staff rotates more often and is only a short time in
| the country so effects won't be connected to their stay in
| Kuba?
| realce wrote:
| Low level staff today is the high level staff of 15 years
| from now, so you just make them dumb now.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Probably a very low percentage of low level staff today
| will be high level staff 15 years forward - especially if
| you microwaving them. If that were the adversary's
| intention then I would expect hundreds or thousands of
| our staff to be suffering. As is, it looks like only a
| few people spread across decades. Malfunctioning of a
| microwave power source is the only thing that makes sense
| to me.
| infoseek12 wrote:
| Directly attacking the health of US personal would be a
| hugely provocative act. I'm not saying the Russians
| wouldn't do it. There are reports that they paid out
| bounties in Afghanistan to attack US troops. But
| launching a campaign to enfeeble the intellect of future
| high level state department officials in this manner
| doesn't make much sense. If you tried this kind of attack
| on a large scale and targeted a significant number of
| personnel, you would surely get caught which would lead
| to severe consequences. If you did it on a small scale
| that you might get away with, it would still be a risky
| and expensive undertaking and you'd only end up hurting a
| small fraction of one percent of possible future leaders.
| The cost benefit analysis doesn't make sense to me.
|
| We obviously don't have enough information to really know
| what's going on here but I do thinking some possibilities
| that don't make very much sense can be excluded.
| quakeguy wrote:
| The bounty story has been corrected, it was very thin to
| begin with.
|
| https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-bidens-tale-of-
| rus...
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Yeah, especially without the support of the Soviet Union,
| it's very unlikely Cuba is interested in provoking the
| United States.
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| I'll take a shot. If it takes years of exposure, or is
| delayed, to be effective you want to aim for staffers
| before they are in key/important positions. Maybe staffers
| in embassy positions track well into higher, more important
| jobs?
| freeflight wrote:
| That would require more foreknowledge about career
| trajectories than even the US government itself has about
| its own people.
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| The stereotype for government officials/workers is they
| stay in that industry. Sure you can't target specific
| roles but you can generally weaken an organization or
| division through such "gray zone" tactics. Again, just
| trying to add to the discussion, most likely this is not
| correct.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Based on the evidence it's just as likely these are some kind
| of functional disorder as the product of an attack. Be careful
| about believing things just based on what intelligence agents
| report.
| sneak wrote:
| My favorite theory (I think from an HN comment?) about Havana
| syndrome is simple poisoning. It fits the observed symptoms
| better than magic, wall-jumping microwaves.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Food poisoning makes sense. I got a bad case of Moctezuma's
| revenge[0] when I visited Cuba a few years ago.
|
| [0] https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/Montezuma%27s%20r...
| leoc wrote:
| The whole story of Polymeropoulos' visit to Russia is pretty odd
| even aside from his strange symptoms and the apparent attack.
| https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro...
| It sounds more than a bit like the farcical UK police visit to
| Moscow to investigate Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning
| https://news.sky.com/story/skripal-poisoning-police-must-be-... ,
| which also saw the investigators becoming mysteriously unwell
| https://www.itv.com/news/2017-04-12/british-detective-i-was-... .
| Of course Cameron's UK government was reportedly not really that
| keen on having to do much about Russian espionage in the UK.
| You'd have to wonder if the Trump administration was likewise not
| really all that firmly behind the people they send to Moscow, or
| if the CIA's Russia experts saw trouble coming and managed to
| duck out of the asssignment, or perhaps both.
| room505 wrote:
| I added this this to another submission on hn and think many
| would be interested in what he personally has to say.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y5jTbsvd3rA
| bArray wrote:
| Are microwave attacks something that is proven to exist? Can we
| replicate the effects on mice from some distance? Given the fact
| they pass through walls, this kind of bounds the frequency range
| the attacks could exist in... I would expect to see radio
| interference on nearby devices, etc (even if operating on a
| different frequency).
|
| I wouldn't be entirely surprised if these could be self-
| manifesting symptoms from people experiencing burnout, etc. I
| think there is an example where some town put up a cell tower and
| everybody started complaining about headaches, despite it being
| turned off. I think all possibilities should be considered.
|
| Honestly, if I were to attack diplomatic officials, it would be
| far easier to get them to ingest something. A slow acting toxin
| for example that you wouldn't normally be searching for on a
| postmortem - especially if all you're trying to achieve is to
| impair their mental agility to better your position in talks.
|
| I know people working in foreign Countries who purposely pay more
| money for Western-import food to avoid accidentally doing this to
| themselves. In poorer locations you cannot be sure where or how
| the food was grown. For all you know it comes from an old lady's
| garden who lives next to the chemical processing facility.
| Locating the source of food in an completely un-tracked market
| will be near impossible.
| 01100011 wrote:
| > A slow acting toxin for example
|
| Afflatoxin. Common in food and gives you liver cancer.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| This reminds me of the "I figured out what was wrong with my
| brain" post from a few days ago.
|
| The entire blog was written as if the cause was "overthinking"
| and he physically depleted some resource in his brain leading
| to seizures. In reality the illness he linked to clearly states
| that it is a psychological condition of being
| overworked/stressed, and treatment needs to be "culturally
| sensitive" and done with CBT, which would not be the case if
| you were just missing some chemical in your brain.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The psychological effects could be side effects of a miss
| chemical. Even after adding the missing chemical
| psychological issues may need to be dealt with.
| andi999 wrote:
| To me this (the microwave part) just sounds like jumping to
| conclusions. I mean why not some (toxic) knock out gas? It
| reminds me of the cartoon pinky and the brain:`we use microwave
| and coffee creamer, everybody will believe our miracle, because
| nobody knows how these things work.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes,
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon
|
| 2.4 GHz is used to heat your food in the microwave. Pulses that
| increase the fluence by an order of magnitude or more could
| probably boil water for a microsecond inside the brain and
| cause some strange reactions.
|
| What is unproven though, is how one would ever shrink the size
| of an electronic weapon like this.
| andi999 wrote:
| If liquid in your brain boils, wouldn't you also just turn
| blind (since the eyeball gets damaged by heat)
| saalweachter wrote:
| The Active Denial System, listed on your link, causes pain by
| heating water in the skin.
|
| What is the proposed system for getting microwaves past the
| skin into the brain without creating the same effect as the
| ADS?
| smolder wrote:
| Hopefully not bothering anyone with my wild speculation and
| incomplete physics knowledge here...
|
| Could it be there is some way to target a location with
| multiple radio beams such that the damaging effect occurs
| at the point of interference? Maybe just constructive
| interference from multiple weaker beams? Something like
| this would need to be aimed precisely of course.
|
| I was further led to thinking about the way you can
| generate sound at a distance from beams of ultrasound. [0]
| Either the fluid within the beam or an object struck by the
| beam acts as a demodulator. I don't really know if
| something like this could apply with radio.
|
| The other thing that I thought of was the way microwave
| ovens excite water molecules specifically. Maybe there is
| some other wavelength or combination of them which excites
| other specific molecules or structures present in the
| brain?
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Could it be there is some way to target a location
| with multiple radio beams such that the damaging effect
| occurs at the point of interference? Maybe just
| constructive interference from multiple weaker beams?
| Something like this would need to be aimed precisely of
| course._
|
| Yes, a phased array [1], which is likely what the GGP was
| referring to by "What is unproven though, is how one
| would ever shrink the size of an electronic weapon like
| this."
|
| Advanced radars work by creating a concentrated beam of
| RF with constructive interference and scanning it across
| the sky, but the installations are huge. A smaller
| directed microwave weapon would be meters across, hard to
| hide, and noisy.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array
| bmicraft wrote:
| Using longer wavelengths should do exactly that.
| vermilingua wrote:
| But do longer wavelengths act on water in the same way as
| microwave?
| fzzzy wrote:
| They act on systems of distributed induction and
| capacitance which are resonant to that longer wavelength.
| truth_ wrote:
| Or longer frequency i.e. shorter wavelength?
| shawnz wrote:
| How would that achieve what the other poster is saying,
| which is to heat the insides _more_ than the surface?
| Wouldn 't that just heat both the insides and the surface
| more evenly?
| fouric wrote:
| Even if this was the case - the insides and surface of
| the human body have rather different characteristics,
| with the inside being more sensitive to, well, just about
| everything than the surface.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Using the same frequency range as your home microwave does.
| jeltz wrote:
| Which would be very painful when it heats the skin.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Have you noticed how microwave cooking is not warming up
| the skin any faster than the insides? The wavelength is
| selected so that it penetrates and warms water molecules.
| It would cook your insides according to their water
| content.
|
| Surface of the skin has less water than tissue inside, so
| you would feel pain beneath the skin.
| ben_w wrote:
| MythBusters tested that, the outsides (of food) heat up
| first.
| binbag wrote:
| Oh well it must be the case then? Microwaves resonate
| with water molecules. If the surface is moist it will
| heat first. If not... Well it won't!
| kragen wrote:
| The fact that reverse thermal gradients are often present
| in microwave thermal processing of materials is quite
| well known and can be replicated in food in your home
| microwave, precisely as nabla9 said, regardless of
| Mythbusters being able to produce a forward thermal
| gradient.
|
| Microwaves attenuate as they penetrate a resistive or
| high-permittivity substance, because they deposit some of
| their energy as they pass through. In the limit of
| infinite depth, no radiation survives and there is no
| heating. Given a homogenous substance, the heating is
| always strongest at the surface, decaying exponentially
| (to a good approximation) as you go deeper.
|
| However, heating is not the same thing as temperature.
| The surface of food in your microwave is exposed to room-
| temperature air and can therefore cool down by conducting
| its heat to that air. Food just under the surface can
| conduct its heat to the surface food, while deeper food
| cannot. It's easy to set up situations where this results
| in a reverse thermal gradient penetrating some distance
| into the food, or even all the way to the center. This is
| one of the most significant advantages of microwave
| heating in industrial material processing, because there
| are many cases where the normal thermal gradient produces
| cracking and microwave-induced reverse thermal gradients
| do not.
|
| You can set up a forward thermal gradient with microwave
| heating by some combination of hot air, strong
| attenuation, short exposure times, shorter wavelengths,
| and great depth, although unless the air is actually
| hotter than the highest temperature reached within the
| food there will always be a reverse thermal gradient
| present at the surface, since the heat equation always
| produces a continuous temperature field at t [?] 0. You
| may be able to get the reverse thermal gradient to be
| entirely outside the solid body if you work hard enough,
| but a much easier way is to only measure the temperature
| at intervals large enough that the entire reverse thermal
| gradient is smaller than the first interval. For example,
| if the thermal maximum is 8 mm under the skin, you could
| measure the temperature at the surface, 1 cm, 2 cm, 3 cm,
| 4 cm, and 5 cm.
|
| The attenuation is dependent on the attenuating medium
| and on wavelength. As explained in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System the
| ADS uses 95-GHz radio waves with 0.4-mm penetration depth
| in human flesh, while your microwave oven used 2.4-GHz
| radio waves with 17-mm penetration depth in human flesh.
|
| nabla9 has been downvoted for politely and
| straightforwardly, if briefly, explaining these perfectly
| correct and verifiable facts, facts which are central to
| the discussion. This makes it clear that the voting
| public at HN has extremely poor judgment and should not
| be permitted a vote on comments of decent people.
| JarlUlvi wrote:
| When the US military sets up an AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder
| radar, or similar variants, it is typical for these to
| have taped off (like police tape) sections where the
| energy is dangerous to humans. These devices, although
| mounted on trailers typically, are fairly old, and not
| designed for a point location, but rather distance.
|
| I was told that being overly close to these devices in
| operation will lead to brain injuries
| jacquesm wrote:
| MythBusters notwithstanding I have an RF burn on one of
| my fingers that was barely visible at the surface when it
| happened but which totally cooked the tissue up to about
| 6 millimeters inwards. It's a pretty weird spot, 2.5 mm
| across and even 35 years later it hasn't healed, the zone
| is simply dead to the touch even though the flesh has
| recovered. You can also still see exactly the shape of
| the original burn.
|
| Note to self: pay attention when trimming HF transmitters
| about where you keep stray digits and where the locations
| of the tops of trimmers are relative to those digits.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| > Have you noticed how microwave cooking is not warming
| up the skin any faster than the insides?
|
| No. Microwave hot pockets are famous for coming out
| boiling on the outside, cold on the inside (if you don't
| let it sit for a couple minutes to equalize).
| staticassertion wrote:
| Basing an argument on hot pockets feels weak.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I imagine a direct beam would cause visible burns, but
| something that never occurred to me is using beamforming to
| zap _inside_ someone 's head. Yikes.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm not a physicist.
| XorNot wrote:
| Basic problem: How do you target this?
|
| Advanced problem: how do you avoid accidentally killing
| someone while targeting this?
|
| You're just talking about shooting "at" someone's head,
| you're talking about positioning their head in 3D space and
| shooting so precisely (through potentially layers of brick,
| metal brick ties, lath etc.) that you hit only inside their
| head and don't leave any marks or burns on the skin.
|
| We don't have the technology to reliably do this today at
| range.
| mycall wrote:
| Beamforming is a solved problem, using the interference
| of multiple antennas' energy to resonate at exactly the
| right location for maximum strength. Why do you think
| this technology isn't reliable?
| XorNot wrote:
| Because you are trying to hit a 15cm by 15cm sphere in 3D
| space _that you cannot see_.
|
| That it could maybe be done under ideal conditions
| doesn't explain how you do it when the target is mobile
| (but let's be generous and say you assume they're in
| bed), and you need to accurately visualize where they are
| through an unspecified amount of intermediate interfering
| elements (people's bedrooms aren't glass boxes).
|
| Foil wall insulation would disrupt an attempt at
| microwave beamforming - so how is targeting being
| achieved so precisely as to be undetectable and cause no
| other environmental effects?
| jacquesm wrote:
| But you could set up a field in such a way that
| statistically speaking inside any 15x15x15 sphere there
| would be at least one reinforcement happening.
| im3w1l wrote:
| You don't need to shrink it. Just go to the 5g antennas in
| the vicinity and press the big red "activate death ray"
| button.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Microwave transmitters are not that big. 4 kW generator or
| 100 kW pulse generator fits into a suitcase.
|
| What you need is a horn antenna that directs the beam from
| the distance, across the street for example. It's also
| possible to have multiple horns around the target. Only in
| the intersection of the beams the radiation reaches dangerous
| levels.
| 252452d wrote:
| Yes, it is possible to create the perception of sound and even
| distinct words in the mind of a targeted individual.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| The US government tortured people at Guantanamo for 14 years,
| so I wonder how long they've been irradiating their diplomats.
| pklee wrote:
| Interestingly I was listening to this podcast yesterday -
| https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/76hgkmv/havana-synd...
| Analysis all the possibilities through interview with experts.
| Hope you find it interesting
| [deleted]
| dv_dt wrote:
| Wouldn't it be ironic if this was some secret comm equipment
| that the US is installing in its own embassies
| cookguyruffles wrote:
| The same idea crossed my mind. Those embassies are chock full
| of magical equipment, US embassies sometimes have radio-
| transparent walls for unspecified reasons ( https://en.wikipe
| dia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_States,_... )
| bingbong70 wrote:
| One of the leaked NSA slides from 2013-2015 included an
| electromagnetic weapon that was supposedly used to exfiltrate
| data from air gapped systems by turning humans (or any living
| thing with high water content) in a given area into WiFi
| antennas.
|
| If anyone else remembers the slides detailing this device
| please post the source.
| sigg3 wrote:
| It's "just" TEMPEST in the nth iteration.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28codename%29
| throwaway639035 wrote:
| Not a proof, but several years ago I found this [1] document
| from a FOIA request on "Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal
| Weapon" and I found it interesting enough to save a copy.
| Specific section is "Incapacitating Effect: Microwave Hearing".
|
| [1]
| https://legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/CommitteeDocu...
|
| Edit: ocr-ed version here:
|
| https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/files/Bioeffec...
| sneak wrote:
| > _After years of playing down the reports and failing to provide
| proper medical care for the victims, Washington is now clearly
| alarmed at the implications of the attacks._
|
| An important reminder to anyone who thinks that putting
| themselves in harm's way to do jobs for the US spying apparatus
| is a good idea. They won't even care for you when you get injured
| on the job, sacrificing yourself for their cause.
| throwaway478543 wrote:
| A Canadian study came to the conclusion that aggressive pesticide
| spraying is likely to blame for the Havana syndrome:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-en...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| People do love an unsolved mystery...
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > "They said it was a 'no-brainer' that this medical condition
| was due to an attack."
|
| Exactly not the kind of people who should be allowed to
| investigate anything. Not even who framed Roger Rabbit much less
| a claim of international warfare committed with a secret ray gun.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| > Donald Trump: I believe Cuba is responsible. _Swiftly expels
| Cuban diplomats from the US and restricts travel to Cuba._
|
| Regardless of what has been injuring people, it is quite clear
| that the US has blamed what happened on Cuba and took decisive
| political actions, without evidence to support Cuba's
| involvement. It is par for the course with how they've treated
| Cuba in the past.
| andi999 wrote:
| Yes. Also if you look at the choice of words this citation only
| claims an attack, but not microwave attack.
| reedf1 wrote:
| Can't you just get a spectrum analyser to detect things like
| this? Did technology like that not exist in this era?
| Google234 wrote:
| Why don't they install detectors inside all the embassies at risk
| to prove or disprove this? Why didn't they do this earlier? I'm
| pretty sure there are many places that could be contracted to
| make a detector in a few weeks - this isn't new technology. This
| seems really easy to test... so why are we still speculating.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| If they did, there is no reason we would be told or the results
| would be made public.
| GVIrish wrote:
| They could try that, but it seems like personnel are being
| attacked outside of embassies. They'd need to equip everyone's
| domicile with detectors as well.
|
| That said, State Dept and the intelligence community should've
| been all over this. When this happened in Cuba, everyone
| should've been on high alert. When it happened again after,
| people should've snapped into action.
|
| It's possible that the powers that be didn't take it seriously
| but now there's no excuse for Biden admin not to act. Clearly
| the perpetrator is emboldened and will persist until they
| experience serious consequences.
|
| And at the very least, those affected by this should be getting
| workers comp and full support to deal with the effects.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| Uh, the administration Biden belonged to more or less ignored
| worse stuff than this that enabled attacks like this. Take,
| for example, the OPM "hack." Read this:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2015/06/encry...
|
| IF you're wondering how whoever was running attacks like this
| would get the data to follow people home with attacks like
| this, in places where there aren't any sensors, look at these
| hearings from 2014.
|
| Noone was fired, noone even lost their pension over that.
| GVIrish wrote:
| > Uh, the administration Biden belonged to more or less
| ignored worse stuff than this that enabled attacks like
| this. Take, for example, the OPM "hack."
|
| I worked at State Department during the Obama era and into
| the Trump era. I am well aware that the Obama
| administration did not impose adequate consequences for
| prior acts of espionage and aggression such as the Cozy
| Bear hack on State Dept or Mikhail Lesin getting bludgeoned
| to death in DC. There also wasn't adequate pushback against
| propaganda efforts.
|
| The OPM hack is widely attributed to China and is probably
| the most devastating breach in recent memory. Who knows
| what the real world consequences of that have been thus
| far.
|
| Either way ny point is that right now, today, there is no
| excuse not to act. Unless maybe they still haven't figured
| out what is happening and who is responsible.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| IF my Dad were alive and here and lucid (he had dementia
| the last five years of his life) he could give details of
| similar actions by the Russians and the US from basically
| the late 50's to the late 70's, which was the span of
| time of his having worked for obscure three-letter
| agencies.
|
| Oh, and willing to talk. He only talked to me, his son,
| about a friend of his who he thought was killed by the
| Russians twice over a forty-year period.
|
| But anyway, I suspect based on that that it's happened
| plenty of times before without retaliation.
|
| >Either way ny point is that right now, today, there is
| no excuse not to act. Unless maybe they still haven't
| figured out what is happening and who is responsible.
|
| I doubt we can; I think the OPM hack has lead on to
| further intelligence failures, to the point where we
| can't tell what's going on, can't count on the three
| letter agencies to tell us the truth about stuff, and
| can't effectively defend ourselves as a result.
|
| I think that's part of why the allegedly natural virus
| hit us so hard. One failure leads to the next.
| enkid wrote:
| I agree that more should have been done, but the director
| of the OPM did resign, which is basically being fired in
| that kind of position. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2015/07/10/421783403...
| ianhawes wrote:
| OPM Director is a political position with a defined end
| date. They serve for 1-4 years.
| [deleted]
| 6510 wrote:
| I would put them on police cars. They are driving around anyway
| and their other duties are not that different. Also, the
| alternative is for them not to know they are getting zapped.
| rbanffy wrote:
| A small detector would be easy to build and carry around, with
| 80's technology.
|
| The connection between these events is tenuous at best.
| Google234 wrote:
| Yeah, it actually looks like you can buy them on Amazon for
| about 30$. I don't want to doubt but this seems so simple to
| test that the lack of any direct evidence makes me
| suspicious.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-
| Radiation-5HZ-3500MHz...
| tyingq wrote:
| The descriptions of the attacks seem to indicate a pretty
| narrow beamwidth, so you'd probably have to wear it on a
| helmet :)
| lolc wrote:
| At intensities that would injure, you light up the whole
| neighbourhood with scattered radiation. There's no hiding
| this attack from a sensor in the vicinity.
| tyingq wrote:
| The math would be interesting to see. I haven't seen a
| directed energy antenna, but you can easily drop 9db with
| single digit degrees off target with a big dish.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| 9dB is really not a lot. If you're going to be sending
| 10kW+ of radiation 9dB of directionality still means
| you're gonna light up the whole neighborhood.
| jacquesm wrote:
| In the most literal sense of the word. 1 KW at 100 meters
| on a directional antenna like that will happily light up
| neon tubes. The field is going to be a few hundred
| V/meter.
| amelius wrote:
| This kind of device seems marketed towards people who think
| EM waves in general are bad for them. It says it can't
| detect RF radiation while it clearly says 3.5Ghz in the
| description, so I think it might be a scam.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Regardless of that, wideband EM receivers exist, and the
| US has some with incredibly high sensitivities.
| swiley wrote:
| I've honestly thought about keeping one of these in my
| apartment, I worry a bit about people doing stupid things with
| microwave ovens.
| tscherno wrote:
| As far as I know the creator of this site was later
| hospitalized in to locked-ward psychiatry.
|
| http://mikrowellenterror.de/english/index.htm
| ta988 wrote:
| Something like that?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUNFc1dfU7k
| cardanome wrote:
| I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science
| but at least using basic fact checking should be doable.
|
| Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something:
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t...
| (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story
| again and again).
|
| I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown
| ass adults why they should wear masks during a pandemic I am
| tired for arguing against all the misinformation.
|
| The average person has no idea how microwaves work so they are
| basically magic and easily to make some scary story up. Why
| change the time tested cold war approach of just throwing
| ridiculous lies against any perceived enemy of the US of A and
| see what sticks. If it doesn't stick the first time, just repeat
| and repeat it. The more often people hear it the more believable
| it seems.
| leoc wrote:
| Is your claim that the US EE professor and the US professor of
| neurosurgery quoted in the Snopes article are lying for their
| government, or that they are grossly incompetent?
| candiodari wrote:
| But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments
| constantly lie. In a number of cases this is explainable. For
| instance, one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying
| about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie
| about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's
| particularly effective. While you need uranium to find the
| correct values, uranium + an old tv can tell you exactly what's
| being lied about and what the correct values are. Any
| experimental physicist leans how to do this).
|
| But we are now in the situation that media in Europe are lying
| every day about the constant violence used by the police in
| Paris (and Brussels, and Madrid, and ...) against COVID-
| protestors. For example, just from today:
|
| https://twitter.com/KevinTONON_/status/1388575836387880965
|
| (Paris is usually much worse btw)
|
| So you cannot trust these messages. Your argument is
| essentially an appeal to an authority. It is critically
| dependent on the authority not lying, and not leaving out
| critical information, and since you have no ability to figure
| out what they would lie about (and the State Dept has lied
| about their own people getting hurt and the causes many times).
|
| That doesn't mean other sources are believable or not. The
| sources of these conspiracies do mean
|
| 1) people who were here _were_ hurt.
|
| 2) the state department is not helping them.
|
| 3) the purpose of these denial messages is, at least in part,
| to justify 2).
|
| I'm willing to bet that you at the very least think 2) is not
| true. So your careful fact checking has in fact lead you astray
| as well, because authorities, just like anyone else, serve
| their own interests.
| cardanome wrote:
| > But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that
| governments constantly lie.
|
| Governments do lie and there have been many real
| conspiracies. I don't exactly see how that is a problem with
| what I wrote. Sure sometimes you have to more research than
| just look up snopes but the real conspiracies mostly have
| some realistic motivations and reasons behind them to explain
| them. Critical thinking can get you far.
|
| > While you need uranium to find the correct values, uranium
| + an old tv can tell you exactly what's being lied about and
| what the correct values are. Any experimental physicist leans
| how to do this).
|
| Exactly, applying the scientific method to find out the truth
| works.
|
| > But we are now in the situation that media in Europe are
| lying every day about the constant violence used by the
| police in Paris (and Brussels, and Madrid, and ...) against
| COVID-protestors. For example, just from today:
|
| Any measures fighting a pandemic are by nature authoritarian.
| That can not be helped and doesn't invalidate the measures.
|
| Covid-19 is just the beginning. The more our world is
| globalized the more often will we have to deal with new
| viruses and the like. If we don't find a way to effectively
| contain these challenges we are looking at a world that I
| don't find particular worth living in. So you are barking up
| the wrong tree here.
|
| > 1) people who were here were hurt.
|
| Even this is not proven. The symptoms are very unspecific and
| might not be related to their work.
|
| > 2) the state department is not helping them.
|
| Maybe because of my answer to 1.
|
| > 3) the purpose of these denial messages is, at least in
| part, to justify 2).
|
| Again the whole arguments fails apart of as the 1st point is
| not proven.
| candiodari wrote:
| > Governments do lie and there have been many real
| conspiracies. I don't exactly see how that is a problem
| with what I wrote.
|
| Your central thesis is an appeal to authority ... and the
| authority you pick is one that never really tells the
| truth, has interests at stake here, and has historically
| lied with rather large consequences. Nor have they ever
| even apologised or even admitted wrongdoing. What I'm
| saying is: pick another authority.
|
| > Exactly, applying the scientific method to find out the
| truth works.
|
| That seems like an excellent proposal for another authority
| to go to. A well-cited academic that would at least lose
| credibility if they lied, for example.
|
| > Any measures fighting a pandemic are by nature
| authoritarian. That can not be helped and doesn't
| invalidate the measures.
|
| The measures are authoritarian wild guesses. With, of
| course, a healthy dose of denying there was anything wrong
| with past measures and complete refusal to help with the
| massive damage they are causing or accepting anything
| remotely resembling responsibility. And half the measures
| are pandering to special interest groups of course.
|
| None of it justifies feeding people wrong information. And
| let's not joke here. The government is feeding information,
| and hiding other information, just like all the other
| groups are. For instance, they are massively downplaying
| that the big source of infections was hospitals. We all
| know why: they're afraid of being called to account for
| ancient ventilation systems in particularly infectious
| hospitals. They're afraid of the current systems (of having
| all publicly insured patients share rooms, EVEN when caring
| for infectious patients) might be in need of redesign. And
| the second source of infections is restaurants. That is
| being downplayed everywhere they reopen them.
|
| And of course, they're especially afraid of the knowledge
| that we don't know all that much about how it spreads
| coming out. That it will become public knowledge that most
| measures are just wild guesses. I understand that, it won't
| make negotiation about measures easier. It's still wrong.
|
| Here is some real info: https://www.who.int/news-
| room/commentaries/detail/transmissi...
| skinkestek wrote:
| > For example, just from today:
|
| > https://twitter.com/KevinTONON_/status/1388575836387880965
|
| I don't know if it was correct for the police to get those
| people away, but from the video the police
|
| 1. didn't use force until someone started kicking against
| them etc
|
| 2. when people continued moving away police immediately left
| them alone
|
| I was expecting police to run after someone who hadn't done
| anything or something but this looks like a quite ordinary
| example of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
|
| You don't kick after a police officer (or anyone else for
| that matter) and act surprised when you get a beating.
|
| That said I agree with much of the rest.
| adwi wrote:
| > one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about
| certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about
| lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's
| particularly effective.
|
| What is being lied about, and what is its truth?
| pigscantfly wrote:
| It sounds to me like GP is hinting that the rate of
| particle emission for a given mass of uranium (maybe just
| the more fissile U-235?) is deliberately misreported in the
| literature. The way people originally determined that value
| experimentally was to count the light flashes produced over
| a period of time by a source of ionizing radiation placed
| at one end of a vacuum tube. I'm not a physicist, so
| hopefully someone can correct me if I'm barking up the
| wrong tree here.
| GVIrish wrote:
| That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it
| just says there is no known public evidence that matches up
| with what is described.
|
| Fact is that if this is real, it is the work of a sophisticated
| adversary that may have found a novel way to attack people.
| Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft
| that would seem implausible to most people even today.
|
| A relevant example is the use of microwaves to activate a
| passive antenna through walls to eaves drop on conversations
| (look up "The Thing Listening Device). Again this was done many
| decades ago. Not too far fetched to consider that maybe Russia
| intelligence services found a way to weaponized microwaves.
| markdown wrote:
| It isn't real.
| cardanome wrote:
| > That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it
| just says there is no known public evidence that matches up
| with what is described.
|
| I can not disprove that there is a magic man in the sky. Or a
| teapot revolving around the sun. [1]
|
| The burden of proof is on the person making the claim not the
| other way round. Yes, lack of evidence is enough to reject
| it. Not to mention that the claim goes against established
| scientific knowledge and therefore would need some serious
| evidence for it to be taken serious.
|
| > Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in
| spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even
| today.
|
| There is lot's of things we do not know but that does not
| make a good argument for the existence of something.
|
| > A relevant example is the use of microwaves to activate a
| passive antenna through walls to eaves drop on conversations
| (look up "The Thing Listening Device). Again this was done
| many decades ago. Not too far fetched to consider that maybe
| Russia intelligence services found a way to weaponized
| microwaves.
|
| Not really, there is no clear quantitative development patch
| from The Thing Listening Device to the Havana style microwave
| attack.
|
| Now we know the hypotheses requiring the fewest assumptions
| to be more likely true. [2] So what is more likely?
|
| The whole Havana Syndrome is fabricated propaganda that is
| typical and in line of many similar cases of proven lies?
|
| Or that Cuba has some advanced secret technology that even
| the US has no access to and that they are using on US
| diplomatic personal without any good motivation. In fact it
| will hurt their reputation. So we need to also claim that
| they are irrationally evil.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
| fighterpilot wrote:
| > lack of evidence is enough to reject it
|
| This is a pseudo-skeptical[1] finger in the ear reaction.
|
| There's nothing in your posts here that tells me that
| you've reviewed the evidence that's been put forth[2] and
| rejected it, and it seems Snopes hasn't either.
|
| All I see is a total a priori dismissal which is _not_ good
| practice for either a skeptic or a scientist.
|
| Here's what would've told me that this is a good faith
| exercise (by either you or Snopes): You show that you
| understand what the claimed evidence is, you present it in
| the most generous and strong terms, then you explain why
| it's wrong.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK566408/#sec0017
| leoc wrote:
| There's little in the Snopes article which opposes the
| microwave theory, as opposed to the sound theory. It
| quotes two US experts in favour of the idea, and the
| strongest evidence it gives against microwaves is a
| dismissive reaction from an expert who, as the article
| makes clear, was acting as a spokesman for the Cuban
| government.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is just ad hominem.
| cardanome wrote:
| > There's nothing in your posts here that tells me that
| you've reviewed the evidence that's been put forth[2] and
| rejected it, and it seems Snopes hasn't either.
|
| I have debated that topic multiple times during different
| years. Yes, I am not fully up to date with the newest
| version
|
| I you were a police man and some guy came up and claimed
| to be a victim of a crime and you find out the details
| don't add up, well that happens. Now if he came back next
| year with a slightly different story about the same
| crime, yeah that is fishy. If he constantly keeps
| changing his implausible story you would at some tell him
| to get lost for wasting police time.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| > if he came back next year with a slightly different
| story
|
| So the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
| Medicine keeps changing their story? Do you have evidence
| for this?
| [deleted]
| jasonhansel wrote:
| A question: why doesn't the government just expose Havana
| syndrome sufferers to various frequencies of microwaves and ask
| if it "sounds the same" as the sonic attacks? That would seem
| like a good way of ruling it out as a possibility.
| totalZero wrote:
| Apart from that being destructive testing, my guess is that the
| first time you burn something feels different than the second
| time you burn it. So you may well end up doing more damage
| without obtaining conclusive results.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| The US has a long history of abuses and orchestrated false flag
| attacks on Cuba. See Operation Northwoods [0] and Cubana de
| Aviacion Flight 455 [1]. Somewhat ironically, the US illegally
| transmits EM radiation to the island in the form of a propaganda-
| heavy radio station known as Radio Marti. [2]
|
| I ask you to please consider these historical events before
| deciding that Cuba has zapped people's brains using targeted
| microwave beams.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviacion_Flight_455
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_y_Television_Mart%C3%AD#...
| jjcon wrote:
| You are flooding this post with with multiple threads of
| innuendo and conspiracy theory - this syndrome is documented in
| dozens of officials in multiple governments at multiple levels.
| It has been studied by independent researchers, medical
| professionals, contractors etc. This has none of the hallmarks
| of a false flag operation, which in this case would require
| conspiracy on a massive scale. The US/Canada do not need
| conspiracy to accomplish any of their strategic goals with
| respect to Cuba.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| There's no innuendo or conspiracy. Everything I've mentioned
| is supported by fact.
|
| People believing microwaves are frying brains might want to
| don their tin foils hats for adequate protection.
| jjcon wrote:
| >The US has a long history of abuses and orchestrated false
| flag attacks on Cuba
|
| To support this, you cite a proposed US operation (not a
| real one), a bombing carried out by cuban terrorists and a
| radio station?
|
| > we only began hearing reports when Trump was in office
|
| Then you claim that multiple governments, dozens of victims
| and their families, medical professionals, independent
| boards, contractors, etc etc have all colluded with the
| former trump administration to invent havana syndrome? (The
| exact cause for which nobody has claimed definitively)
|
| > immediate political actions were taken against Cuban
| diplomats who were likely working to lift the embargo
|
| All this so they could push back against the embargo which
| they could do without the cover of a massive conspiracy?
|
| What about what you are saying isn't innuendo or conspiracy
| theory?
| tediousdemise wrote:
| I'm saying there's no evidence implicating Cuba in the
| incidents, that they are an "attack," or that they
| involved microwaves. Quite frankly, nobody knows what
| caused the suspected injuries.
|
| > Then you claim that multiple governments, dozens of
| victims and their families, medical professionals,
| independent boards, contractors, etc etc have all
| colluded with the former trump administration to invent
| havana syndrome? (The exact cause for which nobody has
| claimed definitively)
|
| You are putting these words in my mouth. I never
| suggested that anyone is colluding or conspiring about
| this. However, it is patently obvious that the US is
| making politically-motivated conclusions that Cuba is to
| blame, with a lack of evidence.
|
| Also from Wikipedia:
|
| > After the incident was made public, the Cuban Foreign
| Minister accused the U.S. of lying about the incident and
| denied Cuban involvement in the health problems
| experienced by diplomats or knowledge of their cause. The
| Cuban government offered to cooperate with the U.S. in an
| investigation of the incidents.
| jjcon wrote:
| > The "microwave attack" story came out in mid-2017 when
| Trump was in office. Travel restrictions came back and
| foreign relations languished. It's trivially easy to
| blame a nation state for an attack, and then use it as
| excuse to end political support, agreements, or funding.
|
| > it is patently obvious that the US is making
| politically-motivated conclusions that Cuba is to blame
|
| That is called innuendo friend, and right here you are
| asserting a conspiracy.
|
| Especially considering that the US and Canadian
| governments have not officially identified causes or
| those responsible (though that has not stopped officials
| and health professionals from speculating).
| [deleted]
| whereis wrote:
| The claim is that the attacks also occurred in Russia, China,
| and other undisclosed locations.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| While that may or may not be true, it is being called "Havana
| syndrome," and the following words are from Donald Trump:
|
| > I do believe Cuba's responsible. I do believe that. And
| it's a very unusual attack, as you know. But I do believe
| Cuba is responsible. [0]
|
| Calling this unsubstantiated illness "Havana syndrome" is
| arguably as inaccurate and xenophobic as calling coronavirus
| the "China virus" or "Wuhan flu." [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome#Impact_on_A
| mer...
|
| [1] https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/calling-
| covid-19-the-...
| cm2187 wrote:
| That dates a bit.
|
| I find it hard to believe the embassy wouldn't detect a
| microwave attack given that they probably monitor the whole
| spectrum.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Depending on the frequency radio waves can have extremely
| narrow beams. If an antenna is not literally in the path of
| the beam it can't detect it. Microwaves happen to be readily
| formed into tight beams. If an embassy had a monitoring
| system a microwave brain cooker beam might have just looked
| like a splash of static if it was detected at all. Multiple
| beams would likely be used so only their focal point
| (someone's head) would feel the full effect and so monitoring
| would be even less likely to detect such beams.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You can have two of the following three.
|
| Small size (less than thirty meters), low scatter, and
| power.
|
| If you're going to have a powerful microwave brain frying
| system radiating over a 50m^2 area there is no way you're
| not going to light up the neighborhood in EM. Just can't
| happen, sorry.
| giantrobot wrote:
| I don't know why you think a brain frying system needs to
| operate over a 50m^2 area or why you think it needs to be
| small. Buildings with windows exist as do building across
| from those windowed buildings.
|
| Maybe some day someone will invent phased array antennas
| and you'll be able to direct narrow beam emissions
| without having to physically move the antenna. I can
| dream I guess.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Phased array antennas have very high scatter compared to
| classical antennas of a similar size, Because they
| scatter in lobes.
|
| 50m^2 is quite small. There is no reasonable way of
| knowing where your target will be across a wall.
|
| But even if you made it only 5m^2 you'd still be dumping
| off-axis like a 100w omnidirectional antenna at the very
| best.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Besides, 30 years of domestic and foreign intelligence, and
| they still have no idea who and how does this weird microwave
| attacks? I'm a bit incredulous.
| koreanguy wrote:
| Paranoia is the feeling that you're being threatened in some way,
| such as people watching you or acting against you, even though
| there's no proof that it's true. It happens to a lot of people at
| some point. Even when you know that your concerns aren't based in
| reality, they can be troubling if they happen too often
| avaldes wrote:
| Why media and government keep calling them "attacks"? If three
| letters agencies are so eager to call them attacks I suppose they
| know how that would work and they have similar tech right? If so,
| is there any documented case of "washington syndrome" in
| russian/chinese/iranian diplomats? (Sorry for my english)
| jchook wrote:
| The USSR irradiated the US embassy in Moscow with microwaves from
| 1953 to 1979. Later analysis showed virtually no health impacts
| and no increase in mortality.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30676008/
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Worth noting that the exposure at the Moscow embassy was a
| fraction of what you would get from a cellphone in your pocket.
| So I don't think it's a good way to show that this is safe.
| eternalban wrote:
| From your first cite, there are some interesting tidbits to
| consider:
|
| Interesting to learn that USSR (& associated block) had set a
| safe exposure level of 0.010 mW/cm2, while in US the level was
| set in 1953 to, and remains at, 10 mW/cm2 for GHz freq. range.
|
| The paper notes (and it is worth quoting at length in the
| context of this thread):
|
| " _It is essential to understand the historical context in
| which this episode occurred. On the one hand, the Soviets had
| considerable experience in researching the biological effects
| of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields, while the Americans
| had experimented with microwaves as a weapon of mind control.
| It is hardly surprising, therefore, that with this background,
| the matter was considered to be so significant.
|
| ...
|
| "It was certainly suspicious that the Soviets had a maximum
| exposure level 1000 times lower than that of the Americans.
| What did the USSR know about the effects of microwaves that the
| US did not know? As pointed out by Guthrie (11), the standards
| in the US were approved in 1953 and were based on theoretical
| considerations, under the assumption that microwave radiation
| produced only thermal effects on biological systems, and that
| these effects could not be cumulative as microwaves are non-
| ionizing. Guthrie (11) recognized that, by 1977, several
| medical studies had already cast serious doubt on previous
| assumptions.
|
| "For example, Dr. Milton Zaret, Associate Professor of
| Ophthalmology at the New York University-Bellevue Medical
| Center, who had conducted several microwave investigations for
| the US government, said, "The American National Standard
| Institute's standard is not a safe standard. Instead, it is a
| statement defining the highest possible degree of occu-
| pational risk. It was based solely on whole body thermal burden
| calculations. It ignored the question of organ sensitivity and
| delayed effects following chronic low-level exposure" (11).
|
| "Professor Herman Schwan of the University of Pennsylvania, one
| of the proponents of the 10 mW/cm2 standard, stated "No one
| knows whether safe exposure standards, which may be appropriate
| for adults, are so for children" (11).
|
| "However, as Guthrie (11) explained, the Soviet bloc also had
| other safety standards. At the Symposium on the Biological
| Effects and Health Implications of Micro- wave Radiation, held
| in 1970, Karel Marha of Czechoslovakia explained that they had
| proposed a standard of 0.01 mW/cm2, as it was recognized that
| there was evidence of biological effects up to levels of 0.1
| mW/cm2, so a safety factor of 10 had been proposed until
| finally deciding on the standard of 0.01 mW/cm2. These maximum
| levels were introduced to prevent not only damage to the organ-
| ism but also any unpleasant subjective feelings. In addition,
| the standard in Czechoslovakia was lowered to 0.001 mW/cm2 when
| it was assumed that exposure did not occur during a working
| day, but over a 24-h period."
|
| "The Soviets were, however, not the only ones deeply interested
| in this issue; the Americans had, since the 1950s, been
| investigating the possible use of microwaves as a weapon of
| mind control.
|
| "As Krishnan (10) explains, in the 1950s the CIA had looked
| into the use of electromagnetic fields for mind control
| purposes as part of its MK ULTRA project. MK ULTRA was a top
| secret program first set up in the late 1940s to investigate
| behavioral modification and the control of individual minds in
| the service of American geopolitical and ideological interests
| (24).
|
| "Subproject 62 of MK ULTRA was run by the neurosurgeon Maitland
| Baldwin, and aimed to analyze the effect of electromagnetic
| waves on monkeys. This was one of 149 subprojects designed by
| the CIA, and was entitled "Effects of radio-frequency energy on
| primate cerebral activity" (25). In one of these experiments,
| monkeys were exposed to high-powered (100 V) frequencies of 388
| MHz, resulting in several changes in the electroencephalogram,
| as well as arousal and drowsiness. In addition, he observed
| lethal effects after just a few minutes of exposure (10).
|
| "Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist who actively partici- pated in
| the MK ULTRA project, carried out experiments using personnel
| from the purpose-built Radio Telemetry Laboratory, probably
| with the intention of finding out more about the effects of the
| microwave bombardment of the American embassy. In 1965, the
| Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) commissioned
| the Walter Reed Army Medical Center Research Institute and the
| Johns Hopkins University to study the possible bio- logical
| effects of microwave exposure on humans, in what was dubbed the
| Pandora Project (10).
|
| "As Krishnan (10) also pointed out, Dr. Milton Zaret
| acknowledged that effects on the nervous system due to
| microwave exposure were possible, and Robert O. Becker, twice
| nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on the
| effects of electromagnetic fields on living tissues, indicated
| in an interview to the BBC in 1984 that he thought it was
| unquestionable that exposure could produce disturbances in the
| central nervous system. Becker did not believe that, with the
| technology avail- able at the time, someone could be made to
| instantly fall asleep, but that exposure to microwaves could
| possibly interfere in an individual's decision-making ability.
| This could produce a situation of chronic stress resulting in
| the embassy staff operating less efficiently than usual, to the
| obvious advantage of the Soviets.
|
| "Weinberger (26) tells how the Americans themselves deceived
| the embassy staff when, in 1965, doctors began performing blood
| tests. The staff were told that the doctors were looking for a
| new virus but, in reality, they wanted to integrate the
| information obtained into the Pandora Project. In October 1965,
| Richard Cesaro took over the DARPA Program Plan 562, the
| technical name of the Pandora Project. Cesaro had been
| responsible for translating dozens of Soviet investigations
| into this subject, and realized that the neurological effects
| of microwaves fascinated the enemy.
|
| "As Weinberger (26) continues, the Pandora project involved
| experiments on monkeys carried out in government laboratories
| rather than universities, due to the top- secret nature of the
| project. The monkeys were exposed to the same signal levels
| that the embassy received in Moscow. The results were not
| subject to peer review but, in Decem- ber of 1966, Cesaro
| reported that the first monkey involved in the tests had shown
| erratic and repetitive behavior, which led him to assert that
| it was unquestionable that the signal had penetrated the
| central nervous system and caused changes in the assigned work
| functions. He was so convinced by the results that he
| recommended that the Pentagon immediately begin to investigate
| potential military applications, and requested that the project
| be extended to include experiments on humans, something that
| certain sections within the CIA viewed with suspicion, as it
| was too reminiscent of the questionable practices of the MK
| ULTRA project. It was May of 1969 and the scientific committee
| of Pandora was considering extend- ing the study to include
| eight humans, but in the end this did not occur as the results
| of experiments carried out on primates were still being
| reviewed and there were doubts over whether this behavioral
| change was in fact produced by the microwave signals. In 1968,
| Dr. James McIlwain took over the Pandora Project and, after
| reviewing the results thus far obtained, concluded that the
| microwave signals did not result in the ability to control the
| minds of the monkeys.
|
| "As Weinberger (26) concludes, in 1969 DARPA ended its support
| for Pandora, and Cesaro was fired. At the end of the decade,
| the American intelligence services claimed that the Soviets had
| used these waves not to control the minds of diplomats, but to
| activate listening devices on the walls of the building."_
|
| The refs cited are:
|
| 10: Krishnan A. _Military neuroscience and the coming age of
| neuro-warfare_. Routledge, 2017.
|
| 11: Guthrie LB. _Legal implications of the Soviet microwave
| bombardment of the US Embassy_. Boston College Int Comp Law Rev
| 1977;1:Article, 6
|
| 24: Lemov R. _Brainwashing's avatar: the curious career of Dr.
| Ewen Cameron_. Grey Room 2011;45:60-87.
|
| 25: Ross CA. _The CIA Doctors: human rights violations by
| American psychiatrists_. Richardson, TX: Manitou
| Communications, 2006.
|
| 26: Weinberger S. _The secret history of diplomats and
| invisible weapons_ , 2017, August 25. Retrieved from:
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/25/the-secret-history-of-d...
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I just finished "The Spy in Moscow Station" which talks about
| these signals. Although this isn't a direct response to your
| point about mortality, an interesting feature of the Moscow
| (Microwave) Signal is that it -- considered as a surveillance
| threat, rather than a health threat -- also received a lot of
| the same skepticism I'm seeing in this thread.
|
| The TL;DR is that various agencies strongly resisted attempts
| to dig into _why_ the USSR was directing microwaves at the
| embassy, despite the fact that the USSR had already been caught
| placing microwave-powered listening devices inside the
| building. The book describes an argument between State, CIA and
| NSA in which the former two mostly wanted to ignore the
| signals. The belief was (1) that no technology had been
| demonstrated that these signals could exploit, and (2) even
| after the NSA cooked up some examples, people refused to
| believe that the USSR was sophisticated enough to exploit them.
| (I won 't spoil the book by giving away the resolution.)
|
| I'm not offering this as any kind of proof that the current
| batch of Havana syndrome cases is real: just pointing out that
| while "we've never seen it before so it probably doesn't exist"
| can be a reasonable heuristic in day-to-day life, it's not
| necessarily a great one in the world of spying.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| I imagine the conclusion of the book was that the microwave
| was used to send energy to a listening device inside the
| ambassy? (same technology as the contactless smart cards used
| in public transport)
|
| A famous instance of this is 'the thing' :
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
| ta988 wrote:
| That and you cover the signal of interest by flooding
| nearby frequency spectrum hoping nobody will notice the
| tiny blip.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Arafat dying of cancer soon after not signing peace accord?
| tediousdemise wrote:
| During Obama's term, US-Cuba relations dramatically improved,
| with fewer travel restrictions and other dealings. Cuba was on
| track to having the embargo removed.
|
| The "microwave attack" story came out in mid-2017 when Trump was
| in office. Travel restrictions came back and foreign relations
| languished. It's trivially easy to blame a nation state for an
| attack, and then use it as excuse to end political support,
| agreements, or funding.
|
| Cuba has been the repeated target of bullying by the United
| States for the better half of the last century, despite no recent
| transgressions other than most-likely-fabricated ones such as
| these "microwave attacks."
| bigbillheck wrote:
| The only 'transgression' Cuba's done is its unwillingness to be
| a US puppet state.
| totalZero wrote:
| Cuba isn't exactly Switzerland. It has a long history of
| being a Soviet puppet state during the 20th century, and a
| nucleation site for anti-US activities elsewhere in Latin
| America. Furthermore, there would be no Maduro regime without
| the influence of Cuba, and that regime is expressly pro-
| Russia and destructive to Venezuela.
|
| Let's not distill away the complexity of the situation.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| I don't think Venezuela or Russia are relevant in this
| situation, since we are strictly taking about US-Cuba
| relations.
| totalZero wrote:
| If you understand the patchwork quilt of Latin American
| relations, then it is immediately obvious how those other
| countries are related to Cuba. Imagine discussing Cuban
| "transgressions" (under the present regime, no less)
| without considering the Soviet role in the Cuban Missile
| Crisis, for example.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| That's understandable, but the Soviet Union collapsed in
| 1991.
|
| Why is the US still vehemently opposed to Cuba, or
| improving its relationship with Cuba?
|
| Even North Korea has better standing with the US than
| Cuba, but it makes little sense.
| CalChris wrote:
| Because Miami.
| totalZero wrote:
| If you look at the prior conversation, you'll see that it
| isn't centered on the question you are posing here.
|
| There was a statement that Cuba's only "transgression"
| was a desire to not be a US puppet state. That is a false
| claim.
|
| Ignoring the language of "vehement" this and "opposed"
| that, I believe that my prior comment addressed your
| question. The present regime in Cuba is a direct
| descendent of the 26th of July Movement that orchestrated
| the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. Cuba continues to be
| governed by the same faction and ideology that governed
| the island for four decades of the USSR's existence.
| n9 wrote:
| Respectfully, this question sounds like it is coming from
| a context of the US being a nation that deals with other
| regimes fairly and in good faith. This is not at all the
| case, most especially in the Caribbean and Central
| America. The crimes of the US are unfathomably legion in
| these areas and well understood by pretty much everyone,
| except Americans. Millions of lives lost, dozens of
| democratically elected regimes deposed, the list goes on
| and on. Cuba holds this standing because the Castro
| regime has resisted the will of US foreign policy and
| survived. Everything that one could report that is wrong
| with Cuba: human rights issues, poverty... the US's
| policies are causal a great deal to all of these.
| totalZero wrote:
| US investment is the single greatest causal factor for
| prosperity in Latin America. Look at Panama and Chile,
| for example. In fact, the midas touch of American
| investment is visible in several other places outside of
| the Americas, including Taiwan and South Korea.
|
| In my view, it is hard to label the immense prosperity-
| inducing capacity of United States foreign investment as
| bad-faith or unfair dealing. Cuba's government has spent
| years working on projects to attract spend-happy American
| tourists. Elsewhere in the region, entire countries base
| their economies around remittances from the USA. The US
| government could crack down on remittances and illegal
| immigration far more than already happens, but it does
| not, and millions of people in the region benefit as a
| result.
|
| Respectfully, it takes a great deal of time, study, and
| travel to learn the dynamics involved in a region before
| you can say with confidence that Influence A is good and
| Influence B is bad. People who lean left in the US should
| understand that 'socialist' isn't a catch-all phrase; it
| means something different when you're voting for Bernie
| Sanders in the Iowa Caucuses than it does when you're
| bartering with your uncle for soap in Camaguey. I have
| been all over Latin America and I personally still don't
| consider myself to know all there is to know about the
| region. What I do know is that the "USA bad" narrative
| tends rarely to be accompanied with a discussion of the
| counterfactual universe where American influence is
| hypothetically absent from the region.
| n9 wrote:
| If you're going to use that kind of argument, re:
| global/network effects of a government as complicit in
| negative outcomes of actions in other countries... the USA
| is by far the worst offender. It could be argued that the
| questiobnable actions Cuba has taken are justified in the
| context of trying to deal with an insidious and pervasive
| foreign influence over most of the globe: the US.
|
| My question is what he USSR and Cuba would have ended up
| looking like without the insanely disruptive actions by the
| US. The USSR would have likely been an entirely different
| society if they were not compelled to spend such an
| enormous amount of their GDP on weapons and defense and
| Cuba would likewise have developed quite differently
| without dealing with the embargo.
| totalZero wrote:
| I don't think that's a good-faith characterization of my
| prior comment. Please read carefully. I'm not suggesting
| network effects. I'm talking about direct activity. There
| is boundless information about this available online, but
| this is a start regarding the Venezuela link:
|
| https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2019/10/18/bo
| liv...
|
| Separately, you can also read about the Cuban antecedents
| to Che's fatal incursion into Bolivia, and his team's
| lack of regard for the linguistic differences across
| regions in that country. There are seven decades worth of
| Cuban involvement in anti-American activity all over
| Latin America. I invite you to read about it from time to
| time when you are bored and curious.
|
| Whether you support one side, the other, or neither, it's
| obvious that Cuba's "transgressions" are not a single-
| element list. That's what the parent comment says and
| it's 100% false.
|
| I find it unreasonable that you suggest the USSR's
| massive stockpiling of weapons was not due to their own
| actions and strategy, but somehow the US's fault. How can
| you be circumspect when you suggest that two can tango
| but only one does the dancing?
| thepasswordis wrote:
| 1) These things started in 2016, before Trump was in office.
|
| 2) The US isn't the only country claiming this is happening.
|
| 3) It is still happening, now, in 2021.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome
| tediousdemise wrote:
| > In 2017, President Donald Trump accused Cuba of
| perpetrating unspecified attacks causing these symptoms.
|
| Although the attacks were hearsay, immediate political
| actions were taken against Cuban diplomats who were likely
| working to lift the embargo:
|
| > In August 2017, the United States expelled two Cuban
| diplomats in response to the illnesses.
|
| Despite zero evidence, Cuba was rapidly blamed in gross
| political fashion:
|
| > In October 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump said that "I
| do believe Cuba's responsible. I do believe that", going on
| to say "And it's a very unusual attack, as you know. But I do
| believe Cuba is responsible."
|
| Why would Cuba jeopardize its warming relationship with the
| US? This is textbook propaganda.
| jjcon wrote:
| > So, we only began hearing reports when Trump was in
| office, allowing for a significant planning period.
|
| You are alleging a massive intergovernmental conspiracy,
| created up by Trump just so he can have some cover to
| strengthen restrictions on Cuba? No, the US doesn't need a
| conspiracy to do that, they can just do it unilaterally.
|
| There are dozens of families that have been affected by
| these attacks, with varying levels of government
| experience, from multiple countries, investigated by
| multiple governments, independent panels, contractors and
| health professionals. It would take conspiracy on a massive
| scale to get everyone on the same page... all to do
| something that can be done without conspiracy and at the
| snap of a finger. That is hilariously ridiculous, not a
| single chance that is the case.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| The only conspiracy here is that targeted microwave beams
| are zapping people's brains.
|
| Holding a security clearance and being the under the
| constant threat of fine and imprisonment for unauthorized
| disclosure makes keeping national secrets trivial. Many
| ambassadors and politicians are required to hold security
| clearances.
| whereis wrote:
| There's been much skepticism in recent years about whether
| microwaves were the cause of these officers' conditions.
|
| This news confirms that govt agencies are taking the microwave
| theory seriously as a confirmed explanation for these conditions.
| It's reasonable to agree with the conclusion at this point.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Its never reasonable to agree with the opaque conclusions of
| spy agencies in any country, especially when the conclusion
| points the finger at a hostile pwoer.
|
| There is literally no reason to believe public communications
| from a spy agency against their enemies (note: that does not
| mean that they can't be true, it just means that the truth of
| them is never the reason why the communication is put out).
| whereis wrote:
| This presumes a conspiracy amongst officers forced into early
| retirement to create a convincing false narrative.
|
| What reason would the USIC have for lying about this? It
| seems unlikely that we would ever retaliate in kind,
| especially not after bringing attention to these incidents.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Throwing off other intelligence agencies. These people
| never deal in the truth that's the whole game.
| whereis wrote:
| It's categorically false to say intel agencies (or the
| slight "these people") never deal in truth. That is not
| how misinfo/disinfo works. Additionally, intel agencies
| play an integral role in providing truthful and accurate
| products, for govt and industry partners.
| l332mn wrote:
| > What reason would the USIC have for lying about this?
|
| There's an entire industry revolving around blaming
| geopolitical enemies of wrongdoing without evidence, where
| the intelligence community plays a key part. This is done
| in order to control the narrative, steer the public
| perception and to keep a semblance of adherence to
| international law, in order to justify unilateral
| political, economic or military hostility. The reality is
| always more nuanced, and it's definitely a safe bet to not
| believe whatever empty accusations they come out with.
|
| Controlling the narrative like they do, the cumulative
| effect of it is that they are able to convince the public
| of quite crazy assertions, which would be rightly treated
| as conspiracy theories had they come from some other
| source. These crazy assertions of course requires equally
| crazy political reactions. E.g. people genuinely believe
| that most US geopolitical enemies are literally rogue,
| bandit states, requiring draconic policing by the US. It's
| a children's view of the world, leading people to look the
| other way when it harms innocents.
|
| The intelligence community has a looong history of doing
| this. It's a central part of the playbook which is readily
| admitted in more casual contexts.
| whereis wrote:
| again, what specifically would the US be trying to
| justify with such a false narrative around rew's? Not
| seeing the cost/benefit.
| amai wrote:
| "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
| grouphugs wrote:
| painful and ineffective
| koonsolo wrote:
| I remember a US embassy where they had all kinds of antennas in
| the attic, to spy on communication.
|
| Is it possible that Cuba is trying to block the spectrum so they
| can't use this technique?
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