[HN Gopher] NIH cancels 'Havana syndrome' research, citing uneth...
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NIH cancels 'Havana syndrome' research, citing unethical coercion
Author : jc_811
Score : 106 points
Date : 2024-09-02 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| jsheard wrote:
| > Since then, at least 1,500 cases have been reported by US
| personnel stationed in 96 countries, officials said last year.
|
| How many of those reports were after they passed the HAVANA Act,
| which grants significant compensation (up to one years salary) to
| any personnel who were affected by this vaguely defined condition
| with no known cause and no definitive physical indicators?
| kranke155 wrote:
| From what I've read I'm almost sure that some people were in
| fact affected. Some kind of directed energy weapon from an
| enemy state. There was a good article I read about it once that
| showed micro damage all over the brain of some victims.
|
| However 1500 people is truly a large number. But they do say
| reported cases, not confirmed.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| As the article states, studies have found
| (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-
| havan...) no clear correlation of self-reported Havana
| syndrome with any physical indications. I vaguely recall an
| old article where they did some brain scans of Havana
| syndrome patients, and found "abnormalities", but did _not_
| compare these scans against any sort of control group.
| junon wrote:
| One of those things. A guy I work with who I (still)
| consider to be highly intelligent and down to earth insists
| he was affected by tests of this in a well known and highly
| populated metropolitan area, which is well known in that
| community to have been a target area of directed energy
| weapons.
|
| I didn't believe any of this when I first heard about it
| but I'm now a skeptic believer. He was able to explain, in
| detail, what he felt - both physically and mentally - and
| could name when they happened and for how long.
|
| He underwent a bunch of medical and physiological tests as
| he didn't know what it was at first, mostly because it
| started to impact his relationship. I'm not sure he even
| knew about the whole thing until he started searching
| around on the web for his symptoms and came across others
| in the same neighborhood where it happened, claiming to
| have reported similar things.
|
| I brushed it off at first as it seemed clear it must have
| been something else, but it didn't help that in literally
| every other aspect he's an empirical, grounded, down to
| Earth and totally intelligent person, an expert in his
| technical field, etc.
|
| Still not sure where I stand on it as it's incredibly
| difficult to study or even justify scientifically. I'm
| still not even convinced it was "directed energy". But I do
| at least believe people who say they've been affected by
| _whatever_ it was. It 's certainly lessened his quality of
| life, whatever it is.
| rcxdude wrote:
| It's worth emphasising in cases like this that even an
| individual experiencing completely phsycosomatic ('all in
| their head') symptoms is still experiencing real
| symptoms. That is, rejecting the idea that your friend's
| symptoms are caused by energy weapons is not rejecting
| the idea that he is experiencing negative effects (which
| to be clear, may still have an 'external' cause)
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Just to add some context about how extreme psychosomatic
| stuff can be, one of my friends experienced significant
| pain at seemingly random parts of his body throughout
| college, and almost dropped out because it interfered do
| strongly with his studies. He had physical bruising,
| which I saw. We did an internship as a team one year,
| because we had similar interests and I could "be the
| hands". It was a long arduous saga. Turns out it was all
| in his head, he has to just ignore it and convince
| himself it wasn't real. He still has occasional pains
| that he is very suspicious of, it's very hard to tell
| when he's really unwell or his mind is just tricking him.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Another example/generalization of this is the opposite of
| the placebo effect, the nocebo. [1] A person is able to
| suffer real and measurable effects, up to and including
| death, based on their belief and expectation of such
| effects. A well studied example of this is in terminal
| cancer where patients will die of no clear cause long
| before the cancer, or any other related effect, could
| have killed them. The mind is _extremely_ powerful.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo
| Technetium wrote:
| A commonly disregarded possibility is that it is self-
| inflicted while asleep: https://sleep.biomedcentral.com/a
| rticles/10.1186/s41606-019-...
| junon wrote:
| Yes exactly my point - I'm not sure what it was that
| caused these experiences. I fully believe that he
| experienced them and they're affecting him, though. I
| also believe him when he says they were external.
| sterlind wrote:
| could you share any links you have? I'm fascinated by the
| whole saga of Havana syndrome, plus I live in Seattle.
| I'm on the skeptical side but my mind is open.
| gopher_space wrote:
| Since it's Seattle I'm picturing some asshole engineer
| with a truckload of used sonar gear in his garage.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Highly intelligent people are still susceptible to
| conspiracy thinking. It only takes one person who is
| delusional or read about Havana syndrome to influence
| everyone else. Then they believe it and soon it is "well
| known in community".
|
| But they can't know it was directed energy weapon because
| there is no evidence just rumors. There isn't evidence
| that directed energy weapons exist or cause those
| symptoms. Does everyone even have the same symptoms? How
| did they determine the area? How did the rule out
| chemicals or other causes?
|
| Finally, testing in Seattle doesn't make sense. It is too
| dangerous to be discovered, and easier to test where
| won't be noticed. Also, using public means can't collect
| reliable results.
| kfhat wrote:
| > There isn't evidence that directed energy weapons exist
|
| Wikipedia thinks otherwise:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon
|
| The "active denial system" is a millimeter wave weapon
| against humans and the LRAD-500X a sonic weapon against
| humans.
|
| > It is too dangerous to be discovered
|
| If everyone says that the targets are delusional, it
| seems 100% safe to test it anywhere.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Directed energy weapons exist. They are huge class of
| weapons, from millimeter wave to sonic to lasers. The
| ones you mentioned are big, mounted on top of vehicles.
| Since commenter didn't mention symptoms, we can't tell if
| some kind can produce symptoms or if they are similar to
| Havana syndrome.
|
| > If everyone says that the targets are delusional, it
| seems 100% safe to test it anywhere.
|
| You are missing the point. It is super risky for foreign
| powers or US to test in public in Seattle. It is too easy
| for it to be discovered. Like they get into a car
| accident. Or someone takes a picture. We are getting this
| second hand, but it is strange that no one has taken a
| picture of suspicious van.
|
| Also, testing in public is less useful because can't get
| detailed results. They might be able to tell something
| happened but not what without talking to the victims.
| Controlled tests give reliable results.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| People said they were affected by this too. The human
| mind is very prone to mass hysteria and the spread of
| memes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518
| jncfhnb wrote:
| > which is well known in that community to have been a
| target area of directed energy weapons.
|
| By "well known in that community" you mean "a lot of
| nutters speculate with no credible evidence".
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| >Seattle, which is well known in that community to have
| been a target area of directed energy weapons.
|
| This statement needs to be qualified. Unless there was a
| development breakthrough, energy weapons are still
| theoretical. Much less for them to be utilized so widely
| for specific communities of the public to become "well
| known" targets.
| junon wrote:
| > in that community
|
| My point was that the community of DWE believers know
| about Seattle. There's entire podcasts dedicated to it.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Are these the same people who think they're being gang
| stalked? Because I know that those guys sometimes think
| that there are microwave weapons being used on them.
| junon wrote:
| Not the guy I know, at least.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Direct energy weapons have existed for years. Blinding
| lasers and pain-inducing microwave rays are both direct
| energy weapons that are known to exist and have been used
| "in anger."
|
| Importantly however, this doesn't mean that any random
| embassy jackass claiming to be a victim of one actually
| was.
| schiffern wrote:
| 1,500 cases, and only 80 in this (supposedly the largest)
| study? Released just after an intelligence agency report
| said "nothing to see here?" Are we really so naive as to be
| trusting intelligence agencies at their word now? :-\
|
| Smells a lot like counter-intel. It's a common tactic to
| use "friendly" scientists to release dismissive reports
| that shut down public debate on certain topics. People
| trust scientists ("studies have found" is all you need
| say), so this can be a very effective technique.
|
| Closing the NIH studies only strengthens the smell. Why
| study something (and risk the 'wrong' information getting
| out) when you can commit misconduct and then use your own
| misconduct as an excuse to shut down the investigation?
| piaste wrote:
| > Some kind of directed energy weapon from an enemy state.
|
| Suppose you are a nation-state, hostile to the USA, that has
| developed a directed energy weapon. Do you test it:
|
| A) on your own citizens (whether willing, deceived, or
| coerced),
|
| B) on citizens of some remote, poor, and/or war-torn country
| that is unlikely to retaliate against you,
|
| or C) on diplomatic personnel from the country with the
| greatest military and intelligence resources by far, and with
| a proven history of bombing or invading other countries on
| both true and false premises?
|
| I had never heard of Havana syndrome before, and I have
| nothing to comment either way on whether the physical
| symptoms are real and/or have a common cause. But the idea
| that an enemy state is using a secret weapon prototype to...
| randomly give headaches to American diplomats? Is bizarre, to
| say the least.
| schiffern wrote:
| >Do you test it
|
| Who's saying it's a test?
|
| Your premise assumes they haven't already done A and B, and
| after successful testing moved on to C.
| piaste wrote:
| Then the scenario becomes:
|
| "Sir, the results are in: this weapon causes mild
| headaches and sleep difficulties lasting a few months."
|
| "Excellent! Deploy it against American embassies
| immediately. Surely this will absolutely cripple their
| espionage efforts."
|
| The idea that it's a side-effect of directed- energy
| _surveillance_ seems a vastly more sensible hypothesis in
| every way.
| e40 wrote:
| Some of the people had mich more severe symptoms than
| what you describe, but that would undermine your snark.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I also suffer from irregular, unexplained headaches.
| Someone must be microwaving my apartment complex.
| Natsu wrote:
| My problem with it being any kind of energy weapon is
| that we should have been able to detect something. If not
| initially, then afterwards.
| myhf wrote:
| this is hacker news, we test in production
| a0123 wrote:
| A wonder weapon that makes the enemy feel hangover. Damn,
| I don't know who financed it but they need to get their
| money back.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You lack knowledge and imagination. The Russians have
| done stuff like burying passive microphones inside of
| building materials.
|
| The notion that they would direct something at those
| devices to activate them is neither fantastical or
| foolish to investigate.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Why do you think it's a prototype? Why don't you consider
| that it possibly malfunctioned or the user was
| inexperienced?
| piaste wrote:
| See my reply to schiffern above.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Rational thought goes out the window when people hear a
| good story.
|
| When someone a long time ago (Victorian era? somebody
| correct me) started circulating a story people from ancient
| times up until the 19th century drank _a lot_ of wine and
| beer because they didn 't know how to find clean water, an
| amazing number of people repeated it as if it were a fact.
| Despite the fact that there was no evidence to support it
| (other than the people repeating the story), there was
| evidence against it (many ancient writers describe the use
| of clean water and how/where to find it), and it made no
| sense (if they couldn't find clean water, why didn't they
| all just die when they didn't have wine and beer? what
| about the billions of uneducated rural people today that
| get along fine without treated water and don't drink wine
| or beer?). When we hear a good story, we want to believe
| it, so we don't think too hard about it.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_vitae
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer
|
| It is very much a well documented thing. You're
| incorrectly reasoning that since it wasn't the only
| strategy ubiquitous everywhere and all the time that it
| just not have been real
| dannyobrien wrote:
| could you point to the specific part of those Wikipedia
| entries that says that very large quantities of these
| drinks were taken because of the difficulty of finding
| clean water? Or were you making another point here?
| christianqchung wrote:
| It's not in there, I just read the articles. Maybe the
| point is about how low alcohol beer was commonly drunken,
| though I'm not sure how that relevant either.
| penteract wrote:
| Germ theory wasn't widespread throughout the time period
| we're talking about, so they wouldn't have been able to
| give the reasoning that we would about why clean water is
| important or how alcohol acts as a disinfectant.
|
| However, the Small beer Wikipedia page says that very
| large quantities of these drinks were consumed
|
| > It was common for workers who engaged in laborious
| tasks to drink more than ten imperial pints (5.7 litres)
| of small beer a day to quench their thirst
|
| And that it was believed to be good for people
|
| > "For the drink of the more robust children water is
| preferable, and for the weaker ones, small beer"
|
| The fact that aqua vitae means "water of life" is also
| evidence for this.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| In England they flipped to tea because of cost.
|
| Workers often couldn't find clean water in the field -
| just like today. Near beer also has some properties of
| sports drinks and hydrates better.
|
| The world is a complex place. Like today, availability
| and quality of potable water varies.
| orwin wrote:
| They could, and water was free and did not need heat
| unlike table beer. In 1300 europe was 45Million strong, i
| guarantee you you had enough clean, fresh water for
| everybody as long as you did not live in a city. I'm
| pretty sure cities created pipe system around that time
| too. The issue with spirits and table beer was it needed
| heating, and that was costly. It probably was still one
| of the cheapest way to ingest grain, so from late autumn
| to early spring, people drank a lot of "beer porridge"
| for lack of a better term, but hydration was done with
| clean water.
|
| Real, filtered table beers didn't really exist until the
| first industrial revolution (coal did help make it
| cheaper).
| derefr wrote:
| > Real, filtered table beers
|
| Who said anything about "filtered"? We're talking about
| watered-down beer here (or rather, to put a fine point on
| it, beered-up water.) In other words, grog, but with
| [whatever spirit is commonly produced locally] instead of
| rum.
|
| > The issue with spirits and table beer was it needed
| heating, and that was costly.
|
| Let's walk through the lifecycle of a small beer here,
| because I think you're conflating a decentralized
| economic logistical workflow as if it was all the
| responsibility of one dude.
|
| A local brewer/distiller makes _high-proof_ beer
| /spirits. Which does require heating, sure, but just
| once, when making the batch.
|
| Then pub/tavern-keepers buy those high-proof spirits, by
| the caskful. They can let them sit around forever until
| they use them up, despite the casks not being
| particularly sanitary, because these wholesale spirits'
| high alcohol content and low water content prevents
| spoilage indefinitely. So they're good investments,
| something they're willing to put money up front for. (And
| these large infusions of revenue -- perhaps even on a
| predictable contractual basis, for something like a
| tavern -- are how the brewer stays in business, despite
| the expense of burning wood/coal to brew.)
|
| Each day, any given tavern-keeper might fetch a barrel of
| fresh-ish creek/well/lake water. Might be infectious,
| might not. Even fresh creek water can have Giardia.
|
| When a tavern keeper wants to serve someone small beer,
| they take a mug of the creek water, measure out a jigger
| of the high-proof spirit, and stir it in. The alcohol
| content kills whatever might be in the water, and if it's
| something like beer, probably maybe makes it taste
| better, too.
|
| The creek water _will_ spoil in a tavern-kitchen
| environment, but that 's fine: it's just water. Treat it
| as grey water at the end of the night -- use it for
| dishes or whatever. Maybe take some for boiling puddings
| in. Dump the rest on your garden.
|
| This is basically the same logic as fountain drinks. A
| central provider spends a bunch of ahead-of-time effort
| to make a bunch of concentrated syrup that's too high-
| sugar and low-water-content to ever spoil. Then
| restaurant owners buy this, and combine it just-in-time
| with water to produce drinks.
| penteract wrote:
| > what about the billions of uneducated rural people
| today that get along fine without treated water and don't
| drink wine or beer?
|
| Less than 1 billion now without reliable nearby access to
| clean water[0], and "get along fine" is dubious - an
| estimated 1.4 million people died in 2019 from unsafe
| drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (more than 500000
| from drinking water specifically) [1].
|
| [0] https://www.wateraid.org/uk/what-we-do/water [1]
| https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240075610
| paganel wrote:
| Supposedly this "weapon" had been put in place by the
| Russians who had used the Cubans as a proxy, maybe if not
| the Russians then the Chinese, either way, one of these two
| big nuclear powers that had almost nothing to fear from the
| Americans. Or so I gathered by reading "between the lines"
| when this story first broke out.
| jt2190 wrote:
| Suppose you're a nation-state and have gathered wind that
| an enemy state has developed an eavesdropping technology
| that uses directed energy. Do you:
|
| A) allow the enemy state to use it, letting them think you
| don't know it exists
|
| B) publicly accuse the enemy of having the technology, thus
| jeopardizing the intelligence assets who revealed its
| existence to you as the enemy goes on the hunt for the
| spies who leaked the info
|
| C) make up a story about how a bunch diplomatic personnel
| got sick in a way that's consistent with some kind of
| directed high energy source, causing your enemy to stop
| using the device and recheck everything because they
| thought it would not be detected, but apparently it was.
| They don't suspect an internal "leak", which keeps your
| spies safer.
| tptacek wrote:
| A.
| ithkuil wrote:
| And indeed there is historical precedent for A (e.g.
| enigma). Is there any precedent for choosing C?
| tptacek wrote:
| It's not C.
| yesco wrote:
| What in the world would be the strategic advantages of C?
| This would be like loudly shitting your pants so you have
| an excuse to leave a party early without making the host
| feel bad. With over 1000 people involved, this whole
| Havana syndrome thing has disrupted the United States
| diplomatic efforts on an international scale, the
| constant rotation of embassy diplomats over this has had
| real world impact, even if non-obvious. While elaborate
| conspiracies are nothing new to the intelligence
| community, I think this would go beyond elaborate and
| into the realm of insane.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Suppose you're a nation-state and have obtained a large
| strategic advantage over an enemy state. Do you:
|
| A) exploit the advantage
|
| B) squander the advantage
|
| C) also squander the advantage, but in a much weirder and
| more convoluted way
| anon84873628 wrote:
| This logic is good as a first approximation but completely
| breaks down in situations like this. In geopolitics there
| are simply so many unknown variables that it is completely
| inscrutable from the outside. Plus, state actors do
| seemingly dumb and irrational things all the time.
|
| Also, maybe the FUD caused was a desirable outcome in its
| own right.
| tapcheck wrote:
| > A) on your own citizens (whether willing, deceived, or
| coerced)
|
| It's A. Testing of surveillance among other things.
|
| Source: me and my friends stuck in here
| lupusreal wrote:
| If they did A or B before C, you wouldn't know about it.
| tim333 wrote:
| Well the nation state we are talking about here is Russia.
| They are known to things like invade countries, hack US
| systems and emails and on. Their behaviour seems weird to
| me but they have form.
|
| It's quite likely Unit 29155 of the Russian GRU, who did
| the Skipal poisonings and blew up an arms dump in Finland.
|
| (some Guardian stuff
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/01/havana-
| syndrom...)
| somenameforme wrote:
| There was an early report that claimed abnormalities, but by
| the standards they were using just about everybody would have
| shown abnormalities - and they consequently did not even have
| a control group. Contemporary studies from 2024+ onward,
| using control groups, have found no physical effects or
| differences whatsoever. [1]
|
| I also think it's noteworthy that claimed incidents have been
| reported just about everywhere, including Western nations.
| After the scare started, every "enemy" state individual,
| embassy, and other such facility would have been even more
| intense than usual surveillance. And absolutely no evidence
| of any attack of any sort whatsoever has been found.
|
| By contrast mass psychogenic illnesses [2] have a lengthy
| history and their typical effects correlate identically with
| the typical reported effects of 'Havana Syndrome.' Actually I
| just noticed Havana Syndrome is now already listed as one of
| the examples of mass psychogenic illness. Somewhat surprising
| from Wiki, but accurate nonetheless.
|
| [1] -
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2816532
|
| [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness
| hluska wrote:
| You don't know enough to diagnose this. Your "accurate
| nonetheless" is pure speculation.
| a0123 wrote:
| You know, the sort of weapon everyone agrees is not possible
| or feasible at this stage.
|
| And definitely not a hysterical reaction based on some people
| who faked the most common symptoms ever and tried to make it
| look like something it wasn't by saying "it' s affecting
| intelligence assets".
|
| I have Havana syndrome on a regular basis. But not being an
| intelligence assets, I get no compensation and no
| sensationalist article in the press praising my incredible
| bravery and feeling sorry for me.
| fhdsgbbcaA wrote:
| "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that
| something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When
| he states that something is impossible, he is probably
| wrong."
|
| Arthur C Clarke
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| I'll say this. I think the The Chinese and Russian security
| forces are pretty corrupt, even the CIA analogues, that
| we'd know what it is now.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > Some kind of directed energy weapon from an enemy state.
|
| Has there ever been any secret weapon that was not leaked to
| other states?
| akira2501 wrote:
| > that showed micro damage all over the brain of some
| victims.
|
| How you do this accurately without a biopsy or autopsy is a
| good question. The other one is are we sure these people
| aren't making "lifestyle" choices that are contributing to
| their health problems?
|
| > 1500 people is truly a large number.
|
| Given the size of the civil service, this would be close to
| the number of people with undisclosed drug problems, I would
| expect.
| fasteo wrote:
| > Some of the people who reported being sick previously claimed
| that the CIA made them join the research as a prerequisite for
| getting health care.
|
| Isn't it the other way around ? People forced to enroll, not
| people enrolling to get a monetary compensation
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I assume the CIA is trying to save a buck by pulling
| healthcare money from someone else's line item. Also, by
| forcing people to do this it makes it easier for national
| adversaries to figure out who is in the CIA. To hide
| information like this you need to inject randomness.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| For people wanting a refresher.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome
| macinjosh wrote:
| This whole episode was essentially a conspiracy theory that was
| taken seriously because the paranoid people who came up with it
| happened to be in positions of power and respect. Additionally,
| this whole milieu (DC gov/media) just automatically believed it
| because they feel like Russians are lurking behind every corner.
| If an average citizen went to the doctor and claimed these things
| they'd be shown to the psych ward.
| sterlind wrote:
| if an average citizen claims they're being followed by
| government agents, they probably have paranoid schizophrenia.
| if a diplomat in an unfriendly host country claims the same,
| they probably are.
|
| it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That's not what they are claiming though. They're claiming a
| sick-ray weapon.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| "Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after
| you..."
|
| -Kurt Cobain, Nirvana (Seattle)
| jmyeet wrote:
| My money is on some combination of "comppletely made up" to
| "psychosomatic".
|
| We see no better evidence of this than how cops treat fentanyl
| exposure. Cops act like if they're in the same room as fentanyl
| they might die. This has been perpetuated in media. Thing is,
| it's completely made up.
|
| Fentanyl is no more dangerous to handle than talcum powder. I
| mean, don't ingest or inhale the powder. There are no "fumes"
| however.
|
| But the cops themselves believe this to the point that they
| report oversdoses in the field and have legitimate panic attacks
| for fear of exposure [1].
|
| Havana Syndrome was suspicious from the go. Just the association
| with Cuba screams CIA psy op.
|
| [1]: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/1175726650/fentanyl-police-
| ov...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Local news will still put on a crying puking fentanyl cop, and
| angrily defend the story against every doctor and scientist
| that objects. They don't care if it's true; if you don't
| believe it, you're anti-cop and pro-drug.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| >Cops act like if they're in the same room as fentanyl they
| might die.
|
| You can't really blame them for thinking this, the DEA actually
| released this info and a video saying it was true to law
| enforcement in 2016.
|
| https://healthandjusticejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/1...
| tehwebguy wrote:
| DEA is just cops, so yeah you can blame them!
| asadotzler wrote:
| The DEA, which is, you know, just more "cops"?
| aatd86 wrote:
| They have found what/who has been causing this and just don't
| want to explain what this is. Interesting, if annoying tech.
| danbruc wrote:
| My favorite unexplained mass phenomenon, the dancing plague of
| 1518. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518
| earth-adventure wrote:
| Most likely a funny woman or a woman who went out of her mind,
| then some people laughing and copying her as a joke. Then
| others see a group of people dancing uncontrollably and now you
| have rumors going around aaaand it's mass hysteria. Some maybe
| even copied it to other parts of town or restarting the next
| day in a kind of flashmob way. My 2 cents.
| no_exit wrote:
| So last week there was a big Rolling Stone article bemoaning the
| CIA's lack of mental health support, and now this with a similar
| line.
|
| > "They wanted us to be a lab rat for a week before we actually
| got treatment at Walter Reed -- and at bare minimum, that is
| unethical and immoral," Marc Polymeropoulos told CNN in May.
|
| I wonder what the underlying angle is here.
| le-mark wrote:
| Apparently how powered radars are fairly common on US navy
| vessels, and injuries not uncommon from walking in front of them
| or otherwise being exposed. One would think there exists a body
| of knowledge on exposure to at least this sort of "high energy"?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| There's definitely research. In fact, the US has the "Active
| Denial System", an experimental directed-energy weapon built on
| those principles whose effects have been studied on humans. It
| causes temporary pain, potentially thermal damage if left on
| for too long. One of the big reasons I'm skeptical of Havana
| Syndrome is that its symptoms are nothing at all like that.
| colordrops wrote:
| Are you making up the "big reasons"? There is a wide spectrum
| of radio waves, and they have very different affects on
| living tissue. The one you speak about is a very specific
| slice of spectrum.
| nradov wrote:
| Which slice of the spectrum causes brain damage while
| leaving the skin and eyes apparently intact? Please give us
| a specific frequency range.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| There's a wide spectrum of radio waves, so it's impossible
| to conclusively prove that there's _no_ frequency which
| might be consistent with reports of Havana Syndrome, but
| nobody has proposed one and I see no strong reason to
| believe it exists. The microwave auditory effect is the
| closest I 'm aware of, and my understanding is that it
| would explain only the weird audio perception.
|
| Remember that this entire EM spectrum idea is the _second_
| proposed mechanism. When Havana Syndrome was getting off
| the ground, advocates thought it was a directed sonic
| attack - many of the early victims claimed to have
| recordings of it!
| EasyMark wrote:
| Look up ionizing radiation, that's what you need short of
| sheer directed power. Obviously radio/microwave frequency
| waves can affect the flesh in concentrated enough power.
| However the symptoms from "Havana syndrome" are all over
| the place. We're all just slabs of meat to some potential
| real version of this, and it should have been fairly
| similar symptoms across the board.
| silverquiet wrote:
| I mean, you can see the effects of high-powered radar any time
| you use a microwave; certainly one can imagine how that could
| be used to harm a person. But if someone was firing high-
| powered anything at a US Embassy, there would be ways to detect
| it.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The engineer I used to work with said he would warm his hands
| with "spare" RF energy on a cold day. Just put your hands in
| front of the element and they warm up.
|
| In any case.. the energy there is so high.. you can literally
| feel it happening to you.
| kbos87 wrote:
| This is probably an unpopular opinion and I don't know if it
| applies in this case, but I'm pretty convinced that a lot of
| instances like this are social contagions running wild.
|
| Every few years in the city I live in there's a sudden uptick in
| reports of drinks getting spiked at local bars. I've seen the
| mere suggestion that there's a risk of heightened risk of getting
| roofied at a bar make otherwise intelligent people paranoid or
| start using it as an excuse for their over-indulgence. And of
| course, there is never any concrete evidence - nothing shows up
| in bloodwork, nobody is ever caught doing it... the chatter just
| eventually fades away.
|
| This is obviously a different situation, but I'm weary of the
| massive scope this has taken on with so little concrete evidence
| that anything was actually happening. Maybe I'm totally wrong, or
| maybe it was a real phenomenon that many others hitched onto
| later on (seems even more plausible.) The point is that we seem
| to increasingly discount how much incentives and social dynamics
| play a role in situations like this.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| It's not an unpopular opinion. In fact it seems to have become
| the dominant opinion.
| bcoates wrote:
| As sort of an exception that proves the rule thing, there was a
| real recent-ish case of (attempted) drink spiking in the LA
| area that demonstrates how it would actually go in real life vs
| the "unexplained mystery blackout while out drinking, must have
| been roofied by a stranger":
|
| https://www.smobserved.com/story/2022/04/03/crime/court-take...
|
| Victim and attacker knew each other, was immediately noticed by
| bartender and caught on security cameras, drugs easily
| detected, etc.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I never understood why somebody would fuck around with spiking
| drinks with exotic drugs when they could simply ask the
| bartender to keep refilling the target's drink. Alcohol is by
| far the most likely drug to be used in these scenarios.
|
| I'm certain it happens sometimes, but I doubt it's even a
| fraction of a percent of claimed cases.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| You should just roofied on purpose and find out.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I tend to agree. Humans are all about 98%the same and anything
| like this that causes issue should have had very similar
| symptoms across the board and it didn't seem to and it
| shouldn't have been that only a few from large groups were
| "affected" when it was reported. I think this is more of a mind
| over matter thing and where undiagnosed health issues got
| misreported. I think it was probably shut down not because of
| ethics but because it wasn't real.
| seydor wrote:
| This new conspiracy just deepens the conspiracy
| caycep wrote:
| Meanwhile a bunch of neurosurgeons are trying to sell everyone on
| "focused ultrasound" noninvasive brain surgery!
| nis0s wrote:
| Several comments are assuming the goal of the secret method is
| making someone sick. But as others have said, becoming sick may
| be a symptom of exposure, so the intended purpose is something
| else like surveillance. Here's the problem though, this genie is
| already out of the bottle, even if something like this didn't
| exist and the Havana syndrome is mass psychosis, someone I am
| sure is busy making a directed-energy surveillance mechanism
| because the "enemy may do it first". Isn't it possible to know
| what's going on in the environment though, for example by using a
| spectrum analyzer, or detection methods for ultrasound?
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