US investigating possible mysterious directed energy attack near White House | Hacker News Reader

US investigating possible mysterious directed energy attack near White House

cnn.com

44 pointsChazprime24 comments

This story has been going on in the background for about 2 years now. I get that the obvious suspects here are Russia and China, but I can't pin down what exactly either of them would gain that is worth the risk of a major international incident. It most certainly is either Russia or China as no one else is sophisticated and adversarial enough to pull it off, but there are still more questions than there are answers.

They get to disrupt the US government and make them look like hapless chumps while maintaining plausible deniability. There are still only hypotheses about the nature of these attacks and doubt as to whether these attacks are actually happening and, if so, whether each victim is legit, an attention-seeker, a hypochondriac, or is faking it to gain some benefit. If this is actually real, it’s diabolically clever.

Yeah, just like with the story that Russia is paying taliban to murder US soldiers. In both stories we had zero actual facts, no sense, just rumors and anonymous sources. The first story is already a proven fake news, the story with mysterious weapon is gonna be just another.

Source that the first story was not proven to be false?

I am under the impression that confidence in it occurring was downgraded, not proven to be false

You can't prove it was false unless someone can prove they started the rumour. That it is true is what should be proven, not that it is false or unlikely. Without proof it should be considered fake news.

Proof that it was a rumor?

I am under the impression that it was intel with less confidence than originally thought.

Whats the difference between low confidence intel and a rumor?

Whether it smears your tribe or not...

The level of veracity of the claim.

Assuming these reports aren't psychosomatic, it is beyond implausible to believe that the CIA is uninterested in determining the source of something specifically targeting their own personnel. Not to sound too conspiratorial, but this sounds like the pretext to funding portable detection devices for all state personnel (both at home and overseas) in addition to years of both defensive and offensive research.

I often wonder if some diy scientist is working on some Nikola Tesla project at home.

Someone with better medical knowledge than me: are there known illnesses that cause the kinds of symptoms these "attacks" look like?

How do we separate an actual attack from psychosomatic reactions to belief in attacks from "sometimes people just get sick like this"?

No story here, by the current US government left wing mouthpiece and propaganda front CNN - according to multiple current and former US officials and sources familiar with the matter.

"Multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN"

Given this headline, the "source", and content, I could see this posted on Infowars and I would give it the exact same level of believe - that is nearly zero.

> In a separate 2019 episode, a White House official reported a similar attack while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb just outside Washington, GQ reported last year.

I too carry around the equipment required to determine if something I'm feeling is biological or a secret energy weapon while I walk the dog. I wonder, was this White House official also affiliated with the intelligence apparatus as the other person who reported this was?

> Defense officials who briefed lawmakers said it was possible Russia was behind the attacks, but they did not have enough information to say for sure.

They really want Cold War 2 don't they? Hopefully this time we go to Mars.

It's based on the reports sharing symptoms and onset patterns. Nothing to do with someone carrying around "equipment required"

Oh so an entirely subjective, impossible to verify set of facts are the reason our intelligence community decided to publicly provoke a nuclear power?

I didn't know Russia / China were so easily provoked.

I'd recommend looking at the history of the articles. These events have been reported for several years. And at least publicly nobody knows what is causing it.

I have looked at them, I've been following this since it started. And I agree that "And at least publicly nobody knows what is causing it" (but Id also add "or even if it's actually happening at all") that's why its dangerous to say things like what was said there. If I wanted to harm America, I'd start another cold war, a great way to do that would be to manipulate a war-hungry-revolving-door-to-defence-contractors organization into making public accusations against Russia on a continual basis.

Exhibiting paranoia so great that they leap to food poisoning as evidence of beam weapons is pretty harmful, too.

I’m not saying it’s right but it’s worth baring in mind that Russian and Chinese state media make the same claims about unverified attacks being US lead. At best it’s just speculation and at worst it’s just the same old propaganda machine that’s been happing since as long as people have been reading the news. Nation states, if they’re genuinely are innocent, will laugh it off. And if they’re not innocent, well you can hardly argue the press are the ones provoking the situation

Not subjective no...it's how medical issues get investigated.

Similar to food borne outbreaks.

Man, there's no pleasing some people.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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