> Prof Golomb says high levels of radiation were recorded by family members of personnel in Guangzhou using commercially available equipment. "The needle went off the top of the available readings." But she says the State Department told its own employees that the measurements they had taken off their own back were classified.
But that's the only mention of physical measurements in the entire long article. It should be relatively easy to equip a large number of potential targets with a handheld device capable of measuring and recording peak RF levels and that would at least allow the government to know whether or not it is on the right track. It does seem strange that this hasn't been done already and the whole thing remains just as mysterious now as when the public first heard about it.
This is the org which, from all accounts, can't even run email or basic IT reliably.
“Off the top of the available readings” isn’t very helpful either, though; it may be the case that the upper limit of that experiment is far from an important level of radiation. A description of a “needle” is good visual persuasion but what does it mean really?
No mention of a followup. Why no followup?
That's potentially worse, as it basically would mean the US is using the same techniques on god knows who else. The entire thing could have been friendly fire in that case.
It’s quite routine for journalists to ask questions, receive no answer or receive a refusal to answer, and note that the exchange occurred.
On this topic, one finds big long articles with fun, colorful cartoons but not a single use of the word “detect”.