Havana Syndrome was an “epic failure of science” | Hacker News Reader

Havana Syndrome was an “epic failure of science”

scientificamerican.com

51 pointsmiguelazo11 comments

Personally I had always assumed “directed energy weapons” was a cover story for investigations into whether Havana syndrome was a more conventional attack on US embassies.

Imagine some hard-to-detect chemical that causes mild brain damage, I’m sure many exist. Is there a nefarious actor going around infiltrating catering services for US embassies and sneaking it into the food? Is there a nefarious actor going around infiltrating local water utilities and introducing it into the water supplies at US embassies? You can’t openly investigate that without diplomatic blowback and/or alerting the nefarious actor that you’re onto them, so let everyone believe you’re chasing evil microwave brain lasers or whatever.

Same principle as UFOs being a cover story for investigations into whether other nations are using secret advanced flight techniques to fly spy planes over the country.

A friend points out another, even more plausible investigation this could be a parallel construction for: the US embassies may have secretly deployed some kind of high-energy jamming measures at their embassies to protect against electronic snooping, and now they’re worried those measures have dangerous side effects. They can’t openly investigate this because it would reveal they have been experimenting on US government employees without consent, but if they are investigating “energy weapon attacks” they have a perfect excuse to walk around with antennas without raising suspicion.

This article seems to indicate that the investigation actually was just a contagious and stupid idea that was earnestly and wastefully investigated. (Of course, in the cover story worlds, you publish this once you’ve successfully found and eliminated the problem…)

> You can’t openly investigate that without diplomatic blowback

There has already been enormous blowback from blaming Cuba for attacking American diplomats. The Embassy basically closed for 3 years, and all progress in Cuban normalization was reversed.

Exactly. Which was certainly the motivation for certain parties to perpetuate and expand this fraud.

This might be the reason CIA created this story in the first place.

I'm sure everyone's tired of talking about the Covid lab leak theory but it's hard not to compare it to this story based on how politics influenced both of these medical investigations.

Canadian research of returning diplomats and their families found it was likely due to aggressive spraying of pesticides for mosquitos due to Zika virus concern

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/havana-syndrome-neurotoxin-en...

> The embassies actively sprayed in offices, as well as inside and outside diplomatic residences — sometimes five times more frequently than usual. Many times, spraying operations were carried out every two weeks, according to embassy records.

> There was also a correlation between the individuals most affected by the symptoms and the number of fumigations that were performed at their residence.

So, overexposure to nerve agents both in their homes and at work? Sounds like something decently easy to prove that it has occurred for most affected, and something that should be covered as some kind of work injury. I assume living quarters were provided by the employers.

It may be possible to build a "Havana Syndrome" microwave weapon by utilizing the microwave auditory effect with a modulation at the resonant frequency of the target's skull.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

It this is actually covered in Russian Patent No. 2,526,478: "Method and Device of Microwave Electromagnetic Impact at Trespasser"

https://patents.google.com/patent/RU2526478C2/en

"The technical result is achieved by the fact that it is proposed to use directional radiation modulated by amplitude of the microwave electromagnetic waves. The impact on the intruder is due to the occurrence of painful mechanical thermoelastic phenomena in individual elements of the human auditory apparatus at their resonant frequencies"

"Resonance phenomena in the 'radio sound' are due to the size of individual elements of the human auditory apparatus and are observed in the range of modulation frequencies of 6 ... 12 kHz."

"Claims: 1. The method of microwave electromagnetic exposure to the intruder, characterized in that the effect is carried out by an amplitude-modulated microwave electromagnetic field with a changing modulation frequency, while the amplitude modulation frequencies are taken in the range of mechanical resonant frequencies of the intruder's head and individual elements of his hearing organ. 2. A microwave device for electromagnetic influence on an intruder, comprising a microwave generator with a radiating antenna, characterized in that an amplitude modulator and a low-frequency tuner are introduced into it, configured to tune to the mechanical resonant frequency of the intruder's head and individual elements of its hearing organs. The output of the low-frequency tuning unit is connected to the control input of the amplitude modulator, the output of which is connected to the control input of the microwave generator."

http://www.gbppr.net/mil/havana

Note the resonant frequency of the human head is in same frequency range as those crickets...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/havana-syndrome-not-caused-...

A more thorough version here if anyone haven't read it before.

I mean, maybe its possible such weapon exist, but if these cases are really caused by it, why not US can't find any clues? Its very hard to imagine due to the whole level efforts input into the investigations, several years, multiple continents, and still no clues. So I guess, its still possible some weird things happened, like supernatural?!