We were right about Havana syndrome
warontherocks.com
warontherocks.com
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politics/havana-syndrome-devi...
This is confirmation bias with the side step of giving a ton of money to Russian criminals.
Naturally the testing claims from insiders could be specious. But once you go down the road of distrusting stories told by spooks, so could the purchase of a weapon in the first place. The CIA might not even be a real thing.
I'm also quite sure that the kind of person who would say "come on guys, this is just a RF noise machine, if they had used this in Havana we would have known ages ago" would not be trusted to work on such an important and serious investigation.
I'm not positing any more dysfunction than I see on the outside all the time. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former PM of Norway, doctor, and one time head of the WHO, was convinced she had RF-hypersensitivity.
One of my mantras is that powerful people believe all the stupid things regular people believe, they just tend to act differently on their beliefs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/14/...
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politics/havana-syndrome-...
Eyewitness reports at the Maduro kidnapping raid and a recent leak in the last few days regarding the US purchasing such a weapon from Russia and testing it at least on animals tie all of this together.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-tested-device-that-...
and you can source a working one through Russia,
I believe were the findings.
But the symptoms are very much real, and it's not something that is easily treated. How mass psychosis can lead to actual medical illness is unknown, but the cause and effect is documented.
For that reason it might appear as a cover up, when authorities avoid giving answers.
Even though I'm familiar with the science behind mass psychosis illness, I would still probably have difficulties accepting that as an explanation if I were in a similar situation.
The fact that psychogenic illness is not simply “weak” people, but a real phenomenon, strongly supports the fairness and necessity of offering treatment.
The wikipedia article says when authorities publicly take the effects seriously it can induce more cases. But the example was of getting help from a witch doctor, which was a remarkably dysfunctional “validation” to add to an already complex problem.
Another very dysfunctional “validation”: official denial, avoidance, obvious lack of work on solutions or mitigations, and all the trappings of a cover up!
Being direct has so many benefits, vs indirect denial or bad faith “treatments”.
It would be a reassuring response, to those in the same context without symptoms who are concerned about their own health.
Direct responses, with care given, are also in a better position to find treatments for psychogenic symptoms, preventative practices that reduce vulnerability, or alter working theories of cause, as any other evidence emerges.
Chronic anxiety and anxiety attacks are “psychosomatic” on an individual basis. But very real, often caused or impacted by working conditions, and important to diagnose and treat. Psychogenic illness should be the same. “Illness” is not a cause limited concept.
The problem is that "mental illness" is a career limiting diagnosis.
Security clearance personnel have the same problem as airplane pilots. They can't get treatment for mental illness because it would cut off their career.
Consequently, while "Havana Syndrome" may be real, there are large confounding problems in sorting it out.
I mean, look at how long it has taken to lock in on Gulf War Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome
And the evidence for that is way stronger and doesn't have all the cloak and dagger implications.
You may be right, that one diagnosis doesn't have the evidence of another issue you point out. But that is diagnosis. That there is a problem is certain.
It's a complex issue. But a decision has to be made, to either deal straightforwardly with a complex issue, or in a deceptive, avoidant, or secretive manner.
This isn't a choice that removes fundamental complexity, but being direct about problems avoids a lot of manufactured complexity.
If someone is suffering long term life changing mental symptoms, in what sense does the cause make it mental health vs. not mental health? Obviously, it is a mental health issue whether caused by physical or psychological malfunctions.
There is no "winning" for sufferers, in any scenario. But there is better support, or less support.
Generally competent people insisting they are dealing with something serious, should be taken seriously.
--
You may have identified the non-medical systemic problem here:
A strong case could be made that black and white "mental illness" disqualifications for any job are devastatingly out of step with reality and going to damage the careers of people it shouldn't. There should be some means of getting the all clear after any episode, given reasons to believe it has been resolved.
Beyond careers and people suffering unnecessarily, this also critically motivates people responsible for security and safety to hide and bury real problems!
How does that help institutions with safety and security concerns?
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politics/havana-syndrome-...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-tested-device-that-...
Carpel tunnel and RSI also predates computers. Musicians still suffer this sort of injury, generally by forcing themselves to keep playing when it hurts. Poor computer ergonomics just made it popular.
It didn't. It just became a routine thing to be diagnosed.
When I had wrist surgery for an accident, every single data entry person at the hospital (almost a dozen of them) knew the surgeon I was going to because they all had their wrists operated on because of ailments from the cheap-ass computer stuff they were using.
You would think that the hospital and insurance provider would see the link and decide that maybe providing better ergonomic conditions would be useful, but ... no. Putting people in for surgery doesn't come off the budget while ergonomic workstations would. So, here we are.
It also doesn't hurt that most tech workers are cognizant of the problem and now happen to be paid well enough that they can do something about it.
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/03/the-rise-and-mys...
From 60% to 9%.
That makes me suspect that the total number of RSI cases is much larger right now than from back in 1990. This would back up my assertion that RSI simply became a mainstream medical diagnosis.
And, do note that the data is confounded by being taken during Covid. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr189.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6739a4.htm Generally the rate was lower in the latter years for this study.
Not that I think it’s not a real thing and lots of people don’t get it - but in the 90’s it was definitely a “fad” diagnosis.
It's possible people have "grown into" a keyboard better than the previous generations did.
Further, before the 1990's there was a secretarial pool where managers would send documents to get typed out. Sometime during the 1990's the pool went away and people were expected to type their own documents up. Sure they could create templates now with WordPerfect, say, but the idea is that the keyboard became more and more present in an employees life around that time -- so hence more likely to get carpal tunnel.
Though the Russians have been very clever in the past stumping the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
I don't think randomly attacking embassy staff (iirc, not everyone was CIA - there were just desk people affected) makes sense for anyone to do, but trying to listen on them and fucking up sounds right up their (or our) alley.
Careful, it's also possible that they have thought very hard about such things, and they've decided that revealing what they know would lose them a technological edge.
In other words, what if the CIA/DOD already knows there's a class of devices which could explain the problems, and the denial is about maintaining secrecy over their own operational capabilities?
Imagine something similar in the 1980s: "This tragic mid-air collision was obviously caused by faulty radar or gross pilot error by at least one of the two military planes... Our brightest minds have looked very hard at the problem and there is no such thing as a 'stealth' airplane which doesn't show up on radar."
I just don't think that's true at all. The answer could easily be that Cuba and Russia have developed energy weapons that we only know about from classified sources and therefore cannot discuss their existence.
The reason this is an error is because research is an interactive process. Spooks can read papers, but they can't freely discuss with outside researchers - not what they themselves are working on of course, but even talking to outsiders about what the outsiders are working on, can be risky, since it can accidentally reveal a lot.
Secrecy cripples research. Even in areas where the TLAs hoover up the majority of graduates (was apparently true of math a while ago), they often fall behind.
There was a time when the TLAs could just call people like Claude Shannon, demand he work for them and never tell anyone about what he was working on, and he would say OK. That time is long gone. They don't have that goodwill any longer, and the price of isolation for a researcher has only gotten worse as communication has improved.
If the device doesn't require a lot of power, then it's entirely possible that American military commanders and research leadership would miss it.
Add to that an incentive to avoid helping the victims from a cost and overhead perspective, and you get a big ol' mess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
but that kind of person can't get a security clearance or get taken seriously by the State Department.
This feels similar to the early Area 51 law suits which were thrown out because the government denied the facility existed. I feel that yes, the government was aware of the situation but downplayed it because they have something to hide.
My tin foil hat explanation is that the US government was fully aware of what was happening. Why is unknown though I could guess that A. the US denied knowledge of such weapons to give plausible deniability which leads to B. The US deployed such a weapon on premises to use/test against Cubans and inadvertently sickened their own people in an accident.
I don't doubt Cuba could initiate such an attack but I find it very unlikely the US would be befuddled when the US government along with others have developed and experimented with sonic weapons. Given the recent trends towards more authoritarian governments these weapons are easy to deploy against citizens. This article was posted to hn recently: https://earshotngo.substack.com/p/sonic-attack-on-a-silent-v...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome#University_of_...
60 Minutes Havana Syndrome report finds U.S. government tested energy weapon
There's almost no data with which to draw any conclusions about this.
It seems convenient that this pops up right at the moment the government could use a distraction.
RF based energy weapons have been a thing since (at least) 2010 [1]. According to folklore, the initial "microwave" cooking appliance was a side effect from some radar researcher noticing either his testicles or some chocolate got warmer than expected.
The interesting thing is, the rumors about the Russians using RF weapons have been circulating for well over a decade. Why has no one gone ahead and installed RF spectrometers and radio direction finding gear in and around sites with suspicious activity?
I'm sure RF weapons exist. They would need a pretty hefty power supply and heat sinks since microwave transmitters are often inefficient at high gain.
Saying "the russian black market" pretends to have one does not obviate from you the requirement to explain how this implementation is different or unique and overcomes the obvious challenges implied by _basic_ physics.
Otherwise each is just speculation.
I'm not necessarily saying this is a lie, but they certainly need extraordinary evidence for all this to be believable.
Think shell shock of world war I.
None the less the deserve support and careful ongoing research and investigations as appropriate. Fundamentally it is an occupational illness.
FND isn't "making it up" or even "all in your head" but a complex interplay of mind, body and circumstances.
A small-scale imperial boomerang. The gaslighting and other tactics coming to bite you in the ass for a change, instead of some nation where US has "interests".
The government can skirt medical help, can send the next batch of officers in without problems and doesn't need to confront an adversary that is politically.. difficult under Trump. It's certainly no coincidence that Russia would start using something like this in Cuba, a friendly state, and not say.. France. Where the local police and spy agencies could investigate and observe.
Just imagine what would have to happen if someone acknowledged Havanah syndrome is real.
Next up, burn pits cause lung damage and brain damage too.
What's more interesting is the hysteria around fentanyl, which is completely made up and has no basis in fact, but is perpetuated by police unions and media outlets who are likely currying favor with police unions or just trading on the hysteria.
In it's purest form, fentanyl can exist in a powder or liquid form. I could give you a massive quantity of either and you could handle them completely fine. How do I know this? Because health workers do this all the time. It's like handling talcum powder. I mean you would probably want to wash your hands and you wouldn't want to lick it but there are no fumes and you can't be poisoned or dosed just by being in the same room as fentanyl in any form.
Yet this completely made up fear has caused law enforcement officers to believe they've suffered from fentanyl exposure. For example [1]:
> Results
> Nearly all leaders and officers interviewed wrongly believed that dermal exposure to fentanyl was deadly and expressed fear about such exposure on scene. Officers had a lack of education about fentanyl exposure and faulty or dubious sources of information about it.
and [2]:
> Police in the United States have told implausible stories about airborne fentanyl exposures for years. The real symptoms appear related to panic attacks and the psychological trauma of policing.
So something that's completely made up can lead people to create their own symptoms. It also fits the narrative of people believing their jobs are more dangerous than they actually are.
So, back to Havana Syndrome. I've always been convinced that it's completely fake. There are probably people who like the narrative because it makes the Russians or Cubans scary with some unknown tech. And that means you need to research your own versions, right?
One possibility I might believe is that these people were exposed to something most likely from the CIA itself. You might say "the CIA wouldn't do this to their own". Think again [3].
So to believe any of this I want these people to release their medical records and have some independent medical analysis. Does the author really have TBI? Was there some other cause? Did this person suffer, say, an injury in a motor vehicle accident and is intentionally or unintentionally blaming it on Havana Syndrome?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...
[2]: https://www.leidenlawblog.nl/articles/police-panic-and-fenta...
Pop the magnetron out of a microwave and direct it towards someone's head [0], and I imagine they're not gonna have a great time. And that's with parts available in many average homes.
The Active Denial System [1] works based on these principles, but different frequencies.
0 - Don't do this
That is why even around "small" scale radio transmitters such as phone cell towers you absolutely have to keep a safe distance, and even more around large broadcast towers or even radio amateurs doing serious satellite communication.
This is true for your skin in some cases, too: the frequencies which will quickly heat skin are a subset of the frequencies which can hurt you at high energy. For example, X-rays will do the latter a lot faster.
And that's only the considerations if you treat the skin and brain as just a hunk of stuff versus a ridiculously complex meat-computer. For an example, see the "microwave auditory effect"[0]. This effect originates inside the brain, not the ear. High levels of electromagnetic energy tends to harm even electronic computers, and they have no meat to deal with!
Ok, I'd rank it ahead of the poison theory, still behind the mass psychosis because of Hanlon though.