New Report: Havanna Syndrome Could Be Directed Microwave Energy (nbcnews.com) 86
NBC News reports:
The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report by the National Academies of Sciences that cites medical evidence to support the long-held conviction of American intelligence officials.
The report, obtained Friday by NBC News, does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon, as some U.S. officials have long believed. But it raises that disturbing possibility...
A team of medical and scientific experts who studied the symptoms of as many as 40 State Department and other government employees concluded that nothing like them had previously been documented in medical literature, according to the National Academies of Sciences report... "The committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by (government) employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy," the report says. "Studies published in the open literature more than a half-century ago and over the subsequent decades by Western and Soviet sources provide circumstantial support for this possible mechanism...."
In the last year, as first reported by GQ Magazine and The New York Times, a number of new incidents have been reported by CIA officers in Europe and Asia, including one involving Marc Polymeropoulos, who retired last year after a long and decorated career as a case officer. He told NBC News he is still suffering the effects of what he believes was a brain injury he sustained on a trip to Moscow. A source directly familiar with the matter told NBC News the CIA, using mobile phone location data, had determined that some Russian intelligence agents who had worked on microwave weapons programs were present in the same cities at the same time that CIA officers suffered mysterious symptoms. CIA officials consider that a promising lead but not conclusive evidence.
The State Department, responding to the report, said that "each possible cause remains speculative" and added that the investigation, now three years old, is still "ongoing." Although it praised the National Academies of Sciences for undertaking the effort, the State Department offered a long list of "challenges of their study" and limitations in the data the academies were given access to, suggesting that the report should not be viewed as conclusive...
The report says more investigation is required [and] recommends that the State Department establish a response mechanism for similar incidents that allows new cases to be studied more quickly and effectively [as well as neurological assessments for all State Department employees on foreign assignments].
NBC notes that the study examined four possible causes: Infection, chemicals, psychological factors and microwave energy. The report concludes that "Among the plausible mechanisms that the committee considered, directed radio frequency (RF) energy, especially in those with the distinct early manifestations, appears most germane, along with persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as a secondary reinforcing mechanism, as well as the additive effects of psychological conditions.
"The committee cannot rule out other possible mechanisms, and again, considers it likely that a multiplicity of factors explains some cases and the differences between others."
The report, obtained Friday by NBC News, does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon, as some U.S. officials have long believed. But it raises that disturbing possibility...
A team of medical and scientific experts who studied the symptoms of as many as 40 State Department and other government employees concluded that nothing like them had previously been documented in medical literature, according to the National Academies of Sciences report... "The committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by (government) employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy," the report says. "Studies published in the open literature more than a half-century ago and over the subsequent decades by Western and Soviet sources provide circumstantial support for this possible mechanism...."
In the last year, as first reported by GQ Magazine and The New York Times, a number of new incidents have been reported by CIA officers in Europe and Asia, including one involving Marc Polymeropoulos, who retired last year after a long and decorated career as a case officer. He told NBC News he is still suffering the effects of what he believes was a brain injury he sustained on a trip to Moscow. A source directly familiar with the matter told NBC News the CIA, using mobile phone location data, had determined that some Russian intelligence agents who had worked on microwave weapons programs were present in the same cities at the same time that CIA officers suffered mysterious symptoms. CIA officials consider that a promising lead but not conclusive evidence.
The State Department, responding to the report, said that "each possible cause remains speculative" and added that the investigation, now three years old, is still "ongoing." Although it praised the National Academies of Sciences for undertaking the effort, the State Department offered a long list of "challenges of their study" and limitations in the data the academies were given access to, suggesting that the report should not be viewed as conclusive...
The report says more investigation is required [and] recommends that the State Department establish a response mechanism for similar incidents that allows new cases to be studied more quickly and effectively [as well as neurological assessments for all State Department employees on foreign assignments].
NBC notes that the study examined four possible causes: Infection, chemicals, psychological factors and microwave energy. The report concludes that "Among the plausible mechanisms that the committee considered, directed radio frequency (RF) energy, especially in those with the distinct early manifestations, appears most germane, along with persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD) as a secondary reinforcing mechanism, as well as the additive effects of psychological conditions.
"The committee cannot rule out other possible mechanisms, and again, considers it likely that a multiplicity of factors explains some cases and the differences between others."
Ok then (Score:3)
concluded that nothing like them had previously been documented in medical literature
Given that intense microwave exposure is something which sometimes happens to communications technicians, wouldn't this rule out microwave exposure?
Re:Ok then (Score:5, Interesting)
When a bureaucrat says "nothing like this has ever occurred", and only a few potential causes were investigated, I'd not have great confidence in the claim. The long-term symptoms of dozens of people hints at a larger scale event, such as a broad microwave used to power a variety of listening devices installed throughout the facility.
Re: Ok then (Score:1)
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What ensures that it would be a deliberate attack? A scattering of microwave powered listening devices throughiyt the building in various or even shifting locations would need power. Replacing the devices or replacing the batteries is a chronic issue: look up the battery capacity of modest listening devices sold for home use on Ebay if you're curious about them. A constant or nearly constant barrage of low power microwave radiation could both provide power and mask the signals.
It's embarrassing if proven, a
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You can buy microwave detectors for just a few bucks [amazon.com].
I mean, come on, in the days of industrial espionage, many companies sweep their buildings for surveillance devices on a daily basis...
The part of me that looks to Occam'
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Has someone concluded that the exposure took place while the subjects were inside an embassy?
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Almost, but not quite. It's actually magical microwaves, ones that are intense enough to have biological effects but simultaneously so low-level that EMI/RFI monitoring equipment can't detect them. So they're magic microwaves, which display two mutually exclusive properties at once.
And it's definitely not sick building syndrome, which would be just far too convenient and simple an explanation.
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You don't need hazardous amounts of RF to power a bug. You'd be hard pressed to even detect it with rudimentary sniffers.
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I agree that a well designed device shouldn't need so much RF power to tap. I'm very reluctant to conclude that a fool using old Russian military technology couldn't mishandle the charging setup, or decide to solve the problem of recharging something in a shielded room by simply throwing more power at the problem.
I'm having a bit of difficulty finding good numbers for the power density to power small scale devices: There are fascinating trade-offs: physical size limits battery capacity, and whether the data
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Are they using microwaves to power bugs? Or are they trying to sicken people with them? Or both??
If you're going to plant a bug, you need to carefully engineer the energy harvesting problem. I'd look at photovoltaics, because people don't usually have business conversations in the dark. Or I'd use spectrum that nobody suspects, like leakage from power lines, "stray wifi", or 30 GHz. Grab your milliwatts where you can. Or just splice it into the power line and stuff it back in the wall where nobody will fin
Re: Ok then (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, I consider this documented:
Newer research: https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com]
Original US research: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com... [whatdotheyknow.com] :D
HTML version: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com... [whatdotheyknow.com]
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Nope. This wasn't steady radiation, it was pulsed radiation. The Russians have been studying this and weaponizing it for years. And there's no indication of the exact frequencies and wavelengths that were used, but a comm tech wouldn't be exposed to anything like this.
Re: Ok then (Score:3, Funny)
Nope. This wasn't steady radiation, it was pulsed radiation.
Damnit! I told Bob to stop using that coffee mug with metal on one side in the carousel microwave.
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Very interesting. Can you cite sources?
Re:Ok then (Score:4, Informative)
Russia has quite a lot of medical research on this dating to the USSR days for other reasons. Their older radars (even the civilian ones) were using stupid power levels. The old MRL2 monster which was my "mechano" as a kid had 1KW+ on the main beam. Think microwave oven, but directed in a 1 degree beam. It could probably knock out a bird if it passed through the beam right in front of it. There were specific instructions and banned sectors/elevations to prevent directing it to the residential districts in the city around it.
Combined with no shielding this results in a whole raft of specific workplace ailments (and outright disabilities) in staff. Big country, lots of these units, lots of people who got damage during the years before the East copied the West and started paying attention to health and safety. Quite a lot of articles and research in their medical journals. Originally classified, nowdays not so much - you can pull it via literature search (if you do it in Russian).
As far as using it as weapon: proven deployments are all USA. Prototypes were deployed in Iraq in the 2000s for crowd control and the program is still being financed. I recently came across an article about DARPA soliciting proposals for further work on it.
As far as it being used: maybe. In order to do damage as described, it would need to be at penetrating frequencies (f.e. the prototype used in Iraq wasn't). Microwave at penetrating frequencies in doses capable of causing nerve damage causes cardiovascular damage as well (source - any of the aforementioned medical research). No cardiovascular damage mentioned on any of the cases - it is nerve and inner ear damage. That sounds (pun intended) more like infra or ultra sound.
As far as "phones of blah, blah in the area" - interesting, but if true not obtained from mobile network. If true, it is yet another proof that Google and its location data is streamed straight to Langley. For all of us.
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What I've heard from communications technicians is that, if they do experience something on this level - typically from military-grade tech - they are able to identify where the unusual sensations are coming from. "Hey, I've been standing in front of the microwave dish for half an hour." Not too common these days, but in the early days of radar, people weren't always directed not to stand in the beam.
No doubt these phenomenon are well-known inside military science circles, and beyond that have even trickled
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Given that intense microwave exposure is something which sometimes happens to communications technicians, wouldn't this rule out microwave exposure?
No, it doesn't. There are strict limits on exposure, and every possible radiation site is checked to make sure it's within limits. None of that has been done in Cuba, apparently.
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Further, this has been going on for some time now.
Surely the first thing investigators would have done
is to bring in broad-spectrum rf detection equipment.
Aluminum Faraday Cage head gear to be issued...? (Score:5, Funny)
I have to say that the possibility of all Americans in Cuba being advised to wear aluminum foil on head both amuses me and terrifies me at the same time.
Re:Aluminum Faraday Cage head gear to be issued... (Score:4, Interesting)
And in China, it happened there too.
That raises an interesting point: the one thing certain to be common to both locations is that they were American facilities. Makes me wonder if it was some equipment designed to jam bugs or something, with unexpected side effects.
The idea that it was RF but undetectable is a bit far fetched. I'm sure the NSA would have found it if it was powerful enough to have those effects.
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The idea that it was RF but undetectable is a bit far fetched. I'm sure the NSA would have found it if it was powerful enough to have those effects.
I just read the GQ article, and it seems very unlikely to me that it could be anything other than microwaves. Sound can't be beamed tightly enough to explain some of the distances involved. And the only alternative explanation I can think of is that the Russians created an odorless, airborne chemical agent that works even when the target is outdoors, and destroys only the brain's white matter while leaving no other damage or traces. That seems a lot less credible than microwaves.
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If it was microwaves it would have been easy to detect. For a start wifi wouldn't work in targeted areas. The signal would have to be extremely powerful to cause harm at long distance, though walls (which are probably designed to be Faraday cages) and furniture.
Look at it this way, if cheap consumer electronics can detect microwaves in the 2.4GHz wifi range do you think the NSA would have had any trouble detecting microwaves powerful enough to damage human tissue?
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They might have trouble if they were out of the range of the detectors, say 60 GHz.
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The victims moving their heads a few inches to either side stopping the grinding noise seems to preclude any kind of beam that wasn't highly focused and aimed at dozens of bedroom pillows. Unless state-secret pillow talk is 20x more common than in James Bond movies, I don't see that being the strategy. "Bugs" are not going to be in your own embassy... they could be in the other guy's embassy, but more likely some other place where RF audits are less likely.
Where are you getting "RF but undetectable" anyway?
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If it was RF it could be detected with sensitive equipment. In fact it wouldn't have to be that sensitive, things like wifi operate in the same frequency bands as microwaves and don't cook your brain at the low power levels they operate at.
Beams are fanciful really, to an extent you can create them but from the distances they would have to be transmitted from the cone would be huge by the time it got to the bedroom.
On top of that it would make sense to build a faraday cage into the embassy anyway, to stop b
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If they had a cage, it might be around the business portion. I'm not sure that they even sleep inside the Havana embassy, at least some of these attacks occurred in The Hotel Nacional.
Re: Aluminum Faraday Cage head gear to be issued.. (Score:2)
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Why stop at Americans in Cuba? Every american should wear one. I'm still waiting for that headline 'Cuban crickets cause mass psychosis'.
Seems to be spreading too.
You mean that CIA technique? (Score:3)
Where a convenient side-effect was that you could heat bubbles of liquid in the brain to cause waves that were audible, aka make voices appear in your head, for real, no conspiracy theories required?
Then welcome to the 1950s, Cuba! ;)
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5G (Score:3)
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Oops on that one - 5G labeled LED on such AP is just clipped-off 5GHz, not the same as in cell 5G.
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Mosquito gas (Score:5, Interesting)
I liked the mosquito gas explanation [slashdot.org] more. It easily explained the appearance of the same symptoms for US diplomats in different countries, since the common cause was US policy.
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How does that explain any of the sounds people recorded? I don't know how the gas fits into this part of the story.
Having personally done work with microwave oven magnetrons in open air, while recording video you can usually hear mains hum as the positive component of the AC line generates RF output. With more sophisticated RF sources and optics, you can probably make some pretty wild stuff.
The recording I saw shows a central peak around 7000 Hz with a bunch of side bands about 3000 Hz across. You can ampli
attempted murder if true (Score:2)
or if you're lucky, it may only leave you crippled.
electromagnetic waves in these frequencies generally do damage by heating, and that means that they actually do physical damage due to that heating effect, and your brain is not very good at repairing damage. it is _possible_ that by on-off keying at a particular frequency you could incur unpleasant effects that did not do permanent damage, but the risk for permanent damage is definitely high because a high power level is also required for that type of op
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I guess the CIA now knows how Iran feels (Score:2)
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What? Not if they don't have enough energy storage to do so. Part of the point of a hidden listening device is that it is _small_, without big batteries or capacitors or inductors that could store significant amounts of energy.
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Obvious solution (Score:3)
Time to start integrating Faraday cages into embassy buildings. It improves security too as all cell phones/WiFi/etc would be need to be connected to the buildings internal network.
Re: Obvious solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or a RF dosimeter.
At least a flashbulb. Or maybe you can't get them any more.
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Time to start integrating Faraday cages into embassy buildings. It improves security too as all cell phones/WiFi/etc would be need to be connected to the buildings internal network.
They already have been for decades.
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They block internal wifi and cell phones, which can be a burden for people who expect to receive phone calls in this modern era of cell phones.
Dumb question time (Score:3)
I know a little bit of lead will block x-rays. What, and how much, would it take to block a microwave signal? I'm presuming it also depends on the power of the beam and the distance. If you located the source of the emission, could you use some type of electromagnetic jamming like you can with radio signals?
Re:Dumb question time (Score:4, Informative)
"Jamming" is a mechanism to defeat radio receivers NOT radio transmitters! If you have something with both (like a radar) then maybe you can confuse the receiver and reduce the signal you receive by causing the antenna to point in a different direction. Assuming (and I think it unlikely) that the aledged microwave power is being directed at the diplomats then the device doing so is most likely just a dumb transmitter that will keep right on transmitting no matter what you radiate back at it.
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Continuing the dumb questions, what are the symptoms of being radiated with microwaves with an unhealthy intensity?
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Experiments have shown that you can hear pulsed microwaves at the right (wrong?) PRFs.
Sorry, PRF = pulse repetition frequency. Radar guy jargon.
Easy to prove or disprove (Score:5, Informative)
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An embassy should be chock full of receivers and other electronic devices. If there were high energy electronic beams directed at the embassy, they should have been detected quickly. We shouldn't be in a position of speculating about this, we should know. The whole affair stinks of incompetence and naivete.
Where did you read these attacks took place inside an embassy?
Two Words (Score:3)
Five
Gee.
I sense a disturbance in the meme, as if a billion Redditers were suddently silenced -- in awe.
I see (Score:2)
Like the solar power satellites sending down power by microwaves.
Terrorists will suffer a heatstroke instead of a drone RPG.
Or perhaps it could be used to free baseball fields from snow.
What do YOU think it will be used for?
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That's one of the enormous concerns of solar sails being used to beam microwave energy to terrestrial bases. The tighter the focus, the more dangerous to potential military or civilian targets.
Easily checked but never verified. (Score:3)
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Unless it's 60 GHz or something. Or 60 KHz sound.
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Time to armor up! (Score:2)
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Protecting brains doesn't protect other organs. Embassies often have guests and citizens from other nations visiting them An attack on the embassy staff, especially the ambassador, could be an act of war. An attack on visiting ambassadors from other nations could also be an act of war against them.
The political ramifications of such a physical attack could be quite dire, if proven or even suspected.
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Re: Time to armor up! (Score:2)
Mmroour!
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If I actually wanted to protect the personnel, and had a budget to do so, I'd shield the outer walls with something like this cmpany's products.
https://www.ramayes.com/RF_Shi... [ramayes.com]
Mysterious neocon waffle detected on /. (Score:2)
Why didn't they just walk around the building with a microwave detector?
“A source directly familiar with the matter told NBC News the CIA, using mobile phone location data, had determined that some Russian intelligence agents who had worked on microwave weapons programs were present in the same cities at the same time that CIA officers suffered mysteriou
Detecting such an attack would be trivial (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless there was some bizarre reason sounds so cagey, it should be trivial to detect a microwave attack, especially one that would operate at a frequency which would damage tissue.
The strangely guarded language of the article leads me to believe that the entire premise is totally speculative.
Microwave microphonics (Score:2)
A satellite fires a burst of microwaves at a building and someone nearby, (Russians) with a receiver, detects the microphonic vibrations of the building itself, decoding the conversations inside. I did not say this. I was not here.
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That doesn't work from a satellite; it's too far away. It's a nondescript building across the street. With a large mains power feed.
Better, just aim an IR laser at the window and the vibrations modulate the beam.
What is most concerning are the nations (Score:3)
Why is this reported as new? (Score:2)
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Does this qualify?
https://apnews.com/article/bb2... [apnews.com]
Scrabbled brain... China... (Score:2)
Possible explanation for the state of Biden.