The Origin of “Havana Syndrome”

First diagnosed in Cuba, U.S. diplomats and their families began experiencing “headaches, vertigo, and hearing loss after hearing buzzing or clicking sounds.” U.S. officials have said they do not know what causes the neurological symptoms.

Examinations revealed strange and unexplained brain injuries, similar to those who had experienced head trauma, without any logical explanation. Since this discovery, the Press has avoided using terminology [like “attacks”] that might concern the public to its cause, as not to spread “misinformation”. The official name given to these conditions is “Havana Syndrome”.

Origin of Havana Syndrome

While the origin of Havana Syndrome has not yet been officially determined, a covert sonic weapon using directed weaponized microwave-radiation or pulsed energy are suspected.

In the past few years, the U.S. began investigating after sharp increases in cases continued among American diplomats and other U.S. personnel. So much, that the CIA has even created a “Havana Syndrome Task Force” to investigate the origin of this mysterious illness.

“I’m certainly persuaded that what our officers and some family members, as well as other U.S. government employees, have experienced is real, and it’s serious,” said CIA Director William Burns.

Who is Behind These Attacks?

Scientists and officials are unclear about who might be behind any attack and if the incidents are attacks at all – or if they are caused inadvertently by surveillance equipment.

U.S. officials have privately stated they suspect that Russia may be using a microwave energy device either to secretly gather digital data or to intentionally injure U.S. officials in a campaign of harassment, which Russia denies.

Who Has Been Effected?

Those affected have included intelligence officers or diplomats working on Russia-related issues such as gas exports, cybersecurity and political interference, the Wall Street Journal reported.

An NBC News article stated that as many as 200 U.S. officials have experienced Havana syndrome symptoms, almost half of whom are CIA agents or their families, with the other half split between Defense Department and State Department employees.

First described in the New Yorker, at least 130 cases are now under investigation, up from several dozen last year, a defense official told the Associated Press. There have also been at least two possible incidents in the Washington area, including one near the White House in November.

In 2017, its reported 24 U.S. staff working at the Cuban embassy suffered brain injuries after reporting “auditory sensations”.

In 2018, U.S. officials were removed from the embassy after one U.S. official was diagnosed with “mild brain trauma” directly similar to the U.S. officials in Cuba.

In 2021, US Vice-President Kamala Harris’s flight to Vietnam had to be postponed for hours due to an “anomalous health incident” with “similarities to Havana syndrome”, media reports stated.

Who, or what, is behind these attacks?

Official Statements

A senior Biden administration official said: “In certain cases, these incidents have upended the lives of U.S. personnel who have devoted their careers to serving our country. Our government recognizes how important it is to make sure they get the care they deserve and that we get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.”

“When it comes to Vienna, in coordination with our interagency partners, we are vigorously investigating reports of possible unexplained health incidents among the U.S. Embassy community there, and we’re also doing that wherever these incidents are reported,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

Marc Polymeropoulos, 52, worked for the CIA when he was sent to Russia on a 10-day order.

“I was falling over. I had no control,” he said. “Everything was spinning so wildly.”

“It’s been three years of a splitting migraine,” he told Insider. “I have pressure on the top of my head and in the back of my head all the time.”

What Are The Symptoms?

The person said doctors there had diagnosed a brain injury of the type seen in people exposed to shockwaves from explosions. The symptoms had been preceded by piercing ear pain, high-pitched electronic noise and pressure in the ears.

CIA Director William Burns has ordered a significant intelligence-gathering effort to determine the cause of the incidents, and he has pledged that employees who report them will be taken seriously and given treatment.

“Director Burns is personally engaged with personnel affected by anomalous health incidents and is highly committed to their care and to determining the cause of these incidents,” a CIA spokesperson said.

The WSJ report described the case of one patient who was recently transferred from a posting in a European capital to be treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

The WSJ quoted the person as saying it was “striking” that the people affected by the syndrome “had worked on Russia-related issues”.

An intelligence official said, “The intelligence community has convened a panel of experts from across the U.S. government and private sector to work collectively to increase understanding of the possible mechanisms that are causing these anomalous health incidents.”

Other symptoms include:

Hearing Strange Noises
Clicking/Buzzing Sounds
Dizziness
Headaches
Vomiting
Bowel Spasms
Vertigo
Permanent Hearing Loss
Permanent Brain Damage

Dr. Allan H. Frey

Mr. Frey, a biologist, worked for General Electric’s Advanced Electronics Center at Cornell University, in 1960. A man measuring radar beams at the company stated to Mr. Frey that he could “hear the pulses”. Traveling to the man’s workplace, he put himself into the radar beam, and stated he “could hear it, too.”

Through Frey’s research, he found that even deaf people could hear the “ghost sounds”—developing a new field of study on radiation’s neurological impact.

Mr. Frey’s first paper, in 1961, reported that “power densities 160 times lower than the standard maximum safe level for continuous exposure” could induce auditory hallucinations.

His second paper, in 1962, described the brain’s “receptor site”, “temporal lobes”, and “the auditory cortex”.

Mr. Frey stated, he was invited by the Soviet Academy of Sciences to lecture. In Moscow, he was taken outside the city, to a military base “surrounded by armed guards and barbed-wire fences.”

“They had me visiting the various labs and discussing the problems,” including the neural impacts of microwaves, Mr. Frey recalled. “I got an inside look at their classified program.”

Advanced Weapons in China

China has experimented with non-lethal microwave weapons, and even have some used for anti-rioting. Below, some images taken from a report in 2018 show their findings.