Havana syndrome

[Bird on a Fire]

It seems likely that the many cases have many different causes.

Mass mass psychogenic illness is possible, for example morgellons.

However, some of the people who claim to have been affected by Havana Syndrome have been examined by competent doctors who didn't diagnose a psychogenic illness, and did suggest that the people affected "have sustained injury to widespread brain networks without an associated history of head trauma."

I'd rather that internet randoms like me didn't assume that they know more than doctors who have actually examined those who claim to be affected by Havanna Syndrome.

Something unusual has happened, but I really don't know what. The mystery makes the case interesting.

[Edited to add link and delete repetition]

Quite.

I also rather doubt that the US intelligence services would announce an entire task force including former CIA bin Laden hunters etc just to "avoid causing offense" to embassy workers.

[bmforre]

I ... rather doubt that the US intelligence services would announce an entire task force including former CIA bin Laden hunters etc just to "avoid causing offense" to embassy workers.

I rather believe they may be willing to show an impressive task force in order to indicate that opposing powers are down to deep and dirty deeds ...

[Woodchopper]

I ... rather doubt that the US intelligence services would announce an entire task force including former CIA bin Laden hunters etc just to "avoid causing offense" to embassy workers.

I rather believe they may be willing to show an impressive task force in order to indicate that opposing powers are down to deep and dirty deeds ...

I disagree.

The suggestion that foreign powers are getting away with harming US diplomats and other officials is embarrassing. The US is supposed to be the predominant military power in the world, and apparently it can't even work out if some other power giving its personnel brain damage. The whole affair makes it look weak and ineffectual.

[bmforre]

Posters who know more than I do about physics seem convinced it's impossible to develop such a weapon, based on how non-military non-weapon technology works.

Talking about "technology" tends to confuse the issues when one is facing fundamentals. Do people believe that mass can be free of gravitation just because that would be convenient in some military weapons applications? Similar goes for diffraction free waves.

[bmforre]

The suggestion that foreign powers are getting away with harming US diplomats and other officials is embarrassing. The US is supposed to be the predominant military power in the world, and apparently it can't even work out if some other power giving its personnel brain damage. The whole affair makes it look weak and ineffectual.

We are now accustomed to political power being used to combat life saving vaccination and infection protection. So parts of US political power is deep into harming not just officials and combatants but civilians. So I am not surprised.

[Bird on a Fire]

Posters who know more than I do about physics seem convinced it's impossible to develop such a weapon, based on how non-military non-weapon technology works.

Talking about "technology" tends to confuse the issues when one is facing fundamentals. Do people believe that mass can be free of gravitation just because that would be convenient in some military weapons applications? Similar goes for diffraction free waves.

Given that nobody has any idea of what, if anything, has happened, it seems to be jumping the gun a bit to say that diffraction-free waves are a necessary assumption.

[dyqik]

Posters who know more than I do about physics seem convinced it's impossible to develop such a weapon, based on how non-military non-weapon technology works.

Talking about "technology" tends to confuse the issues when one is facing fundamentals. Do people believe that mass can be free of gravitation just because that would be convenient in some military weapons applications? Similar goes for diffraction free waves.

Given that nobody has any idea of what, if anything, has happened, it seems to be jumping the gun a bit to say that diffraction-free waves are a necessary assumption.

Diffraction free wave aren't strictly necessary, but they do rule some of the options that have been discussed.

For example, they completely rule out low frequency waves transmitted from outside the building and focused to an extent that they aren't trivially detectable at a large distance. That applies whether the signals are pulsed or not.

There's additional fundamental constraints on pulse waveforms and transmitting them in complex urban and semi-urban environments with multipath effects.

[Woodchopper]

In a new intelligence assessment, the CIA has ruled out that the mysterious symptoms known as Havana Syndrome are the result of a sustained global campaign by a hostile power aimed at hundreds of U.S. diplomats and spies, six people briefed on the matter told NBC News.

In about two dozen cases, the agency cannot rule out foreign involvement, including many of the cases that originated at the U.S. Embassy in Havana beginning in 2016. Another group of cases is considered unresolved. But in hundreds of other cases of possible symptoms, the agency has found plausible alternative explanations, the sources said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... -rcna12838

[Al Capone Junior]

May have already been posted, but I love this explanation of Havana syndrome

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g9C3ZKWLZG4

[Bird on a Fire]

I keep getting that song Havana by Camila Cabello stuck in my head.

Damn commies.

[Al Capone Junior]

https://newrepublic.com/article/165200/ ... sal-russia

Ooo. Now ppl are really getting butt-hurt over this.

[philbo]

I keep getting that song Havana by Camila Cabello stuck in my head.

Damn commies.

I'm hearing it to the tune of Hava Nagila. So it's probably Mossad to blame

(There's a reason I don't hang around here much any more: I've just spent ages reading just this thread, and I don't have time to keep up.. which is a shame, because there is so much brainpower on display when compared to pretty much anywhere else I frequent on t'interwebs)

[basementer]

Glad to hear from you, philbo.

[monkey]

Yay! This is a thing again!

clicky

A joint report by Insider, Der Spiegel and CBS say it was a GSU unit (who were also responsible for the Salisbury Novichok poisoning) using a sonic weapon. And all of youse were going on about radios, pfft.