Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[dann]

The picture is getting clearer now, and it's exactly what I suspected. There was no deliberate fakery, just people put in a stressful situation that they couldn't get out of, their heads filled with spy stories and feelings of animosity (real and/or imagined) from the Cubans. It wasn't their fault. For all they knew their food could have poisoned, and they could have been subjected to a sonic weapon. They were primed to expect such things, so any symptoms no matter how minor would be interpreted as an attack.

Food tasting slightly off, unusual sounds, odd symptoms with no apparent cause. The reactions are instinctive behavior that could save your life if there really was something threatening it. We can't blame them for acting 'irrationally' under stress. But we can blame 60 years of treating Cuba as an enemy.

That was the explanation that many commentators came up with early on. And it is probably true for the ordinary U.S. embassy employees in Havana, but I am not so sure about the first small group of CIA operatives.

There's yet another podcast: Chris Hayes talks with Jon Lee Anderson and Adam Entous about the 'Havana Syndrome'. What makes it interesting is that we get more information about the first people affected, i.e. the ones who set the whole thing in motion:

Starting in 2016, U.S. diplomats and spies began reporting a wide range of mysterious and debilitating medical symptoms, first in Cuba and then around the world. Doctors who initially treated patients couldn’t come up with a diagnosis and some just called it “The Thing.” Patients said they felt like they were hit by an invisible, directed pressure while stationed on government property, or sometimes standing in their own homes or hotel rooms. The intense health effects, which some have referred to as potentially psychogenic, included high pitched ringing in ears, vertigo, memory loss and brain zaps. The set of medical conditions became known as Havana Syndrome. Why has investigating this been so difficult? Who or what force could be behind all of this? Although the C.I.A. has maintained that it’s unlikely that the cases were caused by foreign adversaries, many questions and doubts remain about the agency’s findings. Award-winning journalists Jon Lee Anderson and Adam Entous explore some of these questions in a new Vice World News 8-part podcast aptly titled “Havana Syndrome.” Anderson and Entous join WITHpod to discuss the events leading up to the first reported Havana Syndrome cases, the global blame game that followed, what technology could be the culprit and more.
The ‘Havana Syndrome’ with Jon Lee Anderson and Adam (Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast, MSNBC/Apple Podcasts, Feb 21, 2022 - 54:21 min.)

Summary: 21:50 -> 30:10: About the first group of people:

New CIA station chief arrives and alleged harassment increases.
A CIA officer felt "excruciating pain" but didn't tell anybody at first. He sees a doctor, and then goes back to the USA for health check.
Meanwhile case officer 'Tony' also experiences a 'syndrome' attack, doesn't want to "show weakness", wants to "power through", but at one point he feels agonizing, unberarable pain, covers his ears, finally goes to a room in the middle of his apartment where the attack stops.
He sees the doctor the next day, who tells him that he, too, has had a similar experience.
A state department security officer says that the same thing happened to him.

It is reported, by 'Tony', I think, to Jeffrey DeLaurentis, senior U.S. diplomat in Havana, to the State Department and to the CIA.
The crickets come back, and 'Tony' feels pressure in the head, discomfort in the ear, severe ear ache like a 'sharpened pencil in the eardrum'. The next day he makes a recording of the sound. He sends a text message to his brother saying that he is being blasted with something like what is used at sea to keep pirates away from ships. (In the article in Science-Based Medicine mentioned in post 1,700, they say that "the auditory sensations from pulsed microwaves are threshold hearing phenomena that requires the subject to be in a quiet room to perceive")
He brings his recording to the New Years party at the U.S. embassy and plays it for other people.
The first CIA officer (I think they referred to him as 'Craig' in the VICE podcast series), the one who reported symptoms to the embassy doctor and then went back to the USA, returns to Havana. He is a smoker, and one day he goes outside the embassy with 'Tony' to smoke. 'Tony' notices that 'Craig's' hand twitches, but this is allegedly the first time they compare notes.

Now, I understand that the spook world is full of secrecy, but all of this is anecdotal, of course, and I have a hard time believing that the case officer 'Tony' has been unaware of the reason for Craig's absence when he was in the USA for his health check.
This appears to be the one argument to support the conclusion in both of the recent podcast series from VICE and Project Brazen. The timeline is not entirely clear, but playing the cricket recording at the New Year's Eve party at the embassy must have been a part of his campaign described by other media, i.e. the thing that made (some of) the other embassy employees believe that the cricket sound was a sure sign that they were being attacked.
Consider that Trump was elected for office on Nov 8, 2016, and it was clear that he intended to roll back Obama's rapprochement: Donald Trump's Threat to Close Door Reopens Old Wounds in Cuba (NYT, Nov 28, 2016)
Is it a coincidence that a small group of people whose mission it is to subvert Cuba's government starts the campaign among embassy employees that is used by Trump as an excuse to do what he always wanted to do? - or at least wanted to do since March 2016 when Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had taught him that it would be the way to win Florida votes. (Guardian, March 10, 2016).


At the end of the conversation with Entous and Anderson, the reason for thinking that the 'syndrome' was caused by a Russian attack hangs on two things: Pentagon has many secrets, i.e. maybe Pentagon is hiding the smoking gun that they've already found but won't talk about for security reasons. But even Entous and Anderson seem to find it hard to believe that.

But then there are the Russians, and they are also good at keeping secrets. E&A mention
how long it took for the circumstances surrounding Hitler's death to become known. On the other hand, they are also aware that the Russian poison attacks on dissidents abroad were rather clumsy, and yet the Russians are supposed to have been able to keep an attack on the scale of 'Havana Syndrome (Havana, Vienna, Guangzhou, London, Moscow .... ) a secret.

E&A seem much less certain now than they were in the final episode of their podcast series.

 

[dann]

I most recently mentioned Mark Lenzi in post 1,655. He is back in the news for something other than the 'syndrome' ... and yet:

In the latest Taibbi tweets, he reported on the two examples of what appears to be Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and, separately, State Department official Mark Lenzi, trying to influence Twitter in a series of emails.
Twitter Files: Sen. King and State Dept official allegedly leaned on site to target opponents (Washington Examiner, Feb 19, 2023)

10. Lenzi wrote to Twitter bluntly asking to remove 14 accounts distinguished among other things by skepticism of Russiagate: “The below are some Russian controlled accounts that I think you will want to look into and delete.”Matt Tabbi (Twitter, Feb 19, 2023)

Mark Lenzi's email about "Russian government controlled fake accounts" is enclosed in the tweet where he also asks that his name not be mentioned.

If people think this is a partisan exercise, why aren’t they jumping to investigate Mark Lenzi, the Republican official who falsely accused 14 people of being “Russian controlled accounts”?
Matt Tabbi (Twitter, Feb 20, 2023)

New York Post mentions Mark Lenzi in the context of the Havana Syndrome:

Lenzi was one of two American diplomats stationed in Guangzhou, China, who were evacuated in 2018 after faling ill with symptoms of a mysterious ailment that’s been compared to the “Havana Syndrome” first experienced in late 2016 by State Department personnel stationed in Cuba.
The following year, Lenzi pledged to donate his brain for research and he filed suit against the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2021.

'Twitter Files' compares Maine Sen. Angus King to Nixon if he 'sniffed glue' (New York Post, Feb 19, 2023)

 

[dann]

And Sung Tieu is back. This time, she's in Brooklyn:

Sung Tieu’s first solo exhibition in the US promises to introduce audiences to the artist’s research on psychological and informational control asserted by private and governmental entities, efforts typically hidden from public view. Tieu plays with fact and fiction to challenge the idea of universal truth, looking instead to the powers of information — or lack thereof.

Amant (amant.org)
315 Maujer Street and 932 Grand Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
March 30–Sept. 10
Hyperallergic’s Spring 2023 New York Art Guide (Hyperallergic, Feb 22, 2023)

I am not sure, but this piece of art may be for sale:

Sung Tieu: Infra-Specter
Sung Tieu, from the series Exposure To Havana Syndrome, Brain Anatomy, Axil Plane (2023), laser engraving on stainless steel mirror, 173/4 inches × 113/4 inches × 1/4 inches, edition of 6 (courtesy the artist)

 

[Roger Ramjets]

That was the explanation that many commentators came up with early on. And it is probably true for the ordinary U.S. embassy employees in Havana, but I am not so sure about the first small group of CIA operatives.

It's OK to not be sure, but there doesn't seem to be anything concrete to refute the obvious. Do we have any evidence at all that the CIA operatives deliberately made up their symptoms? Until/unless we get more than innuendo I'm calling it a conspiracy theory.

 

[dann]

In other circumstances, I don't think that you would call it a conspiracy theory to suspect that three or four obviously biassed people might have cooked up a story or given it a very particular spin.
Remember that the story that the 'Havana Syndrome' is not a case of mass psychogenic illness is now based on the campaign of these three or four guys. The VICE and Project Brazen podcasts base their perception that the 'syndrome' is an attack on their story.
When you ask, "Do we have any evidence at all that the CIA operatives deliberately made up their symptoms?" then the answer is obviously: No, we don't.
But then I'll ask: Do we have any evidence that the CIA operatives' story about their symptoms is any more than a story?
And again the answer is, No, we don't. The only piece of evidence they have to back up their story is the cricket tape.

The podcasters are aware that from that point on, i.e. at least as early as the New Year's Eve party at the embassy, 'Tony' and his CIA colleagues were providing the embassy employees with the framework in which to interpret the cricket sounds and their (usually banal) symptoms. The one case of retinal bleeding and several cases of jerky eye movements (and now a couple of cases of EHS (!) to top it off) don't constitute the evidence against MPI that Nicky Woolf thinks they do.

By the way, there is now a transcript of the recent interview/conversation podcast with Entous and Anderson: Unpacking the 'Havana Syndrome' with Jon Lee Anderson and Adam Entous: podcast and transcript (MSNBC, Feb 23, 2023)

 

[Sherkeu]

It's OK to not be sure, but there doesn't seem to be anything concrete to refute the obvious. Do we have any evidence at all that the CIA operatives deliberately made up their symptoms? Until/unless we get more than innuendo I'm calling it a conspiracy theory.

All of this is right around spraying for Zika virus at a time that , like China, Cuba was not admitting to any crisis.
eg: "Sure out neighbors have it, but we are in control!!"

It was a comeuppance to merge diplomatically with the US dollar and then be good brokers for oil opportunities. Things were too good to let some infected mosquito mess it up. Spray and spray again!

When Castro dies in Nov 25 2016, Cuba calls for 9 full days of mourning.
Everything closed. Dignitaries are on the way for the December 4 memorial service. They sprayed every mosquito chemical they had- like crazy.
That some had sickness or neurological symptoms is totally normal. Especially since the spraying was to save face to world leaders...so extra treatments in those areas.

That the Cubans living in Cuba, who have been sprayed for years and years with these unsafe chemicals, did not have more adverse symptoms than normal, is also normal. Humans adapt.
Same reason I dont drink the water that the locals do in Mexico. They are fine, and I am sick for days!

Spraying also affected the noise of the insects and their behaviors due to sparser populations of insects like katydids...which can be very VERY loud.
But that noise is not needed for the initial harm, or others later on. Just another 'different' thing people living there would have noticed, and reported.

In any case, if you look back 5 years, you'll see I, and others, made the same case back then and I dont think much has changed.

Countries do stuff, but they arent as smart in execution of anything like in a ' Blame Cuba!' movie.

 

[dann]

Sherkeu, this is mostly wrong for so many reasons:

All of this is right around spraying for Zika virus at a time that , like China, Cuba was not admitting to any crisis.
eg: "Sure out neighbors have it, but we are in control!!"

Yes, Cuba was spraying for Zika virus at the time.
But no, Cuba wasn't denying anything, on the contrary. They didn't even try to hide facts from potential tourists:
Cuba issues early warning on spread of Zika virus (Granma.cu, Feb 10, 2016) With photo of Cuban fumigator.
First imported case of Zika virus detected in Cuba (Granma.cu, March 2, 2016)
Second imported case of Zika virus detected in Cuba (Granma.cu, March 4, 2016)
Third imported case of Zika virus detected in Cuba (Granma.cu, March 9, 2016)
First case of autochthonous transmission of the Zika virus reported in Cuba (Granma.cu, March 16, 2016)
Ninth imported case of Zika virus confirmed (Granma.cu, April 13, 2016)
Dos nuevos casos autóctonos de Zika en Cuba (Trabajadores.cu, August 3, 2016)

Este año, agregó la especialista, se aprecia una disminución tanto de los casos de síndromes febriles sospechosos como los confirmados de Dengue y Zika. «Hoy solamente tenemos en transmisión activa del virus Zika dos municipios, en la provincia de La Habana: Regla y Arroyo Naranjo», acotó.
Confiarnos es el mayor de los riesgos (Granma.cu, May 6, 2017)

The congresses provided an “opportunity to debate, exchange and update our knowledge,” according to President of the Cuban Microbiology and Parasitology Society, Dr. María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado, who went on to note that participants discussed key issues “including the epidemiological situation regarding dengue, chikungunya and Zika, which continues to affect us to date,” and highlighted the historic work of the IPK investigating and treating infectious diseases in the country.
Physical rehabilitation, microbiology and parasitology debated in Cuba (Granma.cu, Dec 12, 2017)

In mid-December, Zika transmission was reported in 18 municipalities of the country, with a continued decline in cases.
Health indicators improve and life expectancy increases (Granma.cu, Dec 29, 2017)

Please don't make up stuff about Cuba just because one can always rely on the ignorance of most people about Cuba and thus expect to be believed. Stop posting fake news! Cuba deserves better than that! They may occasionally overestimate how much in control they are, but as the current pandemic has shown, they tend to have more control over contagious diseases than most countries, and that includes Western industrialized countries! That many Westerners remain ignorant of the fact, even many who ought to know better, should make you consider claims about Cuba carefully before you start spreading them.

It was a comeuppance to merge diplomatically with the US dollar and then be good brokers for oil opportunities. Things were too good to let some infected mosquito mess it up. Spray and spray again!

When Castro dies in Nov 25 2016, Cuba calls for 9 full days of mourning.
Everything closed. Dignitaries are on the way for the December 4 memorial service. They sprayed every mosquito chemical they had- like crazy.
That some had sickness or neurological symptoms is totally normal. Especially since the spraying was to save face to world leaders...so extra treatments in those areas.

Made-up and devoid of facts. We discussed this when the Canadian and Israeli researchers came up with the hypothesis that Cuban fumigation might have caused the symptoms, but the irony that you've missed entirely is that the U.S. and Canadian embassies at the time were the ones who asked the Cubans for more anti-Zika fumigation on their premises, which is what made it worth to consider the hypothesis that the 'syndrome' might have been caused by insecticides even though Cubans didn't seem to have been affected.

I also found it worth considering at the time, having witnessed Cuban fumigación in a residential neighborhood, La Lisa, Habana, in 2006 or '07. Back then it was to prevent dengue. Another thing that made this hypothesis worth taking seriously was that foreigners in Cuba, and Americans more than most, probably, tend to live in airtight apartments or rooms for the sake of airconditioning. Cubans don't. And this fact + the extra spraying requested by the embassies might account for Americans and Canadians getting the 'syndrome' when Cubans didn't. (When I witnessed it in 2006, there was no trace of the fumes (and they're pretty spectacular!) to be seen two minutes after the fumigators had left. I assumed that wouldn't be the case in a well-isolated house or room.)

However, since there were no signs of Cubans having been affected, not even among the fumigators themselves, the theory, which was dismissed by the Americans almost immediately, lost its credibility.

That the Cubans living in Cuba, who have been sprayed for years and years with these unsafe chemicals, did not have more adverse symptoms than normal, is also normal. Humans adapt.
Same reason I dont drink the water that the locals do in Mexico. They are fine, and I am sick for days!

No, in general you shouldn't expect to get used to being poisoned. It's not how it works. And it is not at all why you get sick in Mexico (or in Cuba) if you drink tap water. It has nothing to do with chemical poisoning. It's caused by microbes. And the locals may get used to those as long as it's not cholera or something similarly virulent.
By the way, this is why many countries put chloride in the water: to kill those microbes. The locals may get used to that, too, but I've had a hard time getting used to the taste of tap water in New York, for instance!

Spraying also affected the noise of the insects and their behaviors due to sparser populations of insects like katydids...which can be very VERY loud.
But that noise is not needed for the initial harm, or others later on. Just another 'different' thing people living there would have noticed, and reported.

It (or another similar trigger) is needed for the initial harm if the problem is MPI. As for the katydids: It has been established with some certainty that the recordings in Havana were of either Indies short-tailed crickets or Jamaican field crickets.

In any case, if you look back 5 years, you'll see I, and others, made the same case back then and I dont think much has changed.

Yes, Nov 6, 2017: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12064554#post12064554
But much has changed since then, and much of what you thought five years ago wasn't correct.
And in November 2017, you switched to the idea that it was a deliberate attack: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12069756#post12069756
And then in September 2019: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12827383#post12827383

But another thing about the Canadian idea that the 'syndrome' was caused by insecticides: According to the Canadian/Israeli study, with the specific poison they had in mind,
1) the poison would dissolve and get flushed out of the body very fast, too fast to show up in blood tests weeks or months later, so unless blood samples were collected and analyzed immediately, there was no way to determine that it had ever been there;
2) the patients would gradually improve, which obviously hasn't happened for most of the first two dozen cases;
3) which leaves three possibilities I can think of:
- a) actual physiological brain damage caused by some kind of brain-altering weapon;
- b) some cases may have other causes, for instance natural neurodegenerative diseases
- c) mass psychogenic illness;

For a couple of weeks, I have argued against the facts that Nicky Woolf thinks are evidence of a): retinal bleeding (one case we've heard of), jerky eye movements (a couple of cases have been mentioned, but maybe it's the majority of the first 21 cases), and electromagnetic hypersensitivity (at least two cases we've heard of). That the latter is an actual psychogenic illness doesn't make a) seem plausible, but there is no reason why people suffering from something caused by a, b and/or c couldn't also develop EHS in addition to that.

Countries do stuff, but they arent as smart in execution of anything like in a ' Blame Cuba!' movie.

Roger Ramjets doesn't blame Cuba. I think that he and I only disagree slightly about the role played by the first couple of alleged 'syndrome' sufferers. He thinks that they were (and still are) convinced that they were attacked. I am not so sure that those CIA agents were as ignorant of the facts as they claim and may seem to be.

 

[dann]

What if concussion could be diagnosed immediately, in the setting where the injury has occurred? Michael Hoffer, M.D., professor of otolaryngology and neurological surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, joins Inside U Miami Medicine to discuss an innovative technology — in the form of “virtual reality” goggles — that could be a game changer for identifying mild traumatic brain injury at the point of care.
(...)
Listeners will hear about Dr. Hoffer’s in-depth involvement in diagnosing and treating patients affected by Havana Syndrome (spoiler alert: it’s not technically a syndrome) and the long-term neurological effects of the occurrence.
“We tested the Havana patients for traumatic brain injury, but it was much more homogeneous, and the pattern of injury looked different,” he said.
Find this fascinating episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Podcast: The ‘Havana Syndrome’ Mystery and Diagnosing Traumatic Brain Injury (PhysicianNews, U Miami Health, Feb 22, 2023, 29 min.)

So not an 'immaculate concussion' after all?! (I haven't listened to the podcast yet.)

 

[dann]

You can have these tests done

It's not just for spies and diplomats anymore!

If you want to visit Dr Hoffer in Miami, and be tested for Havana Syndrome - these are the approximate costs, according to a TI that went during 2022. Check with your insurance first.
1. AUDIOLOGICAL EVALUATION Visit at UHealth Ear Institute at the Clinical Research Building with Hoffer, Michael Ellis, MD
Hospital Fees $1,375
Insurance Covers -$ 532
You Pay $ 843

2. New Patient Appointment Visit at UHealth Ear Institute at the Clinical Research Building with Hoffer, Michael Ellis, MD
Total Fees $1,250
Hospital Fees $814
Physician Fees $436
Insurance Covers -$540
You Pay $710
Test for Havana Syndrome (TargetedJustice, Feb 22, 2023)

 

[Roger Ramjets]

In other circumstances, I don't think that you would call it a conspiracy theory to suspect that three or four obviously biassed people might have cooked up a story or given it a very particular spin...

When you ask, "Do we have any evidence at all that the CIA operatives deliberately made up their symptoms?" then the answer is obviously: No, we don't.

So no evidence. Where does that leave us?

Speculation, based on the supposition that CIA agents might be inclined to 'cook up' a story. But why would they?

But then I'll ask: Do we have any evidence that the CIA operatives' story about their symptoms is any more than a story?
And again the answer is, No, we don't. The only piece of evidence they have to back up their story is the cricket tape.

...and their own bodies, showing various symptoms that have been verified by doctors.

Your theory is that they all got together and 'cooked up' a story about being attacked by some unknown weapon. Either they did it alone, perhaps to justify their jobs or because they wanted out of Cuba, or in cahoots with their bosses as a planned CIA operation. Either way this meets the definition of a conspiracy, and since we have no evidence it is therefore a classic 'conspiracy theory' (no matter how 'plausible' you think it might be).

One the defining characteristics of a conspiracy theory is that it grows to include more and more people and events in order to maintain its integrity. In this case it's not just the CIA agents, but also the doctors who examined them that must be 'in on it'.

Or perhaps the 'interests' of each party just happened to align without any collusion. Perhaps the doctors seized on an opportunity to make more money by pandering to their patient's fears instead of allaying them? Or perhaps they just weren't as detached as they should have been and were primed to expect 'spy stuff' because they were examining spies? Perhaps it only took one of the spies 'cooking up' a story to convince the others that there was something going on.

To me this seems more likely than that they all 'cooked it up' together. The evidence we do have fits this theory better than the 'conspiracy' one. But if this is more likely then it's just as likely that 'patient zero' truly believed they were attacked, due to the physical and mental stress of his circumstances combined with a real health effect. You don't have to look far to find people with similar delusions even without having been in such a stressful situation.

The fact that the CIA agents presented cricket sounds as evidence for being attacked indicates that they believed it. Why? If you knew it was just crickets you wouldn't expect others to accept that it wasn't. If you wanted to manufacture evidence there were plenty of more convincing ways to do it. And these weren't just random bozos, they were (presumably) well trained in the art of spying and familiar with the electronic equipment and techniques used.

Which is where I think it went wrong. You're a spy assigned to the embassy of a hostile nation. You've been taught about all kinds of secret spy stuff including electronic eavesdropping devices and even directed energy weapons. And that's just the stuff you know about. It's unbearably hot, the insects are more than annoying and the food smells off. All in all it's just a stressful situation, and you wish you were somewhere else.

And then it hits you - a sudden blinding pain in one temple for no apparent reason. What could it be? Quickly you move to another room in case you are being targeted, and just as quickly the pain subsides - proof that something external caused it! (couldn't possibly just be one those things everybody gets occasionally, especially as we get older).

But perhaps it wasn't? You have to be sure, so you visit a doctor and tell him what happened. The doctor examines you and confirms that something isn't right. Now you're convinced. You have to tell the others, and poll them for any similar events. Sure enough, they now recall peculiar things that previously they had dismissed. Everyone promises to keep a look out for anything anomalous in the future, ready to record it...

 

[dann]

So no evidence. Where does that leave us?

Speculation, based on the supposition that CIA agents might be inclined to 'cook up' a story. But why would they?

The answer is pretty obvious:

But from the outset, some Havana embassy officials privately expressed concerns to members of Congress that the matter was being exaggerated by a small group of CIA officers who were experiencing symptoms and opposed better relations with Cuba.
Top U.S. officials cast fresh doubt on sensational 'Havana syndrome' claims (yahoo!news, Sep 14, 2022)

...and their own bodies, showing various symptoms that have been verified by doctors.

According to those doctors they are symptoms of attacks by directed energy weapons, and that diagnosis is based mainly on the accounts of their experiences: that it felt directional, coming from one location, that they were stepping in and out of a beam. The alleged brain injuries have been dismissed by other experts.

Your theory is that they all got together and 'cooked up' a story about being attacked by some unknown weapon. Either they did it alone, perhaps to justify their jobs or because they wanted out of Cuba, or in cahoots with their bosses as a planned CIA operation. Either way this meets the definition of a conspiracy, and since we have no evidence it is therefore a classic 'conspiracy theory' (no matter how 'plausible' you think it might be).

A very small conspiracy, in that case, with one or two setting the whole thing off. I don't know who you are talking about when you say "all".

One the defining characteristics of a conspiracy theory is that it grows to include more and more people and events in order to maintain its integrity. In this case it's not just the CIA agents, but also the doctors who examined them that must be 'in on it'.

That would be a different conspiracy. The doctors don't need to be 'in on it' to the extent of sharing the intention of the the very small group of CIA operators. The concerns of some of them seem to be that they would like to have discovered a brand-new medical phenomenon never seen or heard of before in human history, the kind of discovery that would get your name in textbooks. Others seem to have been more concerned with proving the usefulness of their new diagnostic invention, the googles to detect jerky eye movements.
If Relman is the one who wrote the preface to the NAS report, his dramatization about a world full of hostile adversaries with ray guns isn't exactly what you would expect to see from a neutral, objective researcher.

Or perhaps the 'interests' of each party just happened to align without any collusion. Perhaps the doctors seized on an opportunity to make more money by pandering to their patient's fears instead of allaying them? Or perhaps they just weren't as detached as they should have been and were primed to expect 'spy stuff' because they were examining spies? Perhaps it only took one of the spies 'cooking up' a story to convince the others that there was something going on.

I seriously doubt that money had much to do with it, but it may be the motive for trying to attract a new group of patients, i.e. the community of 'targeted individuals' (TI). However, one zealous CIA operative might have been enough to get the whole thing started.

To me this seems more likely than that they all 'cooked it up' together. The evidence we do have fits this theory better than the 'conspiracy' one. But if this is more likely then it's just as likely that 'patient zero' truly believed they were attacked, due to the physical and mental stress of his circumstances combined with a real health effect. You don't have to look far to find people with similar delusions even without having been in such a stressful situation.

The idea "that they all 'cooked it up' together" is yours, not mine. But you're right, it's very easy "to find people with similar delusions," i.e. the TI community. Back in the late 1960s/early 1970s, I overheard a woman at a busstop telling other commuters that her neighbors were ruining her health by sending invisible rays through the walls.

The fact that the CIA agents presented cricket sounds as evidence for being attacked indicates that they believed it. Why? If you knew it was just crickets you wouldn't expect others to accept that it wasn't. If you wanted to manufacture evidence there were plenty of more convincing ways to do it. And these weren't just random bozos, they were (presumably) well trained in the art of spying and familiar with the electronic equipment and techniques used.

No, it doesn't indicate that they believed it. Before playing the the recording at the New Year's Eve party, 'Tony', Patient Zero, had already talked to at least three other people who believed his story about the health-damaging sound. And the 'evidence' was good enough to be believed by all kinds of professionals for more than a year. Remember that others were playing those recordings on TV as evidence of an attack until at least 2021! Mark Zaid didn't attempt to distance his clients' cases from the sounds until mid-2022.
And when you insist that Patients Zero to Two or Three "weren't just random bozos, they were (presumably) well trained in the art of spying and familiar with the electronic equipment and techniques used," it seems to be contradicted by the fact that 'Tony', according to your interpretation, was fooled by the sound that he himself heard and recorded, i.e. in your narrative, he knew all about the electronic equipment, and yet he is supposed to have believed that he could record a super-sonic health attack on his cellphone. By the way, playing those recordings to people at a New Year's Eve party really isn't something that somebody "well trained in the art of spying" is supposed to do unless it's part of a disinformation campaign.

Which is where I think it went wrong. You're a spy assigned to the embassy of a hostile nation. You've been taught about all kinds of secret spy stuff including electronic eavesdropping devices and even directed energy weapons. And that's just the stuff you know about. It's unbearably hot, the insects are more than annoying and the food smells off. All in all it's just a stressful situation, and you wish you were somewhere else.

And then it hits you - a sudden blinding pain in one temple for no apparent reason. What could it be? Quickly you move to another room in case you are being targeted, and just as quickly the pain subsides - proof that something external caused it! (couldn't possibly just be one those things everybody gets occasionally, especially as we get older).

Leave out the food smelling off. That's part of an entirely different, much earlier case, which appears to have been handled professionally. I doubt that Patient Zero was particularly well-informed about directed energy weapons, and he appears to have been pretty new in the spook business, if I remember Entous and Anderson's podcast correctly. By the way, if he were well taught in these matters, I suspect that he would have known enough about directed energy weapons to be aware that it isn't very likely that they make a recordable cricket sound.

So since you are arguing against any kind of intent having played a role, you should stick with him being fairly uneducated and unprofessional in these matters.

But perhaps it wasn't? You have to be sure, so you visit a doctor and tell him what happened. The doctor examines you and confirms that something isn't right. Now you're convinced. You have to tell the others, and poll them for any similar events. Sure enough, they now recall peculiar things that previously they had dismissed. Everyone promises to keep a look out for anything anomalous in the future, ready to record it...

No, you don't have to tell the others. It wouldn't be your job, it wouldn't be your decision. If it were, a New Year's Eve party would be a very strange occasion to choose to inform them! He also doesn't seem to have polled people. On the contrary, he was campaigning, telling them that if they experienced a particular sound and had a headache, it was a sign that they were being attacked.

 

[dann]

Peter Isackson at the Fair Observer writes about how stories lacking a 'smoking gun' are treated by the media:

In these columns we have consistently pointed out how our so-called respectable media consistently exploits any embarrassing situation where the journalist can point to the lack of a “smoking gun.” This technique serves to stoke the public’s a manifestly false take on serious matters, whether it’s Russian interference in US elections (Russiagate), the Havana Syndrome, the JFK assassination or who to blame in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It rarely occurs to anyone to consider that the convenient lack of a smoking gun may simply be evidence of a carefully hidden gun.
The New York Times Dares to Mention Sy Hersh (FairObserver, Feb 22, 2023)

He adds a new definition to his Devil's Dictionary:

Incomplete reveal
A journalistic technique favored by respectable media such as The New York Times that allows journalists to select the unique angles of any story that are in line with the media’s editorial policy, itself ultimately attributable to well-disguised but increasingly easy to identify corporate, partisan or governmental interests.

 

[dann]

What if concussion could be diagnosed immediately, in the setting where the injury has occurred? Michael Hoffer, M.D., professor of otolaryngology and neurological surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, joins Inside U Miami Medicine to discuss an innovative technology — in the form of “virtual reality” goggles — that could be a game changer for identifying mild traumatic brain injury at the point of care.
(...)
Listeners will hear about Dr. Hoffer’s in-depth involvement in diagnosing and treating patients affected by Havana Syndrome (spoiler alert: it’s not technically a syndrome) and the long-term neurological effects of the occurrence.
“We tested the Havana patients for traumatic brain injury, but it was much more homogeneous, and the pattern of injury looked different,” he said.
Find this fascinating episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Podcast: The ‘Havana Syndrome’ Mystery and Diagnosing Traumatic Brain Injury (PhysicianNews, U Miami Health, Feb 22, 2023, 29 min.)

So not an 'immaculate concussion' after all?! (I haven't listened to the podcast yet.)

Now I have listened to the podcast, but there are many details I can't hear. I get the impression that Michael Hoffer, M.D., is more interested in talking about how fabulous the diagnostic goggles are as a diagnostic tool than about what is supposed to distinguish the diagnosis of 'Havana Syndrome' sufferers from all others.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The answer is pretty obvious:

But from the outset, some Havana embassy officials privately expressed concerns to members of Congress that the matter was being exaggerated by a group of CIA officers who were experiencing symptoms and opposed better relations with Cuba.

Top U.S. officials cast fresh doubt on sensational 'Havana syndrome' claims (yahoo!news, Sep 14, 2022)

Well here's the problem:-

We have all witnessed people exaggerating stuff, but that doesn't mean they were doing it deliberately. With medical conditions it can be hard to convince others that something serious is wrong, and most people aren't specialists so they don't know themselves. You may dismiss symptoms of a serious condition, or panic about something that is nothing to worry about. I have done both.

In one case I suffering from blocked ear canals that became painful and damaged my hearing. One doctor didn't believe there was anything wrong, and a specialist refused to examine me (not serious enough you see). In situations like these sufferers may be inclined to 'exaggerate' their symptoms, either to get the help they need or simply because in their mind the symptoms are worse. Maybe there's nothing really wrong, but maybe there is. And when you don't know what's wrong or what's causing it all kinds of awful possibilities come to mind. You can't blame someone for imagining something serious when they have been primed to expect it.

Last year I spent a night in hospital because I was getting spells where it felt like I was going to faint, then I would think I was dying and have a panic attack. It might have been caused by the medication I was on - but there was another factor. On a previous examination my doctor told me that I had a heart murmur, which primed me into expecting something serious.

After doing various tests and wearing a heart monitor for a week, it was concluded that there was nothing wrong with my heart or anything else. But nobody really knows. Was it bad pills, some undiagnosed disorder that went way by itself (like my ear problem did) or did I just imagine it? Medical records might suggest that I 'exaggerated' my symptoms, and technically that may be correct. But I didn't make it up.

According to those doctors they are symptoms of attacks by directed energy weapons, and that diagnosis is based mainly on the accounts of their experiences: that it felt directional, coming from one location, that they were stepping in and out of a beam. The alleged brain injuries have been dismissed by other experts.

Again, why assume some kind of conspiracy when it can explained by simple ignorance? The doctors should not have been influenced by accounts of possible 'directed energy' attacks, but they were. Why? Because when dealing with spies and not being familiar with the actual mechanics of such weapons, it seemed plausible. This then colored their diagnosis.

This is how a mass psychogenic illness starts. Just one patient who truly believes it and won't keep quiet may be enough, especially when it aligns with what others also want to believe. Sometimes the originator is simply lying (eg. Donald Trump's "windmills cause cancer") but more often they really believe it. And the more you try to dismiss it the more they dig their heels in - because they're not lying! This will also attract people with agendas who latch onto anything that supports their cause, but even that isn't necessarily nefarious - after all it could be true! (we see plenty of that behavior here among so-called 'skeptics').

A very small conspiracy, in that case, with one or two setting the whole thing off. I don't know who you are talking about when you say "all".

You said it was "exaggerated by a small group of CIA officers who were experiencing symptoms and opposed better relations with Cuba.". This strongly implies a group conspiracy, not just one or two.

That would be a different conspiracy. The doctors don't need to be 'in on it' to the extent of sharing the intention of the the very small group of CIA operators...

If Relman is the one who wrote the preface to the NAS report, his dramatization about a world full of hostile adversaries with ray guns isn't exactly what you would expect to see from a neutral, objective researcher.

I agree. but if that applies to them it should also apply to the spies themselves, who also were in 'a world full of hostile adversaries with ray guns'. And that's for real, not just an idea they were trying to promote.

No, it doesn't indicate that they believed it. Before playing the the recording at the New Year's Eve party, 'Tony', Patient Zero, had already talked to at least three other people who believed his story about the health-damaging sound. And the 'evidence' was good enough to be believed by all kinds of professionals for more than a year.

If it could fool all kinds of professionals then it could have fooled 'Tony' too. I don't get where he was this mastermind who knows cricket sounds will fool professionals. Either he was stupid and incredibly lucky, or he really thought the sounds were evidence.

in your narrative, he knew all about the electronic equipment, and yet he is supposed to have believed that he could record a super-sonic health attack on his cellphone.

Cellphone microphones typically have good frequency response up to over 20kHz, so sounds that might be inaudible to older ears can easily be recorded. Furthermore the recording filters aren't perfect, so a high volume sound at higher frequency could alias down into the audio band. But when I said 'well trained and familiar with' I didn't mean he was an electronics expert. Being familiar with the theory and operation of some equipment doesn't mean you know exactly what its capabilities are.

Leave out the food smelling off. That's part of an entirely different, much earlier case

Sorry, can't do that - it's part of my narrative.

 

[dann]

The answer is pretty obvious:

But from the outset, some Havana embassy officials privately expressed concerns to members of Congress that the matter was being exaggerated by a group of CIA officers who were experiencing symptoms and opposed better relations with Cuba.
Top U.S. officials cast fresh doubt on sensational 'Havana syndrome' claims (yahoo!news, Sep 14, 2022)

Well here's the problem:-

We have all witnessed people exaggerating stuff, but that doesn't mean they were doing it deliberately. With medical conditions it can be hard to convince others that something serious is wrong, and most people aren't specialists so they don't know themselves. You may dismiss symptoms of a serious condition, or panic about something that is nothing to worry about. I have done both.

In one case I suffering from blocked ear canals that became painful and damaged my hearing. One doctor didn't believe there was anything wrong, and a specialist refused to examine me (not serious enough you see). In situations like these sufferers may be inclined to 'exaggerate' their symptoms, either to get the help they need or simply because in their mind the symptoms are worse. Maybe there's nothing really wrong, but maybe there is. And when you don't know what's wrong or what's causing it all kinds of awful possibilities come to mind. You can't blame someone for imagining something serious when they have been primed to expect it.

Last year I spent a night in hospital because I was getting spells where it felt like I was going to faint, then I would think I was dying and have a panic attack. It might have been caused by the medication I was on - but there was another factor. On a previous examination my doctor told me that I had a heart murmur, which primed me into expecting something serious.

After doing various tests and wearing a heart monitor for a week, it was concluded that there was nothing wrong with my heart or anything else. But nobody really knows. Was it bad pills, some undiagnosed disorder that went way by itself (like my ear problem did) or did I just imagine it? Medical records might suggest that I 'exaggerated' my symptoms, and technically that may be correct. But I didn't make it up.

No, that's not the problem. That's not the problem at all. Look at the quotation again: "the matter was being exaggerated by a group of CIA officers ..."

The matter! Not the symptoms! The group of CIA officers may or may not have exaggerated their symptoms. It's very likely that they did. And they may have exaggerated their symptoms when they were talking to their doctors, too. But the doctors weren't the ones who said that the group of CIA officers exaggerated the matter. "Some Havana embassy officials" said so. So you can leave whatever the CIA officers told their doctors out of the equation.

It is obvious that the embassy officials were talking about the CIA officers exaggerating the whole story about an attack against embassy employees. Playing the recordings of crickets at the New Year's Eve party and telling everybody that the recordings were evidence that an attack had taken place is a very good example of how they exaggerated the matter, unless you think that the recordings were introduced with the words, 'I have a recording of Cuban insects that I think you might enjoy. If you are interested, we could go back to my place. I have a whole collection of animal sounds and Richard Attenborough videos that I can play for you.'

According to those doctors they are symptoms of attacks by directed energy weapons, and that diagnosis is based mainly on the accounts of their experiences: that it felt directional, coming from one location, that they were stepping in and out of a beam. The alleged brain injuries have been dismissed by other experts.

Again, why assume some kind of conspiracy when it can explained by simple ignorance? The doctors should not have been influenced by accounts of possible 'directed energy' attacks, but they were. Why? Because when dealing with spies and not being familiar with the actual mechanics of such weapons, it seemed plausible. This then colored their diagnosis.

This is how a mass psychogenic illness starts. Just one patient who truly believes it and won't keep quiet may be enough, especially when it aligns with what others also want to believe. Sometimes the originator is simply lying (eg. Donald Trump's "windmills cause cancer") but more often they really believe it. And the more you try to dismiss it the more they dig their heels in - because they're not lying! This will also attract people with agendas who latch onto anything that supports their cause, but even that isn't necessarily nefarious - after all it could be true! (we see plenty of that behavior here among so-called 'skeptics').

No, that's not how mass psychogenic illness starts. It's how doctors may contribute to spreading it - as in the case of the Danish MD Jesper Mehlsen and the HPV-vaccinated girls. Trump wasn't the originator of the "windmills cause cancer" story. I had heard it before Trump picked it up. That "they dig their heels in" would be the case whether they were lying or true believers. And remember those CIA agents did have an agenda. It was the reason why they were there in the first place.

A very small conspiracy, in that case, with one or two setting the whole thing off. I don't know who you are talking about when you say "all".

You said it was "exaggerated by a small group of CIA officers who were experiencing symptoms and opposed better relations with Cuba.". This strongly implies a group conspiracy, not just one or two.

The quotation isn't my words. It's from the yahoo!news article. When I say a very small group, with no more than "one or two setting the whole thing off", I base it on what we are told in the two recent podcast series.

That would be a different conspiracy. The doctors don't need to be 'in on it' to the extent of sharing the intention of the the very small group of CIA operators...

If Relman is the one who wrote the preface to the NAS report, his dramatization about a world full of hostile adversaries with ray guns isn't exactly what you would expect to see from a neutral, objective researcher.

I agree. but if that applies to them it should also apply to the spies themselves, who also were in 'a world full of hostile adversaries with ray guns'. And that's for real, not just an idea they were trying to promote.

I am not sure what exactly you mean with they words "that's for real." Is it a reference to what William Gibson called a consensual hallucination"?

No, it doesn't indicate that they believed it. Before playing the the recording at the New Year's Eve party, 'Tony', Patient Zero, had already talked to at least three other people who believed his story about the health-damaging sound. And the 'evidence' was good enough to be believed by all kinds of professionals for more than a year.

If it could fool all kinds of professionals then it could have fooled 'Tony' too. I don't get where he was this mastermind who knows cricket sounds will fool professionals. Either he was stupid and incredibly lucky, or he really thought the sounds were evidence.

Those experts weren't entomologists or sound engineers. All he would have needed to know was that even people who ought to know better might believe him. And he knew that already from the reaction that he got from people on New Year's Eve.

Luck had nothing to do with it! Remember the JASON report's conclusion: Crickets! The NAS report didn't come out of nowhere. It was ordered by the State Department - after the JASON report. The reason why they wanted a new report is pretty obvious. They didn't get 'lucky' with the JASON report.

And we know from the reports about WMDs in Iraq that a story about enemy weapons doesn't have to be particularly well thought-out to serve its purpose.

in your narrative, he knew all about the electronic equipment, and yet he is supposed to have believed that he could record a super-sonic health attack on his cellphone.

Cellphone microphones typically have good frequency response up to over 20kHz, so sounds that might be inaudible to older ears can easily be recorded. Furthermore the recording filters aren't perfect, so a high volume sound at higher frequency could alias down into the audio band. But when I said 'well trained and familiar with' I didn't mean he was an electronics expert. Being familiar with the theory and operation of some equipment doesn't mean you know exactly what its capabilities are.

Older ears would be adult ears. I think that 'Tony' was in his late 30s or early 40s, but I won't listen to the VICE podcast again to find out.

Humans can detect sounds in a frequency range from about 20 Hz to 20 kHz. (Human infants can actually hear frequencies slightly higher than 20 kHz, but lose some high-frequency sensitivity as they mature; the upper limit in average adults is often closer to 15–17 kHz.)
The Audible Spectrum (Neuroscience. 2nd edition, National Library of Medicine, 2001)

But cricket sounds are audible as well as recordable. And they don't damage human brains, which didn't seem to bother the doctors at all.

Leave out the food smelling off. That's part of an entirely different, much earlier case

Sorry, can't do that - it's part of my narrative.

Indeed!

 

[dann]

This week's episode of Project Brazen's podcast series THE SOUND: Mystery of Havana Syndrome:

A CIA officer in Moscow gets sick, and his story fundamentally changes the narrative surrounding “Havana Syndrome.” We hear first-hand accounts of Soviet radiation that go back decades, and learn that the Cold War may have never really ended.
Guests: Marc Polymeropolous, Aliza Bran, James Schumacher, Peter Kornbluh
Chapter 6: A Silent Injury (27, 2023 - 33 min)

Transcript

Since this episode focusses on the Moscow Signal, we hear about a couple of deaths that some people associate with the 'signal':

Llewellyn Thompson, a recent former ambassador, died in 1972 of pancreatic cancer. Two years later, so did his predecessor, Charles Bohlen. Both were in their 60s.
Walter Stoessel, the ambassador just before James’ arrival, developed a rare form of leukemia seemingly out of the blue. He was in his mid-50s.
Cue, Schumaker: You know, all these things sort of started coming together and I didn’t really know what to do about it. You know I was just becoming more gradually aware that there was a problem…
Of course, these can be explained as coincidences. But they’re pretty big coincidences. And they were piling up. Alarmed, a number of James’s colleagues filed lawsuits against the government. He wasn’t one of them.

It is correct that the first two ambassadors mentioned died in their 60s, but it would be a little more accurate to write that they died in their late 60s; in one case, very late.
Llewellyn Thompson, August 24, 1904 – February 6, 1972
Charles Bohlen, August 30, 1904 – January 1, 1974
But Walter Stoessel didn't die in his mid-50s as claimed: January 24, 1920 – December 9, 1986
And it's not as if it were kept a secret at the time: Walter J. Stoessel Jr. Dies at 66; a Former Ambassador to Moscow (NYT, Dec 11, 1986)

So no, they aren't "pretty big coincidences" - in particular if you consider, Life expectancy (from birth) in the United States, from 1860 to 2020* (Statista), which, of course, is the reason for the hyperbole. They no doubt died earlier than the average member of the U.S. upper-classes, but not so early that it gives you reason to think that they were zapped to death.

It could be an honest mistake to confuse mid-50s with mid-60s. We all make them. But we don't all have fact checkers. (It would be wonderful if we did!) Maybe Project Brazen should invest in one of those ...

However, for those of you who know what Robert Bartholomew stands for, what do you think of this soundbyte?

We’ll get into that… after the break.
[CUE, MUSIC]
We’re back.
Cue, anchor: Now Russia is the leading suspect…
Cue, Bartholomew: … a microwave attack by the Russians… Cue, Sosa: Everybody I’ve talked to in the US suspects the Russians are behind these apparent attacks…

Sosa is Cuban neurologist Mitchell Valdés-Sosa! It is no secret that neither Bartholomew nor Valdes Sosa think that the 'syndrome' is a Russian (or any kind of) attack, so what is the point of these sound bytes that make it seem as if they do?!

This is the introduction to Marc Polymeropoulos description of what happened to him in Moscow and his struggle to get U.S. authorities to recognize it as a Russian attack on his health. You should read or listen to it for yourselves! Unbelievable!

In next week's episode, Nicky Woolf and his team go to Havana.

Kudos for mentioning the actual attack on the Cuban embassy in Washington in 2020. Apparently, the bullet holes are still there! Cuba calls attack on Washington embassy terrorism; police say gunman heard voices (Reuters, May 4, 2020)
By the way, the Cubans never suggested that the attack might have been due to the CIA beaming voices into the perpetrator's head even though the V2K idea is very popular among Targeted Individuals. Cubans tend to go with the actual science instead of making up sci-fi stuff.

Also kudos for mentioning that the podcast team were unaware of the attack before they visited the embassy. It doesn't surprise me at all! When I google Cuba embassy attack, the attack on the Cuban embassy in Washington doesn't appear on the first two pages. At the bottom of the second page, there are two articles about the attack on the Cuban embassy in Paris: Gasoline Bomb Attack Reported At Cuban Embassy In Paris (Outlook India, July 27, 2021). I don't think most Americans have heard about this.

 

[dann]

Cancel Culture?

This is the first time I hear about Pamela Spratlen since she was removed from the investigation of the 'Havana Syndrome':

Texas Tech University’s International Affairs Office and The American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD) will host “The Global Citizen and Diplomacy,” for the 8th Annual Ambassador’s Forum at 5 p.m. on Thursday in the International Cultural Center’s auditorium.
The focus for the forum will be on the concept of a “global citizen” and exactly what it means when applied to action on significant transnational issues. Panelists will compare nationalism versus globalism as well as give their thoughts on climate change and the changing face of media and the ramifications of misinformation.
Panelists are:
...
Pamela Spratlen is a mentor, board member and public speaker who served 30 years in the U.S. Department of State. She retired as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 2019. She briefly returned in 2021 to oversee efforts to address the “Havana Syndrome,” a medical condition that emerged among diplomats and government officials first reported in 2016. Spratlen’s leadership experience includes 10 years in Central Asia, serving eight as U.S. ambassador.
Texas Tech's International Affairs to host 8th annual Ambassador's Forum (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Feb 27, 2023)

Spratlen appears to have been forced to resign after Polymeropoulos complained about her:

In recent days, Spratlen had faced a public call for her resignation, and numerous U.S. diplomats said she had lost the confidence of affected employees.
(...)
Spratlen responded to a question about an FBI study that found no evidence of an attack and determined that the staffers were most likely to be suffering from mass psychogenic illness, or mass hysteria.
Spratlen responded by saying she had read the study but did not indicate that she agreed or disagreed with its findings — a response that sufferers on the call later described as “invalidating.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA officer who says he was hit by Havana Syndrome in Russia in 2017, wrote Tuesday on Twitter that declining to rule out the “mass hysteria” theory was “insulting to victims and automatically disqualifying” from leading the task force.
“State is not serious until Ambassador Spratlen is replaced,” Polymeropoulos said.
Diplomat overseeing 'Havana Syndrome' response is out after 6 months (yahoo!news/NBC News, Sep 23, 2021)

Polymeropoulos is obviously serious about having his 'syndrome' treated as a "combat injury" (see post 1,659) and has a lot of clout.

 

[dann]

The 'Syndrome' in the Context of 'Russiagate'

A recent article from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, written by investigative reporter Jeff Gerth, utilized existing media reports, and “dozens of people at the center of the story—editors and reporters, Trump himself, and others in his orbit,” to conclude that the legacy news media inaccurately covered the connection between Russia and Donald J. Trump during his presidency. While this may be news to some diehard Democrats and their allies in the “liberal” press, the media’s reporting failures on the matter were not missed by all.
In addition to concluding Russiagate was a failure of the Fourth Estate, Gerth’s report reveals that rather than reckoning with their failures, many in the news media continue to avoid the topic altogether. Gerth explained that “my final concern, and frustration, was the lack of transparency by media organizations in responding to my questions. I reached out to more than sixty journalists; only about half responded.”
(...)
while Prokop fairly mentions that some major media outlets debunked a few Russiagate stories, he ignores the litany of false or baseless stories the legacy news media propounded and perpetuated long after the election. These include, but are not limited to:
(...)
+ Russia attacked U.S. “Diplomats” at Cuban Embassy with Havana Syndrome;
From Russiagate with Love (Counterpunch, Feb 24, 2023)

The authors of the article, Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff, mention 15 other similar "false or baseless stories" besides the one about the 'syndrome'.
Scary stuff!

I tended to think that many of those stories might be true, but I never spent much time looking into them - unlike the time I've spent researching the 'syndrome' story. The context makes it clear why it is still possible for the media and politicians to treat the 'syndrome' as an attack even after THE SOUND was revealed to be crickets, the sonic attack idea was given up and replaced with the even more absurd idea of a pulsed microwave attack, and the CIA interim report made it clear that there had never been a shred of evidence indicating that any kind of attack had taken place.

The media and the political establishment have succeeded in creating the 'consensual hallucination' that makes it possible to perpetuate the lie no matter how absurd it has proved to be.

 

[dann]

An interview/conversation with Nicky Woolf and Max Johnston from the Project Brazen podcast series:

Remember Havana Syndrome? Diplomats, spies, and other people suddenly hearing a loud noise and then having neurological symptoms, sometimes debilitating... Was it a mass panic? Was it a sonic weapon? Was it a directed energy weapon? And who was wielding it?

These are the subjects of The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome, a new podcast series put out by Goat Rodeo, PRX, and Project Brazen. Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with journalist and host Nicky Woolf, and producer Max Johnston of Goat Rodeo, to talk about the truth of Havana Syndrome. Was it real, or was it a fantasy? What kind of weapon could do that sort of thing, and could you build one at home? And who would want to shoot a ray gun at U.S. personnel all over the world?
The Lawfare Podcast: Nicky Woolf and Max Johnston on The Sound (Lawfare blog, Feb 27, 2023)

It is no longer a surprise that the Project Brazen team have bought into THE ATTACK, which would have been a more fitting title for the podcast series than THE SOUND.
Nicky Woolf: "The more that we researched it, the more it slowly became clear that there was quite a bit more to it, and that the psychogenic hypothesis, the psychogenic sort of mass delusion kind of suggestion causing the symptoms just fit less and less neatly."

It is also no surprise that they don't have anything that even comes close to evidence for believing that the 'syndrome' was caused by an attack. They claim to distinguish between the first cases, which they think were genuinely caused by an attack, and later cases caused by suggestion, but this is how Nicky Woolf describes the difference:

"The way I'm thinking about it ... is like the spikes, the clusters rather than the long tail: I think in Havana, I think in Vienna, I think in Hanoi, and I think in Guangzhou, I think there were some sort of attack."

But their idea of the long tail must have started pretty late since the alleged attacks in Hanoi happened in August 2021, i.e. more than four and a half years after after the first cases in Havana. I don't know exactly when the 'syndrome' is supposed to have started in Vienna, but the first time we heard about it was also in the summer of 2021.

The criterion used by Nicky Woolf to decide if something was an attack or not is nothing but the thing that would characterize an outbreak of mass psychogenic illness: That more people get it, i.e. a cluster!
By the way, I think the Vienna 'cluster' may have been what set off the Hanoi cases soon after, but both the Vienna and the Hanoi cases came after the State Department various agencies had started warning their employees abroad to look out for and report symptoms of the 'syndrome'!

He dismisses the Washington cases, for instance Olivia Troy's at the White House compound, which is understandable, but those cases were actually earlier than the Hanoi and Vienna cases. Troy worked for Mike Pence! Former homeland-security advisor for Mike Pence said she once 'found classified documents in the ladies' room' (BusinessInsider, Aug 14, 2022)
(Now, there's an argument against unisex bathrooms! )

Nicky Woolf seems to enjoy talking about "the American government screwing people over," so that he can pretend to help the little people against Big Government.
His producer Max Johnstons, on the other hand, seems to believe in an idea that I thought had died with the CIA interim report in January 2022, i.e. that "no one foreign actor could accomplish the entire ..."

Nicky Woolf repeats his favourite story about retinal bleeding as proof that the whole thing was orchestrated deliberately by a sinister enemy, i.e. the Russians, because "making people bleed out of their eyes" allegedly shows that it must have been more or something other than a listening device gone wrong. So listening devices cause cancer, cf episode 6, but the Havana zap gun makes your eyes bleed.

They claim that their experiment with microwaves worked because they were able to measure microwaves coming out of the contraption even though they weren't able to boil an egg with it and fried the electronics instead of the egg when they turned up the power.

And the Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes hosting the podcast reveals that he is a sloppy in preparing for it as the Nicky Woolf team were when doing their series: "There are eight episodes. I have heard the first two."

 

[dann]

I mentioned the event that took place last week at the International Spy Museum in post 1,687. It was sold out!
I had hoped that a recording of it would be released, but so far I haven't seen as much as a summary of the event anywhere.

Since it took place in Washington, I hope there were a couple of Cubans there, well-prepared and ready to ask Woolf, Zaid and Polymeropoulos some tough questions:

After their conversation, you can ask Nicky, Marc and Mark for their insight into other aspects of the mystery they have come to know and understand so well. Reception to follow.
Coming Events from the Latest Weekly Intelligence Notes: February 2023 (Association of Former Intelligence Officers)