Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[dann]

Mass Hysteria or Microwave Weapons – What’s behind the ’Sonic Attacks’ on U.S. Diplomats in Cuba? (Newsweek, Dec. 16, 2017)

 

[dann]

There is a much better explanation than sonic weapons for reported attacks against US diplomats in Cuba. (Skeptoid, Dec. 26, 2017)

 

[dann]

U.S. experts have yet to determine who or what was behind the mysterious illnesses that began occurring in late 2016 and heightened tensions between the old Cold War foes. They have seen no evidence it was “an episode of mass hysteria” among the 24 affected U.S. personnel and family members, a senior State Department medical officer told a Senate hearing.
U.S. probing if 'viral' attack sickened diplomats in Cuba: official (Reuters, Jan. 9, 2018)

The ”experts” appear to have heard about diseases causing hearing loss – no secret, it has already been mentioned in this thread – but with their weird interpretation of events, it probably doesn’t surprise anybody anymore that they don’t think that the U.S. diplomats might just have come down with something. No, it must still have been some kind of ”attack”:

U.S investigators were considering whether people might have been deliberately exposed to a virus. But he offered no details or evidence.

I can’t wait to hear medical experts debunk that idea …

Other recent news:

U.S. stands by claim workers attacked in Cuba, maybe by virus (Chicago Tribune, Jan. 9, 2018)
Tillerson to weigh in on acoustic events against American diplomats in Havana (Miami Herald, Jan. 8, 2018)
US Havana embassy: New inquiry into Cuba staff sickness (BBC, Jan. 9, 2018)
Documents reveal Canada called U.S. diplomats in Havana targets of "acoustic attacks" months before U.S. acknowledged them (CBS, Jan. 6, 2018)

The CBS article says:

The Canadian documents also suggest the injuries were being widely discussed outside governement circles and classified channels even as the governments of both Canada and the U.S. were silent on the situation.

which is quite interesting since discussions like this would be an essential element of mass psychogenic illness/mass hysteria.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... which is quite interesting since discussions like this would be an essential element of mass psychogenic illness/mass hysteria.

According to Peter Sandman (considered the go-to guy teaching employers how to deal with this kind of situation), one of the key interventions an employer must do is NOT ignore the situation. When employees believe they are not being taken seriously or helped, the growing resentment almost always exacerbates the problem.

 

[dann]

Canadian vs. U.S. response to 'attacks':

“Many of the symptoms are similar to signs of extreme stress, and there is the possibility that there could be mental health effects caused by the fear of being targeted. Either way, testing should help to rule out cases and reassure personnel that we have the means to be able to provide duty of care.”

Canadian officials wondered if Cuba staff imagined symptoms from mysterious attacks (Global News, Canada, Jan. 4, 2018)

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said he has no intentions of returning staff to Cuba, saying it would be "putting them back in harm's way."
"Why in the world would I do that when I have no means whatsoever to protect them?" Tillerson told the Associated Press earlier this week, adding: "I will push back on anybody who wants to force me to do that.”
A Canadian official has said the country will not be following the U.S.'s lead, however, asserting it will not be removing diplomats from Cuba and had no reason to close its embassy in Havana.

As U.S. accuses Cuba of sonic attacks, Canada keeps diplomats in country despite mysterious illnesses (Newsweek, Jan. 11, 2018)

Rex, you got a little project going on?!

 

[dann]

Over the weekend, Sen. Jeff Flake, a longtime proponent of closer U.S. ties to Cuba, said high-ranking Cuban officials told him that the FBI has found no evidence of attacks and that classified U.S. briefings left him with no reason to doubt Cuba's account.
But Sen. Marco Rubio, a vocal critic of Cuba's government, declared on Twitter it was a "documented FACT" that U.S. personnel were "victims of some sort of sophisticated attack" and U.S. officials briefed on the matter know that "full well."
Yet other lawmakers briefed by Tillerson say they were discouraged the Trump administration couldn't or wouldn't answer basic questions on the investigation.
Tillerson tells AP Cuba still risky; FBI doubts sonic attack (ABC News, Jan. 8, 2018)

A Cuban analysis of the incident is that:

The “sonic Maine” is already sinking and they could let it sink, after having already achieved their fundamental goal: to roll back the detente between Cuba and the US, which was a result of successful negotiations between presidents Raul Castro and Barack Obama.
US State Department without Evidence against Cuba (Havana Times, Jan. 11, 2018)

The "sonic Maine" is a reference to the incident in 1898 when the USA used the explosion of the battleship USS Maine as an excuse to interfere in the Cuban uprising against Spain:The Maine Incident (Wikipedia)

 

[dann]

“Since September 29, the Department of State has been contacted by 19 U.S. citizens who reported experiencing symptoms similar to those listed in the Travel Warning after visiting Cuba,” a spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs told the Miami Herald via email.
Americans who visited Cuba report similar symptoms suffered by US diplomats, report says (Fox News, Jan. 29, 2018)

Considering the number of Americans going to Cuba and the media campaign, I’m actually surprised that only 19 American tourists report ”experiencing symptoms similar to those listed in the Travel Warning after visiting Cuba,” i.e. dizziness, headache, hearing loss, fatigue, difficulty sleeping and ear complaints, among others (The Daily Mail, Jan. 30, 2018)

In an event titled CubaMediaDay on Monday in Havana, representatives of U.S. travel agencies reiterated to the invited foreign press that Cuba is “one of the safest tourist destinations in the world.”
19 American travelers to Cuba report symptoms similar to those suffered by diplomats (Miami Herald, Jan. 29, 2018)

However, it still seems to be possible for Americans to vist Cuba as tourists:

“I'm not aware of any stepped-up enforcement, stepped up budget, or stepped-up personnel for enforcement at OFAC (the Office of Foreign Assets Control),” said Frank.
“Cuba,” he said, “very much does remain a legal destination for U.S. travelers — even under current OFAC regulations.”
American visitors aren’t flying in droves to Cuba now. Tour operators: Please come back (Miami Herald, Jan. 30, 2018)

For some reason, the alleged attacks seem to affect only U.S. citizens even though they are also reported in European media, but not as extensively as in the USA: Mystisk: Turister vender hjem fra ferieparadis med foruroligende hjerneskader (B.T., Feb. 4, 2018)

 

[William Parcher]

Report details harm to Cuba diplomats but offers no cause

Doctors are releasing the first detailed medical reports about the hearing, vision, balance and brain symptoms suffered in what the State Department has called “health attacks” on U.S. diplomats in Cuba. Still missing: A clear diagnosis of just what happened to trigger their mysterious health problems.

All together, the symptoms are similar to the brain dysfunction seen with concussions, concluded a team of specialists from the University of Pennsylvania who tested 21 of the 24 embassy personnel thought to be affected.

Whatever the cause, the Havana patients “experienced persisting disability of a significant nature,” the Penn team concluded.

Cuba has insisted there were no attacks.

The Journal of the American Medical Association released the report late Wednesday, although key findings were first disclosed by The Associated Press in December....

https://www.federaltimes.com/manage...ls-harm-to-cuba-diplomats-but-offers-no-cause

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Report details harm to Cuba diplomats but offers no cause



https://www.federaltimes.com/manage...ls-harm-to-cuba-diplomats-but-offers-no-cause

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that article mischaracterizes the findings:

All together, the symptoms are similar to the brain dysfunction seen with concussions, concluded a team of specialists from the University of Pennsylvania who tested 21 of the 24 embassy personnel thought to be affected.

That implies the affected personnel had consistent set of symptoms between them. I doubt that given what we've already read about this event.

Whatever the cause, the Havana patients “experienced persisting disability of a significant nature,” the Penn team concluded.

That is a common finding in hysteria-caused incidents.

 

[dann]

Very interesting!

From the Federal Times article that William Parcher links to:

Advanced MRI scans spotted “a few” changes in what are called white matter tracts of the brain in some patients, with three showing more than would be expected for their age, the report said. But the authors acknowledged those abnormalities could be due to something earlier in life.

Football? Boxing?

The Case of the Sick Americans in Cuba Gets Stranger (The Atlantic, Feb. 15, 2018)
The Sound and the Fury: Inside the Mystery of the Havana Embassy (ProPublica, Feb. 14, 2018)
Doctors find neurological damage to Americans who served in Cuba (Washington Post, Feb. 14, 2018) Notice the comments section! Many of the comments are very … skeptical!
Doctors Still Can’t Explain What Happened to U.S. Diplomats in Cuba (New York Magazine, Feb. 15, 2018)
UM doctor who examined American diplomats in Havana: Symptoms are not caused by stress (Miami Herald, Feb. 8, 2018)

But much more interesting - the two JAMA articles:

Neurological Manifestations Among US Government Personnel Reporting Directional Audible and Sensory Phenomena in Havana, Cuba (JAMA, Feb. 15, 2018)
Neurological Symptoms among US Diplomats in Cuba (JAMA Editorial, Feb. 15, 2018)

Even though the authors of the medical report dismiss mass psychogenic illness as an explanation, the editorial seems to dismiss their reason for dismissing it!

The authors also raise the possibility of mass psychogenic illness but seem to dismiss it on the grounds that most of the affected individuals were motivated to return to work as soon as possible. However, it should be emphasized that in psychogenic (functional) illness (rather than malingering), individuals are not consciously motivated by primary and secondary gain.

 

[dann]

With the new medical report about the damaged Americans in Havana, we seem to have returned to the science-fiction explanation - as reflected in this headline:
US diplomats suffered mysterious brain damage and hearing loss in Cuba – and it could mean there’s new way to cause brain injuries (Business Insider – Nordic, Feb. 16, 2018)

The new idea ought to be considered for the Nobel Prize in medicine:

“We all believe this is a real syndrome,” Mr. Smith added. “This is concussion without blunt head trauma.”
U.S. envoys in Cuba suffered mysterious brain injuries (The Hindu, Feb. 18, 2018)

I can recommend this JAMA article as a summary of the current interpretation of the situation:
More Questions Raised by Concussion-like Symptoms Found in US Diplomats Who Served in Havana (JAMA, Feb. 15, 2018)

I also notice that U.S. American politicians don't seem to be afraid of going to the allegedly brain-damaging country:
Rep. Kathy Castor is Cuba-bound - She's part of congressional visit. (Tampa Bay Times, Feb. 17, 2018)

 

[dann]

Press conference today

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy will be at a press conference about the alleged attacks on U.S. diplomats today, Wednesday:

A delegation of six US senators and representatives are paying a visit to the island to discuss with Cuban authorities the supposed attacks suffered by US diplomats stationed in Havana, reported dpa news.
(…)
The agenda of the US politicians has not been made public, but a press conference by Leahy is scheduled to conclude his visit to the island on Wednesday.
US Congress Delegation Visits Cuba to Deal with Alleged Attacks (Havana Times, Feb. 19, 2018)

Another article about the U.S. delegation in Cuba mentions mass hysteria/mass psychogenic illness as the most likely cause of the symptoms suffered by the U.S. embassy personnel in Havana:

Mark Hallett, head of the human motor control section of the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, attributed the unexplained ailments experienced by a number of U.S. diplomats to “mass hysteria” prompted by the media, not sonic attacks.
“From an objective point of view, it's more like mass hysteria than anything else,” adding that “mass hysteria” is the term used for outbreaks among groups of people that are either wholly or partly psychosomatic.
US Congressmen Arrive in Cuba to Address ’Sonic Attacks’ (Telesur, Feb. 20, 2018)

Mark Hallett is also quoted in an article in Slate earlier this month about how the media and US politicians have treated (and helped create) the story of the alleged attacks in Cuba:

“It’s very powerful,” says Petrie. And often underestimated. “From the comments I read by the physician associated with the [embassy attacks], it was interesting how he dismissed this explanation” Petrie says. “He didn’t seem to understand how easily this can happen.”
Most people don’t. That includes just about everyone involved in the Cuban attacks. Mass psychogenic illnesses are not as intuitive to grasp as cold or a flu, but they are just as serious, and should be treated as such. In Cuba, they have not been. Instead, a fixation on secret weapons has obscured a real illness with real consequences, one which can not only be “medically verified,” but which regularly afflicts people across the world, and to which anyone with a functioning brain is vulnerable.
MEDICAL EXAMINER
Cuba’s Sonic Attacks Show Us Just How Susceptible Our Brains Are to Mass Hysteria (Slate, Feb. 1, 2018)

 

[dann]

According to Cuba's most widely distributed newspaper Granma (Feb. 21, 2018), the U.S. delegation met with Cuban president Raúl Castro yesterday to discuss things of interest to both countries, but the 'sonic attacks' aren't mentioned specifically.
No Republicans seem to have participated in the delegation.

 

[dann]

Reports from the press conference on Wednesday:

"I have the impression the Cubans have offered whatever cooperation we want, in discovering what if anything happened," Leahy said. "I don't see that they have any advantage to doing something to harm our personnel, the certain result of it is to harm relations between both countries."
US lawmakers say it's time to restore staff at Cuba embassy (ABC News/Associated Press, Feb. 21, 2018)

"I have no idea what happened to our diplomats here," said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. "U.S. agencies who are investigating this matter, who I met with also, don’t seem to have clue what happened here. And we may never know what happened."
Congressional delegation wraps up 5-day visit to Cuba (Local 10 News, Feb. 21, 2018)

La decisión de Washington se intentó justificar con la supuesta ocurrencia de «ataques acústicos» contra sus funcionarios. Sin embargo, tras meses de investigaciones cubanas y estadounidenses no se ha logrado encontrar una sola evidencia sobre dichos acontecimientos ni tampoco pistas sobre las causas o el origen de las afecciones de salud alegadas.
(...)
«Con respecto a los síntomas de salud reportados por diplomáticos estadounidenses en La Habana, Cossío enfatizó que, como se ha dicho categóricamente, Cuba no atacó ni ha permitido ataque contra diplomático de país alguno, incluido Estados Unidos», refiere.

Cossío explicó que la Mayor de las Antillas entiende la obligación de todo Estado de proteger a sus diplomáticos en el cumplimiento de sus funciones, pero afirmó que Cuba es «un país seguro, estable y saludable, para cubanos y para extranjeros, incluidos los diplomáticos; que el país cuenta con las medidas, con los recursos y con la voluntad de seguir protegiendo la seguridad ciudadana y la de los extranjeros radicados en el país, especialmente la comunidad diplomática».
Reclaman congresistas estadounidenses normalización de su Embajada en La Habana (Granma, Feb. 21, 2018)

 

[dann]

Robert Bartholomew accuses the new medical study (see post 391 above) from the University of Pennsylvania of bias:

Robert Bartholomew, an expert in mass psychogenic illness (MPI) who teaches at Botany Downs Secondary College in Auckland, said he was “floored by the study” and claims that it reads like US government propaganda. In the article, the doctors state that their objective is to describe “neurological manifestations that followed exposure to an unknown energy source,” but Bartholomew points out that there is no proof that any kind of energy source affected the diplomats, or even that an attack took place. “It’s like the authors are trying to get us to believe an attack has occurred,” he told the Guardian.
Fresh row over mysterious sickness affecting US diplomats in Cuba (Guardian, Feb. 24, 2018)

 

[Checkmite]

Sound engineers' research finds likely explanation for Cuba sounds

Looking at a spectral plot of the clip on YouTube, Kevin Fu, a computer scientist at the University of Michigan, noted some unusual ripples. He thought he might know what they meant.

Fu’s lab specializes in analyzing the cybersecurity of devices connected to the Internet of Things, such as sensors, pacemakers, RFIDs, and autonomous vehicles. That work has taught him that modern electronics often behave in unpredictable ways and that such devices can be manipulated—intentionally or inadvertently—using carefully crafted acoustic or radio interference. To Fu, the ripples in the spectral readout suggested some kind of interference.

He discussed the AP clip with his frequent collaborator, Wenyuan Xu, a professor at Zhejiang University, in Hangzhou, China, and her Ph.D. student Chen Yan. “We saw it as an interesting puzzle,” says Xu, whose lab works on embedded security, including the use of ultrasound and radio waves to fool voice-recognition systems and self-driving cars. “It was a lot of fun to try to solve it.”

“I thought it might be subharmonics,” Fu recalls. “But a week later, Chen said, ‘No, Kevin, you’re wrong, and I just did an experiment to prove it.’ ”

Yan and Xu started with a fast Fourier transform of the AP audio, which revealed the signal’s exact frequencies and amplitudes. Then, through a series of simulations, Yan showed that an effect known as intermodulation distortion could have produced the AP sound. Intermodulation distortion occurs when two signals having different frequencies combine to produce synthetic signals at the difference, sum, or multiples of the original frequencies.

When signal processing equipment behaves in a nonlinear way, it can cause this type of distortion. For example, Fu says, microphone circuitry can exhibit nonlinear behavior, and waves propagating through air can also behave in a nonlinear fashion. “As acoustic waves containing multiple frequencies travel through a nonlinear system, you can get these bizarre ripples in the spectrum of the signal,” he explains. “At the same time, intermodulation distortion can produce lower-frequency signals than the original signals. In other words, inaudible ultrasonic waves going through air can produce audible by-⁠products.”

Yan followed up the simulations with lab experiments, in which he used two ultrasonic speakers, one emitting a signal at 25 kHz and the other at 32 kHz. When he crossed the two signals, it produced the telltale high-pitched sound at 7 kHz, which was equal to the difference between the two speakers’ frequencies—and the same frequency as in the AP audio. In a nod to the Internet meme “rickrolling,” Yan was even able to embed an ultrasonic version of the Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up,” which became audible at the point where the two signals crossed.

Having reverse engineered the AP audio, Fu, Xu, and Yan then considered what combination of things might have caused the sound at the U.S. embassy in Cuba. “If ultrasound is to blame, then a likely cause was two ultrasonic signals that accidentally interfered with each other, creating an audible side effect,” Fu says. There are existing sources of ultrasound in office environments, such as room-occupancy sensors [see, for example, “How an Ultrasonic Sensor Nearly Derailed a Ph.D. Thesis”]. “Maybe there was also an ultrasonic jammer in the room and an ultrasonic transmitter,” he suggests. “Each device might have been placed there by a different party, completely unaware of the other.”

This explanation makes a whole lot of sense. Any embassy is bound to be flooded with radio frequencies, both from listening equipment installed by other nations' intelligence service and jammers installed by the embassy nation's counterintelligence services. These frequencies are normally inaudible of course; but the experiment proves that audible sounds can be produced at foci of frequency interference. This could easily explain the sounds heard by some - specifically the phenomenon reported by some that the sounds were extremely local; that is, that one could move one's body in and out of a small focused "zone" of audible sound. This small area is where the frequency interference happened to produce the audible tones.

This is a much more likely explanation than say crickets, which should be audible everywhere and which it seems unlikely that someone who's lived in the location for months would suddenly start hearing after being long deaf to them.

 

[dann]

This could easily explain the sounds heard by some - specifically the phenomenon reported by some that the sounds were extremely local; that is, that one could move one's body in and out of a small focused "zone" of audible sound. This small area is where the frequency interference happened to produce the audible tones.

No, I don't think so. Sound is composed of waves, and these waves spread out. They don't just stay in one "extremely local" spot.


Related news:

State Department Likely to Extend Cuts to U.S. Embassy in Cuba (ProPublica, Mar. 1, 2018)
US Embassy in Cuba makes staff cuts permanent after unexplained health 'attacks' (ABC News, Mar. 2, 2018)
Brain-damaging “health attacks” spur US to permanently cut Cuba embassy staff (Ars Technica, Mar. 5, 2018)

I notice that most news agencies are beginning to use quotation marks whenever they refer to the alleged Cuban health attacks.

 

[TheGnome]

Sound engineers' research finds likely explanation for Cuba sounds



This explanation makes a whole lot of sense. Any embassy is bound to be flooded with radio frequencies, both from listening equipment installed by other nations' intelligence service and jammers installed by the embassy nation's counterintelligence services. These frequencies are normally inaudible of course; but the experiment proves that audible sounds can be produced at foci of frequency interference. This could easily explain the sounds heard by some - specifically the phenomenon reported by some that the sounds were extremely local; that is, that one could move one's body in and out of a small focused "zone" of audible sound. This small area is where the frequency interference happened to produce the audible tones.

This is a much more likely explanation than say crickets, which should be audible everywhere and which it seems unlikely that someone who's lived in the location for months would suddenly start hearing after being long deaf to them.

Are you sure you understand what Kevin Fu et al are saying? I ask because it has about zilch to do with radio frequencies.

What they were exploring is intermodulation between acoustic waves of differing frequencies. It always happens when the sensor is not strictly linear. It happens in microphones, it happens in amplifiers or recording devices, and it happens in the ear too.

Now I seem to recall that the signal in question was quite strong. Therefore there is either a lot of nonlinearity (a very cheap recorder?) or the interfering signals are very strong (which of course is quite possible).

But without some further data, and maybe some further explanations by these researchers, I'm not yet ready to accept intermodulation as a more likely explanation than crickets.

 

[Bob001]

Sound engineers' research finds likely explanation for Cuba sounds

This explanation makes a whole lot of sense. Any embassy is bound to be flooded with radio frequencies, both from listening equipment installed by other nations' intelligence service and jammers installed by the embassy nation's counterintelligence services.
.....

According to the initial press reports, employees heard odd sounds at their homes.

Few details have been released but the Associated Press, quoting officials, reported that some embassy employees reported they experienced bizarre, unexplained and physically uncomfortable noises or vibrations at their residences before they were afflicted.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cuba-embassy-attacks-baffle-u-s-frustrate-victim-n802326

Their homes might have had similar appliances and electronics, but the question is whether there is one good explanation for every effect that everybody reported.

 

[Checkmite]

No, I don't think so. Sound is composed of waves, and these waves spread out. They don't just stay in one "extremely local" spot.

The waves spread out; but points of wave interference will remain stationary as long as whatever objects or devices are emitting the respective waves stay stationary.