The (small) demonstration in Brussels did take place (photos):
I count 14 (+ the photographer, I assume).
ETA: Videos from the demonstration:
Last edited:
-
Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more
Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'
- Thread starter dann
- Start date
The (small) demonstration in Brussels did take place (photos):
ETA: Videos from the demonstration:
A new article in Popular Mechanics refers to only three reports about the 'synrome': the CIA interim report from January 20, 2022, and the two from groups headed by David Relman, the NASEM report and the so-called Expert Panel's report. The two JASON reports and the final ODNI report from March 1, 2023 aren't mentioned at all. I don't know if this omission is due to deliberate bias or just sloppy research.
I have no idea what a "mechanical device" is supposed to mean in this context.
But what's worse, "most of the attacks" weren't attacks at all. Other causes were found, "environmental causes, medical conditions, or stress," so why continue to talk about attacks, just without "a hostile power", when they obviously weren't?
This is not just bad research, this is bad writing, too.
I have no idea what a "mechanical device" is supposed to mean in this context.
But what's worse, "most of the attacks" weren't attacks at all. Other causes were found, "environmental causes, medical conditions, or stress," so why continue to talk about attacks, just without "a hostile power", when they obviously weren't?
This is not just bad research, this is bad writing, too.
Doesn't this "transition into existing Department structures" make it sound as if everybody is aware that there never were any foreign adversaries attacking U.S. diplomats and spooks with directed energy weapons? But to avoid upsetting people with an interest in the delusion, Richard Verma will now manage the resources spent on investigating the 'syndrome', i.e. use them for other purposes.
Putin suspected of plot to direct energy weapons at Australian MPs
I don't know how seriously this Australian article should be taken, but the "or not" suggests not really:
The article mentions several other, much more likely reasons why Australia might not want a Russian embassy on this location.
The recent Politico article that the Australian article links to says:
I assume that the testing of weapon systems is the ferret and monkey brain study that we have heard of before, the one that will be finished in September '23, but the article doesn't say so.
The people who are interested in keeping the 'syndrome' panic alive are the usual suspects:
Nobody said that nothing happened, not even the ODNI report, but to Marco Rubio something = attack! Any other explanation = nothing to him.
Politico also mentions the two David Relman groups:
It is also no surprise to see James Giordano pop up in this context: "But some scientists dispute both these points," Giordano being one of them.
He says:
“It is important to not categorically classify all of the subsequent reports of which there has been over 1,000 to those very prototypic cases in Havana. That really is a question of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
Giordano is more than willing to dismiss "all of the subsequent reports," but we already know that it offends him deeply whenever his allegedly prototypic baby, i.e. the two dozen Havana cases, is mentioned in the context of the other more than 1,000 cases. See post 1,795.
I don't know how seriously this Australian article should be taken, but the "or not" suggests not really:
The article mentions several other, much more likely reasons why Australia might not want a Russian embassy on this location.
The recent Politico article that the Australian article links to says:
I assume that the testing of weapon systems is the ferret and monkey brain study that we have heard of before, the one that will be finished in September '23, but the article doesn't say so.
The people who are interested in keeping the 'syndrome' panic alive are the usual suspects:
Nobody said that nothing happened, not even the ODNI report, but to Marco Rubio something = attack! Any other explanation = nothing to him.
Politico also mentions the two David Relman groups:
It is also no surprise to see James Giordano pop up in this context: "But some scientists dispute both these points," Giordano being one of them.
He says:
“It is important to not categorically classify all of the subsequent reports of which there has been over 1,000 to those very prototypic cases in Havana. That really is a question of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
Giordano is more than willing to dismiss "all of the subsequent reports," but we already know that it offends him deeply whenever his allegedly prototypic baby, i.e. the two dozen Havana cases, is mentioned in the context of the other more than 1,000 cases. See post 1,795.
The 'syndrome' in pop culture
Not unlikely, I guess, but this is about season 2:
I don't see anything looking like a DEW attack in the trailer:
Jack Ryan: Season 4 (Final Season) - Official Trailer (Prime Video on YouTube, May 31, 2023 - 2:17 min.)
Not unlikely, I guess, but this is about season 2:
I don't see anything looking like a DEW attack in the trailer:
Jack Ryan: Season 4 (Final Season) - Official Trailer (Prime Video on YouTube, May 31, 2023 - 2:17 min.)
Still not all of it but the first 10 minutes:
It tells us the story about the researchers who studied the recordings and determined that the sound was made by Indies short-tailed crickets, but it's meant as advertising for the show, so it ends with a cliffhanger 'mystery': "Once again, we're left with no idea what's making our people sick."
Even so, it's still much better than last year's CBS 60 Minutes because they don't rely on testimony solely from the U.S. diplomats and CIA agents in Havana, their biased doctors and warmongers like John Bolton.
I'll have to watch the rest of it ...
The purpose of the Robertson Panel (Wikipedia) in the 1950s was to review the U.S. Air Force investigation into UFOs, but I think it is interesting how fast the 'Havana syndrome' went from being a 'mystery' to the 'explanation' that Putin did it.
A CIA memorandum in 1952 is also interesting:
The interpretation of the 'syndrome' as a DEW attack is still being used as psychological warfare against Cuba even after it was thoroughly debunked by the ODNI report in March.
I would be the last person on earth to claim that politicians and industry CEOs won't lie when lying serves their interests. A lot of the lying in the case of the 'Havana syndrome' comes from politicians and businessmen. The former for political purposes: hostility towards Cuba, Russia and China. The latter for trying to turn a profit selling gear to the DoD or even to you, which is why I asked you, "what kind of "protective gear" you wore "to lessen the effects" of EHS". See post 1,955. Unscrupulous businessmen take advantage of people who suffer from psychogenic illness, and there is obviously a whole market to be exploited and thus more money to be made, when we are talking mass psychogenic illness.
It is hard to accept the idea that the 'Havana syndrome' is an agency doing experiments because nothing indicates that it is.
And if the Russians wished to show people the harm that they can do (with directed energy weapons, I assume), it would be weird for them to stop doing it when the war with Ukraine began.
Nobody is doing "it". People who were already on edge because they were in a country considered to be the enemy heard the (to them unfamiliar, to Cubans very familiar) sound of very loud crickets, which scared them. They recorded the sound, which is why there is no doubt about what they heard. The sound behaved the way sound does: When they moved away from it, it 'dissipated'. When they moved towards it, it grew louder. At least one of the 'victims' went out on the porch to record it. And since they recorded it, we know that it was a sound, not microwaves or 'directed energy'.
Some people try to save the attack idea by claiming that the sound just accompanied the alleged raygun attack, but even Kevin Fu, "an electrical and computer engineering professor at Northeastern University," who at first believed in the idea of a sonic attack, finds it highly unlikely that the sound of crickets was anything other than crickets. See post 1,938.
Even the lawyer of many of the 'syndrome' sufferers, Mark Zaid, says that the sound was crickets and nothing but crickets.
Why does he do that?
Because he is well-aware that his clients ruin their own case against the State Department when they go on TV and play their cricket recordings.
It is hard to accept the idea that the 'Havana syndrome' is an agency doing experiments because nothing indicates that it is.
And if the Russians wished to show people the harm that they can do (with directed energy weapons, I assume), it would be weird for them to stop doing it when the war with Ukraine began.
Nobody is doing "it". People who were already on edge because they were in a country considered to be the enemy heard the (to them unfamiliar, to Cubans very familiar) sound of very loud crickets, which scared them. They recorded the sound, which is why there is no doubt about what they heard. The sound behaved the way sound does: When they moved away from it, it 'dissipated'. When they moved towards it, it grew louder. At least one of the 'victims' went out on the porch to record it. And since they recorded it, we know that it was a sound, not microwaves or 'directed energy'.
Some people try to save the attack idea by claiming that the sound just accompanied the alleged raygun attack, but even Kevin Fu, "an electrical and computer engineering professor at Northeastern University," who at first believed in the idea of a sonic attack, finds it highly unlikely that the sound of crickets was anything other than crickets. See post 1,938.
Even the lawyer of many of the 'syndrome' sufferers, Mark Zaid, says that the sound was crickets and nothing but crickets.
Why does he do that?
Because he is well-aware that his clients ruin their own case against the State Department when they go on TV and play their cricket recordings.
Last edited:
Benjamin Radford: Intelligence Agencies: ‘Havana Syndrome’ Not Attack (Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 47, No. 4, July/August 2023)
The TI POV
I thought James Giordano was a hero to all TIs, but ...
But the TIs are currently more upset by a new book, The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. They blame the author for not writing about them, and it didn't assuage their anger when she told them where to get help:
Biden has become the latest 'syndrome' victim. Not in reality, not even according to the media, but in the way TIs interpret this incidence:
So who will be the next prominent TI? Maybe @mtgreenee:
Not all the comments take her seriously. I didn't see any mentioning Jewish space lasers, but since she mentions "someone's laptop," there are a couple of references to Hunter Biden ...
I thought James Giordano was a hero to all TIs, but ...
But the TIs are currently more upset by a new book, The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. They blame the author for not writing about them, and it didn't assuage their anger when she told them where to get help:
Biden has become the latest 'syndrome' victim. Not in reality, not even according to the media, but in the way TIs interpret this incidence:
So who will be the next prominent TI? Maybe @mtgreenee:
Not all the comments take her seriously. I didn't see any mentioning Jewish space lasers, but since she mentions "someone's laptop," there are a couple of references to Hunter Biden ...
I just saw this comment to a retweet:
In Pop Culture: NBC's The Blacklist
Video clip (19 sec.):
It is obvious that this is the stuff that the nightmares of Targeted Individuals are made of - much the same way that a movie like John Carpenter's They Live (1988) inspired first David Icke and later the QAnon cult.
Until the ODNI report on March 1, 2023, NBC was one of the many mainstream news promoters of the idea that the 'syndrome' was an insidious attack on U.S. diplomats and spies:
Was it a coincidence that the same network promoted the idea both as fiction and as 'alternative fact' in late 2021? I don't know.
Video clip (19 sec.):
It is obvious that this is the stuff that the nightmares of Targeted Individuals are made of - much the same way that a movie like John Carpenter's They Live (1988) inspired first David Icke and later the QAnon cult.
Until the ODNI report on March 1, 2023, NBC was one of the many mainstream news promoters of the idea that the 'syndrome' was an insidious attack on U.S. diplomats and spies:
Was it a coincidence that the same network promoted the idea both as fiction and as 'alternative fact' in late 2021? I don't know.
Post 1,951:
Ben Radford appears in this YouTube video from last year:
Unfortunately, Radford doesn't take up much of it. It is mainly an interview with two alleged victims of electronic harassment + a guy who sells protective gear against it.
The most interesting thing about it is when the two TIs are asked why they think they are being targeted. They think that some obscure organization is out to get them, to ruin their lives. One thinks that it began when he served in Navy in the 1980s because he was suspected of being gay, but it has nevertheless continued ever since.
I can see why somebody would fear being persecuted at a point in time when being gay might get you dishonorably discharged, but there is no real explanation for why it would continue. (In the comments, asking the cui bono question is frowned upon and compared to the police asking a rape victim the same question.)
The video ends with the host saying, "When it comes to claims of covert electronic harassment, I'm filing this one under 'Pending further investigation'." But despite the few soundbites with Radford, the show doesn't do much to discourage the paranoia of TIs.
The comments section is scary as hell, but it makes it obvious how easy it is for TIs to interpret everyday occurrences as insidious harassment: "Get tons of junk mail now."
The 'Havana syndrome' sufferers did the same thing. The stories about toddlers falling or screaming in the backseat occur to me in this context.
Ben Radford appears in this YouTube video from last year:
Unfortunately, Radford doesn't take up much of it. It is mainly an interview with two alleged victims of electronic harassment + a guy who sells protective gear against it.
The most interesting thing about it is when the two TIs are asked why they think they are being targeted. They think that some obscure organization is out to get them, to ruin their lives. One thinks that it began when he served in Navy in the 1980s because he was suspected of being gay, but it has nevertheless continued ever since.
I can see why somebody would fear being persecuted at a point in time when being gay might get you dishonorably discharged, but there is no real explanation for why it would continue. (In the comments, asking the cui bono question is frowned upon and compared to the police asking a rape victim the same question.)
The video ends with the host saying, "When it comes to claims of covert electronic harassment, I'm filing this one under 'Pending further investigation'." But despite the few soundbites with Radford, the show doesn't do much to discourage the paranoia of TIs.
The comments section is scary as hell, but it makes it obvious how easy it is for TIs to interpret everyday occurrences as insidious harassment: "Get tons of junk mail now."
The 'Havana syndrome' sufferers did the same thing. The stories about toddlers falling or screaming in the backseat occur to me in this context.
Forget about Cuban short-tailed crickets!
And Targeted Individuals just know that it can't be a natural phenomenon:
And Targeted Individuals just know that it can't be a natural phenomenon:
I didn't know that cuentos chinos (cuentos: stories; chinos: Chinese) in Spanish means tall tales or maybe fairy tales, but it is the title of a new article in Granma:
Un cuento chino
But apart from a Cuban rendition of Jeremy Cricket (Pepe Grillo in Spanish) from Disney's Pinocchio on a fake movie poster ...
Granma recommends that U.S. American politicians (Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar and Trump are mentioned), who seem to be "so concerned about the military bases" in Cuba, should consider getting out of Guantánamo.
Google's English translation of the article is OK.
Un cuento chino
But apart from a Cuban rendition of Jeremy Cricket (Pepe Grillo in Spanish) from Disney's Pinocchio on a fake movie poster ...
... the rest of the article isn't about the 'syndrome' but about a more recent alternative 'fact':
Granma recommends that U.S. American politicians (Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar and Trump are mentioned), who seem to be "so concerned about the military bases" in Cuba, should consider getting out of Guantánamo.
Google's English translation of the article is OK.
Sung Tieu
Sung Tieu has left the 'syndrome' behind and is now focussed on fracking:
I assume that the ODNI report's revelation of the obfuscation that created the 'syndrome' has made it too unambiguous to interest Sung Tieu as an artist. Zugzwang (Artsy.net), a recent show of hers in Munich, "exemplified what the artist calls “future fiction,” her dominant mode," and the ODNI report has turned the 'syndrome' into past fiction with no ambivalence left open for interpretation.
Sung Tieu has left the 'syndrome' behind and is now focussed on fracking:
I assume that the ODNI report's revelation of the obfuscation that created the 'syndrome' has made it too unambiguous to interest Sung Tieu as an artist. Zugzwang (Artsy.net), a recent show of hers in Munich, "exemplified what the artist calls “future fiction,” her dominant mode," and the ODNI report has turned the 'syndrome' into past fiction with no ambivalence left open for interpretation.