FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
Updates on the ‘Havana Syndrome’ mystery
SONIC ATTACK: NOT CRICKET? [FT370:26-27]
Some new developments to the mystery of ‘Havana syndrome’, the inexplicable health problems suffered by US and Canadian Embassy officials based in Cuba: Canadian diplomats are suing their own government for not having evacuated them promptly enough. Canada has discounted the US state department’s theory that the syndrome was caused by sonic attack.
The 14 officials, who are claiming £16m in damages, stated that “throughout the crisis, Canada downplayed the seriousness of the situation, hoarded and concealed critical health and safety information, and gave false, misleading and incomplete information to diplomatic staff”. One unnamed diplomat told CBS News: “My wife, she isn’t the same anymore. She has gaps in her memory, headaches, problems hearing. She picks up the telephone to make a call but forgets why, enters rooms without reason”.
While the USA withdrew most of its non-essential Embassy staff in September 2017, Canada continued to post officials to its Havana-based Embassy until April 2018, despite warnings from US counterparts, although it did order the families of diplomatic staff to return home. In February 2019, following reports of another sick official (posted to Havana in summer 2018, fell ill in December), Canada announced plans to reduce its Embassy staff numbers from around 16 to a maximum of eight. Local guards were recruited to patrol residential properties as well as the Embassy itself.
Both US and Canadian diplomats based in Cuba began to fall ill in late 2016, and have continued to do so [FT359:22, 360:14, 363:4, 370:26-27] To date, 14 Canadian and 26 US Embassy officials have reported dizziness, headaches, nausea, insomnia and hearing loss. Some victims felt vibrations or abnormal pressure in their offices, whilst others heard a variety of sounds – shrill clangs, loud ringing, metal scraping, grinding, a high-pitched drone, a low-pitched motor – before they fell ill. Experts remain baffled by the symptoms, which resemble concussion, but which lingered for weeks. A medical report commissioned by the US government (published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, in March 2018) diagnosed mild traumatic brain injury, possibly induced by sonic weaponry.
However, these findings have subsequently been contested by doctors from Germany, the UK and the US, in separate letters to JAMA, suggesting that the initial University of Pennsylvania investigative team misinterpreted test results, overlooked common disorders, and failed to consider psychological explanations.
For example, a specialist from Louisiana’s Ear and Balance Institute has argued that, rather than concussion, patients’ test results indicate inner-ear damage. Abnormalities in the vestibular system, which governs our sense of balance and the way that we perceive gravity and
acceleration, might be the cause of dizziness, headaches, nausea and hearing loss.
Robert Bartholomew, a leading expert in psychogenic illness (and FT contributor) criticised the initial report for having failed to rule out a psychological explanation. “There are several cases in the annals of mass psychogenic illnesses that parallel the audio perceptions and symptoms reported in the Cuban Embassy subjects”, he said.
Possibly supportive of ‘Havana syndrome’ being a psychogenic event (or, in cruder terms, mass hysteria), are the findings of a University of Lincoln professor of sensory biology. He suggested the loud whirring, droning noises recorded by Embassy staff were made by a local insect, the Indies short-tailed cricket, Anurogryllus celerinictus. Although this would not explain the vibrations or other unusual sensory phenomena experienced by patients, nor, of course, their variety of medical symptoms. And a University of California study found the Cuban Embassy recordings to be an imperfect match for Anurogryllus, having an uneven pulse structure not found in insects.
If Embassy staff were indeed deliberately targeted, the perpetrator(s) and motive remain unknown. In late 2018, US intelligence officials reported having intercepted communiqués pointing towards Russian culpability, naturally dismissed by Russia’s foreign ministry. The Cuban government too has adamantly denied any involvement, and Canada has confirmed the Cubans’ co-operation from the outset. By contrast, the Trump administration swiftly expelled 15 Cuban diplomats, not so much because US investigators had pinpointed Cuba as the cause of the mysterious illness, but because they felt Havana wasn’t helping them to find a solution.
Further to a US consulate worker stationed in Guangzhou, China, falling ill in May 2018, US officials in Beijing and Shanghai have also reported similar symptoms. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who said that a Chinese investigation had failed to uncover any cause for the illnesses. The US State Department withdrew 11 of its officials in June 2018.
JASON, an independent group of scientists who advise the US government on science and technology matters, sometimes with secretive or sensitive aspects, suggested microwaves as a possible cause. High-intensity microwave beams can create the sensation of loud noises, as well as induce nausea, headaches, vertigo and potential brain-tissue damage. They can also be fired covertly and directed at specific targets.
The Frey effect, named after US scientist Allan Frey, is a phenomenon whereby microwaves trick the brain into hearing phantom sounds. In the 1960s, the US Embassy in Moscow is known to have been bombarded with microwaves by the Soviets. More recently, the US military sought to develop microwave weaponry with the ability to beam painfully loud booms and even spoken words into a victim’s head.
Frey, a consultant to various US federal agencies, is known to have assisted in the ‘Havana syndrome’ investigation. He has speculated that a rogue Cuban faction allied to Russia deployed the microwave technology as a means to destabilise developing ties between Cuba and the US. But why also target Canadians?
Still another theory proposes bad engineering. In an article on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) website, computer scientists and acoustics experts claimed to have reverse engineered the socalled ‘sonic weapon’ apparently deployed in Cuba. Ultrasonic frequencies, thought to be a key element of sonic weaponry, do not propagate well in air, and are inaudible, whereas several victims reported hearing high-pitched noises. In addition, a single ultrasonic frequency on its own would not be expected to cause the reported ear pain, headaches and dizziness. Instead, the IEEE report suggested that two signals, each with a different frequency, combined to create an effect known as intermodulation distortion which can produce audible sound (and other effects?). They suggest that Embassy rooms may have contained an ultrasonic jammer and an ultrasonic transmitter, whose two signals accidentally interfered with each other. Each device may have been placed there by different agencies, unaware of each other. Whilst these could have been deliberately deployed, the IEEE report leans towards an accident with unforeseen and unfortunate results.
The two countries’ formerly hostile relations were thawing under Obama’s administration, leading to the re-opening of the Havana Embassy in July 2015. The mystery illnesses began in November 2016, around the time of Trump’s election victory. Unlike Obama, Trump has taken a harder line against Cuba, albeit keeping the Embassy open. It would seem unlikely that Cuba would seek to further destabilise their already frosty relations with the US.
In 1980s England, women at the Greenham Common antinuclear peace camp claimed they had been subjected to microwave attack from inside the US air force base they were protesting. Symptoms ranged from mild headaches and drowsiness to temporary paralysis, and, in one case, an apparent circulatory failure requiring emergency treatment. Some protestors also complained of sharp pains and problems with speech co-ordination. A series of tests measuring electromagnetic radiation around the base detected a marked increase in signal levels when some women had created a disturbance outside the base’s perimeter fence, and on other occasions, an increased signal level had coincided with claims of ill-effects. New Internationalist no.160, June 1986; Victoria (BC) Times Colonist, 5 Jan; spectrum. ieee.org, 1 Mar; Times, 2 July; Guardian, 15 Aug; Irish Times, D.Telegraph, Times, 3 Sept,
12 Sept; [AP] 13 Dec 2018; E.Standard, 3 Jan + 7 Feb; nytimes.com, 4 Jan; Guardian, 7 Jan, 1 Feb; Times, Irish Times, Feb 1; BBC News, D.Mail, D.Telegraph, 8 Feb 2019.
Christopher Josiffe