‘Sonic attack’ by crickets reveals witch-hunting mentality of US

On June 8, 2018, the US embassy in Beijing issued an alert to Americans in China to seek medical attention if they experienced symptoms consistent with the mysterious sonic attacks that have affected US embassy staff in China and Cuba. The symptoms included dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, fatigue, cognitive issues, visual problems, ear complaints and hearing loss, and sleep disorder.

The United States evacuated some of the staff from its Guangzhou consulate after they complained of some of the symptoms.

The move came after similar cases were reported by US diplomats in Havana, Cuba. Without providing any evidence, the US State Department withdrew 60 percent of its staff from its Havana embassy in October 2017, and expelled two-thirds of the Cuban diplomats in Washington. US President Donald Trump and other officials accused Cuba of having targeted their diplomats with some kind of “acoustic sonic weapon”.

US State Department press secretary Heather Nauert, who is now the US ambassador to the UN, attributed the expulsion to “Cuba’s inability to protect our diplomats in Havana as well as ensure equity and impact of our respective operation”.

In fact, China and Cuba both employed huge resources to investigate the cases but found no evidence to support the “sonic attack” theory, nor did the teams from the Federal Bureau of Investigation find anything.

Speculations were rife in US news media. NBC News reported on Sept 12 that US officials suspected Russia to be behind the “sonic attacks” in Cuba and China. Now we know that the “sonic attacks” were not waged by Cuba, China or Russia, which are the easy targets for US politicians.