‘Havana Syndrome’: US intelligence community report says ‘pulsed electromagnetic
“We’ve learned a lot,” an intelligence official familiar with the panel’s work told reporters, speaking on anonymity under terms set by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “While we don’t have the specific mechanism for each case, what we do know is if you report quickly and promptly get medical care, most people are getting well.”
The finding largely confirms a National Academies of Science report from late 2020 that found “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” to be “the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases” — but also stopped short of making a firm determination.
The so-called experts panel is made up of medical, scientific and engineering specialists who have access to classified information about the incidents. Officials emphasized that its work was focused only on uncovering the potential mechanism behind what the government calls “anomalous health incidents” and did not examine who, if anyone, might be responsible.
Cases ‘genuine and compelling’
The scientific panel emphasized that the cases it studied were “genuine and compelling,” noting that some incidents have affected multiple people in the same space and clinical samples from a few victims have shown signs of “cellular injury to the nervous system.”
An executive summary of the panel’s work provided new details about how the government is categorizing cases as possible Havana Syndrome, a clinically vague illness that has long frustrated firm diagnosis because victims have suffered from such a diverse array of symptoms.
Although officials declined to say how many cases the panel examined as part of its inquiry, they said they studied cases that met four “core characteristics”: the acute onset of sounds or pressure, sometimes in only one ear or on one side of the head; simultaneous symptoms of vertigo, loss of balance and ear pain; “a strong sense of locality or directionality”; and the absence of any known environmental or medical conditions that could have caused the other symptoms.
Victims have reported being struck by this confluence of symptoms in embassies and personal residences around the globe, and in at least one instance, at open-air stoplight in a foreign country.
Both pulsed electromagnetic energy, “particularly in the radiofrequency range,” and ultrasonic arrays could feasibly cause the four core symptoms, the panel found. Both could originate from “a concealable source.” But ultrasound can’t travel through walls, the panel found, “restricting its applicability to scenarios in which the source is near the target.”
Sources of radiofrequency energy, on the other hand, are known to exist, “could generate the required stimulus, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements,” the panel said….
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