The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has concluded in a report that
the most probable cause of a series of mysterious afflictions that affected American personnel
abroad was radio-frequency energy.
Viewers may note that for several years U.S spies and diplomats have experienced what
seems like a directed attack.
This came to be known as Havana syndrome since it was first detected in diplomats operating
in the Cuban capital Havana.
These people suffered from dizziness, fatigue, headaches, and loss of hearing as well as
memory.
The condition was so bad for some that they were forced into permanent retirement.
The inference by a committee of 19 experts in medicine and other fields cited “directed,
pulsed radiofrequency energy” as “the most plausible mechanism” to explain the
illness.
The report didn't rule out other possible causes and that secondary factors may have
contributed to symptoms.
This is till now the clearest explanation of the illness that struck the U.S government
employees first at the in Havana in 2016, and then in China and several other countries
including Australia.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes why Russia is suspected to have injured American
personnel using directed microwave weapons?
Let’s get into the details.
This video is sponsored by War Thunder.
If you are, like us, fascinated by military vehicles and technology, I recommend you give
War Thunder a try.
It's a military vehicle combat game which you can download and play for free on PC,
PlayStation4 and Xbox One - with cross-platform support.
It has a huge variety of more than 1200 playable aircraft, tanks, helicopters and ships from
the 1930s to the 1990s, which you can take to battle on land, in the air and at sea on
more than 80 theaters of war.
War Thunder has been kind enough to offer all Defense Updates viewers a special bonus,
which will grant you a free premium tank or aircraft or ship and three days of premium
account time for registering using our link in the description below.
So, take the plunge and join the more than 20 million players from all over the world!
The strange symptoms experienced by dozen of U.S officials and in some cases, their
families has been a mystery.
There were speculations that these were caused by a secret high-tech weapon and a foreign
hand was involved.
For example, last year two CIA agents assessed that they were attacked with a sophisticated
microwave weapon while visiting Australia
The CIA officials reported hearing ringing in their ears and feeling nauseous and dizzy,
symptoms similar to "Havana syndrome”.
According to a report in America's GQ magazine, mobile phone data revealed agents from Moscow's
Federal Security Service (FSB) were in the vicinity of their hotel room at the time the
visitors fell ill.
GQ reported,"While in their hotel rooms in Australia, both of the Americans felt it:
the strange sound, the pressure in their heads, the ringing in their ears,"
The circumstantial evidence pointed to a global campaign as part of which Russia seems to
be targeting US officials.
Interestingly in several cases, the officers were thought to be traveling to discuss countering
Russian covert operations with foreign intelligence agencies.
The report indicates that the incidents were the result of a malicious attack.
It attributes the illnesses to “directed” and “pulsed” — rather than “continuous”
— energy.
This basically implied that the victims were targeted purposefully and this was not the
result of more common sources of microwave energy, such as a mobile phone.
The report does not point a finger at a specific country but it mentions “significant research
in Russia/U.S.S.R.” on pulsed radio-frequency technology, as well as the exposure of military
personnel in Eurasian communist countries to microwave radiation.
A microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter
to one millimeter; with frequencies between 300 MHz (1 m) and 300 GHz (1 mm)
It is to be noted that microwaves travel by line-of-sight; unlike lower frequency radio
waves they do not diffract.
Dr. David Relman, a Stanford University professor who led the committee, wrote in a preface
to the report that the committee was not in a position to assess “specific scenarios
involving malevolent actors,” Yet, he said, “the mere consideration of such a scenario
raises grave concerns about a world with disinhibited malevolent actors and new tools for causing
harm to others.”
The panel stated its findings were hampered by the government’s slow and uneven response
to the incidents, in which patients were evaluated by various methods and clinicians at different
points in their illness.
Because the information made available on patients from China was “too sparse and
fragmentary to be able to draw any substantive conclusions about these cases,” the report
focuses on events surrounding the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
There is historical precedence that indicates that Russia may be responsible for these attacks.
The Soviet Union inundated the American Embassy in Moscow with microwaves in the 1970s and
’80s.
The low power frequencies recorded in the embassy was named "Moscow Signal” by United
States intelligence officials.
The Moscow Signal was a reported microwave transmission varying between 2.5 and 4 gigahertz,
directed at the Embassy of the United States, Moscow from 1953–1976, resulting in an international
incident.
The US government eventually determined it was probably an attempt at espionage, and
that there were no significant health effects on embassy staff.
The microwave transmissions were only five microwatts per square cm, which is well below
the power level of microwave ovens, and well below what would be needed to heat anything.
However, the frequencies were a hundred times more powerful than the Soviet Union's maximum
exposure standards and this caused concern among U.S. officials.
In a 2014 document, the National Security Agency discussed a microwave weapon used by
a hostile country, which people having knowledge have revealed to be Russia.
These attacks are hard to detect being invisible, making them totally different from traditional
attacks like gunfire.
Also, since they have resulted in varying levels of symptoms, they are hard to quantify
in-term of severity, it is to be noted here that different people may exhibit different
levels of symptoms even when the exposure is the same.
So, it possible that the method will see continued use even though it has been exposed to an
extent.
The report by the National Academies also contains a warning about the possibility of
future episodes, and the U.S. government’s ability to detect them, or to mount a response.
Another aspect is that the scope of the operation seems to be very elaborate as it pans across
multiple nations.
Russia seems to be employing these tactics as part of a larger game plan.
There were some reports that the attacks in China may have been perpetrated by the Chinese
Communist regime, this had the potential to sour the relationship between the U.S- China
further.
The idea seems to be to create confusion and destabilize the American diplomatic outreach.
A lot of research is likely to have gone into the weapon.
Another interesting point is that the Russian operative has been able to move these weapons
to other countries and operate them without getting caught by the agencies of the host
nations.
It remains to be seen how the U.S government counters this suspected Russian onslaught.