Mystery of Sonic Weapon Attacks At US Embassy In Cuba Deepens (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he'd walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room. Soon came the hearing loss, and the speech problems, symptoms both similar and altogether different from others among at least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery still unfolding in Cuba. The top U.S. diplomat has called them "health attacks." New details learned by the Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling U.S. officials who say the facts and the physics don't add up.

Suspicion initially focused on a sonic weapon, and on the Cubans. Yet the diagnosis of mild brain injury, considered unlikely to result from sound, has confounded the FBI, the state department and U.S. intelligence agencies involved in the investigation. Some victims now have problems concentrating or recalling specific words, several officials said, the latest signs of more serious damage than the U.S. government initially realized. The United States first acknowledged the attacks in August -- nine months after symptoms were first reported.

Comments

Not really a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cubans like vanilla ice

Not Cuba

[Dan East]

I commented on this story in the past, and I'll say it again now. It doesn't make any sense that the Cuban government is doing this. They are a dictatorship, and if they didn't want US diplomats there, or didn't want to try and reconnect with the US, then they simply wouldn't do it. For them to try and injure US diplomats makes no sense at all. I believe this is being done by some 3rd party nation to try and cause problems between the US and Cuba. Why? Because they want to maintain the status quo (the US and Cuba not having diplomatic relations) because they stand to gain either financially and / or in regional influence and power. Several South American countries, as well as Russia, come to mind...

From an excerpt from a 2016 article discussing the US restoring some relations with the Cuban Government:

As if that wasn’t remarkable enough, this has occurred with Cuban-Russian relations at their strongest since the demise of the Soviet Union. Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has visited Cuba twice since February 2008 while Vladimir Putin visited in July 2014. Meanwhile Raúl Castro has been to Moscow three times in recent years. Can these two relationships really keep improving in parallel?

http://theconversation.com/cub...

Re: Not Cuba

[Jeremi]

The real mystery isn't who did it, but how. There's always somebody nefarious; but this particular somebody seems to have invented a weapon that nobody else has even thought of.

Re:Not Cuba

[ShanghaiBill]

It doesn't make any sense that the Cuban government is doing this.

Yes it does. People have this weird blindspot where they readily accept that their own society has factions, but are far more willing to believe that their adversaries are monolithic. Obama opened up relations with Cuba, and there is opposition to that by hardliners in America. But there is also OPPOSITION IN CUBA, because they have their own hardliners, who see Raul's opening to the imperialists as a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution. Some of those rejectionist hardliners are in powerful positions, and it is likely that they are doing this to sabotage relations between America and Cuba, and possibly even get rid of Raul and the Castro dynasty.

Re: Not Cuba

[MichaelSmith]

Maybe a neurotoxin in the water? Nerve damage may cause people to hear phantom noises.

Re: Not Cuba

[PopeRatzo]

but this particular somebody seems to have invented a weapon that nobody else has even thought of.

Targeted sonic weapons were thought of a long time ago. There are examples in science fiction literature from before WWII, and even hack writers like Ayn Rand used the idea in one of her trashy dime novels (Atlas Shrugged).

Re:Not Cuba

[AlanObject]

It doesn't make any sense that the Cuban government is doing this.

From the looks of it even U.S. officials don't believe that the official Cuban government has anything to do it. I have even seen stories about Cuba willing to accommodate an FBI investigation. That would have been unthinkable in the not too distant past.

However there are a few parties around that are absolutely livid over the idea of relations between U.S. and Cuba being normalized. My money is on it turning out to be U.S.-based Cuban group whose families hated Castro for one reason or another possibly in partnership with counter-revolutionaries still in Cuba.

Less likely is someone in Cuba who thinks Raul Castro is betraying the Revolution by engaging with the U.S. But it is possible.

Could it be some rogue operation from some die-hard cold-warrior types either in some U.S. agency or an alumni of one? That would be too stupid to be believable if it weren't for the example of Oliver North and his ilk. I hope it isn't that.

Re: Not Cuba

[shubus]

We need to find out how this "weapon" works and deploy it in North Korea. FAST.

Re: Not Cuba

[Anonymous Coward]

a weapon that nobody else has even thought of

Reminds me of an old (offensive, yet funny and on point) joke by late comedian Patrice Oneal where he talked about the D.C. sniper attacks of 2002 and how everyone assumed it was executed by some evil genius criminal mastermind using unheard of methods; yet, ultimately it was "just a n***a in a Buick".

We're all jumping to conclusions about some mysterious super-weapon, meanwhile it's probably some sociopath janitor on the other side of the wall with pieces of a microwave oven he took apart using instructions he saw on YouTube.

(Link to joke I referenced above. RIP, fat funnyman)

Re: Not Cuba

[gravewax]

if you bothered to read the details they don't believe it is a targeted sonic weapon as the physics combined with the brain damage mean it is likely something else.

Re: Not Cuba

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, brilliant plan. Attack the leaders of a nuclear armed country with a weapon that causes...mild inconveniences. We survived the USSR and North Korea is nothing in comparison.

Re: Not Cuba

[Iamthecheese]

Creating sound in a specific, limited physical location through constructive interference is a well explored topic.

Re: Not Cuba

[Iamthecheese]

Targeted infra-sound could do it.

Re: Not Cuba

[Presence Eternal]

If only there were some kind of device that could accurately capture and record soundwaves, even those outside of normal human hearing.

Re: Not Cuba

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there seems some old tech to do this:
https://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59h4bS4O-Rs

Re:Not Cuba

[quantaman]

It doesn't make any sense that the Cuban government is doing this.

Yes it does. People have this weird blindspot where they readily accept that their own society has factions, but are far more willing to believe that their adversaries are monolithic. Obama opened up relations with Cuba, and there is opposition to that by hardliners in America. But there is also OPPOSITION IN CUBA, because they have their own hardliners, who see Raul's opening to the imperialists as a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution. Some of those rejectionist hardliners are in powerful positions, and it is likely that they are doing this to sabotage relations between America and Cuba, and possibly even get rid of Raul and the Castro dynasty.

Alternately this was a surveillance operation gone awry, they were trying to spy on the diplomats using some kind of ultrasonic imaging device and screwed up. Either the tech was way more dangerous than they thought or the operators miscalibrated it.

Re:Not Cuba

[Kjella]

However there are a few parties around that are absolutely livid over the idea of relations between U.S. and Cuba being normalized. My money is on it turning out to be U.S.-based Cuban group whose families hated Castro for one reason or another possibly in partnership with counter-revolutionaries still in Cuba. Less likely is someone in Cuba who thinks Raul Castro is betraying the Revolution by engaging with the U.S. But it is possible.

Those people exist. But who of them would think we hate that, let's create a secret sonic screwdriver to give US diplomats hearing loss and light brain damage. I mean whatever is creating this must have gone through a pretty big R&D project with a non-trivial chance of failure. It must have been tweaked and tested pretty well to both be strong enough to cause damage and weak enough to remain stealthy for quite some time. That sounds to me like a secret intelligence/military program, not some ragtag rebels. Even if they stole a prototype, somebody would know and using it correctly would not be easy - look at the rebels in Eastern Ukraine who couldn't tell the difference between military jets and a civilian airliner.

The second thing that doesn't add up is motivation, if you're trying to sabotage US-Cuba relations you'd better not look like a third party trying to do just that. You'd try to discredit or frame Cuba, you might stage some blatant attack like a car bomb or poison their food to say the US is not wanted but this FUD? Let's be honest, diplomats are an archaic leftover from when they were trusted emissaries and negotiators because getting instructions from home took days and weeks. Even if they pulled out physically, the US could maintain normal diplomatic relations virtually. You'd only need a booth to handle physical matters, though you could probably move most things like visa applications online too. The actual embassy is today mostly for show.

My guess is that this is an intelligence project gone wrong. This is supposed to be a form of scanner, picking up on something trying to punch through some countermeasures that are in place and causing long term damage that wasn't caught in testing. To me that's by far the most plausible explanation for why this would exist and why they'd target diplomats in particular. I mean there are probably other ways you could damage economic ties, tourism or whatever that could damage relations but only diplomats would have political information of any real value. Everything else seems a bit contrived, like you could but it wouldn't really make any sense.

Re: Not Cuba

[drinkypoo]

if you bothered to read the details they don't believe it is a targeted sonic weapon as the physics combined with the brain damage mean it is likely something else.

There's really only two possibilities. One, directed sound. Two, directed RF. As it turns out, you can stimulate human hearing with certain radio frequencies.

Either way, having the effect be strong at some points and weak at others is a classic sign of an interference pattern. Two identical, synchronized point emission sources of sound (or RF) will create both valleys of zero signal strength, and peaks of double strength.

Either way, the effect should be measurable.

Re:Not Cuba

[drinkypoo]

My guess is Russia. Russia and the US have long argued over Cuba. They're probably the only ones in the world besides us who have developed the technology to do this sort of thing. Remember that HAARP project that people are always theorizing over? Russia has their own. The only people who might know more about RF than Russia would be us.

Re:Not Cuba

[mikael]

Why place the transmitter/scanner right next to the diplomats bed? Wouldn't that be the place the diplomats keep a mobile phone at all times? The Russians used microwaves in conjunction with a RFID type activated microphone and membrane concealed inside a wooden carving.

If it were microwaves, he would have heard a crackling sound and his hair looking as if he was hit by static. That happened to people walking past Google's office in London.

Re: Not Cuba

[Presence Eternal]

Talkin' bout smartphones dude.

Re:Not Cuba

[AlanObject]

My guess is Russia.

The technology involved is not that exotic. The argument against it being Russia is that the operation seems too amateurish and botched. That just doesn't fit with what we know of Russian covert ops. Of course they could have intentionally made it seem that way but the intended purpose in that case seems wholly obscure.

If the intent was to drive a wedge (further) between the US and Cuba then the effect of the discovery that it was not Cuba that carried out the attack then the operation will have the opposite effect.

Re:Not Cuba

[Uberbah]

ut there is also OPPOSITION IN CUBA, because they have their own hardliners, who see Raul's opening to the imperialists as a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution. Some of those rejectionist hardliners are in powerful positions, and it is likely that they are doing this to sabotage relations between America and Cuba, and possibly even get rid of Raul and the Castro dynasty.

You seem to have this weird capitalist blindspot, where you think such people couldn't go for a conventional bombing/poisoning/assassination if they wanted to do such a thing. Not use some high-tech spy weapon developed in a lab in the base of a volcano by a guy with an eyepatch.

Re:Not Cuba

[taskiss]

You think that the entire Cuban regime is of one mind about things? It would be quite remarkable if you were correct.

Re: Not Cuba

[currently_awake]

A microwave beam modulated with an audio signal could match these symptoms. Cuban intelligence (or Russian) could be beaming a highly directional microwave signal through the embassy, where it bounces off stuff, and the reflected signal has a doplar shift carrying the room audio. A low power signal tuned to water would look like a leaky microwave if detected (or actually be one?), and could use any liquids in the Embassy as a microphone.

Re:Not Cuba

[Graydyn Young]

It does seem like whatever device is being used here went wrong in some way. Even if it's some kind of sonic weapon and brain damage was the intended effect, you would think it wouldn't be designed to make a noise.

Re:Not Cuba

[Xest]

Consider Russia as a likely culprit, not because of the tide of anti-Russian paranoia in the US right now, but simply because of the politics of it.

The US has in the last 9 months (since this started happening) expelled more and more Russian diplomats from it's soil and denied it access to a number of it's buildings in the US that were typically used as listening stations. The US/Russia tacitly accepted these in each others countries as it meant they had less secrets from each other and built trust post-cold war. Now they're being shut down on both sides in the US and Russia proper.

Russia closed it's listening post in Cuba for exactly this reason back in 2001, because with the cold war supposedly having come to an end, and tacit acceptance of such listening posts in the territories themselves meant it was largely defunct.

But Russia reopened it in 2014, and with it's US mainland listening posts now shut down it wants to make damn sure that the US and Cuba don't get close - given Cuba's proximity to the mainland US it would be astoundingly easy for the US to make Cuba Western within a very short time period because fully opening up to each other would create such a massive flow of Western culture, coupled with the ageing leadership that change in Cuba could occur in less than a decade. See here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

So ignoring the whole Trump/Russia thing as irrelevant, there is a very strong incentive for Russia to keep the US out of Cuba and they have both the skills and the technological capability to design, build, and deploy such a weapon as well as the political and security reason to want to do so.

I don't believe any Cuban group could build anything like this. It would require money, skills, and technology that a rag tag bunch of ex-rebels simply do not possess. This is something that requires a fairly powerful nation state behind it - I think even Venezuela would struggle, so you'd be looking at a European nation (none of which hate the US, or Cuba enough to have reason to do this), India, which has no interest in Cuba/US relations, Brazil, which again has no real reason to do this, China - again, not clear what this would achieve, very little for them to gain here, or some wealthy arab states or Israel - a possibility perhaps, but again, not the clear motive that Russia has.

One can only wonder

[no-body]

what goes on in some people's minds and the underlying cause for it - assuming this is human activity - to cause this kind of injury to someone.

Re:One can only wonder

[ArylAkamov]

It's just experemental weapons testing by a third party. The oppertunity to disrupt relations between the US and Cuba is just the icing on the cake.
Personally, my bet is on NK or China.

Re:One can only wonder

[no-body]

It's just experemental weapons testing by a third party. The oppertunity to disrupt relations between the US and Cuba is just the icing on the cake.
Personally, my bet is on NK or China.

Well, if that's the case - experimental, injuring unrelated people - pretty sick. Fits right into the current state of affairs.

Re:One can only wonder

[Immerman]

Experimental weapons testing has almost always targeted "innocents". Quite often their own soldiers or citizens. Go ahead and read about some of the atrocities the US government has (then) secretly committed against US citizens in the last century. It'll break your heart.

Re:One can only wonder

[no-body]

Experimental weapons testing has almost always targeted "innocents". Quite often their own soldiers or citizens. Go ahead and read about some of the atrocities the US government has (then) secretly committed against US citizens in the last century. It'll break your heart.

It still needs a certain frame of mind, callousness and lack of empathy - just think of torture - enhanced interrogations - "allowed" under certain circumstances, and the permission comes from where? This goes for "civilized" areas where laws supposed to exist, like the USA.

OK, and then there was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

How early does it start in a human?

they thought it was sonic because victims "heard"

[Anonymous Coward]

WTH, do they not get that brain injuries will cause the body to sense things which are NOT coming from the sensory system? Try looking for radar, HERF weapon and any other kind of energy which can be focused.

If it's only effecting Americans it is probably a targeted targeting weapon being used.

Mind Control Beams

[bill_mcgonigle]

This time the CIA is on the receiving end and it's the Communists' fault.

Fifty points to Slytherin for irony.

the Sonic Projector

[arpad1]

Cripes, it's not all that big a secret. Here you go - https://www.wired.com/2007/06/...

What doesn't make much sense is why it's being done. Keeping the embassy staff on edge must look like a good idea to someone of significant power in Cuba because putting the requisite technology together isn't something that average Cuban could do.

Re:the Sonic Projector

[Nemyst]

You say that like it's a done deal, but that doesn't explain the brain damage, which a sound projection device would be unlikely to be able to cause.

Re:the Sonic Projector

[Immerman]

I wonder if there was actual sound involved, or if that was just a symptom of nerve/brain stimulation, for example by radio or microwave stimulation.

Even if it were sound, it seems to me that strong enough intensity pressure waves could indeed cause cell damage as they passed through the skull - especially if there were infra-/ultra-sound involved, so that the "agonizing sound" was actually a fringe effect of much louder inaudible sounds.

Re:the Sonic Projector

[Nemyst]

I'd expect that pressure waves strong enough to cause cell damage would also most likely cause damage to the environment, especially since you can rarely completely eliminate constructive interference everywhere but the targeted location. There'll be other points in the area that would get similarly strong pressure and that'd be enough to shatter fragile glass or cause vibrations. A microwave attack could be more plausible, but I don't know how they'd be able to set all of that up without someone noticing.

Re:the Sonic Projector

[ChrisMaple]

Audible sound can damage nerves in the ear. Ultrasonic waves might be audible if they're powerful enough to drive the ear (or the air) into nonlinearity, but if the subject moves his head away from a local maximum or just turns his head to that the waves don't enter his ear well then they become inaudible. Perhaps the ultrasonics can cause localized heating in the ear's nerves and damage them, without being audible.

Deep brain damage? The shape of the skull might focus the ultrasonic waves.

A good argument can also be made for electromagnetic microwaves, which have killed humans by heating. A beam focused on your head could easily cause brain damage. A similar argument can be made for x-rays, although that might cause visible skin reddening at the power levels necessary to cause brain damage.

Re:the Sonic Projector

[MrL0G1C]

There seems to be an assumption by many that only one method is being used by the perpetrators. It is of course quite possible that both neurotoxins and sonic devices are being used.

Re:the Sonic Projector

[ceoyoyo]

The ultrasound devices are fairly tight beams. The microwave ones probably are too, and it doesn't take much energy to shake up someone's brain, if you're depositing it effectively on the inside.

If you got a constructive node in a wall it might shake some dust loose. Your chances of hitting something fragile would be pretty small.

If you took that DARPA device that's designed to communicate over a kilometre and aimed it at someone's head from the other side of a hotel wall....

Re:the Sonic Projector

[mikael]

Brain damage is usually caused by burst capillaries. Which is due to high blood pressure. That's either the blood vessels being constricted, or the heart pumping at super high pressures. Alternatively, the water in the blood could have been cooked by microwaves, causing them to burst.

CBC also has a story

[Target Drone]

CBC recently had a story on the 5 Canadian diplomats and families affected. They also speculated that since Canada has better relations with Cuba it's unlikely the Cuban government is behind this. The story also mentions that since Russia has a large diplomatic presence in Cuba, has been known to harass foreign diplomats and also has the know how to possibly develop this kind of high tech weapon that they are a possible suspect.

Re:CBC also has a story

[Anonymous Coward]

If true, this has to be one of the dumbest operations ever greenlit. Diplomats are well-accustomed to espionage efforts, and its pretty much de rigueur for all the big nations to play Spy-vs-Spy. Embassies regularly sweep for bugs and such.

But using energy weapons on the personnel? It's cartoonishly bad. Such a terrible idea I have difficulty attributing it to anyone, including North Korea. Any nation could scrape up much better [disposable] live test subjects if needed.

Energy weapons on US diplomats is asking for serious escalation and problems. It's a huge breach of trust, and way beyond the nonlethal cat-and-mouse games that are tolerated.

Re:CBC also has a story

[MichaelSmith]

anyone, including North Korea

Actually, NK really are that reckless. They deployed VX gas in the national airport of a friendly country.

Re:CBC also has a story

[quantaman]

seriously unlikely, Russia are more likely to do such an attack in far better locations where they are not going to be a prime suspect. Similar to the Cuban's it makes no sense for the Russians to be the source of the attacks either.

The motive for Russia wouldn't be to spy or harm Americans, the motive would be to sour the relationship between Cuba and the US, so that Cuba remains under Russian influence.

Re:CBC also has a story

[thegarbz]

Canada has better relations with Cuba it's unlikely the Cuban government is behind this

Thought experiment: Why would the Cuban government do this?

1. Get rid of diplomats? They can do that anytime they want.
2. Don't like the renewed ties with USA? They can do this anytime they want.
3. Don't like US politics interfering? They are a dictatorship, also see 1.

Initially a lot of people claimed Cuba, but it just makes no sense.

Re:CBC also has a story

[afxgrin]

The microwave auditory effect is well known and I have serious doubts that any government funded program would publish the exact details of any progress on weaponizing it. The public knowing exactly how these devices work would decrease the effectiveness if they're actually trying to make targets feel like they're hearing voices in their head not just blast their hearing with noise.

I'd expect the intensities involved would likely be high enough to harm the device operator unless they were remotely situated from the transmitter site. You'd want a high power output to provide the device range and effectiveness through walls and windows. As a consequence the operator being in the vicinity of the transmitter would still get effected by side lobes from the transmitter.

The Russians claimed to be working on such a device in 2012 probably in response to the US Navy contracting a company to develop a microwave auditory weapon.

Re:CBC also has a story

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't gas the airport - it was a targeted attack on one of their own. Using dangerous agents (ricin/polonium/etc) is not unheard of. The RU-contractors left radioactive trails over England and their spygames definitely chilled relations - but the targets were always "in-house", defectors and/or expats.

Attacking foreign diplomats is a great way to ensure your own attachés never have sanctuary anywhere, ever again.

Re:they thought it was sonic because victims "hear

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but does the target know that it's the targeting target being targeted?

Microwave auditory effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Cranial exposure to microwaves can be audible. Microwaves can also cause neurological damage.

Re:Microwave Auditory Effect

[MercTech]

That was my first impression when the story first came out in 2016; middle ear microwave resonance.
I had some experience with that back in the 90s thanks to doing some work in proximity to a damaged guide tube out on the weather deck.

Now the question is, was it intentional or just a case of badly shielded microwave ovens in the Havana hotel.

I found the article at The Verge to be a good giggle-fest. You don't get a concussion the way they described. I think I would faint if someone actually fact checked a news story.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/16/16316048/sonic-weapon-cuba-us-canadian-diplomats-ultrasound-infrasound-science

Re:I actually agree

[HBI]

The US isn't invading Cuba. I'm not relying on any non-public information that I know. I'm just stating it as a bald fact that the wherewithal might be there, but the will isn't and never will be as far as my crystal ball goes. If the US were so inclined, it would have happened in the 1990s, when more will could have been mustered. The Cuban emigres who would be the strongest supporters are getting old and dying by now.

Given that the invasion of Cuba is a non-starter and therefore there is no profit motive here, the idea of Trump himself arranging harm to come to US diplomats is abhorrent. I'd like to say you know better, but i'm not sure about that.

The KGB was wont to have flights of fancy toward conspiracy theory. It was one of their chief problems in evaluating events in the West. It was born of the requirement to never gainsay the belief structure of the Politburo and nomenklatura. This was bad for your career, and back in the 30s and 40s would also carry the threat of death. So the KGB evaluation of every event was wound into a complex conspiracy theory involving the mythical denizens of the West, rather than being evaluated rationally.

The other problem they had was being captive to their ideology. Anyway, there are much simpler solutions than Trump trying to pad his bottom line. Besides which, the guy is dying soon, He couldn't care less about that, he already made and lost a fortune several times.

worms

[nnet]

I'm going with mind altering cat parasites.

Re:worms

[Tablizer]

I'm going with mind altering cat parasites.

Chairman Meow?

Re:Off the wall guess

[ChrisMaple]

Ultrasonic is a reasonable guess because the wavelength would be short enough to aim and meet the other characteristics described in the summary.

What's screwy is that the source of the problem has not been tracked down and eliminated. This should not be a difficult technical problem.

Re:they thought it was sonic because victims "hear

[nnet]

Targets targetting target Luddites using targets! Targets!

Re:Why didn't I hear about this?

[nnet]

you were too busy tweeting at 5am.

Don't care who....

[WolfgangVL]

But somebody has really showed their hand.

What neato tech!

I doubt a western nation would burn such hot shit abilities to screw with a couple diplomats unless there's a bit of Tom Clancy style shit going on in the background.

And who else was checked into the hotel at the time? I bet there's a pretty limited range.. any remote device would have been found already. Search the housekeepers.

This was foreseen

[hyades1]

For American diplomats who may worry that they have no protocols in place to survive sonic attack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go0JMX3zNeA

Re:I actually agree

[PopeRatzo]

he already made and lost a fortune several times.

Well, that's the myth at least. We won't know for sure until we see those tax returns.

Re:I actually agree

[sheramil]

The US isn't invading Cuba.

Oh, please. Invasion is so twentieth-century. The modern approach is to sabotage them economically and then buy them out when they're too weak to fight back and are begging for help.

Re:I actually agree

[LostMyBeaver]

Do you often hear one person talking, then a room full of people laughing and then you realize you're not?

This is commonly referred to as "Missing the joke". It is common among people who are told one thing and hear something else.

Of course, I don't have a good vocabulary entry regarding when it's about politics rather than jokes, but I believe you have just experienced it. There are actually therapists (not to be confused with "the rapists") who specialize in trying to help you with this disorder.

Trump is and always has been about monuments. I've seen many of his monuments. As a real-estate developer, he was generally willing to build things just about everywhere and anywhere so long as it would have his name on it. His gift has generally always been to gather business people and investors together to pool their money for a development project. He would then make provisions that said that he really didn't care whether he made money or not himself... it was only important his name was on it. He likes big shiny things with his name on it.

Watch every single thing he has done in D.C. so far... every deal, every negotiation. Consistently, it's been about gaining leverage for the "Trump Wall" or "Great Wall of Trump". No other topic causes him to become so impassioned as building a wall. He is backing off of dreamers now because he realized "I have to admit that there are some Mexicans that actually should be sent back"... he really doesn't care one way or the other. Hell, if he did, Trump would never have employed dreamers himself. What he does care about is that he will get one of the biggest monuments in the world with his name on it.

So... stop thinking about Trump in terms of politics. He will (as he has so far) do absolutely anything to gain support for his new monument. Congress could get tons of stuff out of him if all they did was use 1 mile of wall as a form of payment for him ... like "Trump make this happen and we'll give you a mile of wall". He would pant and drool. He doesn't want love. He doesn't need money. He wants buildings and walls and golf courses with his name on it. He assumes that this would be his 5000 year competition for the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids. He knows that if the wall goes up, it will stay up and maintained in some form or another for at least several hundred years... dedicated to Trump.. If Hoover can get the damn, Trump can have the wall.

Then there's Cuba.

Cuba is an excellent opportunity for :
  a) Land grabs. Greece, Southern Italy, Sicily, Crete, Cyprus, Mallorca, Malta, Gozo, etc... are covered with hotels... almost all sea front real-estate is owned by opportunist land grabbers from elsewhere. This is probably Greece's #1 financial problem. Their most valuable industry... tourism is completely owned by external entities.
  b) Tax haven.... Trump has always loved a great tax haven... I'd bash him.. but he would be stupid if he didn't.
  c) Monuments.... the cost of building in Cuba is low enough now that Trump could build and furnish the world's largest casino for pennies on the dollar. It's not about profit. It's about making a hotel with a sign so big you'd be able to read "Trump" from the Florida Keys.

Trump is done padding his bottom line. Even if he loses everything now, he will still get the presidential retirement package which is pretty good from what I hear. He doesn't have to make more money. He simply needs to relocate it to maximize the visibility of Trump for as long as possible.

He wants the monuments. Casinos come and go... but with some luck, we can keep his name on one ... in neon for 200 years.

Re: Microwave weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

A microwave weapon seems to be the most likely hypothesis because of its ability to explain all of the symptoms observed. I haven't seen evidence that sonic weapons could explain the full range of symptoms. Microwaves can and do pass through walls, so I'm wondering about why people staying in other rooms in the direction of the microwaves wouldn't also report symptoms as well. You'd need to be fairly close in order to direct a beam that narrowly and precisely. Higher frequencies would require smaller parabolic antennas to direct the beam, plus they would attenuate more rapidly, perhaps limiting the exposure to others in the building. Accidental exposure to radar wouldn't explain this because a radar spends most of its time listening rather than transmitting. My guess is that someone is transmitting microwaves from nearby in the building.

I find it unlikely that someone who isn't state-sponsored could carry out this volume of attacks with this degree of precision. I concur with the others in the comments who suspect Russia of being responsible. Cuba stands to benefit from normalized relations with the US and it makes no sense for them to attack American and Canadian diplomats. Russia would be the prime suspect, but this type of attack is very difficult to link to them. Simply turn off the transmitter and remove some relatively small equipent to eliminate any trace of the attack.

Re: Bullshit. CIA did this.

[sound vision]

That might make sense if it were a couple people involved, not a couple dozen. Including several Canadians now as well.

Wireless access points

[LostMyBeaver]

This is a US Government installation. They almost certainly are using Cisco or Aruba Wireless. Of course, they never buy the cheapest model either.

Let's talk Cisco for a moment. Cisco delivers a technology known as "CleanAir" which Aruba also has for the most part. It's designed for site survey and is able to scan large chunks of the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz spectrum.

Turn the feature on... then look at the map and see if there's microwave near by. It will assign pseudo MAC addresses to unknown signals and attempt to identify them by radio pattern.

Now, if CleanAir isn't picking it up, then install some spectrum analyzers.

As others had mentioned... you don't need to transmit audible signals into someones head to make them hear it. You simply need to transmit signals which trigger the mind to believe they are audible. Microwave and others are perfectly capable of having this effect. In fact, some people believe that the reason why some people claim to be susceptible to wireless networking is because it causes a ringing like tinnitus. Of course like Tinnitus (which I recently began suffering... Merry Christmas 2016) it's not possible to diagnose properly.

As for targeted signals.... all frequencies can be targeted. It's not as if there's something somewhere which says audio absolutely must be as close to isotropic as possible. Any frequency can quite easily be targeted.

As a cheap but effective example... sound showers are an example of this.

Re:Wireless access points

[Anonymous Coward]

Well but the wifi thing is easy to test: Put the person into a room, make him write down when the noise starts and when it stops. Put experimenter into the next room with a wifi router, make him turn the thing on and off a good couple of times, record the time. Check if there is any statistically significant correlation.

This of course has been done for electrogmagnetic sensitivity and no suprise no result. For WIFI/microwaves I don't know if it has been done..

Re:Wireless access points

[umafuckit]

As others had mentioned... you don't need to transmit audible signals into someones head to make them hear it. You simply need to transmit signals which trigger the mind to believe they are audible. Microwave and others are perfectly capable of having this effect. .

Here is a citation (I didn't believe you, TBH).

Re:Wireless access points

[stephanruby]

What's a sound shower?

Re:Wireless access points

[Xest]

"In fact, some people believe that the reason why some people claim to be susceptible to wireless networking is because it causes a ringing like tinnitus. Of course like Tinnitus (which I recently began suffering... Merry Christmas 2016) it's not possible to diagnose properly."

They can believe it all they want but it's been disproven in double blind tests.

The fact is people claiming to suffer from this have never been able to accurately state when the test access points were on or off, even though in some cases the exact same physical access points were being used as they were claiming were harming them at home, at work etc.

So the whole wireless gives me headaches thing was demonstrably bullshit, as no one has been able to show that they can actually tell when one is on or off as they claim - tests typically only sat around 50% accuracy, which is the exact same chance as guessing when there's a 50% chance of being right or wrong. If people could actually tell when wireless signals were on because it was causing them an audible effect, a pain effect, or some other, then the accuracy rate would be way above 50/50, you'd expect to be able to achieve a 95%+ accuracy rate, but even if they could consistently at least achieve 70%+ it would be something.

Titles

[hattable]

I'm glad no one ever oversells a story with a catchy headline...

Re:I actually agree

[mlyle]

It's against Cuba's apparent interest, yes.

False flag is one of 3 big possibilities I can think of. Another is something that was intended to be a more subtle operation of some kind that was badly fucked up. Last, there could be rogue elements in Cuba's intelligence apparatus that would rather relations not improve.

Re: Microwave weapons

[pezpunk]

this also opens up the possibility that it could have merely been faulty microwave ovens in adjacent rooms.

Don't believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

This "crisis" is brought to you by the same US diplomatic dipshits that thought Canada was bugging/tracking them when they found something on the Canadian coins in their change. They were sure they had found some sort of electronic tag stuck to the coins. Turns out it was newly minted commemorative coins with small coloured maple leafs that freaked them out.

Likely ultrasonic based

[Wizardess]

Visit New York New York® Las Vegas hotel. Visit the Cirque show. Visit the bathrooms associated with the show. Listen to the strange voices you hear. But, only you can hear it. This is done with modulated ultrasonic sound waves, a shaped reflector, and your ears.

And if the State Department people are so dumb they cannot turn around and sleep with their feet where their head would normally be to escape something specific to where the head normally rests, they have earned their headaches. And, yes, I believe the average US diplomat could not find its ass in the dark using both hands.

{^_^}

Re:I actually agree

[Gavagai80]

China is the last country that would risk targeting US and Canadian diplomats. They have too many diplomats of their own and too much vested monetary interest in stability of relations (for trade) to take even the tiniest risk of the kind of worldwide condemnation that action would bring if discovered. Venezuela is a possibility because they're desperate. But a non-governmental group is more likely.

It can't be a false flag operation, because there's no flag and no clear attempt to implicate a country. It can be a clumsy attempt by extremist elements from Miami to sabotage relations.

Re:Off the wall guess

[whit3]

Ultrasonic is a reasonable guess because the wavelength would be short enough to aim and meet the other characteristics described in the summary.

Well, not really. The ability of air to transmit ultrasound is limited (it disperses into heat quickly), and for brain damage to result, the ultrasound has to get inside the skull. If the events happened in a water tank, ultrasound would be more credible. Infrasound has range, but requires large generating structures, and would have done things (like rattling windows) which are not reported.

Monolithic

[JBMcB]

You're assuming the Cuban government is one monolithic entity. There might be a faction of the government that wants to mess with Cuban-US relations.

A huge chunk of their GDP, roughly 20%, comes from assistance from Venezuela. Thawing US relations might be a threat to that income stream. Then again, Venezuela might see thawing US-Cuban relations as a threat, as well, though I don't think a Venezuelan attack on US diplomats in Cuba would happen without someone in the Cuban government, at the very least, knowing about it.

Re: I actually agree

[Anonymous Coward]

That comment was so long i had to brew a coffee and come back and it was still going

My sense of humor is absent nowadays

[HBI]

About the time that my Iraq battle buddy and his wife got assaulted by some Antifa thugs.

It's very personal at this point.

Re:My sense of humor is absent nowadays

[Hognoxious]

When you have a weapon with a range of 27i you can't shoot somebody who's 34i away.

Re:Trump's fault!

[someone1234]

This stuff is older than Trump's presidency. I doubt the CIA would do this. The tech seems to be refined enough to say this is likely Russian and not Cuban, so KGB. They have all the motive (eliminate suspected enemy agents) and ability to pull this trick.

North Korea?

[whodunit]

Gee, what if there was a country that has high tensions with the United States right now and is also obsessed with attacking, injuring or harming the United States as a matter of ideological zealotry, and actually has a goddamned physical embassy in Cuba to base agents out of? Gee, I fuckin wonder.

Re:North Korea?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they tested this same technology on that young American prisoner who died of severe brain damage...

Re:I actually agree

[whodunit]

You just aptly described how Trump made his money by turning his own name into a brand, rather than actual real estate investment, and then followed it with "stop thinking of Trump in terms of politics," politics being that game where it's all about turning your name into a brand...

psychogenic illness

[Martin S.]

symptoms that have no plausible organic basis;
symptoms that are transient and benign;
symptoms with rapid onset and recovery;
occurrence in a segregated group;
the presence of extraordinary anxiety;
symptoms that are spread via sight, sound or oral communication;
a spread that moves down the age scale, beginning with older or higher-status people;
a preponderance of female participants

Re:I actually agree

[Narcocide]

He didn't show shit, you liar.

Re:I actually agree

[Freischutz]

he already made and lost a fortune several times.

Well, that's the myth at least. We won't know for sure until we see those tax returns.

He's already shown them, and caused the Hillary loving media to weep. Trump's black-mark in business is a casino hotel in NV needing to go into administration (chapter 11), which it soon left to continue as business as normal. The bank that held a significant part of the debt were happy to take a large number of shares in the business as principal repayment. Hillary's media chums won't tell you that, it doesn't fit their rhetoric. It happens hundreds of times per day across the land.

Here's an annotated list of Donald Trump black-marks in business (aka. bankruptcies). And yes, there's more than one of them: http://www.politifact.com/trut... It's worth keeping in mind that this does not count his other failed business ventures that petered out into nothing or ended up being quietly euthanized in a hailstorm of lawsuits and even fraud and racketeering allegations without actually declaring bankruptcy.

Infrasound from mains hum

[Martin S.]

Infrasound from mains hum would not surprise me as a trigger and attributing it to malicious intent down to the stressful situation, elsewhere people attribute this to ghosts or electronics hypersensitivity.

I would try swap out all the power supply transformers in effected areas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Infrasound from mains hum

[guruevi]

Mains hum at 50/60Hz, not particularly infrasound.

Obviously you have to expect

[CptLoRes]

some teething problems when building a mind probe.

Re:Brown Noise?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Maybe it was Toxoplasma gondii https://science.slashdot.org/s...

Re:I actually agree

[Hognoxious]

Of course there's a flag. What country is it happening in?

It's the dirty hippies!

[Hognoxious]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:I actually agree

[drinkypoo]

You just aptly described how Trump made his money by turning his own name into a brand, rather than actual real estate investment, and then followed it with "stop thinking of Trump in terms of politics," politics being that game where it's all about turning your name into a brand...

Politics is a means to an end to Trump, not the game itself. He doesn't love to play the game. He loves to see his name in gold.

Having too much cuban rum can do wonders.

[Mrakodrap]

One can find himself inexplicably exposed to angry locals, and still not remember anything in the morning, other than self-suggested lies, where their bruises were caused by hypno-toad-ethical sonic waves.

Re:Microwave weapons

[guruevi]

Given it's an office space as well as a living space, if what you're saying is correct, the sounds are most likely emanating from the CIA goon in the basement making hot pockets while he's burning the midnight oil, not international interference.

Smartphones

[XNormal]

We live in a world where virtually everyone has a camera and audio recording device on them at all times. It's no coincidence that people's willingness to believe in UFO reports, for example, has dropped sharply.

Even if some of this is outside the hearing range, any phone should be able to record at least *something*.

Not a single piece of recorded evidence? Count me as extremely skeptical.

Vindicated

[rholtzjr]

Does this now point out that tinfoil hatters may not be conspiracy nutters that they are depicted as? Kind of makes you wonder.

Dial M for Mystery

[epine]

Everyone has probably heard stories (urban legends) about gaslighting high-strung couch potatoes with adjustable rabbit ears who are too addicted to sports or sitcoms for their own good.

(I once tried this on my younger siblings using an antique frequency generator wired to a small yagi under my bed—we lived on an isolated hilltop acreage—but it only caused minor snow and zigzag patterns, despite being just one room away; we generally had bad reception anyway, and they found the effect unremarkable.)

To be certain an effect is localized, you need to measure it in many places at the same time.

Otherwise, quite possibly, some asshole or algorithm merely has his/her/its hand on the dial.

Re: Microwave weapons

[Dan East]

I also suspect it is a microwave / RF based weapon. It would be extremely difficult to focus sonic energy and have it pass through walls in a building. Sound waves are, after all, vibrations through a physical medium, and every time you transition from one physical medium to another (air to wall, through the things in the wall, back to air, etc), the sound would be diffracted and reflected all over the place.

Because the energy was very highly focused, that pretty much rules out an acoustic device unless the device was right in the room or perhaps embedded in the wall of the room. Due to the number of people affected in various locations, I don't think it is realistic that there would have been so many of these devices in so many places. Plus they would be discovered once an investigation began if they were in the buildings.

There are many studies showing that RF energy with enough power, directed through the brain, will manifest as sound. The energy will also cause various kinds of damage to the structures in the head and brain.

So that really only leaves RF energy as a source that can be focused to that extent ("It was as if he'd walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room."), which can pass through walls with little or no refraction / reflection, be operated from some distance away (even outside the building), manifests as sound when the head is directly in the path of the energy, and can cause injuries more than just hearing loss.

It sounds like the attacks were done while people were asleep in bed. If the attacker knew the general layout of the rooms (where the bed was relative to the window) then they could easily direct the weapon to the head area of the bed and leave it for a few minutes, perhaps very slowly sweeping it across that general area. If a light was turned on, then they would probably move to the next target room because they knew they had achieved the desired result.

Here's a study going into the specifics of RF energy being perceived as sound:
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups...

It's not a "sonic attack"...

[hazardPPP]

...just "Despacito" playing 24/7 at a nearby cafe with the bass jacked all the way up.

If only we had some sort of device ...

[aliquis]

... which could record sound-waves.

Why No State Department Cooperation?

[Toad-san]

I see in the national news last night (Friday) that the Cuban Premier honestly admitted they don't know what's going on. And they invited the FBI to send down teams to investigated (although no idea if the FBI teams are still there). AND they invited the US State Department to join them in a bilateral investigation. Which invitation, naturally, the State Department didn't even bother responding to.

Sure sounds like they're innocent. Unless there's some rogue agency doing this, of course. The Cubans have never been slouches with secret service, KGB equivalents, etc.

Re:I actually agree

[hey!]

Actually you may be garbling the story that Meuller *might* have Trump's tax returns.

Nobody but the IRS has seen any of Trump's recent tax returns.

Re: Microwave weapons

[Spamalope]

You could use two or more beams from different directions in order to insure that the critical level only occurred where the beams met. A bit like they way radiation therapy is done.

Re:I actually agree

[seven of five]

He likes big shiny things with his name on it.

Not just his name... daddy's too...

Same thing, new name

[Lost Penguin]

Soviets used to do this as far back as the 80s....

They get a group to assault a targeted person, torture and interrogate the victim, then pay the group to keep quiet and the result is they have a group of spies for life. /scopolomine is a awful drug.

Bet it's a disease

[gurps_npc]

Would not surprise me if it is some disease.

The lack of an explanation does not....

[mark-t]

.... point to a conspiracy theory as being the most probable cause.

Sure, nobody seems to know what happened or how or why, but the most you can do at this point is try and be watchful to see if it happens again, and hopefully be prepared enough for it to take measurements and from that, isolate a cause.

Past events for which the only existing record is human recollection, regardless of the number of people who appear to have been affected, cannot be objectively scrutinized and there is no scientifically valid basis to come to any kind of conclusion.

Seriously, if people can be called delusional (through perhaps no fault of their own) for believing in an invisible god, I see no reason to treat the belief in some kind unknown sonic weapon being used against these people any differently until, and not before, some actual evidence that goes beyond merely anecdotal is apparent.

A new thing?

[WaffleMonster]

Sounds to me like old-school resonate microwave cavity spy bugs gone awry.

My guess is modern variants use extremely focused transmitters to avoid detection and idiots who installed them were not thinking placing transmitter in path where people would be dwelling for prolonged periods of time resulting in RF enriched brain cells of surveillance targets.

Re:Off the wall guess

[mikael]

Beta radiation beam from a smoke detector? Presumably the diplomats were sleeping with their pillows next to the wall. So it would be something that was either in the bedframe, mattress, in or behind the wall.

Neyt Cuba, comrade....

[TiggertheMad]

Excellent point. When there is a crime committed, the police will ask who benefits from it. Who benefits from Cuban diplomats being attacked and maimed?

Also, what countries are willing to commit outlandish and almost comic book esq plots against people they don't like? The KGB springs to mind, with their strange assassination techniques that they have employed in the past. (Look up details on their radiation poisoning of people. Rather than just hit somebody with a car when they walk across the street, the have engaged in Bond villain level silliness.)

Further, keep in mind that they have already shown that they are willing to engage in manipulation of the US elections, so they are clearly willing to try bold and aggressive things. Attacking diplomats on foreign soil as a false flag op is a pretty hostile act.

Re:I actually agree

[HiThere]

It's not definitely a false flag operation. It's not even definitely a real effect. It could be a neurologic problem, and allergy, a disease, or even plumbing noises and lack of sleep.

That it's something real is quite believable. That it's a sonic weapon is a bit dubious. That it's an attack by someone is plausible.

If it were a sonic weapon, where would that weapon need to be located? How big would it need to be? Would it need a clear air path? What could it use for reflectors, and are such things present?

Most of those questions look quite dubious for a secretly concealed weapon. OTOH, the Russians are reported to have used microwaves to irradiate the US embassy staff (though I find it more believable that they were somehow involved in an attempt to bug the joint). So if I were going to pick a villain, and believed they hypothesis of attack, I'd opt for the Russians. And a sonic weapon seems quite dubious, though that it might be perceived as a sonic attack when the actual modality was something electromagnetic doesn't seem too implausible.

Re:I actually agree

[benjfowler]

Why are you trying so hard here to deflect blame from the Russians?

Unless of course, you're a Russian troll information warrior talking shit.

Get a grip!

[AutodidactLabrat]

This is a commercial product, focused, phase differential modulated ultrasonic flat panel speakers.
Been a niche market toy for years.
Now it's used as a torture device?
Well call Beyonce, she needs more through-wall exposure

Re:I actually agree

[kenai_alpenglow]

and his accountants.

Can earth tremors be the cause?

[rapjr]

Wikipedia says "Cuba is located in an area with several active fault systems which produce on average about 2000 seismic events each year." One explanation for why only the diplomats were affected could be that native Cuban's have adapted via evolution to the effects of tremors (maybe native Cuban's think "Oh, an earth tremor, I should walk a few feet to the side so it doesn't hurt my head", though you'd think there would be stories about something like that). A natural cause seems like a possible explanation since the size of the equipment needed to cause this kind of damage would make it very difficult to hide (e.g., a large diesel engine at each location driving a massive transducer, though I suppose it could be disguised as a large truck.) . Low frequency sounds are not directional (without something like a 100 foot long horn to direct the sound), so setting up an interference pattern that attacked one location would require quite a few huge oscillators and there would still likely be resonance peaks in other locations and other people affected (although the oscillators might be easier to hide since they would not need to be right next to the target). Tuning the oscillators so you know you'll affect a specific target area would be difficult to do in secret. It's a stretch but a natural phenomenon so far seems like the simplest explanation. Installing some measurement gear in the affected locations would provide some facts for narrowing down possible causes; I'm surprised we haven't heard anything about measurement results given how long this has been going on. The US wouldn't need Cuba's approval to install some test equipment in an embassy. It might be easy to correlate the timing of attacks with seismographic data as well to test the possibility of a natural cause.

Re:Can earth tremors be the cause?

[Gussington]

One explanation for why only the diplomats were affected could be that native Cuban's have adapted via evolution to the effects of tremors

WTF? Seriously? The average tourist numbers in Cuba are in the millions per year, but this only has affected a handful of US and Canadian diplomats, and it only started occurring in recent months. Whatever it is, I think you may have also been subjected to it...

Obviously

[HBI]

Obviously I didn't spend the first 20 years of my life living under the specter of Soviet annihilation. Obviously, I don't work for the US military and have never deployed to theaters where Soviet-era weaponry was lobbed at me. And obviously, i'm a conspiracy theorist who believes Russia is behind every effect in the world.

That pretty much covers it.

More seriously, you lefty Russia nuts are crazy. I knew some serious anti-communists in my time, but they at least had some sense to their views at some level. You Russia people are just reflexively assuming that Russia did this and Russia did that. I'm suspicious of them - you people are seriously fucked up. Why, because they made Obama look like a fool? It wouldn't take much, you know.

Ways to reduce your future stroke risk

[Paul Fernhout]

https://www.drfuhrman.com/lear...
"The main cause of an ischemic or embolic stroke is the Standard American Diet, which is low in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants but high in inflammatory animal products and refined/processed foods. This leads to inflammation, oxidative stress, and immune dysfunction that promote vascular damage. Strokes are associated with diseases that are a result of poor diet such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, and chronic kidney disease. Tobacco use and a sedentary lifestyle also contribute to stroke risk. Hemorrhagic strokes have a different constellation of risks, including salt, medications, and alcohol use and a low cholesterol level versus a high cholesterol level for ischemic stroke. ..."

Good luck!