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Victims of Mystery Attacks In Cuba Left With Anomalies In Brain Tissue (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: American victims of mysterious attacks in Cuba have abnormalities in their brains' white matter, according to new medical testing reported by the Associated Press. But, so far, it's unclear how or if the white-matter anomalies seen in the victims relate to their symptoms. White matter is made up of dense nerve fibers that connect neurons in different areas of the brain, forming networks. It gets its name from the light-colored electrical insulation, myelin, that coats the fibers. Overall, the tissue is essential for rapidly transmitting brain signals critical for learning and cognitive function.
In August, U.S. authorities first acknowledged that American diplomats and their spouses stationed in Havana, Cuba, had been the targets of puzzling attacks for months. The attacks were carried out by unknown agents and for unknown reasons, using a completely baffling weaponry. The attacks were sometimes marked by bizarrely targeted and piercing noises or vibrations, but other times they were completely imperceptible. Victims complained of a range of symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, headaches, balance problems, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), nosebleeds, difficulty concentrating and recalling words, permanent hearing loss, and speech and vision problems. Doctors have also identified mild brain injuries, including swelling and concussion. U.S. officials now report that 24 Americans were injured in the attacks but wouldn't comment on how many showed abnormalities in their white matter.
In August, U.S. authorities first acknowledged that American diplomats and their spouses stationed in Havana, Cuba, had been the targets of puzzling attacks for months. The attacks were carried out by unknown agents and for unknown reasons, using a completely baffling weaponry. The attacks were sometimes marked by bizarrely targeted and piercing noises or vibrations, but other times they were completely imperceptible. Victims complained of a range of symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, headaches, balance problems, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), nosebleeds, difficulty concentrating and recalling words, permanent hearing loss, and speech and vision problems. Doctors have also identified mild brain injuries, including swelling and concussion. U.S. officials now report that 24 Americans were injured in the attacks but wouldn't comment on how many showed abnormalities in their white matter.
No matter how hostile and immoral in their spying the Cubans and Russians might be, there is so little factual basis to this story, and it's so absurd that no radiation is sensed, etc., and people have visible brain pathology.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There isn't any.
Bruce Perens.
Cuba was under the protection of the USSR for quite some time. I imagine they could have been testing and developing some kind of new technology and now the Cubans have it? A lot of experimental stuff was tried all throughout the Cold War by both sides.
Be interesting if we ever learn what caused this. Normally I'd discount such bizzare reports as silly, but a lot of people were affected by this. So I think something was definitely done to them.
Lets see you point to a single documented case of someone psychologically inducing actual damage to their own brain tissue. What a jerk. This is nothing like PTSD.
Such a puzzling variety of symptoms were seen with the first BSE Patients. Not the same ones, but similar in their oddity.
It may be best not to ascribe to nefarious motives, what can simply be explained away by bad hygiene.
Captcha: gerbil...
Gerbil?
I'm not going to propose that there is no mystery here, but when probing something this mysterious and examining people as intensely as they are likely examining these individuals, I'd want to go with a setup that tests both people who were there and people who weren't. I'd also want to hide the identities from those reading the scans.
No human would be without anomalies if tested intensively enough.
or whatever they used to build the building.
the audio could be about that too.
or just drinking too much. or ac vibrating.
there's no motive and no (external) source for the supposed audio either.
would be funny though if they pinned it down to their old washing machine downstairs.
Hmm, sounds like self inflicted injuries. One thing happened, the professional paranoid got a hold of it, exaggerated the hell out of it and then all of them felt they were under attack. That constant psychological stress, affected their brains sufficiently to affect the senses they are attached to. Don't think of it as a one off but in affect a sustained psychological attack upon their own people, generating a continuous state of high stress, fear, paranoia, all feeding into delusions that created real physical harm.
Hmm, sounds like Aliens.
Think of it grinding on, hour after hour, day after day, for months, the threat of someone attacking you and destroying you mind, the message reinforced again and again and again, have you been attacked, have you heard anything, have you felt anything, every thing a possible threat, fully exposed to the enemy. They drove their own people crazy and generated real physical harm as a result.
Think of exposure to alien mind rays grinding on, hour after hour, day after day, for months attacking you and destroying your mind.
I read the list of major infectious diseases in Cuba and see several that attack brain/nervous system and some of which can even cause "brain alteration"
could this "attack" be a natural pathogen? It's the first thing that came to my mind reading the mass media hysteria over it, and after looking at all the interesting nasties that are in Cuba....
I'd like to see information from independent doctors rather than ones who work with the state department and are publishing their paper with state department input.
Bruce Perens.
I have wondered from the first time I read about these embassy attacks if someone was playing with a device that utilizes the "microwave auditory effect" that this wired article was discussing in 2008.
Perhaps they were attempting to project voices into their heads and had some sort of tuning issue that caused it to have a range of other effects.
I would like a show of hands: How many of you think this entire story is bullshit? I mean, complete and utter bollocks?
There is absolutely nothing checkable in this story except the fishy tale that "some doctors" and "others" have seen some "white matter" abnormalities. Do we know these people weren't all smoking bath salts or whatever the fuck it is these "State Department Personnel" do when they're in Cuba? With all the rum and salsa dancing and food, I'd probably be hospitalized after an extended stay in Cuba, too. Hell, one time I spent a week in New Orleans in the 80s for Mardi Gras, and I ended up on intravenous antibiotics and bed rest for a month. I didn't hear the State Department issuing any travel advisories about New Orleans and the elevated risk of venereal disease.
I'm literally trying to find one fact in this story, and then I saw this:
Yeah, this story is horseshit.
You are welcome on my lawn.
These symptoms are all explained by high-power microwave exposure. Someone simply used
surplus microwave or radar emitters at relatively short range to try and cause physical harm.
Although this may sound sophisticated, it's actually pretty low tech. Most likely North Korean
agents in Cuba, but acting without the knowledge or permission of the Cuban government.
Ok, I'll bite. Here's my theories. I'm in the "ultrasonic or electromagnetic attack" camp, but I suspect that a phased-array system is being used to try to focus the energy at the heads of the people while they sleep. Aiming phased arrays is somewhat non-trivial, so the spot of focus isn't perfect and has lots of local minima and maxima. Given the lack of knowledge about the exact insides of the room and what's in the walls, the instigator probably can't control the exact shape of the focused spot even if they completely understand the performance of their device. This explains the range of symptoms. Some consular personnel were hit with maxima in the ears, some on the eyes, some on the brain, etc. etc. Maybe there's a chemical explanation - something toxic to nerves. But some of the people had concussions. Can a person get a concussion from a chemical? Outside of my expertise.... It'll be interesting to eventually find out who is doing this. I would say that it requires doctorate-level skill in either physics, or mechanical or electrical engineering to do something like this, so we're talking about smart people. But there are a lot of those around nowadays, in lots of parts of the world. This isn't the work of a first-rate or even second-rate intelligence agency. As far as espionage/sabotage goes, this is super-sloppy work. Who would be so dumb as to try this on US people... and so many times...... one wrong move and the US will get a person in custody, or capture the tricked-out van that's doing this, or intercept a cell phone call, and figure out who's behind it. At that point, if it's sponsored by a country, there will probably be holy hell to pay. A small terrorist group? This seems a bit out of the ability of most terrorist types. Most of them can barely put a simple bomb together properly. I've got no good theory on who's doing it, but I'd bet a paycheck that the US intelligence agencies already know.
they wanted to spy on you so hard drive
your ears and brains were the collateral damage
Well done, Comrade! You are earning your rubles. Soon the imperialist Yankee pig-dogs will start believing your glorious Russian propaganda, da?
Because! Aliens! have! taken! over! Cuba!
You seriously think that in less than a year Trump has utter control over an array of army doctors such that they would outright lie to this extent? Come on man. He doesn't even have full control of the state department or pretty much any other department for that matter.
Or what about the notion that Trump could coerce this many doctors to lie about this, and even if that WERE true why would the embassy staff all be sick? Do you claim that the entire staff of the Cuban embassy is making THAT up? I refer you again to my first point re: Trump and the state department - not to mention the actual timeframe in which they got sick was back in 2016 before the election. Was Trump masterfully convincing the entire Cuban embassy staff to claim they were sick at that point? To what end? I mean Scott Adams claims Trump is a master persuader but even so I'm not going to buy into Tump being that clever...
Now I'm not willing to agree it was may not even have been an attack, maybe just some natural cause of the building. But to claim there is nothing going on at all is seriously out of whack even for the paranoid among us (which I count myself in that group). There is obviously something more to the story that is not understood at this point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Four centuries of official denial have not satisfied independent investigators of the Bermuda Triangle. From the time of Shakespeare (The Tempest) to the space age, no official body will admit that the anomalies that occur in that area are of extraterrestrial origin. Even NASA will not acknowledge their measurements and probes showing the shifting and expanding of the Triangle with the ozone layer and global warming.
Is it any surprise that innocent, non-spying diplomats are suffering due to official refusal to admit the influence of alien powers over this area? Expect the zombification to continue.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Seriously how does shit like this get upvoted when it is quite obviously wrong. Sure you might want to believe it so your safe worldview may continue but you will end up believing a load of crap.
There is a plausible explanation for this mysterious attack. Currently, Microwave guns that are being used for riot-control have their frequencies tuned to be absorbed by the skin, but you can lower the frequency (longer wavelength) to make the microwave penetrate deeper, literally frying the victim's brain. When the microwave cooks the auditory region, the victim hears a phantom sound.
There is no actual recording of the sound. What the AP released is just a synthesized simulation of what it might sound like to a victim under attack.
I once had a signature.
Fuck you comrade.
...that could cause it. Or could it be self-selecting? :-)
In any case, it's only correlation in a very small n, until proven otherwise.
Raytheon has been playing around with such toys for quite some while now.
They were also spotted when Paul Wellstone's plane mysteriously crashed.
"Thanks Obama"
Welcome to the wonderful world of psychiatry pseudo-science psycho babble psychopaths. They decide what's reality and fiction and you're forced to agree, or you're crazy. Then you're put on dangerous drugs, and of course, blacklisted by your doctors and the government. You're not allowed to read what they say about you either. It's too dangerous. If you have any health problems, that's just all in your head. The patient mill goes on uninterrupted, and they don't have to waste any money treating you for anything. And no one can sue them because you're just a crazy hypochondriac and probably have Munchhausen and injured yourself or are pretending.
Considering there is zero precedent for any kind acoustic phenomenon to cause symptoms like this
Considering they have brain abnormalities it seems like whatever happened may not have been acoustic. It could be what was "heard" was a side effect of trauma to the brain, which would also explain why some people heard nothing if the brain was affected in differing locations.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If Cuban communist agents really wanted to infiltrate America they could have just landed on US soil and claimed asylum which would have been granted, just as it had been for decades up until earlier this year when Obama ended that policy. If this were a real goal of Cuba, the U.S. would be rife with Cuban spies unless they only decided they should get in on this whole espionage thing within the last 10 months. There were so many Cubans actually trying to escape that even thousands of spies would have been able to blend in quite easily.
Also, I'm not sure if the tinfoil hat has ever been accurately prescribed as a remedy, but in this case the US could ask the embassy workers to wear it as a precaution. It would actually be effective against microwave guns if it were the true cause.
I once had a signature.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Actual attacks happened back in 2016. You know, before the election? So TWO administrations (that absolutely despise each other) both claim something happened and you say no?
HMM.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The thought of ungrounded aluminum foil building up with a charge until it arks through the rest of your body on the way to finding a ground path.
The really scary question though is: Was this a foreign sponsored attack or a US trial run also doubling as a 'terrorist attack' since the US hasn't had anything big to use as an excuse for more fearmongering recently (other than Obama for conservatives and Trump for liberals that is...)
Motivation: Who would be motivated to cause this? Does anyone benefit from it?
Dispersion: Have no Cubans suffered from similar symptoms? Has anyone bothered to check?
Location: Were all affected families living in the embassy? What other areas were 'attacked'?
The 'white matter' test evidence seems weak, just as the entire story is vague. Until our own government is honest about what they've found, it just seems like another conspiracy theory. The kind of vague rumor they create when they are contemplating an offensive action against a country.
...omphaloskepsis often...
First is the more obvious one: Obama normalized relations with Cuba, essentially declaring them a "normal" nation (in the diplomacy sense). At the time, anybody critical was denounced as some sort of knuckle-dragging cave man not willing to leave the cold war for the 21st century of peaceful bliss ---- apparently we now have evidence that he missed the idea that perhaps the Cuban government was staffed with knuckle-draggers.
Second: The State Department is one of the most left-wing parts of the permanent government because FDR stuffed it with his more left-wing team members as he shifted from his progressive economics of the Depression era to a massive war footing for WWII. Ever since then, they have been the ones recruiting and training and evaluating the new people so the place has remained for decades staffed by people who think in the same bubble. They have a reputation for thinking they know more, and should be more in charge of, foreign policy and such than the politicians elected by the people, seemingly having disdain for democracy while often talking it up publicly. The State Department has a decades-long tradition of trying to force its policies onto presidents of all parties and ignoring congress. As a result, it's not very likely that this is a bunch of right-wing TEA Party types who got apponted to the State Deppartment by Trump and who are now pretending to be injured as a way to degrade Obama's Cuba policies; i.e. it's almost certainly a real thing and now we apprently have medical data to that effect.
Third: Just because it's a real thing, and it's not people opposed to Cuba trying to trash the Cuba deal, that still does not prove it's an attack. If it is an attack, there's still no proof it is by Cuba. Perhaps a team sent by Putin is trying to keep the Cubans from warming up to the USA? Even it it's Cubans, that does not mean it is the entire Cuban government. It could be, but it could also be only a segment of the Cuban government.
There's still a lot of unknowns here.
Think of the stress of working in an embassy like that.
Think of the literally hundreds of jobs that are far more stressful than being stationed in an embassy, and yet which don't show the same symptoms.
Welcome to the wonderful world of psychiatry pseudo-science psycho babble psychopaths. They decide what's reality and fiction and you're forced to agree, or you're crazy. Then you're put on dangerous drugs, and of course, blacklisted by your doctors and the government.
Fortunately for mankind, the Church of Scientology has ALL the answers! (hearty, {yet not hysterical, because that might be symptomatic of Thetan infection} laughter)
What would the question be after getting to the USA?
That the Cuban mil stood down to let a spy escape as a cover story.
Past what now is the CDR, police, army, to the coast, past the patrolling navy and airforce?
Turn up and show the US gov trusted them enough to have real documents?
After some conversations the next plan to spread freedom to Cuba is shared.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Uhm, go to a psych ward. Anyone banging their head in the wall has psychologically induced brain trauma.
However, you don't get brain damage from sounds and tones. It's more likely that the researchers are just picking up on previous trauma which anything (you fell on your head as a child or played high school football) induces white matter tissue damage and an MRI will pick up on it, these people are combat-trained CIA operatives in a foreign country, to enter their training alone you must already have permanent brain damage.
If you have a doctor not specialized into neuroscience and specifically TBI looking at a whole brain with a magnifying glass without taking into account the entire medical and even non-medical history, you'll see all kinds of oddities.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
It could well be that a pathogen generated those alteration, which IN TURN, generated the felt symptom. Both separately says diddly squat until you prove which was the cause and which was the effect.
You are an idiot - http://healthland.time.com/201... and https://www.researchgate.net/p.... In fact simply do the search yourself https://duckduckgo.com/?q=stre.... Stupid is as stupid does and they have been quite stupid.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The aliens tried that in World War 2. Abducted some GIs right off the battlefield.
One of the GIs woke up from the sedation, lying on a table. He noticed their weapons were just laying against a wall. Apparently the aliens didnâ(TM)t understand what they were. He jumped off the table, rushed to the weapons, and picked up a machine gun. He then took care of business.
Anyone banging their head in the wall has psychologically induced brain trauma.
No, that is physically induced brain trauma. Regardless of WHY your head hit the wall, it is the physical impact that did the damage.
Thank you, Russian Sock Puppet #1337.
(And yes, I'm aware that you're famous, but that doesn't mean you don't have a price. Maybe they've got leverage on you.)
This is idiotic...obviously high level doctors have already gone over the cases. Your understanding seems to be at about a high school level and yet youâ(TM)re playing armchair surgeon.
Hello,
CBS News reports that the same type of attack may have occurred on USAID workers in Uzbekistan; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u...
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Well, reading some of his leaked emails on the dark web, SOMEONE is definitely paying him.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Some US athletes were claiming that they were robbed at gun point in Rio during the Olympic Games. It was a big story in the media.
Until it was proven irrevocably by the organizing side that they were just lying brazenly.
I guess that at least some part of the American people believe that they are kind of exclusive, much cleverer than others. And that they can get away with about any lie. My point is that one has to look for irrevocable evidences as soon as one hears such unusual claims.
No, they were taken out of a B-17. See, video proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
too much country music.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Famous LOL
Don't get any ideas.
Now we KNOW it was the Russians. Just look how many Russian Trolls are in this thread making up crazy excuses like this one.
They heard sounds: aka Microwave auditory effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
They reported dizziness, headaches, pins and needles..... again microwave attack. And the fried brains are not random, again microwave.
I doubt Cuba would do it, because it would not have a positive benefit for them, but would cause a backlash, so it will be some bad actor wanting that backlash.
... entirely. Mass hysteria has effects that can be bizarr and creepy to the utmost extent. And as far as we know, nobody is fully immune to it. For one, mass hysteria does spread similar to a disease. Because you need to meet people who have fallen prone to the hysteria for it to spread. Or you need to be primed by some detailed description of it in an environment that emphasises the fact that the effects have a "real" cause.
That scientist find "alterations in brain tissue" could be simply because they were looking for them.
Note: I'm not ruling out some sort of weapon, but right now mass hysteria seems more plausible to me. The story has all the ingredients.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Targeting USAID workers is so bizarre, that it almost reaches the threshold of being communist-bizarre. ;)
I do not understand why almost everybody keeps referring to these phenomena as 'atacks'. An 'attack' implies a malevolent agent and purpose.
So if you don't know what happened, what exactly is the damage or even whether anything happened at all, why keep using the word 'attack', implying that the Cubans had anything to do with it and did it on purpose? Unless of course somebody wants a reason to put pressure on Cuba. But the american gouvernement would not do that,would they?
Paai
Ate there any correlation to the Otto Warmbier injuries?
It was probably just a faulty speaker or sound system. The US always loves to play the victim though,
Kill a Rusky onsite. I beat the crap out of some asshole wearing a CCCP shirt. He was easily 6'4". You should have heard him cry.
Hardy har, fruitcake. You still wallow in our crap.
So they can't detect CTE even though it's massive damage to a very select number of people that they can identify but they can detect this?
I've also stopped believing that Pot kills brain cells.
A drastic change of environment and possibly dietary conditions caused this, not some secret weapons.
Oh look ma, a crazy person!
Get back on your meds!
focused microwave? modified MRI machine? Cuban has a lot of MRI machine, older one.
It's alcoholism, not some weird weapons
Cuba is the land of cigars. They could have been given doctored cigs with LSD or some such, but it is pretty unlikely.
Let's see...you're asking me if Hillary Clinton and Rex Tillerson are both capable of lying?
No, I'm asking if you believe they are capable of liking each other enough to coordinate the SAME EASILY DISPROVED LIE.
Also You brought up the entirely wrong person, Hillary was not president last year - Obama was. Same point though, are Rex Tillerson and Obama going to be willing to work together on the same lie about embassy workers in Cuba???? Really? Why.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do they now have superpowers?
Not sure why Cuba was blamed/implicated in this attack as I am very doubtful they had the technology nor had anything to gain by destroying a newly improved relationship with the US?
Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, is a strategic (intelligence) location for many reasons, keeping the US out (at least formally) ensures that others can remain unwatched in their activities.
I'm having a hard time believing that a country basically trapped in the 1950s due to various embargo's/limited resources somehow developed a highly advanced energy/sonic weapon that is somehow confounding the best medical science available. More likely its something much more "mundane" (a diluted chemical weapon, radioactive powder, etc) or something entirely accidental (mold, old chemicals, contaminated water, etc) that is being blown out of proportions by overactive imaginations.
Why would Cuba want to irradiate the American diplomats? It wants the good trading relations with the US as far as I know.
It is rather seldom that a crime is being committed without a motive.
Do you think that, since they don't know what's causing these symptoms, perhaps they could lay off calling it an attack? You know, until they have some evidence. Or is it now US foreign policy to characterise everything that they don't understand that affects US personnel as an attack?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
It was recorded. Your doubt redirection is useless.
Nobody knows no nothing, just like through Kennedy's assassination. Truth is, I'd rather see less of NGO's trying to infiltrate Cuban way of life and more of diplomatic relations rendezvouses. But that wishful thinkking doesn't fall in line to pre-charted lines of certain powerful figures in espionage apparatus of the USA.
Lets stop tourism to Cuba
Again, that is the claim but no names about these "doctors" are being given. Also, I do work in neuroscience.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
That may or may not be the case. There is no discussion of the qualifications or expertise of the doctors who have made the claims, or whether there has been external review of the brain scans, or some other form of peer-review.
White matter abnormalities are incredibly common. Many people over the age of 40 will have some; and if someone has ever smoked significantly, taken illicit drugs (especially amphetamines, MDMA or similar deriviatives or cocaine), got hypertension, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, cardiac rhythm or structural abnormalities, migraine, then they will almost certainly have white matter abnormalities. Then you have all the people with specific white matter diseases: MS, lupus, lyme, etc. and other brain diseases like trauma, strokes, childhood infections (chickenpox, rubella, measles, etc.), metabolic, genetic and mitochondrial diseases, etc.
While many of these conditions are indistinguishable on MRI, some have characteristic features, which can favor one set of diagnoses over another. However, this tends to require considerable experience. My experience is that non-experts frequently badly misjudge the likely diagnoses of white matter abnormalities, or even whether they are likely to be relevant or a chance finding. For example, MS seems to be a favorite wrong diagnosis in my region, and I spend about 5-10% of my time undoing this diagnosis, because someone has seen some white matter abnormalities on MRI, judged them to be important, and called them the first thing that came to mind.
You are an idiot - http://healthland.time.com/201... and https://www.researchgate.net/p.... In fact simply do the search yourself https://duckduckgo.com/?q=stre.... Stupid is as stupid does and they have been quite stupid.
I would post studies showing Aliens causing the same damage but it's classified and they would find me.
They use this tech on me and my Dad.
They caused swelling in the brain and other body parts too.
They caused swelling in the throat so that he cannot breath.
We have also gone through dizziness, nausea, headaches, balance problems, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), nosebleeds, difficulty concentrating and recalling words, and speech and vision problems.
The CIA and Military has this tech.