This is probably an unpopular opinion and I don't know if it applies in this case, but I'm pretty convinced that a lot of instances like this are social contagions running wild.
Every few years in the city I live in there's a sudden uptick in reports of drinks getting spiked at local bars. I've seen the mere suggestion that there's a risk of heightened risk of getting roofied at a bar make otherwise intelligent people paranoid or start using it as an excuse for their over-indulgence. And of course, there is never any concrete evidence - nothing shows up in bloodwork, nobody is ever caught doing it... the chatter just eventually fades away.
This is obviously a different situation, but I'm weary of the massive scope this has taken on with so little concrete evidence that anything was actually happening. Maybe I'm totally wrong, or maybe it was a real phenomenon that many others hitched onto later on (seems even more plausible.) The point is that we seem to increasingly discount how much incentives and social dynamics play a role in situations like this.
My favorite unexplained mass phenomenon, the dancing plague of 1518. [1]
Apparently how powered radars are fairly common on US navy vessels, and injuries not uncommon from walking in front of them or otherwise being exposed. One would think there exists a body of knowledge on exposure to at least this sort of âhigh energyâ?
So last week there was a big Rolling Stone article bemoaning the CIA's lack of mental health support, and now this with a similar line.
> âThey wanted us to be a lab rat for a week before we actually got treatment at Walter Reed â and at bare minimum, that is unethical and immoral,â Marc Polymeropoulos told CNN in May.
I wonder what the underlying angle is here.
My money is on some combination of "comppletely made up" to "psychosomatic".
We see no better evidence of this than how cops treat fentanyl exposure. Cops act like if they're in the same room as fentanyl they might die. This has been perpetuated in media. Thing is, it's completely made up.
Fentanyl is no more dangerous to handle than talcum powder. I mean, don't ingest or inhale the powder. There are no "fumes" however.
But the cops themselves believe this to the point that they report oversdoses in the field and have legitimate panic attacks for fear of exposure [1].
Havana Syndrome was suspicious from the go. Just the association with Cuba screams CIA psy op.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/16/1175726650/fentanyl-police-ov...
For people wanting a refresher.
I believe Havana Syndrome is one of the great government coverups of our time. In 30 years there will be books and movies about it.
Right now there seems to be an unnatural lack of curiosity about it from the government, media, and public.
Well, there's this, but I guess much of the US press didn't cover that.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/01/havana-syndrom...
This is quite obviously not a ârealâ syndrome caused by foreign adversaries. The physics, scale of âattackâ, timeline, vagueness of symptoms, etc, all do not add up to a coherent phenomenon. Please put your skeptic hats on regarding this subject.
I find it funny when people write this off a psychosomatic. I find it similarly funny when people claim a conspiracy
I find the skeptical view that it would have to be some crazy science fiction "sick ray" kind of childish. The CIA literally had a "heart attack gun", and it was just a dumb dart gun with some drugs. It's easy to make simple technology sound wild and interesting and impossible. A weapon of this kind would either be very simple, or not. If it's an EM based weapon, there aren't a lot of dials to turn, so either there is a power/frequency combo that causes these effects, or not.
Likewise, I find the conspiratorial view that it definitely happened and there is some kind of cover up to hide either the weapon or some conflict pretty ridiculous. Partially for the same reasons outlined above (a weapon like this wouldn't be very interesting IMO), and partially because it took place in Cuba. Its obviously a somewhat adversarial nation. Something like this would normally be a news story for a week, if at all, then maybe be a footnote in some history books at most.
This whole episode was essentially a conspiracy theory that was taken seriously because the paranoid people who came up with it happened to be in positions of power and respect. Additionally, this whole milieu (DC gov/media) just automatically believed it because they feel like Russians are lurking behind every corner. If an average citizen went to the doctor and claimed these things they'd be shown to the psych ward.
Several comments are assuming the goal of the secret method is making someone sick. But as others have said, becoming sick may be a symptom of exposure, so the intended purpose is something else like surveillance. Hereâs the problem though, this genie is already out of the bottle, even if something like this didnât exist and the Havana syndrome is mass psychosis, someone I am sure is busy making a directed-energy surveillance mechanism because the âenemy may do it firstâ. Isnât it possible to know whatâs going on in the environment though, for example by using a spectrum analyzer, or detection methods for ultrasound?
They have found what/who has been causing this and just don't want to explain what this is. Interesting, if annoying tech.
This new conspiracy just deepens the conspiracy
Meanwhile a bunch of neurosurgeons are trying to sell everyone on "focused ultrasound" noninvasive brain surgery!
> Since then, at least 1,500 cases have been reported by US personnel stationed in 96 countries, officials said last year.
How many of those reports were after they passed the HAVANA Act, which grants significant compensation (up to one years salary) to any personnel who were affected by this vaguely defined condition with no known cause and no definitive physical indicators?