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Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

theguardian.com

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Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#31

Post by tyingq »

Google234 wrote: post #4
rbanffy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A small detector would be easy to build and carry around, with 80’s technology. The connection between these events is tenuous at best.

Yeah, it actually looks like you can buy them on Amazon for about 30$. I don’t want to doubt but this seems so simple to test that the lack of any direct evidence makes me suspicious. https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Radiation-5HZ-3500MHz...

The descriptions of the attacks seem to indicate a pretty narrow beamwidth, so you'd probably have to wear it on a helmet :)

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#32

Post by [deleted] »

cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

[deleted]

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#33

Post by leoc »

cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

Is your claim that the US EE professor and the US professor of neurosurgery quoted in the Snopes article are lying for their government, or that they are grossly incompetent?

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#34

Post by room505 »

leoc wrote: post #27

The whole story of Polymeropoulos' visit to Russia is pretty odd even aside from his strange symptoms and the apparent attack. https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro... It sounds more than a bit like the farcical UK police visit to Moscow to investigate Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning https://news.sky.com/story/skripal-poisoning-police-must-be-... , which also saw the investigators becoming mys…

I added this this to another submission on hn and think many would be interested in what he personally has to say. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y5jTbsvd3rA

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#35

Post by fighterpilot »

cardanome wrote: post #16
GVIrish wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described. Fact is that if this is real, it is the work of a sophisticated adversary that may have found a novel way to attack people. Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even today. A relevant example is the use of mic…

> That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described. I can not disprove that there is a magic man in the sky. Or a teapot revolving around the sun. [1] The burden of proof is on the person making the claim not the other way round. Yes, lack of evidence is enough to reject it. Not to mention that the claim goes against establi…

> lack of evidence is enough to reject it

This is a pseudo-skeptical[1] finger in the ear reaction.

There's nothing in your posts here that tells me that you've reviewed the evidence that's been put forth[2] and rejected it, and it seems Snopes hasn't either.

All I see is a total a priori dismissal which is not good practice for either a skeptic or a scientist.

Here's what would've told me that this is a good faith exercise (by either you or Snopes): You show that you understand what the claimed evidence is, you present it in the most generous and strong terms, then you explain why it's wrong.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK566408/#sec0017

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#36

Post by saalweachter »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #29
bArray wrote: post #28

Are microwave attacks something that is proven to exist? Can we replicate the effects on mice from some distance? Given the fact they pass through walls, this kind of bounds the frequency range the attacks could exist in... I would expect to see radio interference on nearby devices, etc (even if operating on a different frequency). I wouldn't be entirely surprised if these could be self-manifesting symptoms from peop…

Yes, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon 2.4 GHz is used to heat your food in the microwave. Pulses that increase the fluence by an order of magnitude or more could probably boil water for a microsecond inside the brain and cause some strange reactions. What is unproven though, is how one would ever shrink the size of an electronic weapon like this.

The Active Denial System, listed on your link, causes pain by heating water in the skin.

What is the proposed system for getting microwaves past the skin into the brain without creating the same effect as the ADS?

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#37

Post by leoc »

fighterpilot wrote: post #35
cardanome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described. I can not disprove that there is a magic man in the sky. Or a teapot revolving around the sun. [1] The burden of proof is on the person making the claim not the other way round. Yes, lack of evidence is enough to reject it. Not to mention that the claim goes against establi…

> lack of evidence is enough to reject it This is a pseudo-skeptical[1] finger in the ear reaction. There's nothing in your posts here that tells me that you've reviewed the evidence that's been put forth[2] and rejected it, and it seems Snopes hasn't either. All I see is a total a priori dismissal which is not good practice for either a skeptic or a scientist. Here's what would've told me that this is a good faith e…

There's little in the Snopes article which opposes the microwave theory, as opposed to the sound theory. It quotes two US experts in favour of the idea, and the strongest evidence it gives against microwaves is a dismissive reaction from an expert who, as the article makes clear, was acting as a spokesman for the Cuban government.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#40

Post by adwi »

candiodari wrote: post #11
cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments constantly lie. In a number of cases this is explainable. For instance, one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's particularly effective. While you need uranium to find the correct values, uranium + an old tv can tell you…

> one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's particularly effective.

What is being lied about, and what is its truth?

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