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‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

bbc.co.uk

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Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#31

Post by oxymoran »

tiahura wrote: post #3

I would assume that shortly after Havana, most embassies installed equipment to detect sonic or microwave blasts. Given that we haven’t heard anything about these sensors being tripped, I’m going to assume anything after Havana is mass hysteria.

Why would you assume that we would hear anything if the sensors were tripped? It would be considered an act of war and would promote real hysteria in the general population if that were the case. It’s far more plausible that it was an attack that is being covered up for national security purposes.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#32

Post by formerly_proven »

pjc50 wrote: post #26
belter wrote: post #19

Maybe somebody was playing with the current or future generation of the portable continuous wave generator we know the NSA has...Things got out of hand? Surely there is one deployed in each Embassy? See as of 57 min and 32 sec: https://cdn.media.ccc.de/congress/2013/mp4-web/30c3-5713-en-... Edit: In case you missed the detail...From the slide shown at 58 min and 35 sec notice it says up to...1 Kilowatt

Do you have a textual reference as well please? But that would be a plausible reason for why nobody gets to the bottom of this: they do find the source, but are immediately informed that it's a classified US weapon and they're not allowed to talk about it. Including telling their fellow US embassy employees who are experiencing headaches.

It's not uncontroversial at all that microwaving people leads to health problems (the article seems to act like that's a contested idea, it is not). The US also has microwave weapons, not secret at all, even approved for use on humans and apparently also used in the US prison system (did they get the paperwork for use on animals?).

Obviously, any CW-capable transmitter may be used for microwaving things, as long as it is sufficiently robust and outputs enough power somewhere in the GHz-range (preferentially). Within that range, anything works really. Penetration goes way down as you increase frequency, but that doesn't have to be a problem. The US Active Denial System uses 95 GHz radiation (at up to 100 kW) to selectively burn the upper 0.3 mm of skin, because this tends to discourage folks from sticking around, for example. This is also why microwaves are 2.4 GHz (besides this being an ISM band), it gives you just the right penetration depth to be quite useful at evenly cooking stuff.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#33

Post by jjoonathan »

akyu wrote: post #22
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, detecing microwaves is easy, and the equipment cheap and available to everyone (relatively cheap, compared to other stuff embassys buy). Depending on the frequency, it should be detectable even with $10 rtl-sdr sticks with direct sampling. I'm fairly sure that most electrical engineering students could find out if their dorm rooms were targeted by microwaves, so why not the embassy of one of the richest and most…

They do detect them.

So what do they find when they send people to the originating location?

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#34

Post by belter »

pjc50 wrote: post #26
belter wrote: post #19

Maybe somebody was playing with the current or future generation of the portable continuous wave generator we know the NSA has...Things got out of hand? Surely there is one deployed in each Embassy? See as of 57 min and 32 sec: https://cdn.media.ccc.de/congress/2013/mp4-web/30c3-5713-en-... Edit: In case you missed the detail...From the slide shown at 58 min and 35 sec notice it says up to...1 Kilowatt

Do you have a textual reference as well please? But that would be a plausible reason for why nobody gets to the bottom of this: they do find the source, but are immediately informed that it's a classified US weapon and they're not allowed to talk about it. Including telling their fellow US embassy employees who are experiencing headaches.

NSA ANT catalog:

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

This is the target of the RF flooding...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog#/media/File:NS...

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#35

Post by boomboomsubban »

I say something like this every time I see a Havana syndrome article, but their summaries of the US National Academies of Sciences report is just ridiculous.

>The panel looked at psychological and other causes, but concluded that directed, high energy, pulsed microwaves were most likely responsible for some of the cases,

The panels ruling on a psychological cause was basically "all the available evidence fits it being a psychological cause, but as we didn't specifically test for that we can't rule it's the cause." How they completely ignored that and ruled microwaves the most likely cause is a mystery.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#36

Post by macinjosh »

tiahura wrote: post #3

I would assume that shortly after Havana, most embassies installed equipment to detect sonic or microwave blasts. Given that we haven’t heard anything about these sensors being tripped, I’m going to assume anything after Havana is mass hysteria.

This 1000%. I have been following this story closely and there has been no evidence of anything happening except symptomatic reports from government staff. It is all paranoia about Russian brain rays. Incredible.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#37

Post by bjourne »

Od that Robert Baloh who with his colleague Robert Bartholomew has written a whole book on the subject - Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria - is only mentioned in passing. The author of the BBC article clearly believes that the microwave theory is more interesting than the mass psychogenic illness theory. I think it's embarrassing that mainstream media is selling this nonsensical story. If it was some Trumpist outlet pushing it, it would have been rightly deemed a baseless conspiracy theory.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#38

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

kritiko wrote: post #8
tiahura wrote: post #3

I would assume that shortly after Havana, most embassies installed equipment to detect sonic or microwave blasts. Given that we haven’t heard anything about these sensors being tripped, I’m going to assume anything after Havana is mass hysteria.

You’re absolutely right. One of the affected people claimed in an article that I read that they were attacked in the street in the middle of DC. If this tech exists and is really so portable, seems like you could do a lot more damage than just making some CIA and State Department employees retire early.

believe it or not, denying enemy spies from operating in a location, either directly, or via fear of direct action, is really useful for your own covert operations

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#39

Post by macinjosh »

oxymoran wrote: post #31
tiahura wrote: post #3

I would assume that shortly after Havana, most embassies installed equipment to detect sonic or microwave blasts. Given that we haven’t heard anything about these sensors being tripped, I’m going to assume anything after Havana is mass hysteria.

Why would you assume that we would hear anything if the sensors were tripped? It would be considered an act of war and would promote real hysteria in the general population if that were the case. It’s far more plausible that it was an attack that is being covered up for national security purposes.

Based on what evidence?

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#40

Post by ganzuul »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #25

Interestingly enough in the unexplainable podcast episode a doctor suggested a functional disorder- when the brain reroutes itself and assumes it’s damaged when it’s not. It seemed to a layperson, myself, more reasonable than a superweapon deployed internationally that fucks with but doesn’t kill people.

A previously unknown functional disorder that stumps the government experts but this guy has figured it out, presumably from his armchair? It seems to me that this is a person who thinks they can explain everything as a consequence of their field of expertise.
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