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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

#51

Post by tomxor »

Has anyone noticed this kind of sound at certain positions when swimming around a boat with it's radar on near shore?

Just anecdotal I don't know for sure, but I've experienced it a couple of times, at first thinking it was dolphins or whales, but it's more of a continuous noise and seems quite positional as if it is a reflection and superposition... pretty much all boats have some kind of radar that operate in the microwave frequency range, so it seems like a strong candidate for the source.

It wasn't so strong to be nauseating, just noticeable and weird sounding... then again I wasn't trying to sleep through it.

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

#52

Post by thatjoeoverthr »

tgflynn wrote: post #43
thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #6

Where’s the part where they send a device to detect microwaves or sonic waves, and find them? How come it doesn’t occur to journalists to ask this? As per the article, they found the signal in Moscow, and there weren’t even symptoms to prompt them to do so. Another commenter mentioned “triangulation”. It’s less than that. There is no reported observation of a signal of any kind. History Channel “ghost hunters” are mo…

There's this: > Prof Golomb says high levels of radiation were recorded by family members of personnel in Guangzhou using commercially available equipment. "The needle went off the top of the available readings." But she says the State Department told its own employees that the measurements they had taken off their own back were classified. But that's the only mention of physical measurements in the entire long artic…

You’re right, I missed that. Uff.

“Off the top of the available readings” isn’t very helpful either, though; it may be the case that the upper limit of that experiment is far from an important level of radiation. A description of a “needle” is good visual persuasion but what does it mean really?

No mention of a followup. Why no followup?

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

#53

Post by kritiko »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #38
kritiko wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/are-us-officia...

This New Yorker article from May alleges that somebody was hit on the grounds of the White House, one of the most heavily surveilled areas of the world... it's really hard for me to accept that there is a secret, highly portable tech that leaves no clear evidence and this is how it's being used.

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

#55

Post by kritiko »

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.

If it's being covered up why have NY Times, New Yorker, etc. covered this extensively with quotes from the alleged victims?

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

#56

Post by mbg721 »

kritiko wrote: post #55
oxymoran wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it's being covered up why have NY Times, New Yorker, etc. covered this extensively with quotes from the alleged victims?

This seems like the opposite of a cover-up; media outlets are loudly and repeatedly covering this Mysterious Threat, and even gave it a catchy name.

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

#57

Post by JoshTko »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #14
JoshTko wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many possible reasons. If Russia is behind this, it's a great proof of concept test of low traceable weapon that can target and disable high value targets of relatively high profile.

There are only stupid reasons to test a secret weapon in the exact place you want to secretly use it later. So these aren't intended as tests, they are either intended as attacks or else just something that USG employees get for other reasons.

Who said secret? The point is that it just needs to be untraceable back to Russia.

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

#58

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

kritiko wrote: post #53
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/are-us-officia... This New Yorker article from May alleges that somebody was hit on the grounds of the White House, one of the most heavily surveilled areas of the world... it's really hard for me to accept that there is a secret, highly portable tech that leaves no clear evidence and this is how it's being used.

there are more things in this world, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

technology-wise, we humans are just fancy cavemen with fire

(also, we don't know that this is portable)

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

#59

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

I am a little bit skeptical about the microwave theory. The transmitters would have to be very powerful and very close by. Also, the signal would be very easy to detect with a cheap receiver. Since this problem seems to be around for a while, I would assume that embassies would be equipped with receivers.

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

#60

Post by api »

JoshTko wrote: post #5
api wrote: post #4

The biggest mystery to me is why the hell someone would do this. What are they gaining? Are they trying to frame someone else? Just disrupt operations? For the spy vs spy lulz? Second biggest mystery is how they haven't just triangulated these. Someone in signals intelligence told me once that signal jamming is not a big problem on the battlefield because a signal jammer is also a bright RF beacon that says "shoot mi…

Many possible reasons. If Russia is behind this, it's a great proof of concept test of low traceable weapon that can target and disable high value targets of relatively high profile.

Sometimes with these things I wonder if it might not be a marketing demonstration, sort of like how DDOS as a service providers used to try to take down GitHub to demonstrate their power to potential clients.

"Look at what we did to the US diplomatic corps! For only a few million or a few suitcases of cocaine you too can have this power to use against dissidents in your own country!"

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