“If the facts are confirmed and if the effects are indeed caused by a physical device, I find the microwave explanation far more likely than a sonic attack.”
US Spies & the Havana Syndrome
INTEL TODAY
(October 3 2017)
October 3 2022 — On this day five years ago, INTEL TODAY coined the expression “Havana Syndrome” which is now universally used, both by mainstream media and the research community. In the same piece, I suggested for the very first time that microwave attacks, conducted for espionage, were the most likely explanation. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
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UPDATE (January 30 2023) — I never expected my ‘brainchild’ to appear in my favorite NETFLIX series… And yet, here we are!
Synopsis — The Blacklist Season 9 Episode 5 ‘Benjamin T. Okara’ begins with a mysterious death. A man driving a car suddenly begins clutching his head in pain. He eventually crashes the car, and it looks like it wasn’t the crash that killed him. Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) visits Red (James Spader), and the two talk about a weapon that can disable people by sending highly powered energy waves through walls, floors, and ceilings without detection.
Dembe tells the task force that the chief engineer in charge of expanding this directed energy weapon technology in America was a man named Dr. Benjamin T. Okara (Corey Allen). The tasks force realizes that Okara stole the weapon and is targeting the five other engineers who helped him create it.
(…)
Ressler finally understands that Okara killed his colleagues because he wants the weapon destroyed, and doesn’t want anyone else alive who knows how to make it. Okara calls the directed energy a “weapon of mass suffering.” Okara then triggers a bomb, killing himself and destroying the weapon in front of the FBI.
I still remember the imbeciles laughing at the idea of microwave espionage on Reddit Intelligence (r/Intelligence). We have come a long way since these days…
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In December 2020, the US National Academy of Sciences came to the same conclusion. In February 2022, the US ODNI released a short declassified Executive Summary which also agrees with my initial analysis.
Guess what? I think I may have a story to tell… Stay tuned!
“It’s real. It’s affecting our officers. It’s affecting others around the community, in government, and we’re going to figure it out.”
CIA Deputy Director David Cohen
Annual Intelligence and National Security Summit
(Sept. 14 2021)
A Google search of the words “Havana Syndrome” returns zillions of pieces about this fascinating mystery!
“Havana Syndrome” has entered the lexicon of widely different people: intelligence officers, military, scientists, lawmakers, journalists, judges, lawyers as well as various kind of artists.
Why did I coin this new expression and what does it mean?
As soon as I heard about this rather unusual story, I immediately made a connection between the Havana attacks and the old story of the Microwave Syndrome, thus the conflation Havana Syndrome.
The ‘Havana Syndrome’ reference — whether it is real or not — is widely accepted by the medical community.
“Havana syndrome describes a series of bothersome and sometimes debilitating symptoms that first were described in the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. The condition was initially dismissed as mass hysteria or a reaction caused by stress, but it has been suggested to be caused by ultrasonic or microwave energy used as a weapon. Symptoms are like those of a mild head injury such as headache, nausea, dizziness, confusion, and difficulty concentrating, among other symptoms. These symptoms have mostly been reported by diplomats, intelligence officers, military personnel, and others deployed on foreign soil.” [Medical Definition of Havana Syndrome — Medicinenet.com]
In fact, ‘Havana Syndrome’ has become so popular that the online Merriam Webster dictionary uses ‘Havana Syndrome’ as an example of the word syndrome, and the name may enter the Collins dictionary next year.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director William J. Burns have both made firm commitments to determining the cause of the Havana Syndrome.
Microwave spying seems plausible and there is a handful of players who may have ‘Means, Motives and Opportunity.’ But so far, there is little intelligence and even less evidence.
Last week, in his first public interview for a CNN Special Report [“Immaculate Concussion: The Truth About Havana Syndrome”] CIA physician Dr. Paul Andrews told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta that he was struck by the same set of debilitating symptoms while investigating these incidents in Havana. Microwave attacks are considered the most likely explanation for this mystery.
Although I was 100% right to suggest that this explanation was perfectly plausible, as the U.S. Academy of Sciences and several expert panels have now confirmed, I have always warned you that there was ZERO EVIDENCE that such attacks had actually occurred.
And, I also made it very clear that I had two major worries. Firstly, it never made any sense to me that the culprit would use power densities above the threshold of the FREY effect.
Secondly, I knew that the CIA was hiding a major piece of the puzzle.
Here is what I wrote on this subject:
The Accountability Review Board [ARB] report provides the first official confirmation that the CIA closed down its Havana station and pulled its operatives out of Cuba in September 2017. (…)
The ARB criticized the CIA for failing to share information about the health-related experiences of its agents in Havana in late 2016 and early 2017, delaying the State Department’s ability to rapidly react. (…)
Even within the U.S. government, the agency had been reluctant to reveal which officers had been afflicted. The DIA was so frustrated that they initiated their own investigation.
The FBI investigators quickly found out that “The Cubans are being more open about this investigation with the F.B.I. than the C.I.A. is.”
The TRUTH is now very clear. Since the very beginning of this saga, the CIA knew full well that ‘PATIENT ZERO’ was a fabricator and an agitator.
This CIA officer [PATIENT ZERO] never experienced a microwave attack. Yet, he worked hard to convince his colleagues as well as US and Canadian diplomats that they were under attack from the Russians.
RELATED POST : Poetry — The Haiku Master, the Cicadas and the CIA
When this hoax spiraled out of control, the CIA — at least one gang inside the CIA as it shout be remember that Director Gina Haspel never believed that story — decided to lie to the State Department, the FBI, and the White House. They even leaked pieces of disinformation suggesting that they were really suspecting the Russians!
This is a major scandal. For the last 5 years, the work of the US State Department has been seriously obstructed. During all those years, the CIA knew the full truth. And yet, they decided to hide the facts and lie to their own government. The Russians were falsely accused and the Cuban nation was punished for a crime that never was!
Shame on the media! While they published thousands of idiotic stories on “Havana Syndrome”, not one journalist had the courage to write a simple piece explaining the technology of microwave spying (Snowden leaked all the details of the US and UK methodology) and the known effects of microwave exposure on health were never explained correctly. And shame on Wikipedia. The page “Havana Syndrome” does not even explain what these words means and why I chose that name.
I promise you one thing. This story is not over. Stay tuned!
“The source of the ‘Havana syndrome’ must be found. National security demands it.”
Washington Post Editorial
(September 30 2021)
REFERENCES
For the record — The expression “Havana Syndrome” was coined by Dr. Ludwig De Braeckeleer and appeared for the first time in a story published by the Intel Today blog on October 3 2017. [Here is the tweet] Why would Wikipedia dispute such a simple fact?
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On This Day — And thus a new syndrome was born [Havana Syndrome – October 3 2017]
Five Years Ago — And thus a new syndrome was born… (Havana Syndrome – October 3 2017) [UPDATE : The BLACKLIST S9-E5 — ‘Weapon of Mass Suffering’]
Intel Today 