“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

May 28, 2024 — Changing one’s mind goes against human nature. Even scientists often seek evidence to confirm their pre-existing beliefs, especially when they have emotional, financial, or political investments in their viewpoints. Over the past seven years, Kenneth R. Foster has completely revised his initial assessment of the Havana Syndrome. Although he originally disagreed with my analysis (which I posted on October 3, 2017), Dr. Foster has published a letter in the latest issue of Scientific American where he expresses views that are now essentially in full agreement with mine. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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“The committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by government employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (Microwave) energy.”

US National Academies of Sciences
(August 2020)

On October 3 2017, I coined the expression “Havana syndrome”. [Here is the tweet] I immediately made the connection between the Havana attacks and the old story of the Microwave Syndrome. I was also the first person to suggest that the noise “heard” by the victims could have been in fact an illusion caused by the exposure of the acoustic nerve to microwave — GSM like — radiations.

Three years later, in December 2020, the US National Academies of Sciences confirmed my analysis and concluded that: “Overall, directed pulsed RF energy … appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases among those that the committee considered.”

But rest assure that my analysis had been widely ridiculed, particularly on REDDIT, by people who obviously had no knowledge of microwave physics and its application to espionage.

I did not care much about their opinions. But the case of University of Pennsylvania bio-engineer Dr. Kenneth R. Foster was rather different, as he is the scientist who first described the mechanism behind the Frey effect in 1974.

Dr. Foster claimed that a RF weapon powerful enough to trigger the effect would have to be very large and thus unpractical.

Building a microwave pulse gun, however, is an implausible concept, according to Kenneth Foster, New Scientist reports.

“That theory is a real stretch,” the bio-engineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania says.

“It would require something like a major airport radar transmitter with the subject’s head close to the antenna in its direct beam … I guess it is possible, but not likely.”

As I wrote on December 22, 2017, this argument seemed quite dubious and confused. “The effect was indeed discovered by people working near airport radars. But that does not imply that such large devices are needed!”

Professor Lin, who had published an analysis similar to mine a few weeks after my initial post, strongly disagreed with Foster’s comment. [Note 1]

In December 2020, Dr. Foster still rejected the idea that microwave attacks could be real. “The effect requires very high power levels to produce barely audible sounds and it’s not known to cause injuries.”

“Maybe someone went to the trouble to truck in a large microwave transmitter to cause the employees to hear ‘clicks,’ but there are simpler ways to harass people than that.”

Dr. Kenneth R. Foster
December 2020

Fast Forward — In December 2021, Dr. Foster began to slightly modify his original conclusion. In a technical paper titled “Can the Microwave Auditory Effect Be Weaponized?” Foster and his co-authors wrote:

“Lin has proposed that the Frey effect may be linked to unexplained health problems reported by U.S. officers in Cuba and elsewhere, the so-called Havana syndrome. The failure to detect microwave exposure to the affected individuals lends no support to this hypothesis, and we do not speculate about the cause of the symptoms. The question remains: whether the auditory effect can be “weaponized,” i.e., used to harass or harm an individual. For reasons of effect size and practicality this appears unlikely, but the lack of publicly available information about existing high power RF technology and uncertainties about thresholds for adverse effects does not allow full resolution of the matter. (…)

We conclude that acoustic waves induced in the brain at the ‘reasonable upper limit’ exposures described by Dagro et al. are likely to fall short of thresholds for damaging the brain, although they conceivably could produce unpleasant audio-vestibular disturbances and/or auditory responses, depending on the RF pulse duration and repetition rate. In any event, the capabilities of high-powered microwave sources remain shrouded in classified research programs and thresholds for adverse effects are poorly defined. There are easier ways to harass or harm an adversary and using directed energy weapons against people might be ill-advised for a variety of other reasons as well.”

I need to make two important comments. First, I never expected any brain tissue damage resulting from microwave espionage.

Thus, when early US Medical tests revealed changes in the ‘white tracts’ of victims’ brains, I was very suspicious. [Two medical studies, published in March 2024, have found that US government officials suffering from Havana syndrome symptoms do not show any discernible physical damage or alteration.]

RELATED POST : ODNI — ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT 2024 [People with ‘Havana Syndrome’ Show No Brain Damage or Medical Illness]

However, correlation does not imply causation, and there was a very simple explanation for this finding, if it was real. Here is what I wrote (December 26, 2017):

“Keep in mind that there is no way to know if these changes are actually related to the attacks or if they were caused by past experiences. It is known that most — if not all — US diplomats who suffer from the Havana syndrome are actually spies who may have had a career in the military and may have been exposed to explosions for instance.”

My second point is that I never suggested that the purpose of these microwave attacks was to harass US employees. That is indeed absurd. As I wrote in the original post, the only plausible justification for such microwave attacks would be espionage of high value targets.

Back to the Present — JON STONE & KENNETH R. FOSTER have now published a very interesting piece titled: “We Don’t Need to Choose between Brain Injury and ‘Mass Hysteria’ to Explain Havana Syndrome;” [Scientific American — MAY 22, 2024]

There is, however, a plausible relation between pulsed microwave exposure and PPPD [persistent postural perceptual dizziness] that doesn’t involve brain damage: The microwave auditory effect (also called the Frey effect) occurs when pulsed radio-frequency energy directed to the head causes a tiny temperature rise in the skull and brain, which in turn creates a pressure wave that propagates through the head, leading to an unusual audio-vestibular sensation that is perceived as sound. One of us who studied this as long ago as the 1970s is on record as saying that the effect is too weak under foreseeable exposure conditions to cause brain damage. However, calculations show that it should be possible to beam strong enough pulses of microwaves, millimeter waves or laser energy to disturb the vestibular system at levels anticipated to produce symptoms similar to those initially reported from AHIs. While these vestibular and auditory experiences would be expected to be short-lived, they would be enough, as an unexpected or unpleasant experience of dizziness, to trigger PPPD of much longer duration. This would also explain why many individuals experienced worsening symptoms over time, as commonly seen in PPPD, rather than improvement as would be expected after a brain injury.

High-powered microwave or millimeter wave transmitters presently exist that, in principle, should be able to produce such effects but would be readily discoverable. Millimeter waves would be less easily detected than microwaves, which have been the focus of most conversation so far, because of their lesser ability to cause electromagnetic interference with other devices and smaller equipment size. To establish that microwaves or other forms of energy were involved in the AHIs requires forensic evidence such as detection of transmissions, a device or intercepted communications, none of which are currently available to the public. However this is clearly a sensitive topic for the government, which has redacted large sections about microwaves from its several reports on AHIs released to the public.

Whatever the cause or causes of AHIs may be, there is reason to be concerned about directed energy weapons being used in nonmilitary settings. Russia, China and the U.S. are all thought to have large programs to develop directed energy weapons using high-powered (gigawatt) microwave and laser technology. Their obvious military uses include shooting down drones.

Quite likely some energy weapon programs are developing antipersonnel weapons as well. In 2014, prominent Russian microwave engineers suggested using pulsed microwaves and the Frey effect to attack and cause confusion in Russia’s adversaries. China is known to be developing weapons for “neurostrike,” some of which involve high-powered microwaves. There is a dearth of studies involving possible health effects of high-peak-power microwave pulses, which are likely to be quite different from the comparatively well-studied pulsed microwaves at much lower peak power levels. Such studies are clearly needed, and they should be published in a way that is accessible to experts outside of government.

We need to move away from simplistic arguments of “brain damage” versus “mass hysteria” that have characterized much of the reporting. Patho-physiological events, including pulsed energy attacks, could trigger genuine illnesses involving a disturbance of brain function, like PPPD, even where there is no brain damage.

I find it puzzling why it took seven years for Dr. Kenneth R. Foster to alter his perspective, but I am glad he did. This story is not over, not by a long shot… Stay tuned!

“We continue to closely examine anomalous health incidents [Havana Syndrome], particularly in areas we have identified as requiring additional research and analysis.”

ODNI
ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT
2024

REFERENCES

Scientific U-turns: eight occasions when science changed its mind — Michael Hal Sosabowski and Paul R. Gard

Can the Microwave Auditory Effect Be “Weaponized”? — Kenneth R. Foster, David C. Garrett, and Marvin C. Ziskin

ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
(February 5, 2024)

People with ‘Havana Syndrome’ Show No Brain Damage or Medical Illness — Scientific American (MARCH 18, 2024)

Note 1 — In an email, Pr. Lin told me: “To my knowledge, he does not have any, ‘actual’ experience in producing hearing through microwave auditory effects in animals or humans. The experimental setup does not need to be large and it is not difficult to do, if one has a high power pulsed microwave generator. All other equipment are commonly available lab electronic instruments. They can be arranged on a typical lab bench or small SUV-size automobile, to produce the phenomenon at a threshold hearing  level or trigger the microwave auditory effect.”

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Havana Syndrome: The Slow but Complete U-Turn of a Scientist [Kenneth R. Foster — Scientific American]

“The possibility of attack by microwaves still gives me pause. The technology exists to give someone a frightening but not acutely damaging experience by inducing mechanical disturbances to the vestibular system using pulsed microwaves.”

Kenneth Foster
University of Pennsylvania health physicist
March 2024