Pentagon Investigated Suspected Russian Directed-energy Attacks On U.S. Troops (politico.com) 73
Hmmmmmm shares a report from Politico: The Pentagon has briefed top lawmakers on intelligence surrounding suspected directed-energy attacks against U.S. troops, and officials identified Russia as a likely culprit, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The briefings included information about injuries sustained by U.S. troops in Syria, the people said. The investigation includes one incident in Syria in the fall of 2020 in which several troops developed flu-like symptoms, two people familiar with the Pentagon probe said. After this article was published, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that he has seen "no evidence" of such attacks against U.S. troops in the Middle East.
The investigation is part of a broader effort to look into directed-energy attacks on U.S. officials across multiple agencies in recent years. Since late 2016, close to 50 officials have reported symptoms of a mysterious illness that became known as "Havana syndrome" among U.S. diplomats posted in Cuba. Symptoms included acute ringing and pressure in the ears, as well as loss of hearing and balance, fatigue and residual headaches. Some victims have suffered long-term brain damage. A report commissioned by the State Department and released in December pointed to "directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy" as the most probable cause for the "Havana syndrome" incidents.
The investigation is part of a broader effort to look into directed-energy attacks on U.S. officials across multiple agencies in recent years. Since late 2016, close to 50 officials have reported symptoms of a mysterious illness that became known as "Havana syndrome" among U.S. diplomats posted in Cuba. Symptoms included acute ringing and pressure in the ears, as well as loss of hearing and balance, fatigue and residual headaches. Some victims have suffered long-term brain damage. A report commissioned by the State Department and released in December pointed to "directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy" as the most probable cause for the "Havana syndrome" incidents.
Bugs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bugs (Score:5, Informative)
You should not believe every "documentary" you watch. "Powering a device by a beam of microwave-like energy" is B.S.
Not BS. The device is well known and was ingenious.
The Thing [wikipedia.org].
It was concealed in a wooden gift given to the American Ambassador in Moscow.
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You should not believe every "documentary" you watch. "Powering a device by a beam of microwave-like energy" is B.S.
Not BS. The device is well known and was ingenious.
The Thing [wikipedia.org].
It was concealed in a wooden gift given to the American Ambassador in Moscow.
(Looking at Leon's new musical instrument) "Pretty cool. Hey, you think you could use one of these things to spy on people?"
(Leon Theremin) "Wait, wut?"
Talk about those odd relationships in history..
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Wow, you need to like..
Retake physics. Learn what a diode junction and antenna are.
Sounds like you need to retake brains school considering its a THING and it is literally called THE THING.
Re: Bugs (Score:1)
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The problem is a radar saturated environment. Radar is ionising radiation, it is very unhealthy and exposure and energy output should be minimised. Of course enter the modern battle and the military as a law unto themselves with regard to safe levels, well, of anything. So you have USA radar, Russian radar, Syrian radar, Israeli radar, Iranian Radar and Turkish radar, not regular civilian radar but very high military radar and who gives a crap about the grunts, they are disposable.
You have troops continuous
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Grunts are not considered expendable by most militaries, too much investment goes into them. Stop thinking 1960's.
Re: Bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Radar is ionising radiation
No, it's not. Its photons don't have quite the energy needed to break chemical bonds.
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Also, we've been living in radar saturated environments for a lot of years. At least since 5GHz WiFi became common, we've been surrounded by this kind of radiation day in and day out. TV broadcast satellites have also been sending down radiation in the GHz range for many decades.
Military radar is also present a couple of times a year where I live. At least if I can trust the logs on my WiFi router, which record every time when at least officially milit
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We've been saturated with man-made radio waves since the first radar stations went online in WWII. Those early radar stations put out immense amounts of power. But even those radar stations were then dwarfed by radio and TV transmissions later. But even these are absolutely dwarfed by the absolutely massive natural emitter at the center of our solar system. You are bathed in every frequency of light from lowest to highest frequency every day you step foot in the sunshine. Not to mention the millions of neut
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We can safely assume that at least all animal life on the surface of Earth evolved under these conditions. Life adapted to the conditions on the surface of Earth should be naturally resistant towards these wavelengths unless the radiative flux gets too high.
So who knows, maybe these radio
Re: Bugs (Score:4, Informative)
No. The inner line of DEW radar stations, the most powerful radar installations outside of the much-lamented Arecibo, had a location near Empire, MI. My parents knew the people who lived on the farm where it was located, in a house just a couple hundred meters north. They eventually died several years after the DEW Line was shut down, in a car accident, never having had cancer or any other of the collection of illnesses the anti-radiation movement attributes to it.
Microwave is required for distance (Score:2, Informative)
You mentioned "I was surprised by the use of microwave frequencies". Microwave (at least 1 GHz) is required if you want to transfer power (not energy) much further than the length of the receiving antenna.
On your cell phone or electric toothbrush, the antenna is centimeters long and the distance is millimeters, so they can work by induction, in the near field.
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That's some bad engineering right there. I suspect a more nefarious motive.
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Protecting the Kurds was an act of terrorism? Whose side are you on, Assad's?
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The Kurds never needed protecting until they allied themselves with our al Qaeda mercenaries.
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The Kurds never needed protecting until they allied themselves with our al Qaeda mercenaries.
You must be quite young and don't know your history. The Kurds have been constantly attacked by other groups in the area for at least a half century now. And there were plenty of uprisings and conflict between them and their neighbors before that. Perhaps this should help Halabja chemical attack [wikipedia.org]
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That was 75 years ago. Modern bugs can operate on ridiculously low power levels.
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Tesla transmitted energy at 11hz which I presume is harmless since it is long radiowave, I don't know of any reason to go from there to microwaves, is it easy to collect microwave energy? Do long radiowaves need a large antenna to gain the energy, I'm guessing no bigger than a portable FM radio antenna
Can energy at radiowave frequency be beamed in through laser to then reflect and disperse enough for chargers to pick up the energy? Microwave energy otoh runs the risk of heating up objects and maybe even cau
Yes and yes (Score:2)
> Tesla transmitted energy at 11hz which I presume is harmless since it is long radiowave,
I don't know of any reason to go from there to microwaves, is it easy to collect microwave energy? Do long radiowaves need a large antenna to gain the energy
To transfer power, as opposed to energy, in the far field, the antennas need to be about a wavelength long (or a multiple of the wavelength).
To understand the difference between energy and power here, consider lifting 1 microgram requires a certain amoun
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If you transmitted energy you transmitted power. The two measures are just 2 different viewpoints of the same phenomenon.
That said your point is well taken about wavelengths. If your wavelength is 30 meters at 10 mhz, obviously it is already unwieldy and 11 Hz at a million times longer isn't going to work out the same way.
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Energy is a measurement of how much work has been done.
Power is a measurement of the rate at which work is being done in a given amount of time.
Kinda like distance vs speed. Distance - how far you went. Speed - how far you are going per second.
So your comment is the same as saying "if it's high up, it's now going fast".
If the antenna isn't resonant, it's sending a voltage level, which is like sending a height level. A fixed location, "10 meters high".
To do work, you need *power* - moving from one location t
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Oh, good grief, they've known what the phantasmagorical "Havana Syndrome" was for ages. Harmonics caused by multiple ultrasonic devices such as room occupancy monitors.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/semi... [ieee.org]
And an explanation of how they figured it out.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/semi... [ieee.org]
From my own comment after the first article:
I would tend to agree with the ultrasound possibility rather than microwave, as people in other countries and not associated with diplomatic missions have reported the same or similar exp
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That is not 'knowing', it is a credible explanation.
The crickets hypothesis [theatlantic.com] looks highly credible to me but of course it is not hard proof because while you can confirm them to being the source of the sounds on the audio recordings that they also caused the symptoms the people at the embassy describe. Or provided the trigger for the hysteria.But at least that sound is on recording while the ultrasonic resonance has no confirmation at all in these cases.
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I've done some research on this and can add some color around the device.
It contained a cavity that worked as an RF resonator, but one wall of the resonator was flexible. An external source, purportedly in a car parked near the embassy, would emit a carrier signal at the resonant frequency of the device. The resonator picked and amplified this carrier, and the change in shape of the resonator from external sound pressure was detectable in its output.
A sound based analogy might make it more clear. Imagine
Huh (Score:5, Funny)
So we literally have a situation where TINFOIL WOULD ACTUALLY PROTECT YOU.
Now I wonder if all those crazy loons were just test subjects in the 1960s, when the U.S. government openly experimented on it's own people.
Not only would covering yourself in tinfoil provide protection - especially if it's around your head - but if it's like microwave ovens are, you will know when the beam is hitting you because the foil will heat up.
So it's at least some protection and some warning if you're under attack - at which point the defense is to go to a faraday cage. Aka, a room lined entirely in wire mesh...or tinfoil.
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It wouldn't surprise me if wire mesh blanket/bags become part of operational kit in the future
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TThey are a kind of Faraday cage. Or at least in theory. The fact that they're vaguely shaped like a parabolic mirror (mainly because of the big hole where the top of the head goes in) negates their usefulness though. Constructive interference at the focal point might make things even worse after all (see satellite dishes).
The principle of the hats was never really in doubt, what's been doubtful is whether such directed energy weapons were really eno
Re:Huh (Score:5, Funny)
So we're back to artisanal chainmail?
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The lambda/10 rule of thumb is what I've been taught at university when it comes to wireless communication.
But seeing how the screen mesh in microwave ovens is designed for power outputs of up to 1kW, the safer bet would be holes >lambda/100 instead of lambda/10.
Re:Huh (Score:4, Funny)
You're right, we'll need CNC-made chainmail. This is 2021 goddamnit.
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Re: Huh (Score:1)
Re: Huh (Score:1)
A Faraday cage needs to be grounded
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Grounding makes sense, since it will 'sink' the absorbed energy into the ground, which can be thought of having infinite capacity. If you don't do that, the energy will build up in your shield causing it to heat up. Depending on the rate of energy that is absorbed and the rate at which the material can emit the energy again, it might melt, compromising the shi
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> I never was taught that it being ground is a necessary criteria to call it a Faraday cage. But it could be that the definition I was given is wrong.
You're right. It's not. It's more effective if it's grounded, and it's safer to people and equipment to step from inside to outside if it's grounded. since a big Farady cage can itself act as one plate of a capacitor and carry a significant voltage difference from the ground.
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No, it doesn't:
If you are trying to block microwaves, any earth lead will be multiple wavelengths, so will be ineffective.
Faraday cages are earthed for electrical safely, not for any other reasons.
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Tinfoil is not required as these "microwave beams" don't exist. How can I be so sure? Because it is trivially easy to detect microwave signals of the required stupendous power level with cheap and readily available commercial equipment. We have a drawer full of them at work for when we need to work near radars. You can even make you own uncalibrated unit with a few inexpensive electronic components. Despite this, I have yet to
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So we literally have a situation where TINFOIL WOULD ACTUALLY PROTECT YOU.
Unless, of course, you lay down at which point it kind of becomes more of a parabolic reflector cooking your brain more effectively.
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> but if it's like microwave ovens are, you will know when the beam is hitting you because the foil will heat up.
Actually you have it backwards: The tin foil would reflect the energy away, so it wouldn't get hot.
To get hot it would need to absorb energy, eg it would need to be lossy (eg resistive).
And that of course is what happens when (high power) microwave energy hit human flesh, allowing us to feel the warmth.
EMF activation of VGCC (Score:1)
There appears to be a fair amount of research already on RF effect on Voltage Gated Calcium Channels (VGCC's). But probably any concrete results are not likely to be popular due to possible conflicts with existing technologies. This may though suggest from previous and continuing research that it was the mechanism used to cause the reported effects. A high power, focused, tuned and pulsed beam could potentially explain what was seen. But I don't see any of it being made public in specific detail by any gove
Directed energy? (Score:2)
A cellphone call? A flashlight?
Directed cell phones? (Score:2)
This will awake all those old fears about cell phones.
More like a big microwave (Score:2)
outputting a thousand times as much energy as what is in your kitchen.
Water molecules go crazy.
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Conservatives are the absolute worst. If we don't spend more money on our military than every other country in the world combined they're pissing their pants in terror.
Hmm, "flu-like symptoms". I don't suppose it would have anything to do with hobnobbing with our chemical weapons-using al Qaeda allies, would it?
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I'm thinking mass hysteria, and/or hiding authorities' mistakes once the story snowballs in the media.
Especially in the case of energy weapons, when the US military isn't clear about what it's own weapons and tests have shown them what can be expected or not.
Some examples:
https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com] (havana-embassy-mystery)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident)
we need to find out what they have (Score:2)
Energy attacks (Score:2)
Absolute hoax because ... spectrum analyzers (Score:4, Interesting)
So there was a US diplomatic mission and there was no electronic eavesdropping equipment and, by extension spectrum analyzers, to assess whether there were in fact any high energy EM sources being directed at the mission?
And even if there was no eavesdropping equipment, there would surely have been bug detection equipment (ie. spectrum analyzers) used on a regular basis as they are.
Conclusion: if there were any high energy microwave being directed at the diplomats that would be hands-down absolutely known.
What's going on: just a propaganda campaign to bolster a desired military project eg. 'we need to build our own directed energy weapons to better understand what we're facing'
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Yes, it has been known since shortly after the first scare stories about 'Havana syndrome' (which also occurred at embassies in western Europe) that it's just bad engineering. Multiple ultrasonic devices in use at the same site will create harmonics that are known to cause physical illnesses in humans. I linked to a couple of articles about it higher in the thread.
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Could be, kind of like sometimes in a store I can hear an 'ultrasonic' alarm if I stand just in the right place.
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Yes, and if there was radio energy sufficiently powerful to affect humans, any of the crappy domestic equipment in the vicinity would be squawking and resetting due to the poor RF Immunity of most modern appliances.
A healthy grain of salt (Score:3)
These claims should be taken with a healthy grain of salt.
If you think back to last fall there were a mountain of stories about Russian bounties for dead US soldiers. The Pentagon investigated them and also found no evidence.
Until otherwise demonstrated I will assume it is fear propaganda.
the US should look in their own arsenal (Score:2)
that 2kW 2.4Ghz radar emitter used to light US retroreflectors in the NSA ANT catalog is probably the exact same thing...
Uh... (Score:3)
Raytheon (Score:1)