US Military Tested Device That May Be Tied To Havana Syndrome On Rats, Sheep (cbsnews.com) 50
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Tonight, we have details of a classified U.S. intelligence mission that has obtained a previously unknown weapon that may finally unlock a mystery. Since at least 2016, U.S. diplomats, spies and military officers have suffered crippling brain injuries. They've told of being hit by an overwhelming force, damaging their vision, hearing, sense of balance and cognition. but the government has doubted their stories. They've been called delusional. Well now, 60 Minutes has learned that a weapon that can inflict these injuries was obtained overseas and secretly tested on animals on a U.S. military base. We've investigated this mystery for nine years. This is our fourth story called, "Targeting Americans." Despite official government doubt, we never stopped reporting because of the haunting stories we heard [...]. 60 Minutes interviewed Dr. David Relman, a scientific expert and professor from Stanford University who was tasked by the government to lead two investigations into the Havana Syndrome cases. What he and his panel of doctors, physicists, engineers and others found was that "the most plausible explanation for a subset of these cases was a form of radiofrequency or microwave energy," the report says.
According to confidential sources cited in the report, undercover Homeland Security agents bought a miniaturized microwave weapon from a Russian criminal network in 2024 and tested it on animals at a U.S. military lab. The injuries reportedly matched those seen in the human cases. "Our confidential sources tell us the still classified weapon has been tested in a U.S. military lab for more than a year," says Dr. Relman. "Tests on rats and sheep show injuries consistent with those seen in humans."
He continues: "Also, as a separate part of the investigation, security camera videos have been collected that show Americans being hit. The videos are classified but they were described to us. In one, a camera in a restaurant in Istanbul captured two FBI agents on vacation sitting at a table with their families. A man with a backpack walks in and suddenly everyone at the table grabs their head as if in pain. Our sources say another video comes from a stairwell in the U.S. embassy in Vienna. The stairs lead to a secure facility. In the video, two people on the stairs suddenly collapse. Those videos and the weapon were among the reasons the Biden administration summoned about half a dozen victims to the White House with about two months left in the president's term."
Former intelligence officials and researchers claim elements of the U.S. government downplayed or dismissed the theory for years, possibly to avoid political consequences of accusing a foreign state like Russia of conducting attacks on American personnel.
According to confidential sources cited in the report, undercover Homeland Security agents bought a miniaturized microwave weapon from a Russian criminal network in 2024 and tested it on animals at a U.S. military lab. The injuries reportedly matched those seen in the human cases. "Our confidential sources tell us the still classified weapon has been tested in a U.S. military lab for more than a year," says Dr. Relman. "Tests on rats and sheep show injuries consistent with those seen in humans."
He continues: "Also, as a separate part of the investigation, security camera videos have been collected that show Americans being hit. The videos are classified but they were described to us. In one, a camera in a restaurant in Istanbul captured two FBI agents on vacation sitting at a table with their families. A man with a backpack walks in and suddenly everyone at the table grabs their head as if in pain. Our sources say another video comes from a stairwell in the U.S. embassy in Vienna. The stairs lead to a secure facility. In the video, two people on the stairs suddenly collapse. Those videos and the weapon were among the reasons the Biden administration summoned about half a dozen victims to the White House with about two months left in the president's term."
Former intelligence officials and researchers claim elements of the U.S. government downplayed or dismissed the theory for years, possibly to avoid political consequences of accusing a foreign state like Russia of conducting attacks on American personnel.
Stop! (Score:2)
possibly to avoid political consequences of accusing a foreign state like Russia of conducting attacks on American personnel.
...or I'll say stop again.
Magneto (Score:4, Interesting)
Henceforth all overseas US military personnel must wear Magneto helmets at all times.
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It's a start, but microwaves are centimeter wavelength and will get through the eyepiece so you need a clear conducting eye shield, a metalized foam neck guard and a metal grid embedded inside the neck to match the helmet. Probably worth putting a liquid crystal blocking layer in it to protect in case any sharks approach.
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Since the trumpistan is sliding fast into feudalism, they might as well adopt armor suits.
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*Though I believe their story.
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Magneto helmets for everyone!
And maybe you really should consider installing that Faraday cage in your living room...
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We once had a portable Faraday cage at work intended for some radio testing when we first added radio to our OEM designs, but the bumbleheads in the shop who were cleaning up threw it away.
That means (Score:4, Funny)
Tin foil hats will be en vogue again.
Re:foil hats will be en vogue again. (Score:1)
RFK has spares.
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not even in a million years (Score:2)
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"Havana syndrome" is just nickname, not a declaration of origin.
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This isn't exactly complicated, including, for example, "US pays restaurant for footage and to delete its local copy" and "Turkiye is a NATO state and can use its own legal system to compel handing over its footage and deleting any copies".
Re:Classified? (Score:5, Interesting)
That may explain why they've actually been publicly dismissive of it. Microwaving people in a typically fortified US embassy remotely is pretty unbelievable. Somebody walking up with a backpack and doing it from close range is a lot more realistic, but it also makes you wonder how someone walks into an embassy with a microwave weapon, zaps some people and then walks away.
Hasn't it already been used? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems to me that I read earlier that it had already been deployed during the attack on Venezuela.
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A what????
That's attributable to shrapnel.
Video of it going off.
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I heard that was some sort of sonic device. So there's more one lie to cover the simple truth that the trump admin just bought the immediate circle of Maduro like bush sr. bought the army back during the 1st Gulf war.
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I will agree with you for once... a sonic weapon (of some sort) would be easier to discreetly carry and aim than something using microwaves (and, could have a smaller power supply).
Microwaves need a decent amount of power (yes, it's 120V, 11.25A for 1,350 watts output power for mine), how many car batteries and how big of an inverter was this guy carrying?
Most likely, the DOD/CIA has found the actual device, and are working to implement it in a way they can fire a missile-like thing over a city and the miss
Re: Hasn't it already been used? (Score:2)
If you agree with me, then you agree that it wasn't some high-tech oombaloomba, but a simple bribery.
As confirmed by the very quick recognition by the trump administration of literally the same government that ran Venezuela under Maduro.
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No, I didn't say anything about bribery (no idea where you got that)... and, I didn't get into politics in my post... the DOD/CIA exists regardless of who has the Chair.
I was agreeing with the tech ideas of the incidents.
I doubt Bribery causes someone to die of Alzheimer's at 45... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Until we have more info, all we can do is speculate... I based my post on a thing called science.
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no idea where you got that
It is widely known that the previous neocon admin of the territory formerly known as USA, that of dubya "mission accomplished" bush, spent hundreds of millions to bribe generals and republican guard cadres before the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. That explains the initial lack of resistance, the fast occupation and the easy capture of Saddam Hussein. Shit got a lot worse for the "willing" once the Iraqis turned against the occupation in 2004. There's no reason to believe the mightiest weapon in the arse
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Ahh... yes, another hardcore anti-Trumpist who blames Trump for everything.
Prove it... prove that this current, one President did everything... show me articles, posts (I don't have Tiktok, Instagram, any of that crap... someone hacked my Facebook and it's gone) and no Fark or anything biased, prove it. Can you?
Was it _only_ Trump that "ushered in this disparity"?
"Magical weapon used" = a device nobody has used before, that is able to be dialed in on a person or group of people... that's much more in line
Re: Hasn't it already been used? (Score:2)
lol, the bush league is asking the hard questions.
here, ejucate yourself.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/wo... [telegraph.co.uk]
the same scheme has been used by the trumpistan since at least the 1953 coup.
Re: Hasn't it already been used? (Score:1)
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That's 12V... a magnetron needs 120V at about 12A that gets run through a capacitor (smoothing) and rectified to DC then run through a transformer and stepped up to several thousand volts, then run to the magnetron... those little pocket-sized things are a Li-Ion pouch battery, and while you can get a few starts out of them, pull a 100amps for anything longer than starting a car and that pouch will start 'pillowing' in a hurry.
Re: Hasn't it already been used? (Score:1)
Seems to me I read about this in Atlas Shrugged.
Can it take out a building yet?
What kind of input device does it use (Keyboard, xylophone) ?
Man portable?/Vehicle mount?
So many unanswered questions ...
New wars, new weapons. (Score:1)
Invulnerable politicians (Score:3)
Read the wiki (Score:3, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
After a fair amount of confusion and some academic arguments, DoD pushed hard to have this taken seriously.
"The Department of Defense (DoD) established the task force partly due to frustration over what DoD officials considered to be a sluggish and lackluster response by the CIA and Department of State.[39] Christopher C. Miller, who was acting defense secretary at the time, said in 2021 that "I knew CIA and Department of State were not taking this shit seriously and we wanted to shame them into it by establishing our task force."[39] Miller said that he began to consider the reports of mysterious symptoms to be a high priority in December 2020, after he conducted an interview with a person with major combat experience who detailed symptoms.[39]"
As late as 2022, CIA: "The study concluded that it was unlikely that a foreign power was responsible for the AHIs, and that the study had not yet found evidence of involvement by a state actor."
2023: Five of the seven agencies involved in generating the report concluded "the available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents" and that a foreign adversary's involvement was "very unlikely". One of the other agencies concluded that foreign involvement was "unlikely", and the seventh agency declined to make a finding.[127][130][129]
Technology creates new problems (Score:2)
They should at least be handing out RF detectors that bark above 40 dB or so. I can't imagine that costing more than a few bucks depending on frequency ranges... perhaps they can harvest required energy and not even need batteries.
Doubt (Score:4, Interesting)
Weird. I thought/read that the affected people showed no changes in their biology/chemistry/MRI, so how did they ask rats and sheep whether they experienced the same symptoms?
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> Weird. I thought/read that the affected people showed no changes in their biology/chemistry/MRI, so how did they ask rats and sheep whether they experienced the same symptoms?
IQ of people claiming H-syndrome is on par with rats and sheep ... so
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No Consequences? (Score:2)
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From the larger perspective, we’re clearly in another period of realpolitik. Can you imagine the numbers of Russian’s we’ve indirectly maimed and killed by supporting Ukraine? We’re also busy making sure the Russia exists in a state of poverty for the next two generations, and what we’re doing to Iran means that both Russia and China will have one less ally w
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Hint: just look for the guy with an extension cord running to his backpack or the guy carrying 4 car batteries and an inverter.
Evidence (Score:1)
Many assertions.
No evidence.
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it is very clear what happened ... a clever gang hired an unemployed engineer or two to assemble a device for $100K in parts & labor ( or less ) and then sold to DHS agent[s] for $10M ... profit :-)
your mom? (Score:1)
yeah, sure sure, of course they did, but do you know where else they tested it?
Russia is also fighting a hybrid war against EU (Score:2)
Western governments have always downplayed these kind of incidents.
It's about time we face reality.
https://www.redlabel.ltd/intel... [redlabel.ltd]
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