Electromagnetic waves could be the cause of the mysterious “Havana syndrome” which has struck American diplomats and soldiers around the world, American intelligence services said on Wednesday 2, thus supporting the thesis of deliberate attacks.
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According to a group of experts consulted by the intelligence agencies, electromagnetic waves and ultrasound, emitted at close range, could have caused some of the “abnormal health incidents” (IAS), as they are called in the administrative jargon. The technology likely to cause the kind of symptoms observed (headaches, nausea, dizziness, even neurological damage) exists, said these experts, according to an excerpt from their report made public by the American intelligence department. Of the hundreds examined, “a fraction of HAIs cannot be easily explained by environmental or medical conditions and they could be due to external stimuli”says the document.
According to these experts, it is possible to design devices that are easy to conceal and capable of sending electromagnetic waves or ultrasound towards a person. They did not, however, specify whether these devices already existed, nor did they conclude that such attacks had indeed been carried out. But their report contradicts some recently published conclusions about the lack of evidence of foreign power involvement in this mysterious evil.
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Last month, a senior US government official said, on condition of anonymity, that he was “unlikely that any foreign actor, including Russia, would wage a protracted global campaign to harm personnel (from US embassies) with a weapon or mechanism”. The majority of cases are explained by medical conditions, including undiagnosed diseases, or environmental and technical factors, explained this official. But about twenty cases remained unexplained.
The experts whose report was published on Wednesday rejected several theories such as the use of ionizing radiation, which can be produced by radioactive elements, chemical or biological agents, sonic or acoustic weapons or heat from the electromagnetic energy. All of these theories are “incredible”they concluded.
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This evil first struck American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Cuba in 2016, hence its name “Havana syndrome”. Those “abnormal health incidents” were then reported elsewhere in the world (China, Germany, Australia, Russia, Austria) and even in Washington. In August 2021, US Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Hanoi was delayed three hours after such an alert in the Vietnamese capital.