We were right about Havana syndrome

https://warontherocks.com/2026/03/we-were-right-about-havana-syndrome/

by Bender • 4 months ago

74 76 4 months ago

warontherocks.com

ChrisArchitect• 4 months ago

60 Minutes Havana Syndrome report finds U.S. government tested energy weapon

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47314335

themafia2• 4 months ago

I'm not sure having a microbiologist on to talk about RF energy weapons was a good choice. I also have significant doubts about this "black market Russian RF weapon" storyline. Just because you found an item on the black market doesn't mean it exists in general, is a viable weapon, or can be used to explain "Havanna Syndrome."

There's almost no data with which to draw any conclusions about this.

It seems convenient that this pops up right at the moment the government could use a distraction.

jajuuka• 4 months ago

It's a lot of coincidences falling to place at the same time. Which is very suspicious. And doesn't seem to be well supported outside government agencies or controlled organizations like CBS either. Does feel like someone is jingling the keys.

mschuster912• 4 months ago

Just because you found an item on the black market doesn't mean it exists in general

RF based energy weapons have been a thing since (at least) 2010 [1]. According to folklore, the initial "microwave" cooking appliance was a side effect from some radar researcher noticing either his testicles or some chocolate got warmer than expected.

The interesting thing is, the rumors about the Russians using RF weapons have been circulating for well over a decade. Why has no one gone ahead and installed RF spectrometers and radio direction finding gear in and around sites with suspicious activity?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

zamadatix2• 4 months ago

I'd apply the same level of skepticism to the bit at the end - the government seems to always be in the state of having use for a distraction so is it really surprising most stories can be labeled as "convenient" when the only alternative is reporting on nothing but what the government is up to today?

orbital-decay• 4 months ago

Yeah. For comparison, Novichok makes total sense, it's just a multi-component poison designed to avoid detection and used on dissidents and spies, and there were multiple insider leaks, starting with its creator literally giving interviews and other scientists publishing the research in the open. It's chemically sound, it's not something extraordinary, it's a known quantity. This story, on the other hand, says that for 30 years (including completely different times, the 90's) they arbitrarily targeted the CIA in particular with a weapon of unknown and pretty dubious nature, which was never replicated or even possibility investigated, in what could be described as James Bond-level operations (hilarious given their level of competence), CIA themselves helping cover it, and this incredibly secret clandestine weapon of unknown nature is casually sold in the black market. This is an extraordinary amount of extraordinary things that need to be true at the same time, and the story suddenly re-emerges in a pretty convenient moment.

I'm not necessarily saying this is a lie, but they certainly need extraordinary evidence for all this to be believable.

amarant• 4 months ago

Tbf, when was the last time the government didn't need a distraction?

PaulHoule• 4 months ago

It's amazing that everybody who has a tendency for paranoia or an interest in weird knowledge knows about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

but that kind of person can't get a security clearance or get taken seriously by the State Department.

MisterTea3• 4 months ago

but that kind of person can't get a security clearance or get taken seriously by the State Department.

This feels similar to the early Area 51 law suits which were thrown out because the government denied the facility existed. I feel that yes, the government was aware of the situation but downplayed it because they have something to hide.

My tin foil hat explanation is that the US government was fully aware of what was happening. Why is unknown though I could guess that A. the US denied knowledge of such weapons to give plausible deniability which leads to B. The US deployed such a weapon on premises to use/test against Cubans and inadvertently sickened their own people in an accident.

I don't doubt Cuba could initiate such an attack but I find it very unlikely the US would be befuddled when the US government along with others have developed and experimented with sonic weapons. Given the recent trends towards more authoritarian governments these weapons are easy to deploy against citizens. This article was posted to hn recently: https://earshotngo.substack.com/p/sonic-attack-on-a-silent-v...

matthewdgreen4• 4 months ago

One proposal I've heard is that the US also has weapons like these and wanted to keep their existence classified.

formerly_proven• 4 months ago

MAE is kind of obvious, because healthy ears are incredibly sensitive. 0 dbSPL translates to attowatts on the eardrum displacing it just a few pm, with hair cells firing on sub-nm movements (after mechanical amplification). It is completely unsurprising that just the thermal effect of RF being pulsed in the general direction of the head can become audible in the right circumstances.

aa_is_op• 4 months ago

These things happen next to Russian embassies and everyone goes... I wonder who could it be...

Beestie• 4 months ago

Here is a 2019 study that supports the claims of actual injury:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2738552

why_at• 4 months ago

I am not very knowledgeable about this topic, but in my cursory reading of wikipedia I see that there's been some criticism of this study:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome#University_of_...

isamuel• 4 months ago

Very weird that clandestine imperial gophers start to feel anxious and have trouble sleeping after a while. must be a secret laser

ImPostingOnHN3• 4 months ago

Radio waves aren't exactly a secret.

Pop the magnetron out of a microwave and direct it towards someone's head [0], and I imagine they're not gonna have a great time. And that's with parts available in many average homes.

The Active Denial System [1] works based on these principles, but different frequencies.

0 - Don't do this

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

mschuster912• 4 months ago

Mount that magnetron in front of an ordinary satellite dish and oh boy whatever is at the focal point of it will not have a nice day either. Your average satellite dish has about 38 dBi of gain - an 1 kW magnetron will yield something around 3 MW EIRP if you manage to end up in the RF path.

That is why even around "small" scale radio transmitters such as phone cell towers you absolutely have to keep a safe distance, and even more around large broadcast towers or even radio amateurs doing serious satellite communication.

janalsncm• 4 months ago

If it were just a magnetron shooting microwaves it would be blocked by a ton of materials. Maybe a microwave laser would work though.

GuinansEyebrows• 4 months ago

it seems like there was an external physical cause of havana afterall... but i still laughed at this :)

Fraterkes2• 4 months ago

Any source for that external physical cause? Ideally by a publication/source that a skeptic like me won't just dismiss?

cleaning• 4 months ago

Reader's note: the author was a member of the CIA for 26 years

halyconWays• 4 months ago

That should disqualify them from ever being taken seriously on anything. Would you trust water from a well that was once poisoned? Even if you scrubbed every inch with soap and water, wouldn't there still be some residue that you'd rather not ingest? And I don't think people's inner selves can actually be cleaned, nor do they even want to, usually.

johncessna• 4 months ago

As a reminder, they are likely subject to the lifetime prepublication review[1] which requires anything published to be reviewed by the agency prior to publishing.

[1]https://www.cia.gov/resources/publications/

gcanyon• 4 months ago

Note: “We were right” here means “it’s a real thing,” but the article has almost nothing concrete to offer about what actually is going on or who is responsible.

rurp• 4 months ago

Exactly, the definitive claim in the headline is not at all supported by the article.

dmix• 4 months ago

Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politics/havana-syndrome-devi...

vintermann5• 4 months ago

I think that if you offer Russian criminals millions of dollars for a mysterious device which could possibly cause Havana syndrome, you're certain to get a mysterious device.

This is confirmation bias with the side step of giving a ton of money to Russian criminals.

matthewdgreen4• 4 months ago

There has been some recent reporting that has made "Havana syndrome is a real thing" look more plausible:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/14/...

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politics/havana-syndrome-...

colechristensen• 4 months ago

Russia developed a less lethal directed energy weapon which is essentially a microwave oven radio signal switched off and on very quickly (likely something like a GHz signal with a highly directional antenna being switched at kHz)

Eyewitness reports at the Maduro kidnapping raid and a recent leak in the last few days regarding the US purchasing such a weapon from Russia and testing it at least on animals tie all of this together.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-tested-device-that-...

DANmode• 4 months ago

Someone with Russia-or-better state power developed the tech,

and you can source a working one through Russia,

I believe were the findings.

stephbook• 4 months ago

My feeling has always been that there was no interest in investigating this.

The government can skirt medical help, can send the next batch of officers in without problems and doesn't need to confront an adversary that is politically.. difficult under Trump. It's certainly no coincidence that Russia would start using something like this in Cuba, a friendly state, and not say.. France. Where the local police and spy agencies could investigate and observe.

Just imagine what would have to happen if someone acknowledged Havanah syndrome is real.

Next up, burn pits cause lung damage and brain damage too.

Fraterkes2• 4 months ago

At the core of "Havana Syndrome" lies the idea that Cuba and/or Russia have managed to develop energy weapons so advanced that the American military command won't even entertain the thought of them existing. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

MisterTea3• 4 months ago

This was the point I made in another comment here. My bet is the US deployed the weapon and accidentally sickened their own people. So of course they play stupid and deny that any such tech could exist.

Though the Russians have been very clever in the past stumping the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

duped• 4 months ago

There's also the chance it's not a weapon, but something that mistakenly turned into a weapon when it was tested on live subjects.

I don't think randomly attacking embassy staff (iirc, not everyone was CIA - there were just desk people affected) makes sense for anyone to do, but trying to listen on them and fucking up sounds right up their (or our) alley.

Terr_• 4 months ago

won't even entertain the thought of them existing

Careful, it's also possible that they have thought very hard about such things, and they've decided that revealing what they know would lose them a technological edge.

In other words, what if the CIA/DOD already knows there's a class of devices which could explain the problems, and the denial is about maintaining secrecy over their own operational capabilities?

Imagine something similar in the 1980s: "This tragic mid-air collision was obviously caused by faulty radar or gross pilot error by at least one of the two military planes... Our brightest minds have looked very hard at the problem and there is no such thing as a 'stealth' airplane which doesn't show up on radar."

fragmede• 4 months ago

Or going back further, Allies having cracked the Enigma encryption had to let Allied ships continue getting sunk and soldiers dying because to act otherwise would have revealed that the Enigma had been broken which would have led to an even greater loss of life.

everdrive2• 4 months ago

At the core of "Havana Syndrome" lies the idea that Cuba and/or Russia have managed to develop energy weapons so advanced that the American military command won't even entertain the thought of them existing.

I just don't think that's true at all. The answer could easily be that Cuba and Russia have developed energy weapons that we only know about from classified sources and therefore cannot discuss their existence.

vintermann5• 4 months ago

Sure, if you think the intelligence community is better at physics than the physics community.

sailfast• 4 months ago

The assumption with these weapons was that they would require too much energy to be portable enough to be undetectable in all of these circumstances (at least based on other reporting on the subject).

If the device doesn't require a lot of power, then it's entirely possible that American military commanders and research leadership would miss it.

Add to that an incentive to avoid helping the victims from a cost and overhead perspective, and you get a big ol' mess.

bitexploder• 4 months ago

Or that we have them too…

PLMUV9A4UP27D• 4 months ago

I put my bet on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness If the authorities have made the same conclusion, it would be very difficult to tell the affected individuals that. This is since there is a misconception that mass psychosis A) only happens to mentally "weak" persons. B) Symptoms are made up/"just in your imagination"

But the symptoms are very much real, and it's not something that is easily treated. How mass psychosis can lead to actual medical illness is unknown, but the cause and effect is documented.

For that reason it might appear as a cover up, when authorities avoid giving answers.

Even though I'm familiar with the science behind mass psychosis illness, I would still probably have difficulties accepting that as an explanation if I were in a similar situation.

Nevermark2• 4 months ago

If that is so, why not acknowledge that the current working theory is that it is psychogenic, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

The fact that psychogenic illness is not simply “weak” people, but a real phenomenon, strongly supports the fairness and necessity of offering treatment.

The wikipedia article says when authorities publicly take the effects seriously it can induce more cases. But the example was of getting help from a witch doctor, which was a remarkably dysfunctional “validation” to add to an already complex problem.

Another very dysfunctional “validation”: official denial, avoidance, obvious lack of work on solutions or mitigations, and all the trappings of a cover up!

Being direct has so many benefits, vs indirect denial or bad faith “treatments”.

It would be a reassuring response, to those in the same context without symptoms who are concerned about their own health.

Direct responses, with care given, are also in a better position to find treatments for psychogenic symptoms, preventative practices that reduce vulnerability, or alter working theories of cause, as any other evidence emerges.

Chronic anxiety and anxiety attacks are “psychosomatic” on an individual basis. But very real, often caused or impacted by working conditions, and important to diagnose and treat. Psychogenic illness should be the same. “Illness” is not a cause limited concept.

bsder3• 4 months ago

Direct responses, with care given, are also in a better position to alter working theories as any other evidence emerges.

The problem is that "mental illness" is a career limiting diagnosis.

Security clearance personnel have the same problem as airplane pilots. They can't get treatment for mental illness because it would cut off their career.

Consequently, while "Havana Syndrome" may be real, there are large confounding problems in sorting it out.

I mean, look at how long it has taken to lock in on Gulf War Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome

And the evidence for that is way stronger and doesn't have all the cloak and dagger implications.

bryan0• 4 months ago

While there have probably many people that have been affected by the secondary "mass psychosis" effect of havana syndrome, it seems unlikely that is the primary cause considering the device is now out in the wild:

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/13/politics/havana-syndrome-...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-military-tested-device-that-...

conception4• 4 months ago

The most obvious and large scale example of this I’ve seen is carpal tunnel syndrome in the 1990s and early 2000s. everybody had carpal tunnel syndrome and then just one day it all went away. not that the people who were suffering with it were faking anything. it’s just what was on everybody’s mind and then it wasn’t.

bannable• 4 months ago

I'd think the decline of CTS is better explained by improvements in our material design: our interfaces with the physical world are much less hostile today than in '90 and cause us less harm. For example, consider the NES/N64 controllers versus a modern PS5 controller.

bsder3• 4 months ago

everybody had carpal tunnel syndrome and then just one day it all went away.

It didn't. It just became a routine thing to be diagnosed.

When I had wrist surgery for an accident, every single data entry person at the hospital (almost a dozen of them) knew the surgeon I was going to because they all had their wrists operated on because of ailments from the cheap-ass computer stuff they were using.

You would think that the hospital and insurance provider would see the link and decide that maybe providing better ergonomic conditions would be useful, but ... no. Putting people in for surgery doesn't come off the budget while ergonomic workstations would. So, here we are.

It also doesn't hurt that most tech workers are cognizant of the problem and now happen to be paid well enough that they can do something about it.

bb88• 4 months ago

Assuming that what you're saying is true -- (not ai) and I'm not sure it is. The big difference could be that kids get computers for school now. I used pen and paper to take notes, and I didn't sit at a computer for 8 hours a day until my first job in the 1990's. I'm sure that's true for a lot of people.

It's possible people have "grown into" a keyboard better than the previous generations did.

Further, before the 1990's there was a secretarial pool where managers would send documents to get typed out. Sometime during the 1990's the pool went away and people were expected to type their own documents up. Sure they could create templates now with WordPerfect, say, but the idea is that the keyboard became more and more present in an employees life around that time -- so hence more likely to get carpal tunnel.

mpalmer• 4 months ago

I read through the entire article and couldn't find the part where this phenomenon causes or otherwise explains intense pain and detectable traumatic brain injuries.

leephillips• 4 months ago

The article seems to have been written by an LLM and is illustrated by an AI-generated image. And it contains little or no new information.

vortegne• 4 months ago

Not gonna lie, it's impossible to feel bad for someone who has been in the CIA for decades.

A small-scale imperial boomerang. The gaslighting and other tactics coming to bite you in the ass for a change, instead of some nation where US has "interests".

apalmer• 4 months ago

Didn't the US use some weapon that essential causes the same thing as Havana Syndrome?

jmyeet• 4 months ago

Fentanyl has become a huge issue with street drugs. It's being laced in other drugs. It's an incredibly strong opiate and because the mixing is imprecise, it can be easy to overdose unintentionally.

What's more interesting is the hysteria around fentanyl, which is completely made up and has no basis in fact, but is perpetuated by police unions and media outlets who are likely currying favor with police unions or just trading on the hysteria.

In it's purest form, fentanyl can exist in a powder or liquid form. I could give you a massive quantity of either and you could handle them completely fine. How do I know this? Because health workers do this all the time. It's like handling talcum powder. I mean you would probably want to wash your hands and you wouldn't want to lick it but there are no fumes and you can't be poisoned or dosed just by being in the same room as fentanyl in any form.

Yet this completely made up fear has caused law enforcement officers to believe they've suffered from fentanyl exposure. For example [1]:

Results
Nearly all leaders and officers interviewed wrongly believed that dermal exposure to fentanyl was deadly and expressed fear about such exposure on scene. Officers had a lack of education about fentanyl exposure and faulty or dubious sources of information about it.

and [2]:

Police in the United States have told implausible stories about airborne fentanyl exposures for years. The real symptoms appear related to panic attacks and the psychological trauma of policing.

So something that's completely made up can lead people to create their own symptoms. It also fits the narrative of people believing their jobs are more dangerous than they actually are.

So, back to Havana Syndrome. I've always been convinced that it's completely fake. There are probably people who like the narrative because it makes the Russians or Cubans scary with some unknown tech. And that means you need to research your own versions, right?

One possibility I might believe is that these people were exposed to something most likely from the CIA itself. You might say "the CIA wouldn't do this to their own". Think again [3].

So to believe any of this I want these people to release their medical records and have some independent medical analysis. Does the author really have TBI? Was there some other cause? Did this person suffer, say, an injury in a motor vehicle accident and is intentionally or unintentionally blaming it on Havana Syndrome?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...

[2] https://www.leidenlawblog.nl/articles/police-panic-and-fenta...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

rustyhancock• 4 months ago

Havana syndrome appears to be a functional neurological disorder.

Think shell shock of world war I.

None the less the deserve support and careful ongoing research and investigations as appropriate. Fundamentally it is an occupational illness.

FND isn't "making it up" or even "all in your head" but a complex interplay of mind, body and circumstances.

istillcantcode• 4 months ago

I listen to a lot of conspiracy podcasts for fun. This is the one conspiracy that's so mundane it does not even make it on many of the shows. If someone brings it up everyone is like, "well yeah of course they have that shit". Its not cool enough for the conspiracy shows/grifts.

We were right about Havana syndrome

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