“Injury to widespread brain networks” in victims of mystery attacks in Cuba

Doctors stumped by sonic experiences, doubt cause is viruses, delusions, or chemicals.

Read the whole story

 

[shturmovik]

How do we know this is an attack? I am confused.

Because that's the narrative being pushed. It seems as though hardly anyone is bothering to look into whether there's another explanation, or even if there's any actual thing happening here. A nebulous cloud of self-reported, widely varying systems is all being tossed with "Attack!" dressing without much cogency at all.

I expected more from Ars. This is why we need to teach people to critically think when they read. I am blow away at how many comments are about how or why vs if this is even an attack... as for Ars this would never have passed my desk an an editor.

If certain people are trying to mock and cover up an article, then perhaps there's something to it?

What is being covered up? I am just asking basic questions...

 

[Voldenuit]

This is obviously the start of a huge Incident Zone.

WTF did I just read?

That sub-Reddit is enough to literally put you in the Twilight Zone ... or cause weird brain issues like in the article.

It reminded me (favorably) of House of Leaves, possibly even moreso.

The story behind the subreddit itself is also pretty interesting. The author would post snippets of the work in unrelated threads under different accounts, and it became an ARG of sorts to find and collate them into a single narrative piece.

I did feel that the ending was slightly disappointing, but it was definitely a memorable read, stylistically and thematically very well done and unique, and I loved the wry bits of humor.

 

[Dzov]

How do we know this is an attack? I am confused.

Because that's the narrative being pushed. It seems as though hardly anyone is bothering to look into whether there's another explanation, or even if there's any actual thing happening here. A nebulous cloud of self-reported, widely varying systems is all being tossed with "Attack!" dressing without much cogency at all.

I expected more from Ars. This is why we need to teach people to critically think when they read. I am blow away at how many comments are about how or why vs if this is even an attack... as for Ars this would never have passed my desk an an editor.

If certain people are trying to mock and cover up an article, then perhaps there's something to it?

What is being covered up? I am just asking basic questions...

"this would never have passed my desk an an editor."

 

[shturmovik]

How do we know this is an attack? I am confused.

Because that's the narrative being pushed. It seems as though hardly anyone is bothering to look into whether there's another explanation, or even if there's any actual thing happening here. A nebulous cloud of self-reported, widely varying systems is all being tossed with "Attack!" dressing without much cogency at all.

I expected more from Ars. This is why we need to teach people to critically think when they read. I am blow away at how many comments are about how or why vs if this is even an attack... as for Ars this would never have passed my desk an an editor.

If certain people are trying to mock and cover up an article, then perhaps there's something to it?

What is being covered up? I am just asking basic questions...

"this would never have passed my desk an an editor."

I would never have let the author frame this as an attack unless there were more information. The story would be published... the headline would be titled appropriately.

 

[Golgo1]

I would never have let the author frame this as an attack unless there were more information. The story would be published... the headline would be titled appropriately.

Maybe media is overplaying it a little bit.
But when 'attack' is used by a number of government officials when commenting on the case, media is completely justified in repeating the word.

Whether the officials are correct or not is a different question. But use of the word in not inappropriate in this case

 

[shturmovik]

I would never have let the author frame this as an attack unless there were more information. The story would be published... the headline would be titled appropriately.

Maybe media is overplaying it a little bit.
But when 'attack' is used by a number of government officials when commenting on the case, media is completely justified in repeating the word.

Whether the officials are correct or not is a different question. But use of the word in not inappropriate in this case

Yes because we should just take what the officials say as gospel. Just like the WMDs, the Gulf of Tomkin... so on and so forth. Again I expected more from Ars but hey, this is my fault for being complacent.

 

[GhostRed]

This is obviously the start of a huge Incident Zone.

WTF did I just read?

That sub-Reddit is enough to literally put you in the Twilight Zone ... or cause weird brain issues like in the article.

It reminded me (favorably) of House of Leaves, possibly even moreso.

The story behind the subreddit itself is also pretty interesting. The author would post snippets of the work in unrelated threads under different accounts, and it became an ARG of sorts to find and collate them into a single narrative piece.

I did feel that the ending was slightly disappointing, but it was definitely a memorable read, stylistically and thematically very well done and unique, and I loved the wry bits of humor.

Thoroughly enjoyed House of Leaves.

Danielewski is Poe's brother (the alt music chic, not Edgar) and the inside of the hard cover had binary which would output a Poe song when run through a binary compiler.

Clever.

 

[Deleted member 388703]

The "I listened to the recording, but I don't feel brain-damaged yet" comments reminded me of this:

The Fwooper is a magical African bird with brightly-coloured feathers, which can include orange, pink, lime green and yellow. Listening to the Fwooper's high pitched, twittering song will drive the listener insane, so each bird must be sold with a Silencing Charm placed on it.

[...]

Uric the Oddball once tried to convince the Wizards' Council that the Fwooper song was actually beneficial to a Wizard's health, and listened to it continuously for three months. His presentation did not go well, when he turned up wearing nothing but a toupee that, on closer examination, was revealed to be a dead badger.

from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

 

[InphinitePhractals]

All these symptoms sound a lot like what these groups that have been appearing lately that call themselves Targeted Individual (TIs) have been complaining about for years, specifically what they call Voice-to-Skull (V2K) or the Voice of God weapon.

Certainly, it sounds conspiratorial, but using low power microwaves, you can essentially "beam" audio, like sound effects, voices, etc. into someone's head with laser precision accuracy and not a person around the target can hear it. This is well documented in what's known as the Microwave Auditory, or Frey, Effect:

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

You increase the power of those microwaves, and it would make sense that it could also cause irritation, pain, and/or organ damage. Just a thought.

 

[omarsidd]

No sign of TBI, a very generic sounding set of "ongoing" symptoms that could describe mild migraines or chronic lack of sleep, self-reported symptoms, and no baseline health profiles with which to compare?

This hardly sounds conclusive. Never mind the how suspect it sounds when State repeatedly (and with varying stories) tries to blame on some magical weaponry. Considering the honesty levels of this administration, and these attempts to alternatively manipulate or hide some pretty basic data, it sounds like paranoia in the service of this administration's attempt to backpedal rapprochement with Cuba.

"They hurt us with their magic sound weapon! That nobody else heard! That leaves no injuries! Waaaaah we're going home!!"

 

[RandalierBear]

A possible technological attack nonwithstanding, I always wonder why no one mentions the possibility of tainted alcohol, or abuse of thereof. All the symptoms mentioned corespond to alcohol poisoning, especially if complex alcohols are present. Even the lesions could be caused by alcohol and dehydration, as could the hearing loss and the sounds experienced are very possibly the result of the damage, not the cause of it.
Cuba has some of the best Rums in the world, imho, but there is also quite a lot of self made and industrial runoff beeing sold as drinking alcohol. Of course no one would admit of buying or drinking it, but I always wonder why no one even mentions a possible alcohol connection. Or why no one gives reasons why they should exclude it, in a country that is famous for three things, music, cigars and alcohol.

 

[Rotoars]

This thing smacks of ghost stories on the ethereal side and microwave beams (agree with someone else's comments here). If its microwaves, the military as the broadband rf receiver equipment to scan the whole environment. If monitored constantly this possible cause would be closed. If they didn't check for this, why? Its relatively easy to do with the right equipment.