Officials are still baffled amid new cases and reports of abnormal sounds, sensations.
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Brain injury, sound-attack fears spread in China as more Americans evacuated
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Can we please stop giving credence to the idea that this is being caused by "malfunctioning surveillance equipment"? The amount of sound energy required to cause actual tissue damage is on the order of kilowatts, not milliwatts, and ultrasound cannot harm humans.
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Not that I necessarily think this is related but my wife's been suffering from these symptoms for years now. Her physicians and specialists are still trying to figure out WTF is going on. It's gotten so bad she can't even drive or work any more. I should probably feel a little reassured that even "the government" can't figure out the proximate cause of similar symptoms.
Sadly, I do not. It's frustrating in the extreme and has placed us back at risk of homelessness almost every month since she stopped being able to work. I make enough, barely, to cover the absolute basics, yeah, but things like holes in underwear have become our new normal. What a pain in the neck overall.
Anyhow, back on topic now that I've vented a little bit, I hope this eventually gets figured out. Not just for personal reasons on the remote chance it's related to my wife's issues but because no one ought to have this sort of life altering thing happen to them. The agony of watching my wife change from someone who helps children abused by sexual predators into someone who cannot reliably walk to our car every day is quite real. I can only imagine how much worse it must be if an entire family is affected, as I have read some have.
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So... Without all the evidence in front of me (ok, with *none* of the evidence in front of me), it would seem that the common element here is... the US.
Are we deploying the same security, furniture, fixtures, air-handling equipment, carpeting, paint, etc., in such locations?
Are we deploying the same security, furniture, fixtures, air-handling equipment, carpeting, paint, etc., in such locations?
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I agree, but I don't think this article is doing that. It's reporting that researchers continue to make that case. (To be fair, I'm not sure whether your complaint is with this article or with the researchers.)
I may be wrong, but my impression is the researchers who are attributing the noise to malfunctioning surveillance equipment are not saying this injured the people. They seem to be implicitly suggesting there have been no real injuries. I.e., making the case for a shared mass delusion.
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Are we certain this is only affecting diplomats? No expats? No long term travelers? Because if it's just diplomats that's very strange and probably malicious (or just hysteria). But if it's more than just diplomats but also affecting numerous people from first world countries, I wonder if it's biologic in nature. Related to hygiene hypothesis, perhaps first world countries are too clean, there's some pathogen endemic to less developed countries we aren't used to that causes minor encephalitis?
Edit: thinking more on it, at first it'd seem like biological agents should have been infecting foreigners for ages and been well mixed by now, but perhaps it's a recently emerging pathogen from an animal reservoir similar to an endemic pathogen so locals have some level of immunity? or a mutation in an endemic pathogen that again, locals have some basal immunity to but not foreigners. Are other western nations like the UK, Canada, Germany seeing anything like this with their diplomats abroad?
Edit: thinking more on it, at first it'd seem like biological agents should have been infecting foreigners for ages and been well mixed by now, but perhaps it's a recently emerging pathogen from an animal reservoir similar to an endemic pathogen so locals have some level of immunity? or a mutation in an endemic pathogen that again, locals have some basal immunity to but not foreigners. Are other western nations like the UK, Canada, Germany seeing anything like this with their diplomats abroad?
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Yeah, because Russians are the only hostile foreign government our nation has pissed off with its history of clandestine empire building.
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Hi,
I agree - the common aspect here is that they are all American and in embassies.
If it is not the embassy equipment, then is it possible that any common medical treatment that the people undergo before taking up their station could be the cause.
Regards,
Shadmeister.
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Do we actually know if the sound is doing the damage, and not that the sound is a symptom/effect of what the actual cause of the damage is?
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Like one of the posters above me, chalk me up as a vote in the "collective delusion" category.
The first thing I'd do in this situation is set up some supremely sensitive audio recording equipment in every US consulate, and monitor for these sounds. And since I'm certain that's what somebody investigating this would do, too, and there's been subsequent cases in countries with major diplomatic efforts, it seems highly likely we'd have been able to detect these noises by now.
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My first impression was that this was most likely chemical, and given the scientific challenges that would face a (near) inaudible sonic weapon, I'm sticking with the belief that this is an inadvertent effect of a multiple chemical exposures.
Havana is hot, humid and tropical. Guangzhou is hot, humid and (sub)tropical. Some common pesticides are known to have (mild) neurotoxic effects. Some common antibiotics are ototoxic (affect the hearing). A combination of the two could multiply the effects.
Havana is hot, humid and tropical. Guangzhou is hot, humid and (sub)tropical. Some common pesticides are known to have (mild) neurotoxic effects. Some common antibiotics are ototoxic (affect the hearing). A combination of the two could multiply the effects.
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Can't they just use an Amazon Echo and ask Alexa to record any unusal sounds? After all, the virtual assistant is always on 24/7.
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Has Russian fingerprints all over it.
Then, I think we should deploy Moose and Squirrel.
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People who are skeptical about these incidents would do well to remember that, at least in Cuba, our personnel were (allegedly) diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.
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FLASH: RUSSIANS DEVELOP WEIRDING MODULE. PUTIN DEMANDS "THE SPICE MUST FLOW". FILM AT 11.
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Has Russian fingerprints all over it.
Proof, or nah?
Moose, or squirrel?
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As to mass delusion?
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... ay-n848291
I dont know about that so much.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... ay-n848291
I dont know about that so much.
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What, we'll somehow invent some new form of ultrasound?
We've had CRTs for forever with their annoying whine and while some people found them annoying and maybe got mild headaches there was no panic like this.
Even mild rock concerts leave people fine, and you'd probably notice if someone was having a rock concert in your room.
When we say that it's not possible to produce enough energy to matter is isn't some uninformed assertion.
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It would be terrible surveillance equipment if it made it's presence known by making people sick.
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I'm no physicist, but would some sort of weapon be possible where the intersection of radio waves from two (or more) different directions has sufficient intensity to affect a certain volume of the brain while not leaving any sign of damage to skin or bone?
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The symptoms match those of mild concussions. Mass delusions can manage to release all the internal chemicals that would show up when the human body is responding to a real threat despite the real threat not existing. It's still more than possible that it's a mass delusion.
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In Cuba too? Who has motive to wreck relations between those two nations and the US? Trump jumped right on blaming Cuba. He jumped right on attacking China, even before this. Both China and the US are hurt by all this. Somebody in Russia is laughing. Maybe it's a neurotoxin or a new weapon. Whatever is happening, somebody is frying American diplomats brains and you don't do that unless you can ensure no retaliation. With Trump, they have that. He will never even consider the Russians are behind this. I'm not saying the Russians are definitely, definitely behind it, but they should certainly be #1 on everybody's suspect list.
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I'm skeptical, and noted Beth's point about "(s)ome researchers hav(ing) questioned the neurological testing by Penn doctors". I'd welcome some more elaboration on that point.
I'm not unwilling to believe this was intentional or that it's real. But the seeming lack of evidence and the tricky nature of brain injuries has me reaching for the simplest explanation.
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I'm inclined to agree. In this case, people working at thousands of KMs from each other within China have apparently developed symptoms. It seems mass hysteria is less likely in that kind of scenario, short of people having transferred recently.
Were the Cuban embassy and the relevant diplomatic buildings in China all refurbished recently? Is there some kind of common thread?
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I said counter-surveillance - it could be some brute-force blocking or micro-waves targeting specific equipment.
I don't know any more than you obviously, but unless it's actually a weapon designed to do exactly this, it's either completely made up, or something inadvertently causing harm, which is extremely likely to be some sort of equipment we don't know about.
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