The CIA, in charge of the investigation on the “Havana syndrome”, made public
“important intermediate conclusions”
Thursday January 20, 2022. According to an official of the American intelligence agency, it is
“unlikely that an actor abroad, including Russia, is waging a protracted global campaign to harm
[U.S. embassy] personnel
with any weapon or mechanism
," stating that the CIA has
"at this time found no evidence of any foreign involvement. 'a foreign power in these incidents'
.
Read alsoWashington promises to solve the mystery of the “Havana syndrome” which strikes its diplomats
This mysterious illness is said to have affected nearly 200 American and Canadian soldiers and diplomats around the world, as well as their loved ones.
They claim to have felt
"waves of pressure"
compressing the skull and then causing significant migraines, nausea, dizziness as well as neurological damage.
According to the CIA, this disorder is caused by undiagnosed illnesses or environmental and technical factors.
Two dozen cases will still be studied, and should make it possible to definitively solve the mystery surrounding this disorder.
This interim report does not seem to be to everyone's taste, and mainly American victims whose lawyer, Mark Raid, has denounced
"disinformation"
. An unnamed victim, quoted by The
New York Times
, spoke of government pressure for officials to report unexplained symptoms, which would have spiked the number of cases and diverted attention from the real sufferers.
Most of those affected believe more in the hypothesis of directed energy weapons, which would be ordered by a foreign power.
The
"targeted attacks"
would be the effect of radio microwaves, produced by a sonic device.
These
“acoustic attacks”
have also been described by relatives of diplomats and spies, as was the case in the fall of 2020. A soldier deployed in a country with a strong Russian presence explains that he had the impression that his head was going to explode , a feeling shared by her two-year-old son who then started screaming.
Although there is no concrete evidence proving the hypothesis of the involvement of a foreign power, many officials of the Pentagon share this opinion.
If they publicly refer to
"abnormal health incidents"
, some officials mention Russian
"acoustic attacks"
in private.
Scientific consensus
The CIA asserts that it has not intercepted any communication from a foreign country to support this hypothesis.
The majority of scientists specializing in the issue, university professors or doctors, do not believe it either.
According to Cheryl Rofer, a chemist who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory,
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
, ”
“and no evidence has been presented to support the existence of this mysterious weapon
. ”
Kenneth Foster, professor emeritus of biological engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, also rules out radio microwave weapons. Such a device would burn the skin of the victims before reaching the brain.
As this disorder seemed to be spreading to the four corners of the globe, American diplomacy urged its personnel to be examined as a precaution.
The patients then underwent a series of tests (evaluating their balance, their hearing, their memory and their eye movements), the results of which revealed nothing abnormal.
Scientists, however, do not deny the symptoms of their patients.
After investigating 21 diplomats, Douglas H. Smith, director of the Brain Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania, reported finding signs of brain damage but no evidence of impact to the patient's skull.
As if there was
“a concussion without a concussion”
.
A scientific consensus seems to emerge around the hypothesis of a
“mass psychogenic disease”,
or
“functional disease”
. Formerly called
“mass hysteria”
, this disorder is spreading among people who believe they have been exposed to a threat to their health. If the threat is not real, the symptoms are and can have a lasting impact on brain connections. This disease implies that the trauma and stress of an individual can have physical consequences on another person.
This isn't the first example of this kind of sneaky brain mechanism.
Serge Schmemann, columnist at the
New York Times
, tells in a forum that he has already been a victim when he lived in Russia.
He then describes a
"tic in the eye"
from which he suffered only in Moscow.
The doctor at the American embassy had explained to him that he had the symptoms of
"Moscow eye"
, a reaction of the brain to a high level of stress, here due to the fact of living in a State perceived as hostile.
An alternative explanation for the high-pitched sounds heard by diplomats in Cuba has been put forward.
These sounds are said to be produced by the song of a rare and little-known species of crickets, the
Anurogryllus celerinictus
.
Various foreign leads rejected
The latest victims were spotted in Paris and Geneva in mid-January 2022. Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said the US government was actively looking into the matter, and had discussed it with Russia , unofficially suspected by the United States of being the cause of this evil.
Moscow, as well as Cuba, where the patient zero of the "Havana syndrome"
was detected
, denies having played any role in this affair.
The first cases of Havana syndrome were detected in the Cuban capital at the end of December 2016. It seemed to affect only American spies, then spread to diplomats. This cast a chill over Cuban-American diplomatic relations, which had only just been restored. The US government made the decision to fire some 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington, and after hesitating to close its new embassy in Havana, decided to cut its staff there by more than half, from 54 to 18 agents. .
After a long dialogue between the administrations of the two countries, the Cuban track was finally ruled out. American diplomacy has gone in search of a new culprit. Moscow was almost immediately mentioned, as US officials felt that Russia had the most to gain from the freezing of relations between Cuba and the United States. The Obama administration had been surprised that the Russians did not interfere during their takeover, while ending the embargo was still in the planning stage.
The Chinese track was also raised. U.S. officials learned in late 2017 that Raúl Castro, then Cuba's leader, had privately suggested that China might be responsible - something the Cuban government denies. A few months later, the first case of
"Havana syndrome"
was detected in Guangzhou, China. Subsequently, the number of victims only increased and the evil spread to the four corners of the globe, from Australia to Colombia, via Austria.
The theory of an attack by a foreign power now seems almost definitively ruled out.
But the director of the CIA, William J. Burns, assured that the intelligence agency had
"not finished"
its work.
"We will continue to investigate these incidents,"
he said.
