Global Courant 2023-04-19 06:12:34
The first cases of what became known as Havana syndrome were reported in 2016. US diplomats and foreign officials in places like Russia, China and Cuba began to suffer from a mysterious illness. Symptoms included headache, dizziness and brain fog.
“There was a significant amount of head pressure, a lot of pain, eventually stabbing pain to the point where I started passing out,” said “Adam,” who is the first known person to suffer from Havana syndrome.
Adam, a former government employee whose last name Fox News withholds for security reasons, is considered patient zero and was first attacked in December 2016 while living in Havana. He said he had frequent seizures and that his friends and colleagues suffered from the same ailments.
“Usually I’d wake up lying in a pool of my own blood on my pillow from gushing nosebleeds,” Adam said. “That wouldn’t stop until the main pressure piece stopped.”
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Since Adam’s case was reported, hundreds of American diplomats have suffered from the strange attacks. The US government has not yet determined what caused the disease. Scientists and doctors who have studied radio frequency energy say it is likely that a microwave weapon could be the cause of the symptoms.
“The majority of people I know, who I’ve talked to about this, who know the field, all agree that this is about a syndrome,” said physicist James Benford. “It certainly suits a microwave beam as an offensive element.”
Benford has a Ph.D. in physics and is an expert in how powerful microwaves work.
“I’ve reviewed the scientific literature on the effects of microwaves and I’m very familiar with the national capabilities of our country and abroad,” Benford said.
US intelligence agencies released a report on Havana syndrome in March. The main conclusion was that it was “highly unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible. The report explained that the symptoms experienced by the victims were “probably due to factors not involving a foreign adversary, such as pre-existing conditions, conventional illnesses and environmental factors.”
Adam called the report “a travesty.”
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“Anyone with a modicum of common sense would look at all the things that have been made public, all the things that are available, open source, and realize they’re being lied to quite a bit,” Adam said. . “Across the board, I give it an ‘F.’ It’s a pity. And I think it won’t be too long before it’s proven that what happened was more of a cover-up than an actual investigation.”
Benford agreed, saying the government’s statements attempt to obscure the real origins and deny that foreign governments have the ability to produce microwave weapons.
“That’s just not the case,” Benford said. “Powerful microwaves emerged about 50 years ago and have been thoroughly developed, first by the US and the Soviet Union.”
Benford said the US, Russia and China have all developed the microwave weapon technology. He says it has expanded to a point where the devices are smaller and can be transported in vehicles as small as a van. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via Getty Images/File)
He said the US, Russia and China all developed the technology. He said it has expanded to a point where the devices are smaller and can be transported in vehicles as small as a van.
“The Russians, in particular, have specialized in compact systems. They have published reports in the open literature on the effects of microwaves on experimental animals such as mice,” Benford said. “And they’ve shown that these effects are very parallel to those we see in Havana syndrome.”
Benford said Russian scientists repeatedly hit mice with short pulses of microwave frequency, and the effects were measurable and, in some cases, permanent.
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“I think there’s a very good chance that the Russian capability can be used by them, but it can also be used by anyone who reads this open literature,” Benford said.
The State Department has asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to review cases of Havana syndrome. In 2020, that report assessed “pulsed radiofrequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism” for explaining those diseases. The March intelligence report conflicted with that determination by stating that “there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon or collecting device” that could be responsible for the Havana syndrome cases.
“To say that these weapon systems don’t exist is wool over our eyes,” Adam said. “All you have to do is look at some of the released reports to realize that these weapon systems really exist. There are patents for US systems – not to mention those that may or may not have been developed within the US government. When The Pentagon has such a huge microwave budget that it seems a bit stupid to say that a microwave weapon can’t exist right now.”
“To say that these weapon systems don’t exist is wool over our eyes,” Adam said. “All you have to do is look at some of the released reports to realize that these weapon systems really exist. There are patents for US systems – not to mention those that may or may not have been developed within the US government. When The Pentagon has such a huge microwave budget that it seems a bit stupid to say that a microwave weapon can’t exist right now.” (Staff/AFP via Getty Images/File)
Two agencies ruled that radiofrequency energy was a plausible cause of Havana syndrome. All agencies said additional research on the technology would be valuable “because there is still an ongoing scientific debate about whether it could result in a weapon that could cause the symptoms.”
“I think their motives might be to cover it up, because an attack on U.S. embassy personnel is an attack on the United States. It’s essentially an act of war,” Benford said.
Adam said he believes the agencies were concerned about the overseas workforce amid the reports.
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“There’s an element of shame in it, why don’t you find out?” said Adam. “If it was that extensive, you’d think you’d want to go back to patient zero and ask questions. But apparently that was never on the table.”
Adam said the US government was involved in the beginning. He and his colleagues also sought medical help from their own doctors.
“We had flown back to the United States to try and get answers for ourselves because Washington wasn’t sure what to do or how to handle it. Honestly, I don’t blame them in these early days,” Adam said.
Many who reported symptoms of Havana syndrome suffered long-lasting effects. Their private doctors determined the cases were consistent with traumatic brain injury. But Adam says government research into the diseases eventually began to shift.
President Biden signed the Havana Act into law in 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images/File)
“There were two streams of thought within the IOC. One was: What is this? Let’s get to the bottom of this. And the other was: Shut it down, make it go away, pretend nothing happened,” Adam said. “Even my first doctors in Miami were getting calls from the agency to change my medical records to remove traumatic brain injuries from those records because Washington didn’t like it.”
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Havana Act into law. The legislation authorized additional financial assistance for victims of Havana syndrome. Adam says he has friends who have reported cases of Havana syndrome and who receive the payments. But those people have not been interviewed by detectives.
“They are willing to admit that they suffered brain damage from a device similar to the one I was injured with. Yet those individuals have not been interviewed, especially not by anyone on the task force,” Adam said.
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With no official determination of the cause of the attacks, many wonder if there is a cure for the victims.
“Cognitive disruptions can be permanent,” Benford said. “We can’t be sure it can be essentially cured.”
Adam says some of his colleagues suffer from epileptic seizures and rare cancers. He is also concerned about the impact of the attacks on those attacked in years to come.
“Are we predisposed to MS or early onset Parkinson’s? We just don’t know what the future holds,” Adam said. “I’ve seen 100 different doctors across the country. And at the end of the day, the answer is, you’re as good as you can get.”
Benford still has hope that the US government has been working behind the scenes to solve the mystery of Havana syndrome.
“I hope the country does something about this. I hope that under classification we try to figure out how these effects work, both physically and biologically,” Benford said.
A released report released in Salon at the end of March conflicts with the intelligence investigation released earlier that same month. The document was prepared for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by a panel of experts and suggests that an unknown device or weapon using “pulsed electromagnetic energy” remains a plausible explanation. The report was released after the James Madison Project filed a lawsuit seeking more information about Havana syndrome cases. The heavily redacted information shows that some cases “cannot be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions and may be due to external stimuli.”
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Politico reported that that the Department of Defense is investigating radio frequency waves to determine whether they caused the illnesses. Fox News contacted the White House, State Department and Department of Defense about ongoing investigations and received no response.
Adam said private efforts have been made to research Havana syndrome. He also acknowledged that the number of new cases has declined, with the last known attacks reported at the end of 2022.
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“We’ve seen this silence. But it also doesn’t help if the agency puts out reports declaring you crazy. So nobody in their right mind would come forward even if they still had a valid case,” Adam said.
“Their attempts to shut this down internally probably worked too, because I know if I got this overseas I wouldn’t come forward either.”
Bret Baier is the Fox News Channel’s chief political anchor and the anchor and executive editor of “Special Report with Bret Baier.” He is the author of four presidential biographies, addressing the critical issues of our time. His fifth biography, To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Convention that Saved the American Experiment, will be published in 2023.
