Brain abnormalities found in victims of US embassy attack in Cuba

[sl8]

Source: The Guardian

Associated Press in Washington
Wednesday 6 December 2017 07.47 EST Last modified on Wednesday 6 December 2017 08.10 EST

Doctors treating the victims of mysterious, invisible attacks on the US embassy in Cuba have discovered brain abnormalities as they search for clues to explain the damage to their hearing, vision, balance and memory.

The most specific finding to date about physical damage from the attacks shows that whatever it was that harmed the Americans, it led to perceptible changes in their brains. It is one of several factors fuelling growing scepticism that some kind of sonic weapon was involved.

Medical testing has revealed the embassy workers developed changes to the white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate, several US officials said, describing a growing consensus held by university and government physicians researching the attacks. White matter acts like information highways between brain cells.

Loud, mysterious sounds followed by hearing loss and ear-ringing had led investigators to suspect “sonic attacks”. But officials are now avoiding that term. The sounds may have been the byproduct of something else that caused damage, said three US officials briefed on the investigation.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/06/us-embassy-attack-cuba-brain-abnormalities-victims

[democratisphere]

1. Really strange.

How do we not know about this?

[Orrex]

5. ???

I've seen stories on this for weeks.

The details have varied slightly, but it hasn't exactly been covered up.

Not like the 100mpg car that runs on bong water, for instance.

[mainer]

8. It's been reported for months

It's the reason many US State Department personnel were withdrawn from Cuba.

Now, who would have a motive to disrupt our warming relationship with Cuba?

[left-of-center2012]

11. We do know

It has been widely reported

[Saviolo]

2. Sounds like something you'd read in a conspiracy blog...

But this is The Guardian reporting from the AP.

Very strange indeed. I don't have an education based in medicine in any way, so I don't have anything of substance to add to this, but suffice it to say I have many questions.

[lagomorph777]

3. Damn that's wierd.

[neohippie]

4. Russia suspected

https://panampost.com/karina-martin/2017/11/30/russia-suspected-of-sonic-attacks-in-uzbekistan-similar-to-those-reported-in-cuba/

“Sonic Attacks” in Uzbekistan Suggest Russian Involvement in Similar Cuban Incident

An incident in Uzbekistan, similar to the”sonic attacks” that took place in Cuba, have raised suspicions that Russia could be involved in the mysterious events that targeted US diplomats in 2016.

CBS News is reporting that an official of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and his wife suffered from a similar attack as the diplomats in Cuba.

The official and his wife were evacuated from Tashkent, the location of the USAID headquarters in Uzbekistan, by the State Department, for evaluation.

Two dozen dozen US diplomats suffered from the 2016 attack in the capital of Havana, which resulted in hearing loss, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, cognitive problems and difficulty sleeping.

Though there is still no information about the diagnosis or the treatment required for September’s Uzbekistan incident, it has raised strong concerns in the United States that Russia is targeting sonic attacks on countries where it has a significant influence.

[Duppers]

24. No doubt. That was my first thought.

Last edited Wed Dec 6, 2017, 04:59 PM - Edit history (1)

It is acknowledged in the field of sonic research that certain levels of low frequency sound can do a lot of damage in brain tissue. It's called cavitation. And it can and obviously has been weaponize.

This is not just conspiracy theory, except for the fact that they're not telling the public that physicists do know this is possible. Imo, Russia is certainly behind this because Cuba would not have this kind of technology.

Here's a Guardian article from September:

Mystery of sonic weapon attacks at US embassy in Cuba deepens
At least some of the incidents were confined to certain rooms with laser-like specificity, and some victims now have problems recalling specific words
US warns Americans not to visit Cuba and withdraws embassy staff after sonic attacks.

The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room.
...
Soon came the hearing loss, and the speech problems, symptoms both similar and altogether different from others among at least 21 US victims in an astonishing international mystery still unfolding in Cuba. The top US diplomat has called them “health attacks”.

New details learned by the Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling US officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up. (Bullcrapy!)
...
“None of this has a reasonable explanation,” said Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA official who served in Havana long before America re-opened an embassy there. “It’s just mystery after mystery after mystery.”

Suspicion initially focused on a sonic weapon, and on the Cubans. Yet the diagnosis of mild brain injury, considered unlikely to result from sound..

(Again, bullcrapy!)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/mystery-of-sonic-weapon-attacks-at-us-embassy-in-cuba-deepens

[Nitram]

6. I look forward to them finding the cause.

I love a medical mystery.

[mainer]

7. Related to this attack on NSA personnel? (link)

The foreign country isn't identified in the article, but I'm guessing it was Russia.

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Was-a-spy-s-Parkinson-s-disease-caused-by-a-12406343.php

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Tight microwave beams? Regardless, motive is mysterious. Cuban govt has no motive to do this. . nt

[ancianita]

19. True, except for the 50+ year embargo that's impoverished Cuba. And the Russian embassy.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. But it started during Obama years. Recognition, new embassy, breakthrough, visit, new tourism etc.

They had no motive to sabotage all those breakthroughs.

[ancianita]

25. Who. The Cuban government? Or the Russians who want a foothold in the new Cuba, post 2018?

Obama loosened but did not end the embargo, for reasons he didn't want to share with Americans.

[Progressive dog]

10. More questionable science from The Guardian

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/wind-turbine-syndrome/530694/
"While scientifically dubious, the idea that low-frequency noises can do extreme damage to people has been popular for decades. Infrasound—sound that’s commonly (and incorrectly) thought to be below the threshold for human hearing—has often been claimed as a source of annoyance, nausea, sleep loss and anxiety, among many other symptoms. Popular media continues to sell its threatening mystique, despite the existence of a multitude of experiments that have failed to show any harm at these low frequencies."

[sl8]

13. I'm understanding the article differently.

It seems to me that the gist of the article is that the doctors don't know the cause of the problem, but suggests that it probably is not sonic or ultrasonic in nature.

[d_r]

15. I read the article

I don't see anything about low-frequency noise.

[left-of-center2012]

12. Imagine the damage to our brains ...

From Trump's tweets and insane utterances.

[Progressive dog]

14. From the article

" The sounds may have been the byproduct of something else that caused damage, said three US officials briefed on the investigation."
It sounds to me like they are blaming sounds.

[sl8]

16. That passage argues against sound being the cause.

They say that the sounds might have been a byproduct of the actual cause of the damage. Not the cause, a byproduct.

If somone is shot & killed, it's the bullet that is the cause of death. The sound of the gunfire is just a byproduct, it's incidental.

Also the article quotes a doctor as saying:

...
Acoustic waves have never been shown to alter the brain’s white matter tracts, said Elisa Konofagou, a biomedical engineering professor at Columbia University who is not involved in the government’s investigation.

“I would be very surprised,” Konofagou said, adding that ultrasound in the brain is used frequently in modern medicine. “We never see white matter tract problems.”
...

[Progressive dog]

17. It requires energy to cause a concussion or alter a brain's white matter.

That energy has to get to the person to cause harm. That energy must be mechanical to cause concussion. That means that it has to be a mechanical energy that travels through the air to the subjects head. Either there is an invisible object smacking people in the head or the energy is traveling through the air as a pressure wave (sound).
So either it didn't happen or it happened by an unknown and undetectable form of energy.

[ancianita]

18. There is a Russian presence in Cuba. This is something only they could technologically devise.

The ugly-ass Russian embassy needs a top-down search by the Cuban government if it hopes to develop better relations with the U.S. after Raul Castro steps down next year.

[AC_Mem]

20. Was there anyone besides Americans affected?

Was it just one building, or was the area around it also tested?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. Canadian diplomats have also been affected, though not as severely.

Canada has long had cordial relations with Cuba and much tourism for years.

[CanSocDem]

21. Worst of all...

...affected Americans often lapse into uncontrollable acts of public service and advocating free education.




.

[Judi Lynn]

26. As if Cuba, a tiny country of 11,000,000 people schemed, afflicted by remote control, US citizens

working at the Interests Section of the largest, roughest government on the planet, so close Diana Nyad could dare to swim from one to the other.

Yeah, right.

They've been plotting, since the revolution, the Bay of Pigs, the embargo and subsequent acts smothering out life on Cuba in the world's longest embargo, to try to trigger a war on the US, initiating a hellacious retaliation which could pulverize them, after all these decades of struggling.

Sure, all the rubes in the holy roller churches, as they wave their mitts in the air, or brandish snakes as their rustic bands play loud music to excite the snakes, will go for this, but anyone capable of a moment's reflection would have a moment of true disgust that a cynical, sadistic opportunist like a Republican propagandist would try to push this one over on the citizenry, too.

[sl8]

27. Which Republican propagandist(s) are trying to put this over on us?

Do you think there's some sort of conspiracy involving the alleged victims, doctors and law enforcement?

[Duppers]

28. Judi, you're saying this is all just RW propaganda?

I don't think so. Why would they be reporting this as being just a "mystery"? Especially when it is well-known by researchers that low frequency sound can penetrate the skull and cause cavitation in the brain.

To me, the CT here is that they are covering the fact that Fn' Russia is doing this, with or without Cuba's knowledge. It has Russian finger prints all over it - they did it in Uzbekistan. For what purpose? And why is the Western press covering up information?

[EX500rider]

29. Except no one thinks it was the Cubans...

.....all signs & portents point to Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации- ФСБ
aka The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) Son of KGB.

[Rollo]

30. Were the Cuban also aiming at Mar-a-Lago?

Because that might help explain Trump's growing dementia...


.

[MountCleaners]

31. Engel, Royce Urge CDC, NIH to investigate alleged sonic attacks

https://democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov/news/press-releases/engel-royce-urge-cdc-nih-investigate-alleged-sonic-attacks-against-us-personnel

As the Committee awaits an update from the State Department on the investigation into sonic attacks on personnel working at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, we write to urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to offer to take a leading role in investigating the medical effects of these incidents and their potential cause.

According to the State Department, as of October 20th, 24 individuals serving at the U.S. Embassy in Havana were confirmed to have experienced health effects due to the alleged attacks. Since the incidents were first made public by the State Department in August, numerous press reports have indicated that the health effects were caused by some type of a sonic device. Yet, a State Department official in September said that “we still do not have definitive answers on the source or cause of the attacks.”

[Akoto]

32. Strange cause if not a sonic attack...

I remember back when this story first went public. The victims described being able to take a step forward, and the sound would go away. Step back, sound returns. Seems like some sort of directed force to me, at the least. Brain-altering fields with sound effects don't just randomly manifest in portions of multiple officials' rooms.

[MountCleaners]

33. Chirps, hums and phantom noises (Washington Post article)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/06/chirps-hums-and-phantom-noises-how-bizarre-events-in-cuba-changed-embassy-workers-brains/?utm_term=.7e2922c9140e

They would sometimes wake in the night to hear a disembodied chirping somewhere in the room, or a strange, low hum, or the sound of scraping metal.

Sometimes they felt a phantom flutter of air pass by as they listened. Others in the room would often not notice a thing, the Associated Press reported, and the noises would cease if the person moved just a few feet away.