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  1. #26
    A Cockless Wonder
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    US warns staff in China: Beware of unusual sounds


    Types of sonic weapon

    Infrasound - below 20Hz

    • at frequencies too low for humans to hear
    • if very loud can cause vertigo, vomiting or uncontrollable defecation!!!
    • would need huge racks of speakers to be effective

    Ultrasound - above 20,000Hz

    • easier to target
    • possible to direct sound through walls
    • risk of affecting people other than those targeted, including person carrying out attack


    US warns staff in China: Beware of unusual sounds - BBC News

  2. #27
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    Lucky, it's not (yet) Novichok...

  3. #28
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Doctors, scientists say microwave strikes may have caused mysterious ailments of US embassy workers: report

    Doctors and scientists say that microwave weapons are the main suspect behind the mysterious ailments of dozens of American diplomats and family members in Cuba and China.


    Douglas Smith, director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, told The New York Times that microwaves were likely behind the health incidents, some of which likely resulted in brain injury.


    Smith was the lead author of a study that examined 21 affected U.S. diplomats from Cuba. The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in March, did not mention microwaves.

    “Everybody was relatively skeptical at first, and everyone now agrees there’s something there,” Smith told the Times.

    MORE. http://thehill.com/policy/internatio...sed-mysterious

  4. #29
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    probably some tests being done by the CIA on Gitmo, with unexpected effects on locals, so US Staff had to be evacuated

    classic CIA coverup story,

  5. #30
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Evacuated after 'health attacks' in Cuba and China, diplomats face new ordeals in U.S.

    Some diplomats and their doctors tell NBC they're concerned the U.S. wants to downplay what happened. Some suspect harassment has continued inside the U.S.


    WASHINGTON — Alone in her bed in a sprawling Chinese metropolis, Catherine Werner was jolted awake one night by a pulsing, humming sound. It seemed to be coming from a specific direction.


    Perhaps the A.C. unit in her upscale Guangzhou apartment was malfunctioning, the American diplomat thought. But at the same moment, she also noticed intense pressure in her head.






    The sounds and sensations returned, night after night, for months. When Werner's health began declining in late 2017 — vomiting, headaches, loss of balance — she brushed it off at first, thinking China's polluted air and water were getting to her.


    It wasn't until months later — after her mother, Laura Hughes, grew alarmed, flew in from the U.S. and then got sick, too — that Werner was medevaced from China back to the States. Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania found a vision disorder, a balance disorder and an "organic brain injury" — diagnoses similar to those of 26 U.S. diplomats and spies in Cuba who started hearing strange sounds and falling ill in late 2016.


    In May, the State Department issued an ominous health alert: It had "medical confirmation" that a worker in China was affected.

    The United States faced a troubling question: Had whatever happened to the Americans in Cuba spread?


    MORE https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latin-a...rdeals-n920241

  6. #31
    Thailand Expat raycarey's Avatar
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    from the beginning, this has been an amazing story....and it could potentially lead us all down a very dangerous road



  7. #32
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    ‘Sonic attacks’ at US embassy in Cuba may have just been crickets
    January 6, 2019

    The “sonic attacks” that afflicted diplomats at the US embassy in Cuba could have just been the work of crickets, according to a report Sunday.

    The embassy in Havana cut its staff in half in 2017 after dozens of people complained of headaches, nausea and other ailments from hearing mysterious, penetrating high-pitched noises — believed to be an acoustic weapon — possibly from the Russians.

    But a fresh analysis of an audio recording made by US personnel in Cuba revealed that the source of the piercing din is the song of the Indies short-tailed cricket, known as Anurogryllus celerinictus, a study says.

    “The recording is definitively a cricket that belongs to the same group,” said Fernando Montealegre-Zapata, a professor of sensory biology at the University of Lincoln who participated in the study, according to The Guardian. “The call of this Caribbean species is about 7 kHz, and is delivered at an unusually high rate, which gives humans the sensation of a continuous sharp trill.”

    The study, by Montealegre-Zapata and Alexander Stubbs at the University of California, was published Jan. 4 on the website bioRxiv.

    https://nypost.com/2019/01/06/sonic-...been-crickets/

  8. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    ‘Sonic attacks’ at US embassy in Cuba may have just been crickets
    funny that they left out what the embassy staff had to say about this theory

  9. #34
    The Fool on the Hill bowie's Avatar
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    crickets, crickets, FFS ya went and got us all worked up about a bunch of crickets...

    Just where the hell is Orkin when ya need 'em?

  10. #35
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    It's not explicitely explained whether the crickets were "natural" or "robotic":

    Robot drone bees? It's not a horror movie, it's a Walmart patent

    SAN FRANCISCO — Birds do it. Bees do it. Now even educated Walmart drones may do it.

    The world's largest retailer has applied for a patent for drone pollinators to make up for the decline in bees and other insects that fertilize crops and make much of the food the company sells possible.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...ent/428935002/

  11. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    It's not explicitely explained whether the crickets were "natural" or "robotic":
    or mention the embassy in PRC that had the same problem

  12. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    ‘Sonic attacks’ at US embassy in Cuba may have just been crickets
    Why don't they just be honest and admit that some bible bashing gawd fearin red neck rooooskie hating commie fearing fucking idiot decided to make up some lies to try and start a war again, and the lap dog media swallowed it?



  13. #38
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    Luckily, no such horrible creatures in embassies in Riyadh, London, to name just few...

  14. #39
    RIP pseudolus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    Riyadh



    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    London



    ...lots of them.

  15. #40
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Thought this article at the below link would be of interest to you lot.

    THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE HAVANA EMBASSY MYSTERY

    U.S. officials say dozens of diplomats in Cuba were felled by a sonic “attack.” But the likeliest culprit is far less futuristic—and much more terrifying.

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019...mystery?inline

  16. #41
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    ^
    Government secrecy made things worse. “We will not release information,” the State Department declared, “that violates individuals’ privacy or reveals their medical conditions.” The government also ignored data that didn’t fit its preferred theory.

    Early on, there was an outbreak of symptoms among Canadian officials in Havana, one of whom lived next door to Patient Zero. But Canada and Cuba enjoy good relations, so it made no sense for Cuba to be attacking Canadians.

    Likewise, an isolated report of a similar “attack” at the U.S. Embassy in China briefly made the news, but was eventually dropped from the narrative. U.S. officials further loaded the dice by selecting the people sent home for testing—presenting an incomplete and misleading set of data for doctors to examine.

    Luckily, no war declaration - or just a preemptive bombing was excercised...

  17. #42
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    I advised them already on 13.10.2017:


    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    It sounds sort of like a mass of crickets.
    Tinnitus. This I have all days around.

    Tinnitus is the hearing of sound when no external sound is present.[1] While often described as a ringing, it may also sound like a clicking, hiss or roaring.[2] Rarely, unclear voices or music are heard.[3] The sound may be soft or loud, low pitched or high pitched and appear to be coming from one ear or both.[2] Most of the time, it comes on gradually.[3] In some people, the sound causes depression or anxiety and can interfere with concentration.[2]

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

    Or the real crickets? Don't they have them in Cuba?

  18. #43
    last farang standing
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    Coincidentally, on each occasion Cheryl was in the next room proof reading aloud his latest literary masterpiece "My thoughts while counting train wheels in Arabic" ... Possible link?

  19. #44
    Thailand Expat raycarey's Avatar
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    U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks
    American officials in China, Cuba and Russia say U.S. agencies are concealing the true extent of the episodes, leaving colleagues vulnerable to hostile actions abroad.

    WASHINGTON — The strange sound came at night: a crack like a marble striking the floor of the apartment above them.

    Mark Lenzi and his wife had lightheadedness, sleep issues and headaches, and their children were waking up with bloody noses — symptoms they thought might be from the smog in Guangzhou, China, where Mr. Lenzi worked for the State Department. But air pollution could not explain his sudden memory loss, including forgetting names of work tools.

    What began as strange sounds and symptoms among more than a dozen American officials and their family members in China in 2018 has turned into a diplomatic mystery spanning multiple countries and involving speculation about secret high-tech weapons and foreign attacks.

    One of the biggest questions centers on whether Trump administration officials believe that Mr. Lenzi and other diplomats in China experienced the same mysterious affliction as dozens of diplomats and spies at the American Embassy in Cuba in 2016 and 2017, which came to be known as Havana Syndrome. American employees in the two countries reported hearing strange sounds, followed by headaches, dizziness, blurred vision and memory loss.

    But the government’s treatment of the episodes has been radically different. The State Department, which oversaw the cases, has produced inconsistent assessments of patients and events, ignored outside medical diagnoses and withheld basic information from Congress, a New York Times investigation found.

    In Cuba, the Trump administration withdrew most of its staff members from the embassy and issued a travel warning, saying U.S. diplomats had experienced “targeted attacks.” President Trump expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington and started an independent review, though Cuba denied any involvement.

    The administration took a softer approach with China. In May 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was the C.I.A. director during the Cuba events, told lawmakers that the medical details of one American official who had fallen ill in China were “very similar and entirely consistent” with the syndrome in Cuba. The administration evacuated more than a dozen federal employees and some of their family members.

    The State Department soon retreated, labeling what happened in China as “health incidents.” While the officers in Cuba were placed on administrative leave for rehabilitation, those in China initially had to use sick days and unpaid leave, some officers and their lawyers say. And the State Department did not open an investigation into what happened in China.

    The administration has said little about the events in China and played down the idea that a hostile power could be responsible. But similar episodes have been reported by senior C.I.A. officers who visited the agency’s stations overseas, according to three current and former officials and others familiar with the events.

    That includes Moscow, where Marc Polymeropoulos, a C.I.A. officer who helped run clandestine operations in Russia and Europe, experienced what he believes was an attack in December 2017. Mr. Polymeropoulos, who was 48 at the time, suffered severe vertigo in his hotel room in Moscow and later developed debilitating migraine headaches that forced him to retire.

    The cases involving C.I.A. officers, none of which have been publicly reported, are adding to suspicions that Russia carried out the attacks worldwide. Some senior Russia analysts in the C.I.A., officials at the State Department and outside scientists, as well as several of the victims, see Russia as the most likely culprit given its history with weapons that cause brain injuries and its interest in fracturing Washington’s relations with Beijing and Havana.

    The C.I.A. director remains unconvinced, and State Department leaders say they have not settled on a cause.

    Critics say disparities in how the officers were treated stemmed from diplomatic and political considerations, including the president’s desire to strengthen relations with Russia and win a trade deal with China.

    China diplomats began reporting strange symptoms in spring 2018, as U.S. officials stationed there were trying to coax their Chinese counterparts into a trade deal that Mr. Trump had promised to deliver. The president was also looking to Beijing for help in clinching nuclear talks with North Korea and consistently lavished praise on Xi Jinping, China’s authoritarian leader.

    According to half a dozen American officials, State Department leaders realized that pursuing a similar course of action as they had in Cuba — including evacuating missions in China — could cripple diplomatic and economic relationships.

    With Cuba, Mr. Trump sought to reverse President Barack Obama’s détente. Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Havana during the events, said the Trump administration’s move to withdraw staff members “dovetailed fortuitously with their objective on Cuba.”

    Those who fled China have spent more than two years fighting to obtain the same benefits given to the victims in Cuba and others attacked by foreign powers. The battles have complicated their recovery and prompted government retaliation that might have permanently damaged their careers, according to interviews with more than 30 government officials, lawyers and doctors.

    U.S. lawmakers have criticized what they call secrecy and inaction from the State Department and are pressing the agency to release a study it received in August from the National Academies of Sciences, which examined potential causes of the episodes.

    “These injuries, and subsequent treatment by the U.S. government, have been a living nightmare for these dedicated public servants and their families,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire. “It’s obvious how a U.S. adversary would have much to gain from the disorder, distress and division that has followed.”

    Dr. David A. Relman, a Stanford University professor who is the chairman of the National Academies of Sciences committee that examined the cases, said it was “disheartening and immensely frustrating” that the State Department had refused to share the report with the public or Congress “for reasons that elude us.”

    In a statement, the department said: “The safety and security of U.S. personnel, their families and U.S. citizens is our top priority. The U.S. government has not yet determined a cause or an actor.”

    Mr. Lenzi said he had sued the department for disability discrimination, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is pursuing two investigations into the State Department’s conduct.

    The Office of Special Counsel declined to comment. But in an April 23 letter viewed by The Times, special counsel officials said investigators had “found a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” by the State Department, though the inquiry continues.

    “This is a deliberate, high-level cover-up,” Mr. Lenzi said. “They have hung us out to dry.”

    The situation has been complicated by the fact that American officials and scientists still debate whether the symptoms resulted from an attack.

    Many diplomats, C.I.A. officers and scientists suspect a weapon producing microwave radiation damaged the victims’ brains. But some scientists and government officials argue it was a psychological illness that spread in the stressful environment of foreign missions. Some point to chemical agents, like pesticides.

    The Trump administration has not clarified its view or said exactly how many people were affected.

    At least 44 people in Cuba and 15 in China were evaluated or treated at the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania. Others went elsewhere. At least 14 Canadian citizens in Havana say they have suffered similar symptoms.

    Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania declined to discuss details but dismissed the idea of a psychological illness, saying the patients they treated had sustained a brain injury from an external source.

    Some senior officials at the State Department and former intelligence officers said they believed Russia played a role. The country’s intelligence operatives have seeded violence around the world, poisoning enemies in Britain and fueling assaults on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

    During the Cold War, the Soviet Union bombarded the American Embassy in Moscow with microwaves. In a 2014 document, the National Security Agency said it had intelligence on a hostile country using a high-powered microwave weapon to “bathe a target’s living quarters in microwaves,” causing nervous system damage. The name of the country was classified, but people familiar with the document said it referred to Russia.

    Several of the cases against the C.I.A. affected senior officers who were traveling overseas to discuss plans to counter Russian covert operations with partner intelligence agencies, according to two people familiar with the matter. Some C.I.A. analysts believe Moscow was trying to derail that work.

    Mr. Polymeropoulos declined to discuss his experiences in Moscow, but he criticized how the U.S. government had handled its injured personnel. He is pushing the agency to allow him to go to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the hospital that has treated some of those who were affected in Cuba.

    Some top American officials insist on seeing more evidence before accusing Russia. Gina Haspel, the C.I.A. director, has acknowledged that Moscow had the intent to harm operatives, but she is not convinced it was responsible or that attacks occurred, two American officials said.

    Nicole de Haay, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, said the “C.I.A.’s first priority has been and continues to be the welfare of all of our officers.”

    Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, has called any insinuation of Moscow’s involvement “absolutely absurd and bizarre.” A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington said the purported attacks were most likely a case of “mass hysteria.”

    Mr. Lenzi, who has an extensive background working in the former Soviet Union, said classified material pointed to the country that had carried out the attacks, but the State Department denied him access to the documents.

    Top officials “know exactly which country” was responsible, Mr. Lenzi said, adding that it was not Cuba or China but another country “which the secretary of state and president do not want to confront.”

    he first person to fall ill in China, a Commerce Department officer named Catherine Werner, who lived next door to Mr. Lenzi, experienced vomiting, nausea, headaches and dizziness for months before she was flown to the United States in April 2018.

    According to a whistle-blower complaint filed by Mr. Lenzi, the State Department took action only after Ms. Werner’s visiting mother, an Air Force veteran, used a device to record high levels of microwave radiation in her daughter’s apartment. The mother also fell ill.

    That May, American officials held a meeting to reassure U.S. officers in Guangzhou that Ms. Werner’s sickness appeared to be an isolated case. But Mr. Lenzi, a diplomatic security officer, wrote in a memo to the White House that his supervisor insisted on using inferior equipment to measure microwaves in Ms. Werner’s apartment, calling it a “check-the-box exercise.”

    “They didn’t find anything, because they didn’t want to find anything,” Mr. Lenzi said.

    He sent an email warning American diplomats in China that they might be in danger. His superiors sent a psychiatrist to evaluate him and gave him an official “letter of admonishment,” Mr. Lenzi said.

    Months after he began reporting symptoms of brain injury, he and his family were medically evacuated to the University of Pennsylvania.

    Other officers in China were experiencing similar symptoms. Robyn Garfield, a Commerce Department officer, was evacuated from Shanghai with his wife and two children in June 2018.

    Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania told Mr. Garfield that his injuries were similar to those of Americans in Cuba, but the State Department’s medical bureau said they stemmed from a 17-year-old baseball injury, he wrote in a Facebook group for American diplomats in March 2019.

    The State Department labeled only one China officer as having the “full constellation” of symptoms consistent with the Cuba cases: Ms. Werner, the first evacuee. In an internal letter, the department said 15 others in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing had some symptoms and clinical findings “similar to those” in Cuba, but it had not determined they were suffering from “Havana syndrome.”

    Doctors at the University of Pennsylvania said they did not share individual brain scans with the State Department, so the government lacked necessary information to rule out brain injuries in China.

    “It seems to me and my doctors that State does not want any additional cases from China,” Mr. Garfield wrote, “regardless of the medical findings.”
    U.S. Diplomats and Spies Battle Trump Administration Over Suspected Attacks - The New York Times

  20. #45
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    A weird story indeed.

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