U.S. Diplomats With Mysterious Illness in Cuba Had Inner-Ear Damage, Doctors Say

Some people said they started getting nauseous after sitting at their compute for an hour or two. My first step would be to take one of those computers completely apart and examine every piece thoroughly. Also do a thorough scan of the software to see if this was initiated by a virus or some kind of hack.

I read the Hoffer paper cited by Ms Robles prior to its publication in “Investigative Otolaryngology”. His, and her, conclusion that these US diplomats to Cuba have damage to the inner ear is pure speculation. Dr. Hoffer measured function (for example balance, and eye movement) and concluded that there was specific physical damage to the otoliths in the inner ear. He and his team did not, however, observe any actual damage. As it happens, Dr. Hoffer is a senior editor at the journal quoted in Ms. Robles’ article. Hoffer’s manuscript has numerous serious flaws and likely never would have been published in a properly reviewed scientific journal.

Why? This does not appear to suit the government of Cuba. Is there some other, anti-American force active in Cuba?

If someone in Cuba really were deliberately attacking US diplomatic / intelligence residences in order to destroy the opening in bilateral relations, why should Washington reward them by surrendering any functional US presence including ability to issue visas? Why would anyone attack diplomatic residences of Canada, the country that sends the largest number of tourists to Cuba, is a major trading partner and has refused to accede to US pressure to isolate Havana for fifty years? Doesn't a virtually identical problem affecting US diplomatic residences in China indicate that the Cubans and Russians couldn't be responsible? Isn't it increasingly likely this is an unintended consequence of surveillance and/or counter-surveillance technology shared with the Canadians which neither the US nor Cuba wants to admit? No doubt there are people in the White House, and among hard liners in Miami, that welcome the closure of US consular facilities in Havana. Effectively ended are visas for 20,000 annual Hispanic immigrants and thousands more for visitors who can overstay and qualify for permanent residence under the Cuban Adjustment Act. Most of them favor greater US engagement and add to political change in Florida.

I really don't see why the US would lie, although heightening general suspicion and tensions with Cuba (and China) and generating domestic support for otherwise unfounded measures is a tangible objective in itself. Speculation aside I simply have a hard time taking any of this incident seriously, mostly because the US government has proven itself barely credible on security issues involving declared adversaries. I'll start paying attention when verified and verifiable facts are published. Regards.

It all seems so odd, normally spies do not want to be noticed. Has anyone explored if this was a malfunctioning spying device - so spying was intentional, the noise + effect was not?

Lots of potential things it could be, but the biggest clue is the door. If the inside of the room felt it was at a higher pressure then that might make it easier to hear what was being said. A good reminder of the risks our diplomats face while working abroad.

When I studied at Russian state managenent University {GUU}, I as one most curious students was brought by my professor to some meeting where some unknown laboratory was reporting results of their experiment to the crowd of high rank scientists. There were no theories just observations and summaries question and clarifications. What I remember they were reporting some strange force fields physically affecting objects and humans in laboratories. They also claimed the working liquid in the device was losing one chemical elements and gaining new ones that were never there neither in liquid nor in other parts of the device. The device itself was pretty simple - two ultra precise metal disks with some special profile craved on their ends rotated against each other in opposite directions at high speed while submerged in some liquid. The distance between ends of disks was nanoscale but liquid trapped in between them were forced to rotate in microtirbulencies at even much higher speeds. Something strange happened to that liquid. Loss of working volume and transmutation of chemical elements . But most importantly some unknown directed fileds like beams had physical effects on objects meters to dozens of meters away. I don't if that couldt have any relation to this unknown energy mystery. But I see the device ysed was easy to reproduce in any part of the world . There is no supercooling or superconductors no microwave . I don't know if they weaponized it if not fake at all

Damage to the inner ear - could it be really high pitched noise, done at a short range but really loudly? Most adults can't hear in the upper range. That would explain limited range of the sound, and why more exposure would happen if the person walked in the area. Also the pressure feeling; just because a person can't hear it doesn't mean they can't feel it. When a person has an analgesic, they still react to the pain in a lot of ways (fatigue, circulation issues, sadness or impending doom) even if they don't feel it in the same ways. Maybe it really was intended to be more like an eavesdropping tool or a jammer, but ended up a crippling weapon. Most people aren't interested in destroying other people's brains.

The description of the symptoms parallel my own experience with Meniere's disease. Severe dizziness, difficulty with concentration (cognitive confusion is present in many patients), damage to the inner ear, hearing a strange high-pitched sound (tinnitus?). For me cognitive confusion came from difficulty holding information in short-term memory when dizzy. For examples, forgetting a pan on the stove, leaving my hat somewhere. My intuitive hunch is that when dizzy, unconscious mental processes were using brain circuits to compensate and interfering with normal processing of memory. Meniere's disease has different causes depending on which function of the inner ear is affected or damaged. Audiologists can test to determine the specific problem. My problem with Meniere's developed at age 45, 18 months after being transferred to a different state hospital facility where maintenance was poor. Air filters were not changed regularly. Sometimes black gunk would fall out of the air vents or there would be a broken sewer pipe in the crawl space that wouldn't be repaired for a week. Allergies were a significant, sometimes severe problem for many staff and residents. I still have allergy problems and light dizziness when exposed to some allergens, but the severe problems have largely disappeared (I retired at age 55). Physical therapy helped a great deal.

A great report and amazing findings. This case calls for that wonderful series in "Health" section of NYT - to crowd source - if we have similar cases at home of folks - but who never went to Cuba or any other suspected places. And I tend to agree with the lawyer for victims - our government knows more than it is letting in - but unlike him - probably for a good reason - i.e. not to tip off Cubans. We may still catch them red handed.

If we can prove that the Cuban government was behind this they must be punished. I'd like to see the victims of this prank bring the Cubans to court in a civil suit and let's see what happens. If they prevail and obtain judgments Cuban assets here can be tied up and seized.

I doubt Cuba is involved. Canadians love Cuba as a tourist destination. Do you really think Cuba is not aware of this? China or maybe Russia are just testing some new weapons at Cuba’s expense.

It is not Star Trek but rather a prescient episode of The X-Files in 1998 called ‘drive’. The episode starred Bryan Cranston

Sounds more like they took mefloquine to me...

Wasn’t there something in the Times in the late 1970s about Soviets beaming microwaves into the US embassy in Moscow? Whatever happened with that, what is known?

The Soviets bombarded US personnel in the embassy in Moscow during the cold war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Signal The Soviets also hid a bug in a gift from school children that was a wooden model of the Great Seal of the United States. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-gift-from-schoolchildren-let-the-soviets-spy-on-the-us-for-7-years Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

While I have zero proof. I don't think it was the Cuban government or Cuban agitators. I think it was the N. Koreans. Cuba has a N. Korean embassy. China has a land boarder with N. Korea.

I bet Putin is behind this.

Has anyone looked into the side efx of LRAD (long-range acoustic devices) employed in govt crowd control? A device whereby high-energy acoustic signals can be very narrowly focused and transmitted over distance, the ultra-sonic carrier frequencies it employs hetrodyne often causing disorientation, headaches, and nausea in some subjects when in they are in close proximity to the device. If this is a sonically-induced phenomenon, then this sort of instrument may be a possible cause.

Maybe all this speculation about Russia, China and Cuba is unfounded. Perhaps these injuries are the result of active countermeasures deployed by the United States to confound eavesdropping attempts against our diplomatic personnel.

What country would have had the means and interest to have such a capability available, and an incentive to interrupt diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba, China? Hypothesis: Russia. Given the currently administration, easy to assume that the US would be slow to officially point to that country as a culprit.

So...they haven't found any "civilians" from the public with similar damage? So it was targeted within their building?

Whatever happened in Cuba, the result seems to have destabilized the victims (made it difficult for them to function normally or optimally), and to mask (make it difficult to find) the root cause. According to Dr. Hoffer: "That’s very fatiguing...” and “...it doesn’t leave a lot left over to remember where you put your keys." According to Dr. Levin: "The otherwise high-functioning people scored poorly on memory tests and other exams that measured their ability to multitask and hear information against background noise, she said."

If you want to experience 'This is your brain on microwaves' just nuke a fresh egg on high and see what happens. Have a sponge and bucket handy. This incident has fascinated me from the beginning; I immediately assumed it was a microwave laser, one that must have been frequency-tuned for maximum neurological damage. But for what ends? By whom? If it's a Cuban anti-U.S. faction, why where Canadians, who were never anti-Cuban, also targeted? A mix-up? If it was the Cuban government itself, how to explain the targeting of embassy workers in China? If some entity is developing microwave weapons, why use embassy workers - such a prominent target - as guinea pigs? What message is intended here? My little grey cells are tingling - or is that my microwave leaking?

The damage suffered by the diplomats is bad enough. The bigger danger is that we still don’t know how the damage was inflicted. That means neither the military or the intel community has a device like it. Whoever has it is years ahead of us in perfecting the perfect weapon. They no doube have continued to develop it and have probably increased its range and power. Undetectable and disabling. It’s like something out of a science fiction movie.

I am curious as to how these injuries were studied and treated, since the inner ear is not readily accessible.

So whatever it is was applied to both a specific location--they went outside and it was gone--and to specific people in that location, since some were not affected. Havana and China, gee you think there's a link there somewhere? I think these were test runs.

Whether state sponsored or for profit, that's some scary power to keep so tightly under wraps for going on two years. What happens on a higher setting with this mysterious weapon? Let's have some answers pronto or exploding heads as last seen in David Cronenberg's 1981 'Scanners' here we come.

Given that Cuba didn't want to sabotage American relations with Cuba... China probably didn't want to sabotage American relations with China... I'd say there's three real possibilities here: 1- Russia wanted to keep Cuba isolated and vulnerable to influence, and keep the US and China from allying at Russia's expense. 2- Individual-1 is working in concert with Russia, or on his own, to sabotage relations with countries he hates: Chiiiyna and Cuba, in other words, a false flag. 3- North Korea is concerned about American-Chinese relations forcing them to make concessions, and simply made their test in Cuba to allow attention to remain on the Cuban regime, as preparation for the real act in China.

"The woman who recently retired felt that the study validated the embassy employees, who were not always taken seriously, particularly if they were older or female, she said." ...which is something that is already known in regards to women when they seek medical help.

It is to be remarked that blaming Cuba is only a first order hypothesis. It could be a party that wants relations between Cuba and the United States to be bad. It could be that some other organization that is opposed to the United States is responsible. Third party terrorism--the Iranian attack against the Israeli embassy in Argentina, the bin Laden attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania--these are very much a part of the international scene. The innovation here is the weapon. At this point in U.S. history I also would not exclude a U.S. based group (McVeigh style, or Cuban dissidents). But I'm assuming that it would have to be a group with more than the usual degree of technical sophistication. In any case blaming Cuba is only a working hypothesis. Motive and means are not established.

Isn’t this the equivalent of war? Should a military response or retaliation be on the table? Could we disable other country’s diplomats that serve in the UN?

Attacking United States and Canadian embassy personnel is a hostile act. It illustrates how desperate and irrational the Cuban regime is. It appears that they have no idea what they're doing or why, as if suffering from collective schizophrenia.

Since the Trump admin sees no problem, why not send Donnie-boy to Cuba, have him stay in the same room that the affected people stayed in and see what happens.