In November 2020, two National Security Council officials suddenly developed symptoms of Havana Syndrome in a building, one in November and the other a week later with a similar illness. What’s even more surprising is that one of them simply walked through the building’s front door. The U.S. Office of the Director of Intelligence recently issued a statement saying that they are stepping up their efforts to investigate.
To date, more than a hundred U.S. diplomats, spies and soldiers around the world have shown symptoms of Havana syndrome, among others.
Late last year, two White House National Security Council officials mysteriously became ill, including one who walked through the doors into the building, CNN reported.
Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of those incidents. The U.S. intelligence community remains unclear about the cause of the strange series of neurological symptoms, or even whether they can be described as an “attack.
According to sources familiar with the matter, in November 2020, a White House official was attempting to pass through an unguarded gate near the White House Ellipse when he experienced mild symptoms of discomfort, such as headaches and insomnia, all of which disappeared after a week.
Another official developed similar symptoms a few weeks later near an entrance to the White House, although the official never reported the incident. However, the officer was immediately taken to the hospital for treatment as his condition was more severe.
These two incidents and a similar suspicious incident in Virginia in 2019 have led U.S. officials to worry that attacks that were originally only overseas are showing up on U.S. soil and even near the White House.
Over the past five years, many U.S. diplomats and other officials in Cuba, Russia and China have described a strange experience, including a sudden feeling of vertigo, headache or pressure inside the head, some hearing a “piercing directional noise” and some even experiencing chronic headaches and brain damage.
Some people say they can avoid the disturbance as long as they walk into other rooms, but once they return to their original room, the symptoms appear again.
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee recently released a statement saying that the number of similar cases around the world is increasing. In the past five years, more than 130 cases have emerged globally, and at least one similar case has occurred outside the United States in the past two weeks.
It appears that some U.S. officials stationed in Europe have also experienced similar cases, the sources said.
A statement released last Tuesday (May 11) by the Office of the Director of U.S. Intelligence said U.S. intelligence agencies are referring to the cases as “unusual public health events. The Biden administration has stepped up its efforts to collect evidence of similar cases and identify the causes in an effort to prevent them before they happen.
CIA Director Bill Burns has begun receiving daily briefings on the matter, including from the victims, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Some other relevant agency personnel said they are preparing to develop a sensor that can detect abnormal behavior. Such sensors may only be able to detect abnormal behavior, but still can not prevent people from being attacked.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences in March showed that Havana syndrome may be due to a “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” triggered by the so-called “microwave energy” triggered by the disease. But U.S. officials warned that this is not yet certain, and many scholars have publicly stated that this claim is untenable.
A memo released by the National Security Agency in 2014 shows that the agency gathered information about Havana syndrome in 2014, which alleged that there may be a weapon designed to cover the victim’s living quarters with a high-powered microwave system that causes multiple physical discomforts and even damage to the victim’s nervous system.
But the memo does not confirm whether such a weapon exists and which country may have developed it.
Some U.S. officials are also questioning how such weapons are used, since they only cause damage to the victim’s brain and not to other parts of the victim’s body.
It is also unclear who launched the attack, and some officials say Russia may be the culprit, as it is one of the few countries working to develop similar weapons.
Members of the U.S. House and Senate intelligence committees have been asking intelligence officials for details of the attacks on victims and urging them to declassify information about the attacks.
Congress has also criticized the administration for failing to effectively coordinate several state agencies, including the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and the State Department, to respond to such incidents.
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