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The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by U.S. diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report from the National Academies of Sciences which cites medical evidence to support the long-standing condemnation of US intelligence officials. .
The report, obtained from NBC News on Friday, does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon, as some U.S. officials have long believed. But it raises this disturbing possibility.
NBC News reported in 2018 that U.S. intelligence officials view Russia as a prime suspect in what some believe are deliberate attacks on diplomats and CIA officers abroad. But there was not – and there is not now – conclusive information pointing in that direction, said several officials who have been briefed on the matter.
According to the National Academies of Sciences report, a team of medical and scientific experts who studied the symptoms of around 40 State Department employees and other government officials concluded that no such thing had happened. previously been documented in the medical literature. Many said they heard a loud sound and felt pressure in the head, then experienced dizziness, unsteady gait and visual disturbances. Many have suffered from long-standing debilitating effects.
“The committee found that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by (government) employees are consistent with the effects of pulsed and directed radio frequency (RF) energy,” the report said. “Studies published in the open literature more than half a century ago and over the following decades by Western and Soviet sources provide full support for this possible mechanism.
While important questions remain, “the mere consideration of such a scenario raises serious concerns about a world with uninhibited malicious actors and new tools to harm others, as if the U.S. government didn’t already have its hands. full of natural threats, ”says the report, edited by Dr. David Relman, professor of medicine, microbiolology and immunology at Stanford, and Julie Pavlin, physician who heads the division of global health at the National Academies of Sciences in Washington.
Over the past year, as GQ magazine first reported, a number of new incidents have been reported by CIA agents in Europe and Asia, including one involving Marc Polymeropoulos, who has retired last year after a long and distinguished career as a Records Officer. He told NBC News he was still suffering from the effects of what he believes was a brain injury he sustained while traveling to Moscow.
A source directly familiar with the matter told NBC News that the CIA, using location data from cellphones, determined that some Russian intelligence operatives who had worked on microwave weapon programs were present in the same towns as CIA officers were suffering from mysterious symptoms. CIA officials consider this to be a promising lead but not conclusive proof.
The State Department and CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday evening. Russia has denied any involvement in the incidents.
The study looked at four possibilities for explaining the symptoms: infection, chemicals, psychological factors, and microwave energy.
“Overall, directed pulsed RF energy… appears to be the most plausible mechanism for these cases among those the committee reviewed. … The committee cannot exclude other possible mechanisms and considers that it is probable that a multiplicity of factors explains some cases and the differences between others.
The report says further investigation is needed.
Electromagnetic energy, including frequencies such as radio and microwaves, has been seen as a major possibility since the early days of the mystery. Early on, the researchers also considered the possibility that sound waves, toxins, or other mechanisms may have been involved, although no evidence is known to have emerged to support these theories.
Over the years, the FBI, CIA, US military, State Department Diplomatic Security Service, National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have investigated the incidents. None drew any conclusions, and the State Department quietly stopped using the word “attacks” to describe what happened, as did Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others. senior officials in the first few days after the incidents were discovered publicly in 2017.
Beginning in late 2016, U.S. diplomats and other officials stationed in Havana began hearing strange sounds and experiencing bizarre physical sensations, and then became ill. The incidents caused hearing, balance and cognitive changes as well as mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion.
More than two dozen American workers who served in Cuba and a smaller number of Canadians have been confirmed to have been affected, in addition to a U.S. government employee in China who was found in 2018 to have exhibited similar symptoms. .
For some of the affected employees, these symptoms disappeared and people were finally able to return to relatively normal lives. For others, the effects have persisted and have posed a continuing and significant obstacle to their work and well-being, according to NBC News interviews with U.S. officials who have been assessed by the government as having been affected.
Cuba has categorically and systematically denied any knowledge of or involvement in the incidents. In late 2018, NBC News reported that US intelligence agencies investigating the incidents considered Russia the prime suspect, based on interviews with three US officials and two other people with knowledge of the investigation.
Some outside medical experts not involved in the investigation speculated that the workers simply suffered from mass hysteria. But doctors who evaluated patients at the University of Pennsylvania, including using advanced brain imaging, found differences in their brains, including less white matter and connectivity in areas that control vision and hearing. than similar healthy people.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, questioned in October about the investigation, said there was still no firm conclusion, although he bristled at the allegations that were raised by many affected diplomats according to which the State Department has taken insufficient measures to protect them and ensure care after being injured.
“We did a lot of work trying to identify how it all happened,” Pompeo said. “And we continue to try to determine precisely the cause of this while doing our best to make sure that we take care of the health and safety of these people.”
The report recommends that the State Department put in place a response mechanism for similar incidents that allows new cases to be investigated more quickly and efficiently.
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