The CIA has recently declared its own finding that most cases of Havana syndrome are unlikely to have been caused by Russia or another foreign adversary. The CIA further says a majority of the 1,000 cases reported to the government can be explained by environmental causes, undiagnosed medical conditions or stress, rather than a sustained global campaign by a foreign power. The agency is now focused on only 24 cases that it says remain unexplained.
As you might imagine, this finding does not sit well with victims who have been battling chronic ailments for years without being given a clear explanation.
To be clear, the CIA is labeling this report as “interim” and has never accused a foreign power of being responsible, but some officials believe there is evidence of the involvement of Moscow’s spy agencies. Trump administration officials, including leaders at the CIA, were skeptical of the illness claims and felt that there was insufficient evidence that they were attacks or that Russia was behind them. Thus far, the Biden administration has no evidence to support a foreign attack either. Congress has passed a law to compensate victims of Havana syndrome with an April deadline to devise a payment plan. However, it is now unclear how these interim findings could affect that process.
Incidents began in Havana in 2016 with diplomats and CIA agents reporting strange sounds and pressure followed by various ailments, including nausea and debilitating migraine headaches. Other cases have been reported in Vienna, China, Russia, India and Vietnam. One of the early theories was that an energy device was being used to target victims with microwaves. This was found to be the most likely cause in a 2020 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Brain neuroimaging and blood tests have found differences from healthy people. Other potential causes suggested have included ultrasound, pesticides or mass psychogenic illness also known as mass hysteria. Here’s another theory. Some U.S. personnel in Havana made audio recordings during incidents. These recordings were analyzed by biologists who concluded that the sound heard was caused by the calling song of the Indies short-tailed cricket. This conclusion was comparable to a 2017 hypothesis from Cuban scientists that the sound on the same recording is from Jamaican field crickets.
A few of the most famous episodes of mass hysteria are the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938 and, more recently, the Tourette’s town of Le Roy, New York, in 2011. There are other examples from history, even more bizarre, including uncontrollable laughing in Tanzania in 1962, a dancing plague in 1518 and a Middle Ages convent of nuns meowing like a cat. There was a Pokémon panic in 1997 that seemed to cause seizures and numerous evil clown sightings in 1981, 1991, 2008 and 2016 … So, it is a thing. QAnon anyone?
Microwaves, mass hysteria, crickets? What is the cause of this mysterious condition? Sorry to disappoint you. No answer here. It is as yet unknown. Hopefully, science will eventually give us an answer. Unfortunately, science does not always give us immediate answers.
However, we absolutely need to take these victims seriously whatever the cause. Unfortunately, our government has a history of not taking similar claims seriously. Shell shock, combat fatigue, post-traumatic stress disorder, Agent Orange, war-related illness from burn pits. And you don’t have to have been to war to have PTSD. Military participants at nuclear test sites, the Tuskegee Study, the Pentagon Papers, agricultural pesticides such as DDT. The tobacco industry, Love Canal, use of torture in Guantanamo and elsewhere, the CIA’s LSD experiments on humans. Need I go on?
