Havana Syndrome

CC: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A deep dive into the anomalous neurotraumatic incidents cognitively crippling Federal agents

Imagine you were washing the dishes and heard a piercing screech from outside your house. Then imagine the next day you have an excruciating headache. The next day, you can’t walk properly. And the next day, you can’t interpret events unfolding right in front of you. 

Throbbing pain, frozen limbs, and a dazed mind— Diplomat Kate Husband experienced all these symptoms for many years due to being a victim of Havana syndrome. Havana syndrome is a brain injury that causes severe headaches and cognitive symptoms. Kate is only one of thousands of people who suffer from Havana syndrome even now. 

In 2016, various DOS (Department of State) employees at the U.S embassy in Havana, Cuba, began to experience many cognitive disruptions ranging from vertigo and blurry vision to cognitive dysfunction and hearing loss. This incident was the beginning of a long, mysterious trail of cases known officially as “anomalous health incidents” (AHI) but is commonly referred to as Havana syndrome. 

Havana syndrome didn’t begin in Havana, ironically enough. It was only recently discovered that the Pentagon had investigated a similar case that occurred in 2014 in Frankfurt, Germany, but this was overlooked and left unreported for a time. Since then, anomalous health incidents have been appearing left and right in Australia, China, Colombia, Georgia, India, Poland, Russia, and Vietnam.  

Two common patterns among these instances are that nearly all the victims are either government agents, active duty, former federal employees, or family members of these individuals, including children. The symptoms also always manifest as audio and vestibular (sensory and balance) phenomena, some of which have long-term, debilitating severity. 

There are a few theorized causes of Havana syndrome, like exposure to neurotoxins, drugs, stress, or a case of group hysteria. However, the leading explanation is a mechanical device that is capable of “shooting” one of two kinds of directed energy pulses.  

The first possibility is microwaves. Microwaves are electromagnetic energy waves that work to heat things like frozen burgers through agitating the H2O (water) molecules’ polarity, causing them to spin billions of times per second and build up thermal energy. With this in mind, it’s not hard to believe that these waves can cause extreme damage, considering our brains are about 75% water and consequently make for a very vulnerable pink burger to these waves. 

Another contender for the cause of Havana syndrome is directed ultrasonic energy pulse waves, since this type of energy can inhibit proper neuron function through disrupting electrical and chemical brain activity between certain neural pathways. However, it’s also important to mention that ultrasonic energy can sometimes struggle to penetrate the skull without the right intensity.  

The effects of Havana syndrome are debilitating and, oddly enough, mirror the conditions found in people with brain damage or concussions. A few immediate side effects include a sudden onset of pain and pressure in the head, insomnia, brain fog, balance issues, and confusion, while the longer-lasting effects consist of symptoms like migraines, nosebleeds, and recurrent vertigo. A few victims have even reported hearing a loud, piercing, but localized sound (meaning only the victim could hear it) at night and claimed that it seemed to be coming from a certain direction, like a window. 

CC: Jongleur100, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

But that’s completely dependent on the victims’ personal accounts, and an obscure mystery like Havana syndrome surely doesn’t have much real, credible evidence to support its existence besides a few similar claims among some random government workers, right? Interestingly enough, victims of Havana syndrome were also found to have undergone real, measurable changes in the makeup of their brains, where their white matter amounts had been physically altered according to the results of a neuroimaging test done through a study published in 2019.  

The neuroimaging results in this study revealed that Havana syndrome victims had significantly smaller frontal, occipital, and parietal lobe white matter volumes compared to the control group and a 16% decrease in functional connectivity between auditory subnetworks, alongside a 10% decrease in visuospatial subnetwork functionality than normal. In fact, the brain’s entire white matter volume of the victim group was discovered to be 27.39 cm^3 less than that of the control group. 

So, what does this mean? 

White matter is responsible for the transmission of information and connects different brain regions. This decrease in white matter means that whatever the cause of Havana syndrome is, it can directly affect your brain tissue and interrupt your brain’s ability to interpret information by damaging the communication pathways between your neurons.  

It’s also important to mention that this was passed off as being caused by stress and group psychology, despite the fact that neither stress nor group psychology is capable of significantly impacting brain matter volume like this, and they certainly can’t cause these symptoms either. 

But even with these contradictions, the claim that it had been only stress causing these problems has been echoed through media like Britannica and downplayed by agencies like the National Intelligence Council, which contributes to alienating the topic and the victims who already struggle to get proper care and face very real, recurring issues from Havana syndrome to this day. 

But who could be doing this to these people? Is it some attack intended to hinder the efficiency of important American agencies? Is it a series of illegal and immoral experiments meant to test some secret psychological weapon? Well, the idea of this being of foreign source is very unlikely according to numerous national intelligence agencies, and it’s hard to disagree. 

After all, the negligence surrounding the research and handling of the Havana syndrome situation is a bit fishy, especially considering America’s past with arguably immoral testing on humans, like the Stateville penitentiary malaria tests and the Guatemalan syphilis tests, which harmed many people, even America’s own citizens. Sometimes, the hidden political powers that be have been more deceptive than we can imagine, and with such under coverage and sloppiness surrounding what could turn out to be a near undetectable, long-range, brain-altering weapon, can we really say that Havana syndrome won’t be revealed to be another MK Ultra?  

We citizens, don’t know. And by the time we do, that piercing ring, whether it be foreign or domestic, may already be coming from your window.