Report Reveals What Could Cause Mysterious Havana Syndrome

(CNN) — An intelligence panel investigating the cause of a series of mysterious incidents that have affected dozens of US officials around the world has said that some of the episodes could have been “plausibly” caused by “pulsed electromagnetic energy” emitted by an outside source, according to an executive summary of the panel’s findings released Wednesday.

But the panel stopped short of a definitive determination, saying only that both electromagnetic energy and, in limited circumstances, ultrasound could explain the key symptoms, highlighting the extent to which the cloudy disease known colloquially as “Havana syndrome” remains one of the Intelligence community’s most stubborn mysteries.

“We’ve learned a lot,” an intelligence official familiar with the panel’s work, who spoke on condition of anonymity under terms established by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told reporters. “While we don’t have the specific mechanism for each case, what we do know is that if it is reported quickly and medical attention is obtained immediately, the majority of people recover.”

The finding largely confirms a National Academies of Sciences report from late 2020 that found “directed and pulsed radiofrequency energy” to be “the most plausible mechanism to explain these cases,” but also stopped short of making a firm determination. .

The so-called panel of experts is made up of medical specialists, scientists and engineers who have access to classified information about the incidents. Officials stressed that their work focused only on uncovering the potential mechanism behind what the government calls “anomalous health incidents” and did not examine who, if anyone, might be responsible.

An interim report issued last month by a separate CIA task force examining who might be behind the episodes found it unlikely that Russia or any other foreign adversary is waging a widespread global campaign designed to harm the American officials. But the agency also did not rule out that a nation state, including Russia, could be responsible for about two dozen cases that investigators have been unable to explain by any other known cause.

“Genuine and convincing” cases

The scientific panel emphasized that the cases it studied were “genuine and convincing,” noting that some incidents affected multiple people in the same space and clinical samples from some victims showed signs of “cellular damage to the nervous system.”

An executive summary of the panel’s work provided new details on how the government is categorizing the cases as possible Havana syndrome, a clinically vague illness that has long thwarted a firm diagnosis because victims have suffered from such a diverse array of symptoms.

Although officials declined to say how many cases the panel examined as part of its investigation, they said they studied cases that met four “core characteristics”: the sharp onset of sounds or pressure, sometimes in only one ear or on one side of head; simultaneous symptoms of vertigo, loss of balance and ear pain; “a strong sense of locality or directionality”; and the absence of known environmental or medical conditions that could have caused the other symptoms.

Victims have reported being struck by this confluence of symptoms at embassies and personal residences around the world and, in at least one case, at an outdoor traffic light in a foreign country.

Both pulsed electromagnetic energy, “particularly in the radio frequency range,” and ultrasonic arrays could cause all four main symptoms, the panel found. Both could have their origin in “a concealable source”. But ultrasound can’t travel through walls, the panel found, “restricting its applicability to scenarios where the source is close to the target.”

On the other hand, sources of radiofrequency energy are known to exist, which “could generate the required stimulus, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements,” the panel said. “Using non-standard antennas and techniques, signals could be propagated with low loss through the air for tens to hundreds of meters, and with some loss, through most building materials.”

But intelligence officials familiar with the panel’s work stressed that significant gaps in information remained, preventing them from reaching firmer conclusions.

“It’s frustrating, but we’re just as persistent in helping to understand and figure out what’s going on,” an official said.

Part of the challenge, this person said, is that cases not only vary, but the combination of the four main features is unique in the medical literature.

“When we focus on the main features, it’s just a unique combination that we don’t have much experience with in the medical and clinical fields,” the official said.

And for ethical reasons, there is limited study of the impact of radiofrequency or ultrasound energy on the human body. The expert panel was limited to accounts from people who had “inadvertently” been exposed and were willing to describe their symptoms.

“There is a dearth of systematic research on the effects of relevant electromagnetic signals on humans,” states the report’s executive summary.

Victory for Victim Advocates

In a victory for victim advocates, the expert panel also ruled out one cause for those four characteristics: so-called psychosocial factors. Some victims have long complained that the CIA in the past did not take reported symptoms seriously, dismissing cases as a psychosomatic episode or mass hysteria.

Those four main characteristics cannot be explained “alone” by psychosocial factors, according to the report, although an intelligence official explained that, in some cases, a victim’s symptoms could be “complicated” by a stress reaction or other psychosocial response.

The panel also ruled out “ionizing radiation, chemical and biological agents, infrasound, audible sounds, long-range propagated ultrasound, and massive heating of electromagnetic energy.”

The panel made seven recommendations, including the development of better biomarkers that are “more specific and more sensitive for diagnosis and classification” of cases. He also recommended using “detectors” and obtaining “devices to aid the investigation.” Details about those recommendations were largely redacted in the panel’s executive summary.

Finally, they urged medical officials to act quickly whenever a case is reported, emphasizing that people who have been treated immediately after an event have gotten better.

“I think one thing the employee can do to help himself is to immediately report it and get medical attention,” the intelligence official said.

The officials stressed that the intelligence community will continue to investigate.

“We continue to make complementary efforts to get to the bottom of anomalous health incidents and provide access to world-class care for those affected,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director, said in a joint statement. Bill Burns. “We are making progress in both areas.”