
Mystery of sonic weapon attacks in Cuba deepens - nikcub
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/mystery-of-sonic-weapon-attacks-at-us-embassy-in-cuba-deepens
======
badcede
[https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-
diplomats-c...](https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-diplomats-
cuba-dont-rush-conclusions/)

~~~
lvoudour
Great read, gives a logical theory and really puts things into perspective.

While government sponsored surveillance is still going strong, the cold war
was crazy. Imagine for a moment if the internet (correction: the web) was
invented and became popular during a cold war era. that would be fun

~~~
Cthulhu_
The predecessor of the internet (ARPANet) was invented during the cold war, I
wouldn't doubt if there were attempts to use it by both the US and Russia.
Also I'd argue that the cold war is still very much active on the internet,
"russian hackers" is a common subject in the news. Whether that's really
Russian hackers or just playing the blame game is up for debate of course.
Blaming things on the Russians was another common thing during the cold war.

~~~
nl
_Whether that 's really Russian hackers or just playing the blame game is up
for debate of course._

If you are implying there's any doubt about Russian involvement in hacking
aimed at the US election, there really isn't any credible doubt about that.

No one argued that ATP-28 and ATP-29 weren't Russian when they hacked the IOC
and drug testing labs right after the Russian athletes were banned from the
Olympic games.

Nor back in 2014[1] when the FireEye assessment was first done.

Nor in 2015, when they hacked the White House[2]

Nor during 2016, _prior to the election_ when they were identified[3]

It's only after the election that people suddenly don't want to believe it.

[1] [https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-
research/2014/10/apt28-a...](https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-
research/2014/10/apt28-a-window-into-russias-cyber-espionage-operations.html)

[2] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-to-putin-stop-hacking-
me](http://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-to-putin-stop-hacking-me)

[3] [https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-
democ...](https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-
national-committee/)

~~~
rorykoehler
How can you be sure?

~~~
croon
> How can you be sure?

Don't go down this route. This leads to things like questioning if we can
really be 100% super double sure that we landed on the moon, seeing as none of
us have any verifiable proof.

Russians were involved in a lot of hacking during the election, and a lot that
has surfaced since, like intrusion into power plants, etc.

How do we know this? Because all investigations from the three letter agencies
agree on it. Do we have to trust them every time they say they're not spying
on us? Or whether they have any active investigations on something? No. But
there is no national security or stability reason for them to lie about this.
Quite the opposite.

That GP is being downvoted for stating this is disconcerting.

~~~
staunch
It's not as certain as the moon landings.

I agree Russia is almost certainly responsible. There is a ton of publicly
available _circumstantial_ evidence that points to them.

But without libpcap dumps showing what really went down, we can only take the
word of various conflicted people.

It's totally possible the NSA had the hackers bugged, and even saw the order
come in from their Russian handler, but we haven't seen anything like this
ourselves.

~~~
mannykannot
The problem with 'how can you be sure' is that it is usually an attempt to cut
off discussion and investigation, by implying that only irrefutable facts are
admissible.

~~~
rdtsc
Or it's an attempt to find out and learn more.

If the claims is really something as serious as "Russians overturned the
result of the election" it should come with very clear evidence. Otherwise it
is conspiracy theory. Granted it is a good one and a great PR campaign. But I
think it has run its course by and it's time to switch to something else.

I also heard about "17 intelligence agencies agreeing on the fact". Maybe 25th
Air Force (one of the agencies) can tell us more about what they have found
there.

~~~
nl
You seem a bit stuck on this thing about there being 17 agencies.

It was a DNI statement on behalf of the 17 agencies of the intelligence
community. That means none objected to it. For the purposes of that statement
the most important were the NSA, the CIA and the FBI. The FBI took longer to
sign off than the others because they weren't initially convinced about the
part that says the aim was to get Trump elected. They didn't have any problems
with the part about Russian meddling in the election though. Apparently they
got some additional Intel because they signed in the end.

This is way those three agencies have this logo on the statement, along with
the DNI, but the coastguard didn't.

------
Osmium
> And no single, sonic gadget seems to explain such an odd, inconsistent array
> of physical responses.

Is it possible the sounds heard were illusory, as a result of whatever caused
the brain damage? So not a sonic weapon, but some other mechanism of action?

> The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a
> Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence.

So something that can be focused at a specific point. If not a sonic weapon,
then it has to be electromagnetic?

Talk about bizarre. Whole thing reads like a conspiracy theory. Presuming the
reporting is accurate, it's hard not to believe people were specifically
targeted with the internet to harm them (rather than the alternative
explanation of an espionage technology gone wrong), if the effects were
localized on their beds (i.e. a specific physical location where they would be
known to be for several hours).

~~~
FreeFull
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect)
It's definitely possible for electromagnetic radiation to cause audible
sounds. The thing that's confusing me is what sort of motive one would have to
do this.

~~~
baq
those passive bugs need power to operate

------
qubex
I have, on occasion, inadvertently taken combinations of medication that
caused extremely disorientating and apparently very loud "buzzing" in my ears
as soon as I woke up, combined with a strange sense of immobility.

Of course that entailed no brain damage or loss of hearing, but it was a very
compelling sensation, and it caused massive panic (the first time at least,
the second time... somewhat less so, but I do get the feeling that I had an
emotional response that was in some sense 'synthetic' and due to the
pharmacological reaction).

Hence, a subset of these symptoms might be pharmacological, but not all of
them. That leaves open the question of motive.

(Yes, I understand that a partial explanation of symptoms and no explanation
of motive makes for a totally bankrupt theory, but hey, I just thought I'd
throw in my anecdote - and I'd really rather not explain the particular
combination of medications.)

~~~
mikkom
This doesn't explain the very local nature of the "attack".

From the first paragraph:

> The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a
> Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed
> back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if
> he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room.

~~~
qubex
As I mentioned, I am aware this does not explain everything, but I was trying
to suggest that pharmacology could have some role to play in explaining this
(though I could not account for all the symptoms, nor for the motive, which
might be along the lines of some kind of truth serum or something like that...
my experience involved benzodiazepines, which famously are supposed to relax
you).

Also, I failed to mention that the intense buzzing sound continued _only until
I finally managed to convince myself I was not immobilised, and willed my head
to tilt_. Upon doing this, the 'sound' instantly disappeared. In my (probably
unrelated experience) I was immobile because I was convinced that I could not
move so I didn't "bother" trying to do so (for what felt like an eternity) not
because I was unable to. These people on the other hand obviously wanted to
move, and were very much able to do so... and apparently re-encountered the
same local phenomenon in various static locations.

So my experience is probably unrelated, but something about this reminded me
of it, so I decided to toss it out there.

~~~
CapsAdmin
Although maybe it's very unlikely you could be on to something. I used to have
many experiences like this when I was younger (sounds like you're talking
about sleep paralysis) and I remember loud buzzing when I also took some
medication to help me relax.

When I was in this state I had vivid hallucinations and it often felt like
sound was louder. I posted here about hearing my bad phone charger, and I've
actually had an experience of sleep paralysis coupled with that once which
made it sound louder than it really was in reality.

~~~
qubex
I tend to agree with you. It probably _is_ unrelated. But the discussion here
is so focussed on sonic or microwave beams, trying to finagle the evidence to
match these theories, that I felt it useful to report a fairly orthogonal
experience that involved no such origins.

------
indubitable
Why wouldn't this be classified?

It is incredibly bizarre that we're reading what is ostensibly the report of a
new poorly understand device (perhaps a weapon) used extremely recently
against US interests from an unknown source. We classify everything under the
sun and 'no-comment' anything that could in any way be remotely related to
intelligence. But in this situation, that is genuinely directly related to
national security and international relations, we spread this about to be
headline news to the point that you may as well have the state department on
Oprah?

This seems inexplicable and illogical.

~~~
NikolaNovak
That's a good question, so what do you think might be the answer?

If we work with assumption it's _not_ an accident/idiocy/etc, what is the
state of relationships between US & Cuba? Does this send any kind of message
and if so who is the audience: Cuban leadership, or local (US) readership, or
international readership? Does it change the conversation in any upcoming
meeting? Does it alter a stance in some negotiation? Alternatively, and
perhaps closer to where you were going, is there a sub-government entity that
benefits - a department or an organization? If intelligence community is not
in good relationship with or respected by the government does this help them?
"We're under a thread, we need more autonomy/financing/powers"? Alternatively
does it hinder them - "we give you all this equipment and money, yet you
cannot prevent this"?

etc etc. I honestly don't have an answer - but as much as I like to rant
against any given gov't as much as the next person (and perhaps more), I
imagine there exists one rather than being fully inexplicable and illogical...

~~~
jhki
This has Russia written all over it. They've been participating unconventional
"warfare" for many years now.

Think of cyber/social media activities against the West, propaganda, invading
Crimea without admitting to having troops in the area, covert assassinations
of adversaries in the West, and psychological operations against Western
diplomats in Russia.

NATO restricts their regular military options, so they exert influence in any
way they can. I believe the only reason we haven't been told Russia is number
one suspect is Trump administration's warm ties to that direction.

------
subroutine
I was skeptical whether sound could be focused into a beam, but apparently
inventor Woody Norris has developed a technology called Hyper Sonic Sound that
accomplishes this feat. As one experiencer puts it - In the sound beam's
direct line, you hear the audio signal as if through headphones, regardless of
background noise. Outside the beam, you hear nothing. HSS works by generating
two types of ultrasonic waves, both inaudible to the human ear. Once those
waves reach an object (like your head), they crash together and re-create the
original sound. Ultrasonic waves also conserve sound for 150 yards without
distortion or volume loss.

Here is his TED talk demo...

[https://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_thing...](https://www.ted.com/talks/woody_norris_invents_amazing_things/up-
next)

edit: so I've been reading about this Woody Norris guy; I don't think anyone
could possibly be more conceited. From his own website
([http://www.woodynorris.com/WhoIsWoodyNorris.htm](http://www.woodynorris.com/WhoIsWoodyNorris.htm)):

 _Who is Woody Norris? Quite simply, Woody Norris is a visionary, a futurist.
He looks into the future, gathers insights into what will make life better,
and applies them to the world of today. He sees things that the rest of us do
not. And, as the future arrives, it finds his inventions and products already
in place._

~~~
secfirstmd
I did work experience in secondary school at the MIT Media Lab Europe in late
1990s and someone there had built directional speakers like this, so its
really not that unique a piece of tech.

~~~
subroutine
In your experience would it be possible to generate such a beam of sound
powerful enough to cause brain trauma, but keep it focused enough so that it
is hardly audible outside the beam?

~~~
giardini
The human brain sits in a cavity of fairly specific volume, rigidity, shape
and contents (mostly salt water). One could estimate (or better and easier,
test for) the resonant frequency of such a cavity (fasten a sound-wave
generator to a similar cavity and test its frequency response)[anyone want to
volunteer their brain for science?]. But the human head consists of of a
number of cavities (cranial cavity, the sinuses, the mouth, nasal cavities,
ear passageways, eyeball, etc.) various bones (jawbone, tympanum, etc.) and
collections of liquid (connective tissue, tendon, cerebrospinal fluid, etc.).
Each part has its own resonant frequency and sensitivity to damage.There will
be at least one resonant frequency for each cavity/object.

One could use a loudspeaker or sonic device at those frequencies (and
multiples thereof) to remotely create resonant oscillations inside someone's
head. Since you'd be using air transmission, the source would probably have to
be powerful, but if the frequencies are out of the range of human hearing then
they might not be noticed by someone other than the target.

If this is a weapon, likely lots of effort has gone into finding those parts
of the human body most subject to failure.

Best bet for Cuban spies: get a dog. The dog will let you know when he's
affected.

~~~
kazinator
If the medium is water, here are the wavelengths:

    
    
      20 Hz --- 74.2 m
    
      20 kHz -- 7.4 cm
    

Hmm, it does look like resonant frequencies for the interior of the skull
might be ultrasonic; or if not then their first or second harmonics are.

------
CapsAdmin
Some of the sound descriptions in this article sounds very similar to an on
going experience I had, although without the health problems (I hope?)

It turned out to just be a bad phone charger. I would charge my phone at night
(samsung s4 at the time) and when fully charged and idle it would make a very
high pitch and faint sound that sounds like "morse code" or digital noise (I
believe the sound characteristics is the CPU doing stuff and drawing power?)

The sound was only be audible in some places of my appartment and it would
depend on how my head was turned. I remember hearing this sound even in my
dreams.

I've heard this sound outside as well depending on how I turn my head. But
lately I haven't heard or maybe noticed anything. I'm also getting older
though so maybe I've lost the abiltiy to hear high pitched sounds like that.

Googling "keep hearing morse code" and similar terms reveals that many people
have had similar experiences but many wild conclusions.

There might be something shady going on in Cuba but it wouldn't suprise me if
bad adapters and sockets would get lumped together with it.

~~~
IshKebab
That's just a coil or capacitor vibrating at high frequency. The switch mode
power supply changes frequency depending on the load, and when your phone is
fully charged the load is low so the normally-ultrasound drops into the
audible range.

Nearly all chargers get like that eventually, I guess as the glue or
capacitors start to fail.

The reason you can only hear it in some places is because it causes standing
waves, and you move your head in and out of the nodes. Basically constructive
and destructive interference.

Anyway it is almost certainly totally unrelated. It's always very quiet and
doesn't cause any brain damage or any other symptoms.

~~~
learn_more
The more likely explanation for why you hear it in some locations and head
orientations, is that the volume is right on the threshold of your ability to
hear it. By turning you head, or obstructing the direct path, it drops below
your sensitivity threshold. I have a ticking wristwatch that demonstrates this
effect very well.

~~~
IshKebab
That could be the case sometimes but not usually for high frequency whines.
They're can be pretty loud and annoying, and they fade in and out simply by
moving - not turning - your head.

------
dharma1
Santeria spells, or too many mojitos.

Joking aside, mostly likely overpowered microwave espionage equipment they got
from Russians a long time ago, and that is still in use.

Google "US Embassy microwave moscow" to find out what happened back in the
70s.

~~~
qqg3
Did you bother to read the article? This is exactly what it talks about.

~~~
phkahler
I failed to notice the word microwave in the article. I even searched the text
and "micro" was not to be found.

~~~
briankelly
Edit: nevermind, not from the Guardian article.

It actually does directly mention microwaves:

> The Russian security services were also known to flood the U.S. embassy in
> Moscow with electromagnetic radiation. They would beam concentrated
> microwaves and electronic pulses at the Embassy in an attempt to eavesdrop
> on U.S. typewriters and conversations.

~~~
phkahler
You're not talking about TFA are you?

~~~
briankelly
Ah my mistake, that was from badcede's article at the top.

------
salimmadjd
I'm puzzled by the motivations behind these attacks. It makes no sense. Who is
going it and why?

Is it Cuba's version of deep state? Do they feel threatened they would lose
control because there is no longer a western enemy? Is it people within our
own government (our deep state) that feels we need to have this enemy or
somehow they're benefiting from it? Is it the Russians that want to creat this
division to have the option of having a place close to US? Is it factions
within our own government wanting to blame this on Russia and take us back to
the Cold War and find an excuse for expansion of intrusion, etc?

~~~
Quanttek
While the "deep state" idea is only a conspiracy prupoted by right-wing
pundits to explain how the Republicans fail to get anything done even though
they control all branches of the government, I think there's some credibility
to the idea of Rogue faction in the Cuban government or failed surveilance
attempts. At least this seems to be the only credible explanation for the fact
that Canadians were also attacked

~~~
adventured
In fact the deep state isn't widely being used on the right to explain the
incompetent GOP. The deep state _was_ being accused of trying to sabotage
Trump in general, not the GOP in general (was, because most of that early
hysteria has died down). The premise was that the deep state disliked the
political idea of Trump ushering in greater isolationism, involving pulling
back from policing the world and the military industrial complex with its
perpetual war machine.

The modern deep state concept has been widely discussed on both sides of the
aisle and has been credible for decades, going back to shortly after the
founding of some of the very large and powerful US Government institutions,
such as the CIA, FBI and NSA among others - all of which have their own
gravity in the politics of the US. It's not a conspiracy, it's the inherent
nature of government, politics and power. Nearly every government on the
planet will have its own active version of the US deep state, only varying in
the specifics and size not the concept.

There's absolutely nothing right-wing about it, either in believing it exists
(there's nothing to debate there), or being concerned about it (the left and
right were both extremely concerned about its use and power during the Nixon
era for example).

~~~
davidgay
So, the US version of Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister?
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister))

------
FiatLuxDave
I was talking about this with a friend last night, and I'm very surprised that
no one in the media has even mentioned a technology like ultrawideband
through-wall imaging ([https://ll.mit.edu/mission/space/Real-time%20Through-
wall%20...](https://ll.mit.edu/mission/space/Real-time%20Through-
wall%20Imaging.pdf)). I suspect that this or something similar is what was
being attempted.

------
floatingatoll
The mistake is assuming that sound waves are being used here. You can make the
human brain hear sound by transmitting electronic frequencies at it. If
someone is transmitting to a satellite using a narrow-band beam that
intersects someone’s brain, they’ll be lucky to survive without brain damage
from the microwaves alone. At the very least, I would hope that diplomats are
being advised by the government to try and record the effect with their
phones, to see if it is truly sound-based or if it is actually EM-based
transmissions affecting the brain.

I microwaved my skull once with a 0.5 degree beamwidth 15-inch yagi antenna at
1 watt of 2.4 gigahertz once by accident. It was a directional sensation that
lasted less than a clock second, as I reflexively snapped around and ripped
every wire out of the assembly to kill it with my reptile brain before it
killed me. I remember exactly what it felt like, but I can’t say if it
triggers hearing or not because it was too brief. The migraine that resulted
lasted for hours and I still get sympathetic twinges remembering it.

I’ve also heard stories of a datacenter having a daily failure in a specific
rack on weekdays only, that was resolved by moving the satellite dish
transmitter next door to point elsewhere than directly through a building.

Combine those two stories and you have a lot more interesting options than
just ‘sound’ alone. I hope they’re being investigated.

~~~
floatingatoll
See also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15332122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15332122)

------
rgrieselhuber
This is something that would have sounded like a conspiracy theory if not
reported in a mainstream publication. Amazing what just a little corporate
cachet can do for a story.

~~~
aqsalose
I think the main difference is not the media, but the fact that the US
government acknowledges that the incidents really happened, and that they are
investigating.

------
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
Could it be the attacks are at night because that’s when the diplomats’ cell
phone rests on their nightstand? Maybe their electronic devices are the target
and it just so happens that the diplomats are close by and become collateral
damage.

Edit: I assume an electromagnetic attack. The sounds the victims hear could be
caused by that, see Wikipedia links in this thread.

------
basicplus2
Sounds most likely a microwave attack, you dont damage the brain that way with
audio

~~~
jlebrech
am I the only one that feels slight discomfort when a microwave oven is on?
it's probably psychosomatic (for me) tho

~~~
pluma
Unless the microwave oven is severely damaged, the shielding should prevent
any "leakage" so it's probably just psychological. If you somehow manage to
remove the door and still keep it running, though, things get fun.

~~~
quickthrower2
"fun"? :-0

~~~
pluma
Using the Dwarf Fortress definition of "fun" there.
[http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Fun](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Fun)

------
memracom
At one time the USA discovered that the Soviets were bombarding their Moscow
embassy with radio waves. Decades later it was learned that a genius names
Theremin had built a device that acted as both microphone and transmitter,
when bombarded with a specific frequency of radio waves.

There has been some writing on how it used wave guide effects to transmit, but
not so much on the microphone part. Some of you may know that many speakers
can be wired up as microphones. One wonders whether a device intended to be a
microphone, might in some circumstances act as a speaker as well.

If the Cubans are following an evolutionary path from the device concealed in
the Great Seal in the 50's then one could easily imagine something built into
the structure of the building itself that is accidentally generating sound
energy.

As a thought experiment, imagine that you could build a window frame that
would pick up sound from inside a room, shift it to an inaudible frequency and
then emit that sound. Furthermore, what if a double pane window intended to
block sound from leaving the room, had a pickup attached to the inner glass
pane and emitted the high frequency sound from the outer pane so that an
external laser could pick it up. Then further imagine that the window was
installed wrong way around so that the constant street noise was broadcasting
high frequency sounds into the building.

I expect that the Russians don't do this stuff anymore because they get better
results from HUMINT, especially deep cover agents.

~~~
tritium

      If the Cubans are following 
      an evolutionary path from 
      the device concealed in the 
      Great Seal in the 50's then...
    

That is the furthest idea from my conceptual model of what this all might be.
I don't think any of this is accidental. I think deliberate harm is being
done, and that willful animosity has permitted the rationale that U.S.
officials represent a population of human test subjects, as expendable
resources, for a weapon with unknown neurological effects to be used against
aggressive enemy combatants.

I think it's a directed energy weapon.

I think kinetic energy is being applied in a novel way, such that patterns of
constructive interference are created by alligning harmonic waveforms so that
their intersection creates high-signal regions with deleterious effects for
biological tissue within said region.

Much in the way _electromagnetic_ directed-energy-weapons can be combined and
focused to achieve greater effect, either ultrasound or infra-sound is being
used as a kinetic analog with similar results. This is not " _The Brown Sound_
" but something worse.

------
dsiegel2275
My first thought was that it is JavaScript fatigue.

------
projectant
Could it be a chemical agent combined with RF or micowave field that activates
it?

Seems like pure microwave would cause a range of random hallucinations and
sensations. And also accidentally target people who were not spies /
employees.

I think biological agent that's activated by EMF is more likely.

~~~
bhouston
I think microwave. Heating of the ear could cause perceptions of sound.

------
JKCalhoun
I wonder at this point if the data isn't being polluted by psychosomatic
"symptoms" from the diplomats that are now aware of the mysterious events in
Cuba.

~~~
duncanawoods
Yep. Made me think of MPI. Such a paranoid community as overseas embassy staff
might be particularly vulnerable,

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness)

 _MPI can be difficult to differentiate from bioterrorism, rapidly spreading
infection or acute toxic exposure_

We might need to add "sonic weapons" to that list.

------
bhouston
Sounds like directional microwaves that heated up the brain.

~~~
clavalle
Or some sort of proton or neutron beam.

------
diminish
Beyond sonic a conclusive list of options could also include: attacks with gas
form, liquid form, radioactive form, solid form - could be through the meals
they ate, the booze they drank, a drug they took, a sea or other animal.

I'm curious if there are any links to independent explanations or
investigations maybe from local sources? [1] this from another thread.

[1] [https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-
diplomats-c...](https://www.justsecurity.org/44289/sonic-attacks-diplomats-
cuba-dont-rush-conclusions/)

------
0898
Directional audio has been possible for about a decade now. Holosonics.com is
one manufacturer but there are others.

~~~
NelsonMinar
The Joseph Pompei quoted in the article is Holosonics' founder. He's been
working on this a long time; twenty years ago his demos knocked my socks off
(1) at the Media Lab

(1) metaphorical sock-knocking only, no diplomats were harmed by his demos

~~~
philfrasty
Do you have any thoughts on why this hasn't seen mass-market adoption? Any
major downsides? I have never ever heard of this technology or seen it
integrated into the speakers of the big companies in this space. But looking
at it just makes me go WOW.

~~~
0898
Perhaps it's the lack of bass? For string music and spoken word ultrasound
directional audio is fine, but for most music it's not really appropriate.

------
dv_dt
Why are they so focused on sound? Couldn't there be some other transmitted
phenomena (RF?) that affected the bodily functions at high strengths. At least
that seems like a more plausible turn of events.. orient a huge RF dish at the
embassy to listen on comms with high sensitivity, oops - someone flipped on
the xmit gear and intermittently baked the surveillance targets...

~~~
cat199
> Why are they so focused on sound?

The _reporting_ and _public statements_ are focused on sound.

As to what the investigators are focused on, I doubt we are getting the full
picture since it probably involves lots of things which are restricted info..

------
henearkr
Could it be a powerful sonic transmission of data? I mean, EM waves are hugely
monitored, so if somebody had to send data secretly, an ultrasonic way may be
used. And there may have been a side effect due to too much power and the
diplomats being in the middle of the beam.

~~~
qubex
Depends whether you are aiming to conceal the fact that a signal is being
transmitted or whether you "merely" wish to conceal the contents of those
signals. The latter is (as I am sure any NH reader knows all too well)
achieved my means of encryption, at least some of which, paranoia aside, is
widely regarded to be pretty solidly robust to just about anything known (even
most of the NSA-quantum-computer speculation is focussed on public key
cryptography being attacked by factorisation attacks... lattice algorithms and
lots of stream ciphers are not directly attackable by this means if the
session key is not exchanged by "potentially vulnerable" public key
cryptographic means).

~~~
henearkr
Yeah I was thinking more about concealing the fact there was a signal at all.
More like stegano, then. Moreover, that could be in an environment of intense
EM jamming: ultrasonic signals would pass but not EM signals.

------
Giorgi
So, who has close ties to Cuba and has capability to design such weapon and
would test it on US diplomats and would win if there was some confusion
between US and Cuba relations?

Always look at who has to gain from it and who is capable of

------
m12k
I'm reminded of the Sonic Tank from the old Dune 2 RTS. I wonder if sound is
finally being weaponized or if it's actually microwaves as others have
suggested? But just as curiously, what is the motivation for this, what could
someone achieve by doing this? Is it a form of gaslighting? Or someone trying
to sour the relationship between Cuba and US/Canada? (either dissidents or
another state) In some ways this has a similar "shooting pigeons with cannons"
high-tech overkill smell to it as the polonium poisoning of that Russian in
the UK a decade ago.

~~~
partisan
> I wonder if sound is finally being weaponized or if it's actually microwaves
> as others have suggested?

Yes, sound has been weaponized.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon)

~~~
pferde
> Yes, sound has been weaponized.

Of course it has. Ever tried listening to dubstep?

~~~
cat199
I see your dubstep and raise you gabber.

that stuff is literally dangerous I think.

~~~
krapp
South Korea trolls the North by blaring K-pop over the border.

I _like_ K-pop, and I find that hilarious.

------
ChuckMcM
Oddly enough it would have been super awesome if dolphin scientists were using
sonar to attack humans. Ah well that one stays in the realm of fiction.

~~~
spraak
I would definitely read that as a scifi novel

------
heisenbit
Very localized sound could that be some resonance effect related to the
building? The building looks like it consists of a very regular structure.

------
PerilousD
There were some studies converting audio to inaudible audio when sent over
over pulsed microwaves. This would resolve the size and distance issues for
the alleged device and the fact that this was at night and in bed could play
into the original studies for using this tech.

------
cerealbad
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System)

a lot of moonshot movie weapons don't get mentioned too often, mostly because
they suck (and were incredibly expensive to develop). there was another one in
the 80s that could beam images to your brain or something, it's on youtube as
a cnn report:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgJ6SpHZir8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgJ6SpHZir8)

of course youtube has a whole sub-culture of people who are 'targeted
individuals' and post from inside their makeshift faraday cages as their are
bombarded by beams from their CIA agent neighbours, torturing them remotely.

it's probably just interference of some kind.

~~~
graphitezepp
Ah the internet. Where descriptions of outlandish bizarre groups of people
must be prepended with "of course".

------
farseer
I wonder how one would go about detecting that such a sonic attack is in
progress. What would the equipment to detect such an attack even look like?

------
perseusprime11
To me, it sounds like a new kind of weapon somebody is testing. We better
quickly get to the bottom of it before they scale it.

------
mkempe
Lacking from all reporting so far: What is the purpose of these purported
attacks? Who benefits from such attacks and how?

------
soufron
Have they thought about cuban rum and spirits? It looks like a far more
plausible explanation for these night attacks

~~~
girvo
I'm going to assume you're joking, but after spending a couple months in Cuba
and drinking far too much Cuban rum and spirits (while smoking cigars made by
the farmer out in Viñales overlooking the most amazing countryside I've ever
seen), the only brain damage I got was the hangover the next day.

------
jokoon
This kind of news makes me think that wars are not deadly like they were in
world wars. Weapons are being so accurate, I don't think world war 3 (if it
happens) will result in so many casualties.

So in a way technological weaponry will save civilians. Militarily and
strategically, there will no point in using nuclear weapons against civilians
too, like it was done in japan.

This kind of news reassures me that conflict is getting "cleaner".

~~~
Razengan
> _Militarily and strategically, there will no point in using nuclear weapons
> against civilians too, like it was done in Japan._

You underestimate the potential of a people for desiring and inflicting
misery, suffering, humiliation and "vengeance" upon a perceived enemy.

Just the other day I was reading about the Rwandan Genocide from barely 20
years ago [1]:

> _over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women were raped,
> sexually mutilated, or murdered. There was extensive use of propaganda
> through both print and radio to incite violence against women, with both
> mediums being used to portray Tutsi women as untrustworthy._

> _During the conflict Hutu extremists released hundreds of patients from
> hospitals, who were suffering from AIDS, and formed them into "rape squads".
> The intent was to infect and cause a "slow, inexorable death."_

There are depressingly large groups of people in Pakistan who would rejoice a
nuclear attack on India, and the other way around as well. Same with people in
Korea and China against Japan. I don't know about now, but not long ago in
South Korea even children were indoctrinated in hate campaigns [2], something
you'd expect from Jihadi religious extremists.

\----

If technology really could prevent wars, then we would just have remotely-
controlled miniature robots directly assassinating enemy leaders and generals,
and there would be no need to maintain militaries and weapons of mass
destruction.

But the only thing that would truly prevent wars is not allowing people to sow
the seeds of hatred, generation after generation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_Rwandan_Genoci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_Rwandan_Genocide)

[2] [http://peterpayne.com/post/61389588306/writing-about-
issues-...](http://peterpayne.com/post/61389588306/writing-about-issues-
between-japan-and-south)

~~~
wallace_f
It seems like a lot of war these days is for profit. Afghanistan, Iraq and now
finally Syria have all been proven to be primarily about that.

From not long ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15238683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15238683)

And see here: [https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-
worried-...](https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-
defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/)

------
jefe_
Sounds like some experimental device broadcasts signals that don't behave well
with bed springs.

------
blabla42
I dont think it is audio frequency, it must be microwave or just plain old
chemical poisoning.

------
quotha
I think it was the X-37B [http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/09/06/us-air-
forces-x-37b-s...](http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/09/06/us-air-
forces-x-37b-space-plane-to-launch-on-secret-mission-sept-7.html)

------
throwawaylalala
Why has LRAD never come up?

------
dogma1138
Ultrasonic power delivery gone wrong?

------
kelvin0
Whales and Dolphins are finally getting their revenge on humankind.

------
Ice_cream_suit
Collective hallucination
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria#Tanganyika_laugh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria#Tanganyika_laughter_epidemic_.281962.29)

~~~
jwilk
How does it explain mild traumatic brain injury?

------
scrrr
My first thought: Look, this is Cuba. Home of con artistry. They will stage a
UFO landing to get more tourists spend convertible pesos. For me P(heard-in-
havana-and-true) is around 0.1, max.

------
johnhenry
> ...baffling US officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up

This is a long shot, but Cuba is pretty close to the Bermuda Triangle -- a
place with a history of strange incidents supposedly involving physical
anomalies.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bermuda_Triangle_incid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bermuda_Triangle_incidents)

~~~
brandon272
So is Florida.

~~~
phkahler
That's why Florida has its own tag on fark.com

------
tryingagainbro
_> >The State Department detected high levels of radiation in the embassy
staff, and provided hazard pay to personnel who worked in Moscow._

While this is harsh, these guys are soldiers, working night and day to
essentially destroy that country. (we can argue till the cows come home about
what system is the "right one") Live by the sword, die by the sword.

