The Havana Syndrome

What to do if they think they’re subject to it, huh?

Hard to imagine how this spread to CIA stations across the globe.

The Langley field trip to the MBV concert without bringing ear plugs was a serious misstep, IMO.

i think a gun that gives CIA spooks headaches would be really funny

what if it made them poop themselves

what if there was a gun that made you sad

follow through syndrome sounds good

Brown Sound Array

Some people in Cuba had some vague symptoms - possibly crickets, possibly bad paint, possibly the knowledge of their eternal damnation wearing on their mind.

Glad you admit that there is a phenomenon separate from the CIA's claims about the phenomenon.

This is mass hysteria with people being manipulated by the beneficiaries.

This could very well be true! I just find the certainty and dismissiveness kind of obnoxious. If it's mass hysteria, that's still pretty interesting and worthy of investigation, IMO.

@ Dan S - did you see this one upthread?

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/19007096v1

I'm not a radiologist (though a big fan of old-timey radio) but this study seems to indicate more specific findings than 'brain aging'? Though it could be pseudo-science gobblygook as well

Glad you admit that there is a phenomenon separate from the CIA's claims about the phenomenon.

An isolated incident is not a phenomenon, unless Havana crickets have been transported to Germany and Beijing.

It was immediately treated as an attack after three people experienced something. You cannot pretend that Havana Syndrome exists separate from the CIA's promotion of it.

With at least three intelligence officers now in severe distress, the C.I.A. and the State Department agreed. On February 17th, DeLaurentis visited Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, who was then the director-general of the U.S. division at the Foreign Ministry. He described the strange incidents and demanded that the harassment stop. Because U.S. intelligence agencies had no clear evidence that the Cubans were involved, DeLaurentis was instructed to tell Vidal that her government was culpable for failing to uphold the Vienna Convention requiring host governments to provide for the security of embassy personnel. Vidal reacted with disbelief, arguing that Cuba had always fulfilled its obligations to protect foreign diplomats. She found it “very suspicious” that DeLaurentis waited to report the incidents until mid-February, some seven weeks after the first American came forward.

I guess I shouldn't put the idea of Cuban biological weapon crickets out in the ether or they might find some necromancers to bring Colin Powell back from the dead.

When your paramilitary bosses tell you you're under attack, I wonder if there's a psychological and physiological response...

re: Andy's post, I love you but

"significant spatial memory impairment, abnormal brain-stem evoked potentials, degradation of fibre tracts in the fornix and posterior corpus callosum, blood-brain barrier injury to the right basal forebrain and anterior insula, and abnormal paroxysmal slowing events of cortical activity"

That is all just such horseshit

is this like when Manning leaked all those docs and everyone was handwringing about endangering spies? Fuck all spies!!!!

anyone else itt starting to feel....🤢🤢🤢

can someone please make a gif of the james bond gun barrel intro but instead of blood crawling down the screen it's barf

offgassing

I didn't mean to be harsh, sorry. I like all of the posts in this thread

I just find the certainty and dismissiveness kind of obnoxious.

speaking as someone who hates the CIA and is skeptical of this thing, you are not alone. it's certainly worth a thread about the "phenomenon" without milo's endless trolling

also, Raymond deserves better

"argue" is one of the 4 words in raymond's post and that's what milo's doing, i'm not reading his posts as bad faith trolling at all

I was intrigued by my best friend’s circumstances in med school. She was from DC. She told me her father was in the US Information Agency (active until 1999), and that he had moved the family all around the world - to Chad, Sri Lanka, Martinique

She was convinced he was a CIA agent, but he never shared anything about that with us. I was able to visit him when he got older, I liked talking to him, but he never gave anything away

this thread is massive tongue-biting for me.

https://quitmouthbiting.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/quit-cheek-biting-mouth-sores.png

I dated someone for a long time whose grandfather was described to me as “doing something vague with insurance” during the 50s-70s that required him to live in a number of Latin American and SE Asian countries. Always in a hotbed of recent military/ intelligence activity when we were Doing Democracy at them. I never met him but he sounded like a caricature of a WASP prick, and that was just according to his kids and grandkids.

yeah this is lies all the way down

yr mom defies the laws of physics as the west understands them

I think it's time to start issuing tin foil hats to State Dept. employees

Behold: The Worst Havana Syndrome Report Yet

Dan S, I had an fMRI at UCSF in 2009 or so, for a study. My friend was interning in a lab. It was very neat! I wonder if you work there.

This hysterical Wapo editorial from last month is my favourite:

Eventually, the culprits must be found and held to account. But first, the injurious emissions have to be stopped. The health and well-being of U.S. officials abroad demand no less. National security depends on those officials to be the eyes and ears of the United States. It is unacceptable that someone is trying to punch them out, and is getting away with it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/28/havana-syndrome-unsolved-unacceptable/

I think another gross thing about these breathless articles— and yes, about some reactions here on ILX— is that they actually put stock in the notion that military combatants of the US are our collective "enemies," rather than constructions of military and statecraft.

Schizophrenics being like "This is what I've BEEN SAYING" about Havana syndrome is pretty funny

— нико (@nietzscioran) October 21, 2021

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2014-08/documents/sick_building_factsheet.pdf

sorry I’m done

See, black mold in the torture dungeon showers.

also, Raymond deserves better

I guess what I find kind of weird ITT is people saying "whatever, it's mass hysteria, who cares," whereas I think mass hysteria is pretty interesting and worth examining!

Just saw this:

According to Jargon’s reporting and previous research, this development involves mostly young women and is heavily influenced by how often they watched TikToks from influencers who said they had Tourette syndrome. The movements are sociogenic, meaning they are developed socially, but have profound and real neurological effects. Patients had physical jerks, such as neck twitches, or were compulsively and involuntarily repeating a word like “beans.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/young-women-reporting-concerning-behavioral-changes-from

I guess what I find kind of weird ITT is people saying "whatever, it's mass hysteria, who cares," whereas I think mass hysteria is pretty interesting and worth examining!

What's interesting or unique about this case?

I dunno, any case of mass hysteria seems interesting to me, but different strokes, I guess.

Can qe say for sure these are strokes tbf

see now milo is really leaning into the bad faith trolling. yes this is interesting and worthy of discussion, if only as a case study of mass hysteria like the cops who claimed the poison milkshakes. of course these assholes suck, but this is worth following on multiple levels (awareness, media aggregation, skepticism, possibly maybe occasionally actual evidence?).

what I really object to here is milo's underlying assertion that this thread shouldn't exist, and his decision to engage in his usual pointless overposting like Colin Anderson the psychic vampire, sapping the thread of all energy until none remain.

(the 10% of the time that milo isn't engaged in toxic bad-faith trolling, I usually agree with him ftr)

also v intrigued by brimstead's "sick building" post, a phenomenon that is known to exist and is actually documented. Wouldn't be surprised if some cut-corners DoD mentality resulted in shoddy construction that could create these effects.

again, yes, this is interesting and worth a thread.

No thread need justify itself, but let us demand that every post must

(-_-)

darraghmac i somehow just noticed yr display name, made me chuckle

milo's underlying assertion that this thread shouldn't exist

This underlying assertion that doesn't exist?

Cops and spooks psyching themselves up as victims and making themselves ill, how that's spread (paramilitary bosses telling their underlings they're under fire), the spooks and hawks use of the hysteria to further their goals (money, saber-rattling, enhancement of institutional power and prestige), the actual root cause - all things I've talked about in this very thread. That I'm prefacing it with "Havana Syndrome isn't real" (as Havana Syndrome has been repeatedly defined by the people selling it to gullible rubes - and Congressional Democrats, but I repeat myself) doesn't change any of that.

Are there also tossed off cheap shots? Yes, because the situation doesn't deserve some considered solemnity. No one's died (except whomever we decide to target with sanctions), there are no real stakes at play.

Tabes if you spotted a typically garbled reference to a resurgent man utd left back im v impressed

can someone please make a gif of the james bond gun barrel intro but instead of blood crawling down the screen it's barf

― ✖, Friday, 22 October 2021 01:26 (twenty-two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I really thought, before spotting the time posted,and with no small sense of horror, this was gonna finish with 'alec baldwin' and was like wow, dark af

admittedly chuckling at the thought of the bond intro ending with alec baldwin tumbling down the screen instead of blood

Yes i know but my first readings are commonly extremely cursory, shameful but true