Remember those sonic attacks on American diplomatic personnel at the American embassy in Havana Cuba? Well, now they've spread to China, and to the American consulate in Guangzhou, according to this story By Michael Martina and Lesley Wroughton on Reuters. (Many people shared this, so my thanks go out to all of you for bringing it to my attention):

U.S. cautions citizens in China after 'abnormal' sound incident

Once again, one has a similar data set to what happened to the Cuban embassy personnel:

An American citizen working at the U.S. consulate in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has reported suffering from “abnormal” sounds and pressure leading to a mild brain injury, the U.S. embassy said on Wednesday and China said it was investigating the incident. ... The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a health alert to Americans in China, warning them about the incident it described as “subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure”. “While in China, if you experience any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source. Instead, move to a location where the sounds are not present,” the emailed alert said.

What I find extraordinarily interesting about the last statement is its de facto admission that the "sounds" are localized. When the Cuban story broke, I noted and blogged that in one instance, an individual woke up in bed, hearing an annoying sound like metal grating or tearing on metal. The individual moved off the bed, and the sound - and "brain pressure" - ceased immediately. In that blog, I noted that some mind control-mind manipulation technologies work on the basis of modulating microwaves, and can thus project sounds and pressure directly into a brain, which in this case acts as a sort of radio receiver. In some cases, technologies have been patented that modulate actual voices into these microwaves. But this is more than a case of mere broadcast transmission, for the sound is localized. This can be achieved by interferometry, the mixture of two or more waves on a particular region, where they intersect. That intersection will produce a "lattice" work of overlapping waves - like stones tossed up into the air and falling into the smooth surface of a pond - in a specific localized region, and the resulting pattern can be modulated with those "sounds" and "heard" only by someone in that region.

These technologies have been around for a few decades, and it is a near certainty that not only does the USA know about them - denials notwithstanding - but that nearly every other major power does too and probably has them. Even countries that are not great powers, like Cuba, would know about them and have the means to produce them. They are, quite literally, that "non-lethal" class of weapons and mind manipulation technologies that no one wants to talk about. Hence, when one encounters denials of their existence when such stories occur, one should, in my opinion, be highly skeptical, because they are considered an "ultimate weapon" and a great secret. There are even cases where this technology has been alleged to be behind the deliberate induction of metal fatigue in commercial aircraft, accounting for the catastrophic and fatal crashes of airliners. (See Secret and Suppressed, volumes one and two, edited by the late Jim Keith and the late Adam Parfrey, respectively).

The real question is who is doing this? I have no love lost for Communism or Communist governments, and certainly they would be capable of harassing embassy personnel of foreign nations by such electromagnetic gimickry, because they've done it in the past. Consider only the microwaving of US embassy personnel in Moscow by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But in the case of Cuba and China, I have to wonder. In this case, China has issued a denial that it knows who is doing it:

“We notified China of what took place as best we know it and they have responded in a way that is exactly the right response,” Pompeo told a news conference with Wang. “We’re working together to resolve (this) ... I hope we can figure it out.” Earlier, he told Congress that the incident in China was “medically similar” to one suffered by American diplomats in Cuba. Wang, speaking through a translator, said Beijing was investigating the incident and “we haven’t found any organization or individual has carried out such a sonic influence.” “We don’t want to see that this individual case will be magnified, complicated or even politicized. We hope people will not associate it with other unnecessary matters,” he cautioned. (Emphasis added)

The Cuban Communist government issued similar denials. Again, it is important to remember that the basic principles of the technology are well-known to both countries. But China's denial is unusually phrased: "We haven't found any organization or individual has carried out such a sonic influence."

In other words, China is saying it has not found evidence of a non-state actor behind the attacks, which means that this is what China was searching for. My deep distrust of Communism notwithstanding, I suspect that here, as with the Cuban incidents, their denials may be telling the truth: they don't know who is doing this, except that in China's case, we've been given a hint of a non-state actor, which is what I argued for in the case of the Cuban attacks in my blogs about those incidents. My argument with respect to Cuba was that it had no motivation for doing so, since diplomatic ties had only been re-established, and endangering them in such harassment would not seem to suit its long-term interests.

Similarly, with heightened political and economic tension between the USA and China, even given the Chinese harassment of American and Taiwanese military forces in the region, I have difficulty believing that China would resort to this form of harassment. As Mr. Wang is quoted in the article as having said, "We don't want to see that this individual case will be magnified, complicated or even politicized" or associated "with other unnecessary matters."

And that leaves us with the peculiar hint in Mr. Wang's remarks of the possibility of a non-state actor, perhaps acting to increase tensions between the West and the old "Cold War" Communist bloc. (For the record, the two volumes of Secret and Suppressed by Feral House Publishers get into one possibility for that non-state actor, and yes, it is a post-war group of Fascists.) I suspect that if my own high octane speculations of a non-state actor are indeed true, then the phenomenon will spread, perhaps, to other places: Syria, Russia, and other "hot spots". This will be a profound clue, in my opinion, that this new harassment is not the "usual Communist tricks", since Russia and Syria, whatever one does say about them, are not Communist. The disturbing implication of that high octane speculation is that even in totalitarian countries like China and Cuba, that non-state actor is able to conduct such operations. If it begins to happen in Russia, then my bet is that it will be used or spun to indicate that Russia is up to "old Soviet behaviors," and it's that potential spin that gives me pause, for it would be another form of "guilty" without proof or evidence. And that would fit a non-state actor's agenda very well.

Don't get me wrong, I am 50-50 on this. I think the Cubans and Chinese are fully capable of such harassment. I also think a non-state actor could be involved. If the pattern spreads to other countries' diplomats in foreign territory, then we'll have yet another clue as to who may really be behind this.

See you on the flip side...