Over the past few weeks I've been receiving a steady stream of articles from people concerning the apparent use of some sort of "sonic weapon" in Cuba on the employees or diplomats of the USA and Canada to Cuba, and their families. I've refrained from commenting thus far even though I suspected this story might be related to the USS Fitzgerald and John McCain incidents. But Mr. S. shared a version of this story this week that contains a statement that caught my eye, and hence, it's now time to comment on this story and offer my trademark high octane speculation(s) about it (copy and paste into your browser):

http://www.theeventchronicle.com/news/central-america/state-dept-admits-16-diplomats-injured-mysterious-sonic-directed-energy-weapon/

What intrigues here is that the article, or rather, the State Department, seems to be dodging the issue of what is causing the health problems to family and staff. See, for example, this transcript of a briefing on August 9 of this year given by the same spokesman, Heather Nauert:

Department Press Briefing - August 9, 2017 Share

The relevant statements by Ms. Nauert during that briefing are here:

QUESTION: Hi. Just a quick change in topic. MS NAUERT: Mm-hmm. QUESTION: Can you tell us about the incidents that have been going on in Havana affecting U.S. Government workers there? MS NAUERT: Yes. So we are certainly aware of what has happened there. Give me one second here. And that’s why we got a little bit of a late start getting some recent updates for you on this. So some U.S. Government personnel who were working at our embassy in Havana, Cuba on official duties – so they were there working on behalf of the U.S. embassy there – they’ve reported some incidents which have caused a variety of physical symptoms. I’m not going to be able to give you a ton of information about this today, but I’ll tell you what we do have that we can provide so far. We don’t have any definitive answers about the source or the cause of what we consider to be incidents. We can tell you that on May 23rd, the State Department took further action. We asked two officials who were accredited at the Embassy of Cuba in the United States to depart the United States. Those two individuals have departed the United States. We take this situation very seriously. One of the things we talk about here often is that the safety and security of American citizens at home and abroad is our top priority. We’re taking that situation seriously and it’s under investigation right now. QUESTION: If the U.S. doesn’t have a definitive answer on the cause or source of the incidents, why did it ask those two Cuban embassy officials to depart the U.S.? MS NAUERT: Look, our – some of our people have had the option of leaving Cuba as a result for medical reasons. QUESTION: And how many? MS NAUERT: I can’t tell you the exact number of that, but I can -- QUESTION: But was it in the tens, dozens? MS NAUERT: I’m not going to characterize it. I do not believe it was that large, certainly not that large, but we had to bring some Americans home or some Americans chose to go home – come home as a result of that. And as a result of that, we’ve asked two Cubans to leave the United States and they have. QUESTION: In other words, this is a reciprocity thing, right? You’re -- MS NAUERT: I’m not going to call it as such, but we asked two people to go home. QUESTION: And how long has this been going on for? MS NAUERT: So we first heard about these incidents back in late 2016. QUESTION: And who is leading the investigation? MS NAUERT: The U.S. Government is investigating this. I’m just – I’m not going to get into it prior to that. QUESTION: What agency? MS NAUERT: I’m not going to – going to get into it. You know which law enforcement agencies we have that would be concerned about this. The State Department is involved, but you could check with others as well. QUESTION: And just real quickly, was it just State Department employees or other employees from other government agencies? MS NAUERT: So these were – my understanding is that it has only affected State Department employees. This has not affected any private U.S. citizens down there. We take this very seriously. Look -- QUESTION: What is “this?” MS NAUERT: This incident. This incident. QUESTION: But what is the incident? MS NAUERT: And that’s what – and that’s what we’re calling it. We don’t know exactly what -- QUESTION: This has been going on since 2016 and you don’t know what this incident is? MS NAUERT: What this requires is providing medical examinations to these people. Initially, when they started reporting what I will just call symptoms, it took time to figure out what it was, and this is still ongoing. So we’re monitoring it. We provide medical care and concern to those who believe that they have been affected by it, and we take this extremely seriously. QUESTION: So do you – just getting back to my question on reciprocity, and I know you don’t want to use the word, but is it – did you – did – were the two Cubans told or asked to leave because of a similar or proportional drawdown in the U.S. staff in Havana because of these symptoms? MS NAUERT: I’m not going to characterize it that way at all. I can just – I can only tell you the two were asked to leave and they did. QUESTION: Yeah, but you’re -- MS NAUERT: Because what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to draw an equivalency. You’re trying to say two guys were asked to go home and therefore X number of Americans were brought home, and I’m not – just not going to make that comparison. QUESTION: But actually I’m – well, I’m not saying there’s a direct proportion, although maybe the Russians might disagree on that. But the reason that the two left is because you had to reduce your staff, or have the people who left Havana been replaced? MS NAUERT: Some – I’m not sure if our people who have left Havana have been replaced. I know that we’ve given our employees there a chance to come home if they would like to, and they have jobs here. QUESTION: (Off-mike.) MS NAUERT: Let me just mention one other thing about this. The Cuban Government has a responsibility and an obligation under the Geneva[1] Convention to protect our diplomats, so that is part of the reason why this is such a major concern of ours, why we take this so seriously, and in addition to the protection and security of Americans. I hope I’ve answered your question. QUESTION: Can I have – question on Syria? MS NAUERT: Okay. Any – hold on. Anything else on Cuba? QUESTION: Can you just give us a sense of are these medical problems ongoing or was this a short-term thing? MS NAUERT: And you’ve heard me say this here before: When we talk about medical issues about Americans, we don’t get into it. So I can just tell you that it was – it is a cause of great concern for us, it’s caused a variety of physical symptoms in these American citizens who work for the U.S. Government. We take those incidents very seriously and there is an investigation currently underway. QUESTION: I mean, can you say are they life-threatening? I mean, the physical symptom is – wasn’t death, was it? MS NAUERT: No, it was not. It was not, not life -- QUESTION: And – but not life-threatening? MS NAUERT: Not life-threatening, and I’ll leave it at that. Anything else on Cuba? QUESTION: Can we go back to North Korea? MS NAUERT: Anything else on Cuba? QUESTION: On North Korea? MS NAUERT: We’re done with Cuba, correct? Okay. Let’s go to North Korea. Hi.

In the article sent by Mr. S., however, we read this:

The Associated Press reported: After months of investigation, U.S. officials concluded that the diplomats had been exposed to an advanced device that operated outside the range of audible sound and had been deployed either inside or outside their residences. It was not immediately clear if the device was a weapon used in a deliberate attack, or had some other purpose.

Here is a link for the Associated Press article: A group of American diplomats in Cuba suffered unexplained severe hearing loss blamed on a 'covert sonic device'

You'll note that the date of this article is one day after Ms. Nauert's press briefing referenced above. In this article the conclusion is as follows:

WASHINGTON — The two-year-old US diplomatic relationship with Cuba was roiled Wednesday by what US officials say was a string of bizarre incidents that left a group of American diplomats in Havana with severe hearing loss attributed to a covert sonic device.

The article submitted by Mr. S. contains additional information:

This could mean that the weapon used is deploying microwave energies rapidly heating brain tissue which generates a “shockwave,” with the goal of vibrating the inner ear at dangerously high levels. The other option is ultra sound waves weaponized with a low-frequency or high-frequency beyond the range of human hearing that causes fatigue, apathy, hearing loss, confusion, disorientation, and nausea, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). However, that evidence was considered slim according to the study. For years it’s been rumored in conspiracy circles that some group, likely the CIA, has been harassing individual citizens in gang stalking with a sound-based weapon. In 2017, it shouldn’t be so hard to grasp but some still struggle to understand that frequency ELF (electronic low frequency) can be harnessed as a silent weapon. The Army had a website now permanently removed dedicated to one of these technologies nicknamed “Voice-to-Skull” in which they proposed beaming voices into enemies’ heads.

(Emphases added)

I myself have written of these technologies in various blogs, and a few of my books.

What intrigues me here is the potential link, via this technology, to the Fitzgerald and McCain incidents. Recall from my previous blogs about these incidents, that the US Navy is writing off these bizarre warship rammings as due to crew incompetence and lack of training. My problem with this has been the vast amount of assumptions one has to entertain in order for the incompetence explanation to make any sense. I don't entirely discount it, but by the same token, I find it difficult to swallow for the very simple reason that bridge watches would be particularly concerned with scanning the horizon, and taking evasive action - i.e., steering out of the way- of approaching ships. And this will hold true both of the warship crews, as of the crews of the ramming vessels themselves. In my previous blogs about these incidents, I have suggested that the "incompetence meme" may be the way that the Navy is covering up the possible use of such mind manipulation technologies. Recall in this respect that some crew members of the naval vessels reported feeling "mystified". i.e., disoriented, confused.

If this is the case, then the Cuban incidents may and probably are of a piece with the Fitzgerald and John McCain incidents. and perhaps one may speculate that Cuba has access to some old Soviet technology along these lines, for the Soviets were pursuing research in these areas as actively as the USA was. If so, then one may speculate that perhaps the naval incidents were, indeed, messages ultimately from Russia, and that therefore, maybe the Cuban incidents are as well. The technological connection is there.

The primary difficulty with this hypothesis, as I indicated in my previous blogs on these subjects, and again in my blogs earlier this week about the murder of Malaysian ambassador Raza, who is, or was, handling the debris transfers of Flight 370 from Madagascar to Malaysia, is that Russia has no real motive to send messages via these methods for the simple reasons that it exposes their possession of such sophisticated technology in return for very little, for note that if Russia is sending such messages, Washington appears not to be receiving them, or at the minimum, not listening to them. This implies that someone else might be sending the messages.

But either way, to my mind it seems at the very least a possibility that mind manipulation technologies were in play in the naval incidents, and in Cuba, and one cannot rule out extra-territorial players, willing to send such messages in a way that Russia and its satellites might be made to look like the culprits.

See you on the flip side...