Shifty sonic attacks leave no forensic evidence and thus, the only way to snag a perpetrator is to catch them in the act. But in the case of the sonic attacks on United States diplomats in Cuba, the lack of forensic evidence really doesn’t matter – the perpetrator is easy to surmise. The one that stands to gain the most from the attacks is Russia – and the weapon they used might not have been an acoustic weapon at all.
The mysterious sonic attacks against US diplomats in Cuba leave authorities puzzled
As of September 2017, officials believe there were more than 60 sonic attacks against more than two dozen US diplomats and family members based in Cuba. It is believed to be the first time a sophisticated sonic weapon has been deployed in a covert assault.
The attacks began in August 2017 when diplomats awoke late at night feeling unwell and hearing sounds that resembled “metallic insect wings or metal dragging across the floor”. Victims of the attacks experienced hearing loss, nausea, ear-ringing, headaches, and dizziness. Some suffered permanent hearing loss and “mild traumatic brain injury”. They were unable to determine the source of the sound but noticed that when they walked from the room, the symptoms immediately dissipated.
Damage from sonic/acoustic weaponry
Sonic devices have been deployed by the military and police for several decades. Extremely high-power sound waves can destroy eardrums, cause severe pain and disorientation, and totally incapacitate a person. It is believed the US arsenal contains sonic weapons that can cause vibration of the eyeballs and thus, distort vision or even permanently blind the target. And studies have shown that high-frequency ultrasound devices can cause lung, intestinal, and heart damage. However, to date, these devices are audible, near-deafeningly loud, and must be carefully focused to be effective.
The United States is quick to blame Cuba
US officials, working in an administration that longs to disassemble US/Cuba relationships put into place by former President Barrack Obama, were quick to blame Cuba for the attacks. Despite the bravado from President Donald Trump condemning Cuba of the attacks, the nation-state with the most to gain is Russia – presuming the sonic attacks really occurred in the first place.
Many scientists believe the attacks are not sonic at all for the simple reason that they violate the laws of physics. Sonic attacks can be infrasound (noise below 20 Hz) or ultrasound (noise above 20 kHz). The first type is thought to be incapable of covering long distances and tends to spread and thus would have affected many more people in the area. Ultrasound, in contrast, can be beamed from longer distances but is near impossible to promote physical symptoms like those described by Cuban embassy personnel. This leads many to conclude that the symptoms described by the victims could not possibly derive from a sonic attack.
Russia and its history of microwave attacks
If sonic waves cannot explain symptoms experienced by US personnel, what could have been used to cause ringing in the ears, nausea, and permanent tissue damage?
Microwaves are imperceptible to people and if directed at a person, will rapidly heat tissue within the brain, generating a small shockwave. This shockwave is registered as sound by the ears, which vibrate at an extremely high frequency during the burst of waves. Hearing loss and severe headaches are inevitable. More convincingly, a microwave attack explains the reported neural damage suffered by some of the victims – microwave weaponry is known to cause lasting neural damage if the microwaves are energetic enough.
But how do we know Russia is behind the Cuban embassy attacks? During the Cold War, U.S. officials found the embassy in Moscow had been besieged with low-level microwaves. Known as the “Moscow signal”, the purpose of the undetectable waves has never been determined. One theory was the Soviet Union was using microwaves to influence the behavior of embassy workers, perhaps to induce clerks to make mistakes when encrypting messages. It was well-known at the time that the neurological effects of microwaves fascinated the Soviets who were pouring money into directed-energy wave research. Today the incident is the first known use of microwaves as weaponry – and it occurred more than 50 years ago.
Russian captivation with directed-energy weapons has not slowed down. In 2010, the Russian Federation adopted a new military doctrine to ensure the country’s defense. At the top of the list was the use of directed-wave weapons in future wars. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov proudly announced:
“The development of weaponry based on new physics principles – direct-energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, genetic weapons, psychotronic weapons, and so on – is now a part of the state arms procurement program.”
The use of microwave weaponry was confirmed in 2014 after a Russian SU-24 completely disabled the USS Donald Cook with an invisible assault when the American ship ventured too close to Russian shores in the Black Sea. U.S. military officials were stunned by the strike. Today it is believed the attack vector was a new type of unbeknownst directed-energy wave – likely a microwave weapon.
A cover-up?
You may note that the USS Donald Cook Wikipedia entry now claims the results of the 2014 attack against the ship was a Russian misinformation campaign and that the USS Donald Cook was not disabled by an invisible Russian weapon. Interestingly, an examination of Wikipedia edit history shows this information was only added to the article in August 2017, when news of the Cuban Embassy attacks first surfaced, by a known Russian author suspected of misinformation himself.