A US intelligence report by a panel of expert scientists has named pulsed electromagnetic energy and ultrasound as plausible causes for the mystery “Havana syndrome” symptoms experienced by US diplomats and spies in recent years.
The report found that a group of cases could not be explained by health or environmental factors or by psychosomatic illness.
It also said that devices exist with “modest energy requirements,” which were concealable, and could produce the observed symptoms and be effective over hundreds of meters or through walls.
Photo: AFP
The panel, established last year by US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns, said the investigation was not tasked to identify a culprit, but in a statement accompanying the report, Haines and Burns said that it would help sharpen the search for the origins of they mysterious ailments.
“We will stay at it, with continued rigor, for however long it takes,” they said.
In a redacted executive summary of its report published on Wednesday, the panel of experts said that the signs and symptoms of the syndrome were “diverse and may be caused by multiple mechanisms,” but that a subset of them “cannot be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions.”
When looking at probable causes, the panel — which includes experts on medicine and engineering — pointed toward some form of external energy source.
The report found that “pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radio frequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics, although information gaps exist.”
It added that “sources exist that could generate the required stimulus, are concealable and have moderate power requirements.”
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