BY ROBERT E. BARTHOLOMEW
IT IS THE CASE THAT JUST WON’T GO AWAY. CONTROVERSY continues to swirl around the cause of several outbreaks of mysterious ailments among American diplomatic staff that are widely believed to be from an acoustical weapon. The story first broke in August 2017, when the State Department announced that since late 2016, 22 employees of the American Embassy in Havana, Cuba, had been stricken. Before long, two more victims came forward. Since we first reported on this episode (Skeptic, 2018,Vol. 23, No. 1), a 25th staffer has been added to the casualty list. Most victims reported hearing strange sounds accompanying their symptoms that were variously described as buzzing, humming, and grinding. Complaints included fatigue, dizziness and difficulty concentrating, confusion, headaches, nausea, and more alarming, changes to the white matter tracts of the brain and concussion-like symptoms.
Throughout 2017, dozens of American citizens have reported that over the past few years, they had experienced similar symptoms after hearing strange sounds while spending time in one of the two Cuban hotels where many of the attacks allegedly occurred. They claimed that in September 2017, an officer attached to the American embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, reported that he and his wife had experienced similar symptoms after hearing strange noises. By mid-2018, the State Department dispatched a medical team to China after announcing that several diplomatic staff there had fallen ill after hearing similar sounds.