Current Events > US believes Russia is targeting gov't officials with invisible weapon near DC

(+) Yeah! (+)

U.S. officials have long been stumped by the suspected attacks and the symptoms associated with them, which include intense ringing and pressure in the ears, vision and hearing impairment, loss of balance and other cognitive abilities, as well as permanent brain damage. Officials across the government have also struggled to learn more about the specific type of weaponry that directs highly concentrated electromagnetic energy toward a victim.

The attacks were first detected in 2016 in Havana, Cuba, where dozens of American diplomats were sidelined in what prompted a wide-ranging investigation by the U.S. government. The resulting illness became known as Havana Syndrome.

Last year, U.S. officials tracked a sharp rise in similar incidents affecting American personnel in various countries and, for the first time, right at home. A National Security Council official is believed to have been hit with a directed-energy attack while walking on the Ellipse, the lawn just south of the White House; two other NSC officials were recently impacted near their homes outside Washington.

The U.S. intelligence community has not formally determined who is responsible for the suspected attacks, which are extremely difficult to attribute due to their invisible nature. However, administration officials have told lawmakers that they believe Russias military-intelligence unit, the GRU, is responsible, POLITICO first reported.

The U.S. government has significantly ramped up its investigation in recent months to include the entire intelligence community in addition to the National Institutes of Health. Just last week, a senior State Department official was referring employees who report symptoms consistent with Havana Syndrome to the NIH, which has been playing a leading role in analyzing symptoms, according to a congressional official briefed on the probe.

The next step is to continue finding out whos doing this, Collins said.

Warner and his counterpart atop the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), have vowed to get to the bottom of the suspected attacks, and CIA Director William Burns is receiving daily briefings on the status of the governments investigation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/07/senate-passes-bill-for-directed-energy-victims-492068

Make of this what you will

---

seems weird that Russia would be 'testing' this weapon on government officials instead of random nobodies.

---

I seriously don't understand why we don't have our own agent 47's running around the world, cleaning up the trash.

---

pogo_rabid posted...

I seriously don't understand why we don't have our own agent 47's running around the world, cleaning up the trash.

Uh

---

So Indiana Jones was right

---

These people have fucking lost it

---

Attacking someone on the white house lawn is like one step below straight up declaring war.

---

Crazy

---

Time to just expel all Russians and not allow them back in. Then freeze all their financial accounts and embargo them.

---

ya I remember that attack in Cuba. sounds fucking awful.

you'd think something like that would require a large amount of power...

---

Giant_Aspirin posted...

seems weird that Russia would be 'testing' this weapon on government officials instead of random nobodies.

People think this "weapon" is something that allows Russia to listen to conversations. My guess is that it is a little finicky, so when they get it out of the right wavelength (or whatever it uses) it causes harm to humans.

CruelBuffalo posted...

People think this "weapon" is something that allows Russia to listen to conversations. My guess is that it is a little finicky, so when they get it out of the right wavelength (or whatever it uses) it causes harm to humans.

good explanation

---

pogo_rabid posted...

I seriously don't understand why we don't have our own agent 47's running around the world, cleaning up the trash.

Not so specifically assassination-focused, but we do. There's a ton of shit going on all over the world that we won't know about for several decades, because it would start wars.

---

The russians come to the UK and poison people; first time i've heard of a new weapon.

---

CruelBuffalo posted...

People think this "weapon" is something that allows Russia to listen to conversations. My guess is that it is a little finicky, so when they get it out of the right wavelength (or whatever it uses) it causes harm to humans.

The news reports Ive seen theorize that its essentially like putting the target in a microwave but via an invisible ray.

---

i thought they never really figured out what affected people in Havana and that never was any proof it was some sort of weapon

---

Is it possible a light-weight, inconspicuous aircraft flying high in the sky are capable of such feats?

I thought corona was the invisible weapon

---

CruelBuffalo posted...

People think this "weapon" is something that allows Russia to listen to conversations. My guess is that it is a little finicky, so when they get it out of the right wavelength (or whatever it uses) it causes harm to humans.

That... Doesn't make sense. Why would you direct high-powered EM radiation at someone in order to receive soundwaves? The only thing EM radiation carries back with it when it bounces off something are its vector and energy (wavelength, intensity, frequency). As far as I know, there's no way to interpret a sound wave through EM radiation. It's hard enough to calibrate a RADAR to interpret the shape of an opaque, solid object. I also can't imagine a device which is accidentally emitting tremendous amounts of EM radiation at a specific target. Once a basic outstanding of the device is achieved it would be trivial to find out if one is used nearby, which doesn't make sense from an espionage perspective.

Interception requires "passive listening" devices like radio receivers or sound amplifiers, or infiltration, like "man in the middle" hacking attack.

---

Pogo_Marimo posted...

That... Doesn't make sense. Why would you direct high-powered EM radiation at someone in order to receive soundwaves? The only thing EM radiation carries back with it when it bounces off something are its vector and energy (wavelength, intensity, frequency). As far as I know, there's no way to interpret a sound wave through EM radiation. It's hard enough to calibrate a RADAR to interpret the shape of an opaque, solid object. I also can't imagine a device which is accidentally emitting tremendous amounts of EM radiation at a specific target. Once a basic outstanding of the device is achieved it would be trivial to find out if one is used nearby, which doesn't make sense from an espionage perspective.

Interception requires "passive listening" devices like radio receivers or sound amplifiers, or infiltration, like "man in the middle" hacking attack.

lol I am just re-vomitting rumors I saw on Twitter so take it with a giant grain of salt

Crescente posted...

Is it possible a light-weight, inconspicuous aircraft flying high in the sky are capable of such feats?

No. Due to how waves propagate you would probably need to be fairly close. Something that is fairly easy to disrupt, like a drone's electronics, still requires a range of something like 1 km using a cargo container-sized generator and microwave dish. I would suspect that any manned or unmanned aircraft would be identified pretty easily.

---

CruelBuffalo posted...

lol I am just re-vomitting rumors I saw on Twitter so take it with a giant grain of salt

Yeah, the only things that really make sense are traditional poisoning or directed weapon attacks (Or mass hysteria, of course) as far as my knowledge informs me. I take it the NIH has some knowledge on the effects of high-energy microwaves or similar radiation on human brains, which coincides with the symptoms they're seeing. It also makes sense from a biology and physics stand point for this to be a compact, maybe "van sized" energy weapon.

Think about it like this--If these weapons are capable of causing permanent brain damage, then smart application of the weaponry could be used on more elderly politicians in order to impair their judgement in a way that might not immediately be obvious. Hell, they could even use it on someone like Trump or Biden for instance, or use it in a punitive way against dissidents or enemy operatives. It makes a lot of sense to develop something like this, the issue is it might be too explicit at this point to continue its usage.

---

Pogo_Marimo posted...

That... Doesn't make sense. Why would you direct high-powered EM radiation at someone in order to receive soundwaves? The only thing EM radiation carries back with it when it bounces off something are its vector and energy (wavelength, intensity, frequency). As far as I know, there's no way to interpret a sound wave through EM radiation. It's hard enough to calibrate a RADAR to interpret the shape of an opaque, solid object. I also can't imagine a device which is accidentally emitting tremendous amounts of EM radiation at a specific target. Once a basic outstanding of the device is achieved it would be trivial to find out if one is used nearby, which doesn't make sense from an espionage perspective.

Interception requires "passive listening" devices like radio receivers or sound amplifiers, or infiltration, like "man in the middle" hacking attack.

I've read various articles about technology that uses reflected EM radiation to measure the density of air as sound waves pass through it in order to hear at a distance. Another technology uses lasers to detect vibrations on the glass of the windows of rooms in which conversations are happening.

I think it was speculative, but I can't see any reason why these technologies wouldn't work, though obviously it would be incredibly complicated accounting for interference.

---

I have a hard time believing that Russian boogeymen are doing it. My money would be on the American government testing it on its own people, and then blaming it on Russia.

---

Xavier_On_High posted...

I've read various articles about technology that uses reflected EM radiation to measure the density of air as sound waves pass through it in order to hear at a distance. Another technology uses lasers to detect vibrations on the glass of the windows of rooms in which conversations are happening.

I think it was speculative, but I can't see any reason why these technologies wouldn't work, though obviously it would be incredibly complicated accounting for interference.

Yeah, I was thinking that the density differential could be used to detect differences in the volumetric components of a sound wave to detect that a sound wave exists (Or rather, the differences in sound waves across an area), but I don't think an EM wave can indicate the other components of sound necessary to distinguish language.

A laser probably could on a physical surface, that sounds perfectly plausible if difficult. It certainly wouldn't make sense for a laser to be emitting a bunch of EM waves though--Anything not cohered into the beam itself is just a waste of energy.

---

StucklnMyPants posted...

I have a hard time believing that Russian boogeymen are doing it. My money would be on the American government testing it on its own people, and then blaming it on Russia.

Why would they test this weapon out in public, when we already have black site prisoners and thousands of miles of testing grounds?

---

Sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory.

---

Alex Jones was ahead of his time.

---

StucklnMyPants posted...

I have a hard time believing that Russian boogeymen are doing it. My money would be on the American government testing it on its own people, and then blaming it on Russia.

The US doesnt test its new gadgets on rich, white people working high paying government jobs.

They test it on the minorities in the slums of Alabama or some shit

---

StucklnMyPants posted...

I have a hard time believing that Russian boogeymen are doing it. My money would be on the American government testing it on its own people, and then blaming it on Russia.

Lol.

Russia has poisoned many people publicly. Navalny, Yushchenko, Litvinenko, and Skripal to name a few.

---

Death Note

---

Vision and hearing impairment, loss of balance, cognitive disruption, brain damage...

Holy shit... maybe they have been using these weapons on trump all along .
---