Lets think for a moment: if there's actually a team of spies using this technology it could be a production level tech, or prototypes with somewhat strong science behind it.

Then they would know much more about what exactly are they doing with people's brains. Wait for it..

What if all these cases are just the failures? The actual damaged brains are others, and the damage is much more specific, like in high energy based strong psychological conditioning, making those other - invisible, not detected yet - targets, think and pursuit goals projected to them by the adversary forces.