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Comment by behrlich | Hacker News Reader

> These allegations are incredibly serious. There are only two outcomes from here: either he is lying and this is some big government psy-op, or he is telling the truth. Either way, congress should investigate and get to the bottom of this.

This is what is so frustrating about everyone dismissing this so off hand. Don't you at least want to get to the bottom of how large numbers of high ranking government officials have been convinced - or convinced to lie to us about - the US government being in possession of craft.

_Something_ is happening. Why don't we find out what?

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Was _something_ happening with "Havana Syndrome"? In the end, doesn't seem so.

In both cases Occam's Razor points to a bunch of people simply being fooled by their senses and doubling down on that time and time again. Meanwhile we'll waste a whole bunch of money chasing phantoms.

The Havana syndrome stuff is still highly classified. From what I’ve heard, there’s something going on there.

That's the problem with the Havana Syndrome -- it's all "from what I've heard", AKA hearsay.

There is simply no scientifically credible evidence of any malfeasance. The fact that the government agencies have not come out outright and said as much, can be easily explained by the fact that they have nothing to gain by debunking it.

You can rest assured that there are no longer any CIA agents assigned to investigating the Havana events, because they have long ago concluded that there is no substance to the story. They'll never make a press release about such a non-event.

Professor Gary Nolan of Stanford doesn’t seem to think Havana syndrome is a “non event” considering he was contacted by the CIA to do brain scans of the victims.

I agree it’s frustrating because the entire situation is classified, but this is how the intelligence community works. We can’t show our hands by making reports to the public. I hope one day we can.

There is a discussion in congress about trying to change the classification system since the default is to over-classify everything, but we will see if that happens.

I know nothing at all about Gary Nolan of Stanford except what you wrote above, so don’t take the following as disparaging him.

That said: it is not difficult to imagine a certain bias towards making an interesting finding, when given such an assignment by the government.

The lack of a control group and blinding makes every result of such a scanning study very vulnerable to such biases.

Hence, I would advise placing very little weight behind its findings.

You can find discrepancies in anything if you want to enough.

I can’t convince you of anything because all of the data is classified or under HIPPA. All we can do is trust the highly credentialed people about their general findings. Gary Nolan is a world renowned pathologist that has started several NASDAQ companies. The CIA sought him out to investigate Havana syndrome because he created a new MRI machine (I think? Some kind of brain scanning device) that is world class.

I don’t follow Havana syndrome closely enough specifically because we are less likely to see that data than we are the upcoming revelations from congress of some non-human technology.

https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/garry-nolan

The above post does not address my concern regarding a control group and blindness.

Would you mind emailing Gary (gnolan@drowlab.com) with your concerns? I’ve gotten a response from him on some concerns I had with an interview he did. He’s a very nice fellow and he tries to respond to every inquiry from w what I understand. If you send a respectful letter asking detailing your thoughts on the public discussion of Havana syndrome and ask him some general questions about the work he did with patients experiencing it, I am certain he will respond (albeit probably not in a timely manner).

I’d love for us to follow up if and when he does.

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