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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

As the article states, studies have found (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-with-havan...) no clear correlation of self-reported Havana syndrome with any physical indications. I vaguely recall an old article where they did some brain scans of Havana syndrome patients, and found “abnormalities”, but did not compare these scans against any sort of control group.

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One of those things. A guy I work with who I (still) consider to be highly intelligent and down to earth insists he was affected by tests of this in a well known and highly populated metropolitan area, which is well known in that community to have been a target area of directed energy weapons.

I didn't believe any of this when I first heard about it but I'm now a skeptic believer. He was able to explain, in detail, what he felt - both physically and mentally - and could name when they happened and for how long.

He underwent a bunch of medical and physiological tests as he didn't know what it was at first, mostly because it started to impact his relationship. I'm not sure he even knew about the whole thing until he started searching around on the web for his symptoms and came across others in the same neighborhood where it happened, claiming to have reported similar things.

I brushed it off at first as it seemed clear it must have been something else, but it didn't help that in literally every other aspect he's an empirical, grounded, down to Earth and totally intelligent person, an expert in his technical field, etc.

Still not sure where I stand on it as it's incredibly difficult to study or even justify scientifically. I'm still not even convinced it was "directed energy". But I do at least believe people who say they've been affected by whatever it was. It's certainly lessened his quality of life, whatever it is.

It's worth emphasising in cases like this that even an individual experiencing completely phsycosomatic ('all in their head') symptoms is still experiencing real symptoms. That is, rejecting the idea that your friend's symptoms are caused by energy weapons is not rejecting the idea that he is experiencing negative effects (which to be clear, may still have an 'external' cause)

Just to add some context about how extreme psychosomatic stuff can be, one of my friends experienced significant pain at seemingly random parts of his body throughout college, and almost dropped out because it interfered do strongly with his studies. He had physical bruising, which I saw. We did an internship as a team one year, because we had similar interests and I could “be the hands”. It was a long arduous saga. Turns out it was all in his head, he has to just ignore it and convince himself it wasn’t real. He still has occasional pains that he is very suspicious of, it’s very hard to tell when he’s really unwell or his mind is just tricking him.

Another example/generalization of this is the opposite of the placebo effect, the nocebo. [1] A person is able to suffer real and measurable effects, up to and including death, based on their belief and expectation of such effects. A well studied example of this is in terminal cancer where patients will die of no clear cause long before the cancer, or any other related effect, could have killed them. The mind is extremely powerful.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

A commonly disregarded possibility is that it is self-inflicted while asleep: https://sleep.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41606-019-...

Yes exactly my point - I'm not sure what it was that caused these experiences. I fully believe that he experienced them and they're affecting him, though. I also believe him when he says they were external.

could you share any links you have? I'm fascinated by the whole saga of Havana syndrome, plus I live in Seattle. I'm on the skeptical side but my mind is open.

Since it’s Seattle I’m picturing some asshole engineer with a truckload of used sonar gear in his garage.

Highly intelligent people are still susceptible to conspiracy thinking. It only takes one person who is delusional or read about Havana syndrome to influence everyone else. Then they believe it and soon it is “well known in community”.

But they can’t know it was directed energy weapon because there is no evidence just rumors. There isn’t evidence that directed energy weapons exist or cause those symptoms. Does everyone even have the same symptoms? How did they determine the area? How did the rule out chemicals or other causes?

Finally, testing in Seattle doesn’t make sense. It is too dangerous to be discovered, and easier to test where won’t be noticed. Also, using public means can’t collect reliable results.

> There isn’t evidence that directed energy weapons exist

Wikipedia thinks otherwise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon

The "active denial system" is a millimeter wave weapon against humans and the LRAD-500X a sonic weapon against humans.

> It is too dangerous to be discovered

If everyone says that the targets are delusional, it seems 100% safe to test it anywhere.

Directed energy weapons exist. They are huge class of weapons, from millimeter wave to sonic to lasers. The ones you mentioned are big, mounted on top of vehicles. Since commenter didn't mention symptoms, we can't tell if some kind can produce symptoms or if they are similar to Havana syndrome.

> If everyone says that the targets are delusional, it seems 100% safe to test it anywhere.

You are missing the point. It is super risky for foreign powers or US to test in public in Seattle. It is too easy for it to be discovered. Like they get into a car accident. Or someone takes a picture. We are getting this second hand, but it is strange that no one has taken a picture of suspicious van.

Also, testing in public is less useful because can't get detailed results. They might be able to tell something happened but not what without talking to the victims. Controlled tests give reliable results.

People said they were affected by this too. The human mind is very prone to mass hysteria and the spread of memes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518

The dancing plague was probably caused by a fold in subspace, similar to this incident:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subspace_Rhapsody

> which is well known in that community to have been a target area of directed energy weapons.

By “well known in that community” you mean “a lot of nutters speculate with no credible evidence”.

>Seattle, which is well known in that community to have been a target area of directed energy weapons.

This statement needs to be qualified. Unless there was a development breakthrough, energy weapons are still theoretical. Much less for them to be utilized so widely for specific communities of the public to become "well known" targets.

> in that community

My point was that the community of DWE believers know about Seattle. There's entire podcasts dedicated to it.

Are these the same people who think they're being gang stalked? Because I know that those guys sometimes think that there are microwave weapons being used on them.

Not the guy I know, at least.

Direct energy weapons have existed for years. Blinding lasers and pain-inducing microwave rays are both direct energy weapons that are known to exist and have been used "in anger."

Importantly however, this doesn't mean that any random embassy jackass claiming to be a victim of one actually was.

Energy weapons are not theoretical.

Take apart your microwave oven and put the magnetron in a wave guide and point it at your face. Go ahead and tell me its theoretical after that.

> Unless there was a development breakthrough, energy weapons are still theoretical

More precisely, energy weapons that cause the specific set of things in Havana syndrome.

Lasers, focused ultrasound, and ADS all count in the broader category and have been developed to the level of getting tested by law enforcement and military — it's just that none of them do anything like Havana syndrome.

There is also the microwave auditory effect, but from what I've read it requires a peak (not average) power so high you'd have to hold the magnetron from a high-end microwave oven against your ear for the effect to be strong enough to do what's been reported.

(This is also why that never got developed past research: in practice it would kill people well before the sound became an annoyance).

1,500 cases, and only 80 in this (supposedly the largest) study? Released just after an intelligence agency report said "nothing to see here?" Are we really so naive as to be trusting intelligence agencies at their word now? :-\

Smells a lot like counter-intel. It's a common tactic to use "friendly" scientists to release dismissive reports that shut down public debate on certain topics. People trust scientists ("studies have found" is all you need say), so this can be a very effective technique.

Closing the NIH studies only strengthens the smell. Why study something (and risk the 'wrong' information getting out) when you can commit misconduct and then use your own misconduct as an excuse to shut down the investigation?

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