The US has ordered evacuations in China following mysterious illness affecting consulate workers. But some think this is actually an attack, some kind of new super weapon meant to disable people with concussion like symptoms. Is this a natural phenomenon, an accident, or is this a new weapon being used against US interests?Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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|---|---|---|
| In 2016, U.S. | ||
| diplomats and staff in Cuba experienced a mysterious illness. | ||
| Associated with this was a feeling of pressure and some kind of strange sound. | ||
| Now, many people were accusing Cuba of committing some kind of sonic attack against U.S. | ||
| interests, but ultimately nothing was definitively proven and everyone was left scratching their heads. | ||
| The U.S. | ||
| thought that Cuba might have done this, but we couldn't prove it. | ||
| So this ended up just being a mystery. | ||
| And recently, the mystery has returned. | ||
| Because now the U.S. | ||
| is evacuating people in China because the same type of incident is occurring. | ||
| A mysterious sound, a feeling of pressure, and strange symptoms associated with it. | ||
| So what could be causing this? | ||
| And is it really a sonic attack against the United States? | ||
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| The U.S. | ||
| has evacuated multiple employees from Chinese consulate over mysterious illness. | ||
| The U.S. | ||
| State Department has sent a number of individuals from the U.S. | ||
| consulate in Guangzhou, China back to the U.S. | ||
| after screenings showed they may have been affected by mysterious health problems similar to what diplomats experienced in Cuba. | ||
| Two weeks ago, the agency said one government employee in Guangzhou experienced vague But abnormal sensations of sound and pressure, similar to the unexplained incidents sometimes described as sonic attacks, that recently sickened staffers in Cuba. | ||
| On Wednesday, the State Department spokesperson, Heather Nauert, said that employees were sent to the U.S. | ||
| for further evaluation and a comprehensive assessment of their symptoms and findings. | ||
| A Department spokesperson said the agency was not specifying the exact number of people evacuated, saying it was due to medical privacy concerns. | ||
| He said that as of now, 24 government employees or family members who worked in Cuba had confirmed symptoms similar to those noted following concussion or minor traumatic brain injury. | ||
| The Guangzhou employee was found to have similar symptoms on May 16th. | ||
| And another story from NPR from May 23rd. | ||
| Echoes of Cuba. | ||
| U.S. | ||
| employee in China hit with sensations of sound and pressure. | ||
| Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that medical indications are very similar and entirely consistent with symptoms reported by Americans working at the U.S. | ||
| Embassy in Cuba. | ||
| We have medical teams that are moving to be on the ground there. | ||
| We are working to figure out what took place in both Havana and now in China as well. | ||
| The story almost rings of conspiracy theories, sonic weapons, mysterious illnesses, but what's fascinating about this is that there is acknowledgement that something real is happening, and we don't know what. | ||
| After Cuba, many people said that maybe it was just mass hysteria, that people started talking about the mysterious illness and then everyone suddenly became a hypochondriac and started experiencing symptoms too. | ||
| But how do you explain China? | ||
| This story from ProPublica. | ||
| The sound and the fury inside the mystery of the Havana Embassy. | ||
| More than a year after American diplomats began to suffer strange concussion-like symptoms in Cuba, a US investigation is no closer to determining How they were hurt or by whom, and the FBI and CIA are at odds over the case. | ||
| A ProPublica investigation reveals the many layers to the mystery and the political maneuvering that is reshaping U.S.-Cuba relations. | ||
| In the story, they say, in early January, after more than eight months of analysis, the Bureau ruled out its initial hypothesis that the Americans were targeted with some type of sonic device. | ||
| That left the FBI without a weapon, a perpetrator, or a motive. | ||
| And still struggling to understand how the diplomats could have been hurt or fallen ill. | ||
| Intelligence officials, for their part, have continued to emphasize a pattern they see as anything but coincidental. | ||
| The first four Americans to report being struck by the phenomenon, including the fit-looking man in his 30s, were all CIA officers working under diplomatic cover, as were two others affected later on. | ||
| The CIA and other agencies involved in the investigation also have yet to concur with the FBI's conclusion about sonic technology. | ||
| And this is what I found so particularly interesting. | ||
| The first four people affected by this illness in Cuba were CIA agents who were undercover. | ||
| So if you're working in U.S. | ||
| intelligence and you hear that some random employees are getting sick, you don't think too much of it. | ||
| But when you're working in the CIA and you hear that it's not random employees, it's specifically your undercover agents, it sounds like... it sounds like your agents are under attack. | ||
| Despite the many unanswered questions, Trump administration officials have repeatedly blamed | ||
| Raul Castro's government for failing to protect the diplomats, if not actually attacking them. | ||
| Early last fall, the State Department withdrew more than half of the diplomatic staff assigned | ||
| to Havana, while ordering a proportional number of Cubans to leave Washington. | ||
| The department also warned U.S. citizens they could be at risk of attack if they visit the | ||
| island. | ||
| I still believe that the Cuban government, someone within the Cuban government, can bring | ||
| this to an end. | ||
| Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last month. | ||
| But what exactly was the sound? | ||
| Researchers have put this together, which many people who were affected by the illness believe to be close to what the sound was. | ||
| So viewer discretion advised. | ||
| We don't know if this sound is causing the illness, but I can say the sound is very annoying, | ||
| so make sure you turn the volume down because I'm about to play the noise. | ||
| What's interesting about that sound is that it's only a recreation of what is actually audible to the human ear. | ||
| It's possible that there are lower frequencies and higher frequencies that we can't hear. | ||
| And because this is a recreation, it's not the actual sonic attack. | ||
| It's possible that the individuals who were afflicted with this mysterious illness were hearing ultra-low frequencies or ultra-high frequencies. | ||
| So what are the chances that we have seen two incidents over the past couple years where people have been afflicted by a mysterious illness and have heard this sound? | ||
| Ryan Littlefield is a cybersecurity analyst who published this story about two years ago. | ||
| The psychoacoustic effect of infrasonic, sonic, and ultrasonic frequencies within non-lethal | ||
| military warfare techniques, exploring the use of audio to influence humans physically | ||
| and psychologically as a means of non-lethal warfare methods throughout both the 20th and 21st century. | ||
| In the story he says, Throughout the 20th and 21st century, there has been a vast amount of research collected and interest gained in the use of non-lethal weapons, which are intended to immobilize or impair targets without causing permanent or severe damage to the human body. | ||
| As technologies have developed, it's apparent that military bodies within the world seek to create weapons resulting in wars without death. | ||
| However, it is within the creation of new weapons that many issues arise, which perhaps may be a reason there is little evidence for the development of non-lethal weapons. | ||
| It's apparent that some concepts of using infrasound may violate disarmament treaties. | ||
| For example, the 1999 European Committee stated, Whether military or civilian, which seeks to apply knowledge of the chemical, electrical, sound, vibration, or other functioning of the human brain to the development of human beings, including a ban on actual or possible deployment of such systems. | ||
| Thus, this may result in military bodies taking a critical view before the acceptance of research to be made. | ||
| However, it is important to understand at this point within the study that this does not just encompass infrasonic sound, but also applies to ultrasonic sound too. | ||
| The article goes on. | ||
| It is the alleged properties that infrasound, when applied correctly to humans, that have allowed for the field to be of interest within military application. | ||
| Within Table 1, we can see a notable number of applications that infrasound could possibly or has been applied for. | ||
| may affect labyrinths, vertigo, imbalance, targets, riot control, British use in Northern Ireland. | ||
| It says very low frequency noise, disorientation, vomiting, fits, bowel spasm, and uncontrollable defecation in enemy | ||
| troops. | ||
| The list goes on to include many sound sources, the effects, and their targets. | ||
| But is it really possible, or is this just a conspiracy theory? | ||
| A simple Google search of Sonic nausea brings up this device, and they claim by simply attaching a 9-volt battery to this device, you can inflict nausea upon a person. | ||
| And even more interestingly, from Wired.com in 2007, Navy researching vomit beam. | ||
| You never know what's going to land in your mailbox. | ||
| Last night, I found a weapon that shoots an invisible wall-penetrating beam that makes people so dizzy they fell over. | ||
| It can make them puke too, but I'll get to that in a moment. | ||
| Invocon Inc., one of dozens of companies expected to showcase their wares at the forum, says it'll be there to display its non-lethal standoff weapon for military and law enforcement personnel, This device is essentially what's called an LED incapacitator, or light-emitting diode incapacitator. | ||
| It's a weapon designed like a flashlight. | ||
| It emits an extremely bright, rapid, and well-focused series of differently colored random pulses | ||
| before the human eyes can focus in on one frequency. | ||
| Another frequency comes in, causing intracranial pressure, which results in cluster headaches, | ||
| nausea, vomiting, disorientation, irritability, and visual impairment to the target. | ||
| The non-lethal weapon is intended as a means of protection by law enforcement officials | ||
| such as police and border patrol. | ||
| So this is a well-known technique for disabling people through non-lethal means. | ||
| temporarily blind so that they can be subdued more easily. | ||
| And there are videos depicting very similar devices. So this is a well-known | ||
| technique for disabling people through non-lethal means. So is it possible that the | ||
| attacks we're seeing are coming from some kind of new directed energy weapon? | ||
| Admittedly, not something I tend to cover that often on this channel, but | ||
| technology is a huge factor in the work that I do. So when I heard about foreign | ||
| policy that was being impacted by mysterious illnesses, the first thing I | ||
| thought was sonic attacks, light weapons, and directed energy weapons. | ||
| But what do you think? | ||
| We know these devices exist. | ||
| Many people claim they work. | ||
| I gotta be honest, I've never seen one work, but we do know that there are laser weapons that blind people and things of the sort. | ||
| So is it possible that these really are attacks on U.S. | ||
| interests on foreign soil? | ||
| Or is it mass hysteria and people are just hearing some bugs and then thinking they're gonna get sick? | ||
| Let me know what you think in the comments below and we will keep the conversation going. | ||
| I always love a good mystery, but what do you think? | ||
| What are your thoughts? | ||
| You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast and stay tuned for new videos every day at 4 p.m. |