Diplomats Injured by Invisible Weapon in The Gasp Menagerie
This is a story I broke on the Brainwaves show a few months back. (If you’re not listening, why not? I bring paranormal news in the first hour of every show, kind of a weekly audio version of The Gasp Menagerie. Tune in!)
The story starts all the way back in August, when the US officials reported that some diplomats in Havana had complained of attacks by a “sonic weapon” that had left them with neurological problems. The attacks started some nine months before they were acknowledged publicly by the US.
Described as a “blaring, grinding noise,” one diplomat said it went away as soon as he moved a few feet from where he’d been sleeping in his Havana hotel room and returned as soon as he laid back down, suggesting a pinpoint precision to the attack. Others reported a more general, less intrusive noise that dogged them both at home and in at least one hotel. Some reported vibrating noises, others sounds similar to cicada calls heard often in the summer months of North America.
The symptoms also varied. Everything from memory loss to dizziness, sometimes even brain swelling.
It could all be written off to mass hysteria, but physical evidence has now been found in some of these victims. Some of the 24 reported US and Canadian victims have changes in their “white matter” which acts as an information path between brain cells.
There are three factors making this more mysterious. First, nobody knows how the attacks were carried out, or if they were even attacks at all. No known technology can cause physical negative changes to the brain indirectly or via sound of any kind. It’s just not possible within the known laws of physics. Several neurological experts have been polled, and they all say no abnormalities can be caused without direct physical access to the brain. Sound alone just can’t do it.
Second, nobody seems to know who is to blame. Cuba has been blamed by the Trump administration, something they deny fiercely. This also doesn’t make much sense, as Cuba is currently enjoying renewed relations with the US and would be the one to lose if relations end due to attacks driving out diplomats. Also, Canadians also suffered the effects, and Canada has long had friendly relations to Cuba despite the longtime US lockout dating back to before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961.
Finally, Cuba took previously unthinkable steps to allow US personnel, including the FBI, to investigate on their soil with almost total impunity. These teams investigated the phenomena and came up completely blank. Zero evidence, zero explanation. One intelligence official is quoted as saying, “It’s mystery after mystery after mystery.”
While the attacks seem to have stopped, we’re no closer to knowing just what happened to these people… or why. For that matter, we don’t even know for certain that it was an attack or some other phenomenon, although it’s never been reported elsewhere. Even if someone like Russia had decided to test a weapon on those strange targets in that strange location, where did they come up with such a fantastical technology?
We’ll keep following this story if more comes out, but for now it remains as it was when it was first reported: a complete and total mystery with tons of physical evidence to confirm it happened and absolutely no explanation to any part of it.
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Have a weird story? Potential evidence of the supernatural, or at least something hard to explain? Spot any creepy critters out there roaming the wilds? LET ME KNOW! I’d love to talk about it and possibly write it up right here in the Gasp Menagerie. You’ll get appropriate credit, of course, and everyone else will get fresh creepy (as opposed to fresh Creepy, which, trust me… nobody wants that) to enjoy. As always, I can be found at mrdark@dreadcentral.com. Now get out there, find some weird, and let’s get this party started.
Categorized:News
