Reports of Mysterious Attacks on U.S. Diplomats Continue
Separating Fact from Fiction
BY ROBERT E. BARTHOLOMEW
IT IS THE CASE THAT JUST WON’T GO AWAY. CONTROVERSY continues to swirl around the cause of several outbreaks of mysterious ailments among American diplomatic staff that are widely believed to be from an acoustical weapon. The story first broke in August 2017, when the State Department announced that since late 2016, 22 employees of the American Embassy in Havana, Cuba, had been stricken. Before long, two more victims came forward. Since we first reported on this episode (Skeptic, 2018,Vol. 23, No. 1), a 25th staffer has been added to the casualty list. Most victims reported hearing strange sounds accompanying their symptoms that were variously described as buzzing, humming, and grinding. Complaints included fatigue, dizziness and difficulty concentrating, confusion, headaches, nausea, and more alarming, changes to the white matter tracts of the brain and concussion-like symptoms.
Throughout 2017, dozens of American citizens have reported that over the past few years, they had experienced similar symptoms after hearing strange sounds while spending time in one of the two Cuban hotels where many of the attacks allegedly occurred. They claimed that in September 2017, an officer attached to the American embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, reported that he and his wife had experienced similar symptoms after hearing strange noises. By mid-2018, the State Department dispatched a medical team to China after announcing that several diplomatic staff there had fallen ill after hearing similar sounds.
The most significant development in the mystery took place on February 15th of this year when the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study from a team of neurologists who examined 21 of the Cuban victims. They concluded that embassy personnel were indeed suffering from concussion-like symptoms and white matter tract changes.1 They also dismissed claims that it was a case of mass psychogenic illness. Their findings made global headlines. But here is where the story takes a surprising twist: for a study published in one of the world’s leading medical journals, it was remarkably flawed. The authors made startling claims that were not supported by their own evidence. Let’s examine these claims.