What you need to know about Havana Syndrome and the device it may be linked to

There is a new development in the decades-long international mystery about the Havana Syndrome: The US has discovered and gone to test the device officials believe could be linked to the deteriorating situation.

Sources said the call was quietly received by the Department of Homeland Security in late 2024, nearly a decade after symptoms of what has become known as Havana Syndrome were reported by US embassy staff in Cuba. The Pentagon has been testing a portable, backpack-sized device that emits pulsed energy, radio frequencies and contains components of Russian origin.

Sources said Homeland Security investigators believe it may be able to reproduce the effects described by victims of Havana Syndrome. The Pentagon and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the CIA declined to comment.

Here’s what you need to know about the mysterious disease.

“My mind is broken”

The name Havana Syndrome is derived from cases first reported by US officials and intelligence officials in the Cuban capital. After the American embassy was opened there in 2015, the media began to report on unusual medical symptoms affecting American embassy staff working in the country: dizziness, fatigue, memory problems and blurred vision. Other symptoms include nausea, dizziness, pressure in the head, vertigo and ringing or ringing in the ears.

Many people with Havana Syndrome describe hearing a very high-pitched, painful noise that seems to subside when they move to another position, serious side effects for others that they were eventually forced to leave their jobs.

“My mind is blown,” said former CIA analyst Erika Stith he told CBS News in 2022.

“We got this because of serving our country. And we deserve to be taken care of,” he said.

The US government is calling the cases “anomalous health incidents,” or AHIs, and officials have not confirmed what caused them.

But”60 Minutes“He spoke to experts who believe these incidents involve sonic or microwave attacks.

Many of those affected believe they were harmed by a secret weapon that blasts a powerful beam of microwaves or ultrasound.

Some victims of Havana Syndrome have spent more than a decade trying to draw attention to their conditions, often blaming the government for failing to provide adequate support or access to specialized medical care.

Who has been affected?

More than 1,500 US officials have reported experiencing the condition since 2016, including White House staff, CIA officials, FBI agents, military officers and their families. Cases have appeared in many countries, and have also been reported in Washington, DC

In 2021, a case of Havana Syndrome was reported in Vietnam shortly before then Vice President Kamala Harris. visited Hanoi. The US embassy there said at the time that an “unfortunate medical incident” required at least one official to be evacuated for medical attention, prompting Harris to delay his arrival.

“60 Minutes” later found out that 11 people reported being beaten: two officials of the US embassy in Hanoi and nine others who were part of a Defense Department team preparing for Harris’ visit. While Harris was unharmed, some of the injured US personnel were evacuated from Vietnam.

In one case, a State Department security officer working at the US embassy in Guangzhou, China, told “60 Minutes” that he and his wife started having symptoms after hearing strange noises in their apartment in 2017.

The security officer, Mark Lenzi, described the sound as “a marble” rotating in a “metal funnel” and said he heard it four times – always in the same place at the same time of day: above his son’s bed when he put him to bed at night. He described the sound as “very loud” and like nothing he had ever heard before. He and his wife became ill shortly after hearing these sounds.

Lenzi said he believed he was being targeted for his work using secret equipment to analyze electronic threats at embassies.

“This was a direct attack on my apartment … it was a weapon,” he told reporter Scott Pelley. “I believe it’s RF, radio frequency energy, in the microwave range.”

Questions about Russia’s possible role

“60 Minutes” reported mid-2024 with a major development in the investigation of the Havana Syndrome: a suspicious link between the attacks in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a secret Russian intelligence unit, and evidence that a reliable source called “receipt” of acoustic weapons tests carried out by the same intelligence unit.

Lt. Col. Greg Edgreen, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Army who led the Pentagon’s investigation into these incidents, told “60 Minutes” at the time that he was convinced that Russia was behind the attack, and that they were part of a global campaign to eliminate US officials.

“If my mother had seen what I saw, she would have said, ‘It’s the Russians, they’re stupid,'” Edgreen said.

US test

US intelligence assessment released in 2023 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. found it was “highly unlikely” that a foreign enemy was responsible for the diseases – a conclusion reaffirmed in an updated review released last year. That review found that most of the intelligence community continued to view foreign involvement as highly unlikely.

The two agencies, however, revised their positions, saying that there is an “equal possibility” that a foreign adversary has developed a device capable of harming American officials and their families, while refraining from linking such a device directly to the reported AHIs.

In 2024, the House Intelligence Committee concluded the report that the 2023 assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence “lacked analytical integrity and was highly unusual in its formulation.” The report said that “it appears that a foreign enemy may be behind some of the incidents that officials say are “strange health events.”

Office of the Director of National Intelligence it says it has been doing an update in the intelligence community’s previous investigation into the incidents and “remains committed to sharing the results” with the American public once they are completed.

Former CIA intelligence chief Marc Polymeropoulos said “a new, full analysis review is now warranted, and the DNI should call for it.”

Polymeropoulos, who spoke publicly about the symptoms he suffered after he was beaten in Moscow in 2017, criticized the agency for what he said were inappropriate earlier inquiries.

“The CIA has always said that this technology does not exist, that the device does not exist, and they support it [assessments] this time,” he said, “so all their analytical thoughts are over.”