Claim: An inaudible sonic weapon adequately explains the range of symptoms experienced by diplomats suffering from “health attacks” in Cuba.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Embassy of the United States, Havana
text: device, and did not believe the Cuban government is responsible. Affected individuals described mild brain damage similar to a concussion and symptoms such as temporary or permanent hearing loss, memory loss, and nausea. Speculation has centered around a sonic or ultrasonic weapon, however the scientific consensus is that the use of a sonic weapon is implausible. Dr. Timothy Leighton has said ""If you’re talking about a ray-gun rifle knocking out someone with ultrasound they can’t hear at a hundred meters — that’s not going to happen"". The United States expelled two Cuban diplomats in response to the attacks; the Cuban

title: Embassy of the United States, Havana
text: the brains showed physical changes which doctors believe could not have been caused by sound. They are now avoiding the term "sonic" to describe the attacks and there is growing skepticism it was caused by a sonic device; rather, it's possible that the sound heard by victims was a by-product of the brain damage. James Lewis, a former State Department official and intelligence expert, stated: "We know with 100% certainly that the embassies are under surveillance, and the technology being used could just be crude and over-powered"; he noted that health problems at the US embassy in Moscow in the

title: Sonic weapon
text: North Dakota, among others. It has been reported that "sonic attacks" may have taken place in Cuba in 2016 and 2017, leading to health problems, including hearing loss, in US and Canadian government employees at the US and Canadian embassies in Havana. Some events as reported would seem to violate the laws of physics, and it has been suggested that they are in fact an example of mass psychogenic illness. Cuban investigators have reportedly dismissed claims that sonic weapons have been used against American diplomats, describing them as "science fiction". The US issued an alert to its employees in China

title: Havana syndrome
text: in the "Skeptical Inquirer" in which he concluded that "the key question is not whether or not a sonic attack took place, but why American officials would assume that an attack took place in the wake of overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Bartholomew also reported on this issue for "Skeptic Magazine" titled "The 'Sonic Attack' on U.S. Diplomats in Cuba: Why the State Department’s Claims Don’t Add Up", where he examined the claims from a scientific perspective and concluded that: On February 1, 2018, "Slate" reported in "Cuba’s Sonic Attacks Show Us Just How Susceptible Our Brains Are to Mass

title: Havana syndrome
text: The health problems typically had a sudden onset: the victim would suddenly begin hearing strange grating noises that they perceived as coming from a specific direction. Some of them experienced it as a pressure or a vibration; or as a sensation comparable to driving a car with the window partly rolled down. The duration of these attacks ranged from 20 seconds to 30 minutes, and always happened while the diplomats were either at home or in hotel rooms. Other people nearby, family members and guests in neighboring rooms, did not report hearing anything. The Associated Press has released what it

title: Havana syndrome
text: "The wife of a member of the embassy staff, it reported, had looked outside her home after hearing the disturbing sounds and seen a van speeding away". The March JAMA study's medical team said that some personnel still loudly heard noises despite covering their ears. Beatrice A. Golomb a professor of medicine who later published a paper on the attacks, said that symptoms could be that of radio-frequency sickness. Smith said that "microwaves were now considered a main suspect and that the team was increasingly sure the diplomats had suffered brain injury". According to the State Department, "the investigation had

title: Havana syndrome
text: individuals described symptoms such as hearing loss, memory loss, and nausea. Speculation centered around a sonic weapon, with some researchers pointing to infrasound as a possible cause. In August 2017, the United States expelled two Cuban diplomats in response to the illnesses. In September, the U.S. State Department stated that it was removing non-emergency staff from the U.S. embassy, and warned U.S. citizens not to travel to Cuba. In October 2017, U.S. President Trump said that "I do believe Cuba's responsible. I do believe that", going on to say "And it's a very unusual attack, as you know. But I

title: Sonic weapon
text: after it learned of a possible "sonic attack" on a US citizen working there. The employee complained of symptoms from late 2017 through April 2018 , then returned to the US and was examined by a doctor who said the person had suffered a mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). The US diplomat likened it to the incident which they say happened in Cuba. In early June, 2018 several employees were evacuated from their work in the U.S. Consulate offices in China and sent back to Pennsylvania for testing and diagnosis after sharing similar concerns. Studies have found that exposure to

title: Havana syndrome
text: said was a recording of the sound some embassy workers heard while in Cuba; Cuban scientists have concluded that this sound was the stridulation of Jamaican field crickets, a loud species native to Cuba. Some U.S. embassy individuals have reportedly experienced lasting health effects, including one unidentified U.S. diplomat who is said to now need a hearing aid. The State Department declared that the health problems were either the result of an attack, or due to exposure to an as-yet-unknown device, and declared that they were not blaming the Cuban government, but would not say who was to blame. Affected

title: Havana syndrome
text: and mass psychogenic illness, Robert Bartholomew, believes the Cuban incidents are an example of mass hysteria. As reported in "Newsweek" on October 13, 2017, he said: In the December 26, 2017, "Skeptoid" podcast episode "Sonic Weapons in Cuba", science journalist Brian Dunning examined the evidence and determined that the incident had all the hallmarks of a psychogenic event. He concluded: On January 6, 2018, U.S. Senator Jeff Flake stated that the U.S. has no evidence that the illnesses experienced by U.S. diplomats were the result of attacks. On January 9, 2018, an anonymous senior United States Department of State official

title: Moscow Signal
text: brain, concussion-like symptoms and even nosebleeds. Again, these attacks have led to a fear in the Western public of weapons that are invisible but cause irreparable damage to their victims. Unlike the Moscow Signal, the source and matter of these attacks is still unknown. In September 2017, a USAID officer and his wife reported an acoustic attack similar to those experienced by the diplomats in Havana. The two suffered similar effects and were taken out of Uzbekistan by the State Department to have themselves and the situation further evaluated. It is unclear what further diagnosis or care the officer and

title: Havana syndrome
text: were linked to unusual noises, fears over attacks arose. Then, "as concern spread through the diplomatic community, others experienced similar symptoms, developing MPI [mass psychogenic illness]." Valdés-Sosa also says that: On March 2, 2018, reports surfaced that a team of computer scientists from the University of Michigan may have solved the mystery behind the sounds reported as attacks. They reported in a study that malfunctioning or improperly placed Cuban surveillance equipment could have been the origin of the reported sounds. On September 1, 2018, "The New York Times" reported about updates in relation to the investigations. An electromagnetic weapon using

title: Moscow Signal
text: a single room or a specific area of a room, indicating the weapon has the ability to target areas with "laser-like specificity." Investigators have several theories about the attacks actually being intentional and performed by Cuba’s government, rogue Cuban security forces or a third country, likely Russia. Officials are baffled, as a device to target sound waves with such specificity would be very large and difficult to conceal fully. The "sonic attacks", a term now avoided by the United States government, have led to confirmed perceptible changes in the victims' health such as changes to white matter tracts in the

title: Havana syndrome
text: have had symptoms last for months. The study concluded that "the diplomats appear to have sustained injury to widespread brain networks." Regarding the "JAMA" report, Bartholomew was quoted as saying he was "floored by the study" and claimed that it "reads like US government propaganda." He pointed out that "there is no proof that any kind of energy source affected the diplomats, or even that an attack took place." Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, director of the Cuban Neuroscience Center said he believes that there were a small number of diplomats who experienced real medical problems due to unknown causes, and when they

title: Havana syndrome
text: had been experiencing symptoms since late 2017. Several individuals were taken to the United States for medical examination. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the attacks were consistent with those reported in Cuba. The State Department assembled a task force to investigate the reports and expanded their health warning to all of mainland China amid reports some U.S. diplomats outside of Guangzhou had experienced the same symptoms resembling a brain injury. The warning tells anyone who experiences "any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source." Another

title: Embassy of the United States, Havana
text: government offered to cooperate with the US in an investigation of the incidents. In September, the US State Department stated that it was removing non-emergency staff from the US embassy, and warned US citizens not to travel to Cuba. In October 2017, the "Associated Press" released what it claimed was a recording of the sound some embassy workers heard during the attacks. However, senior neurologists consulted by "The Guardian" suggested that the health incidents were probably psychosomatic complaints, of the kind commonly known as mass hysteria. In December 2017, investigators discovered abnormalities in the victims' brains. The white matter of

title: Havana syndrome
text: technology exploiting the microwave auditory effect, also called Frey effect and radio-frequency hearing, is considered plausible by some, including Allan H. Frey who was the first to publish information on the microwave auditory effect, Mark Zaid a lawyer representing some of those affected, and James C. Lin a "leading investigator" of the microwave auditory effect. The weapon, "designed to bathe a target's living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a damaged nervous system", "could have caused the diplomats to experience not just loud noises but nausea, headaches and vertigo, as well as possible brain-tissue injury". ProPublica reported that

title: Havana syndrome
text: emitted harmful sounds or even mass hysteria." On June 8, Vox followed up with a report which included speculation that mass hysteria could be to blame: "And for mass hysteria, it would mean other US diplomats in China feared so much about what happened to their colleagues that they've effectively worried themselves sick. It's unclear if victims told each other what they were experiencing, and if that made others feel that they had similar symptoms." Havana syndrome In August 2017, reports surfaced that American and Canadian diplomatic personnel in Cuba had suffered a variety of health problems, dating back to

title: Havana syndrome
text: Hysteria" that the FBI had investigated and found there had been no such attack. It also interviewed Keith Petrie, a research psychologist at the University of Auckland's School of Medicine, who said that it is simple to manipulate people's well-being using expectations about sound. When Petrie's team exposed test subjects to either infrasound or sham-infrasound (silence), they learned it was not the presence or absence of sound itself, but people's expectations, that determined the outcome. On February 24, 2018, "The Guardian" reported that a study of the "health attacks" had been conducted and had ignited controversy, "with some experts claiming

title: Havana syndrome
text: "As a specialist on mass psychogenic illness who has spent the last 25 years studying this topic, the head physician for the U.S. State Department has gotten it wrong—very wrong." Bartholomew said that "Rosenfarb made several assertions which exhibit an alarming lack of familiarity with the basics of psychosomatic medicine." Bartholomew concluded by stating that "Science has a long history of people seeing what they expect or want to see in order to support their initial suspicions. This is just the latest example." On January 16, 2018, Bartholomew published an article "Sonic Attack Claims Are Unjustified: Just Follow the Facts"