Original subtitles

Tonight, a mysterious illness strikes hundreds of government officials.

In the middle of the night, I woke up in a room of spinning. I had a terrible

case of vertigo. I was frankly terrified.

Ongoing investigations raise more questions than answers.

It's causing a lot of confusion, frustration, and really starting to feel

of like they're in some sort of bad spy thriller.

Now, we reveal the top theories behind this bizarre epidemic.

This could have been caused by something that was already inside the embassy

staff quarters.

These chemicals have been used in some of the most deadly chemical attacks on

the planet. Could some foreign power have developed a masonic weapon?

What's behind the strange phenomenon known as Havana?

November 2016,

Havana, Cuba.

As the sun sets on the island, a U .S. diplomat and his wife are unwinding with

friends. This couple has just moved to Cuba, and their names have been kept

anonymous in reports, but the diplomat and his wife are living in an upscale

development called El Country Club.

They're having neighbors over for drinks, and suddenly they hear this

it fills the air and sounds kind of like cicadas, only it's a more piercing

metallic sound.

The noise persists through dinner.

At the couple's request, maintenance workers check the property for insects

look for any electrical issues that could be causing the racket, but they

nothing. The sound lingers for three months, during which time...

The couple falls ill.

He and his wife have been feeling off ever since shortly after the sounds

Kind of cloudy with difficulty concentrating.

After a while, the diplomat shares his experience with co -workers at the U .S.

Embassy. A colleague in his 30s says that he also heard this high -pitched

and started to experience health issues. And he plays some audio that he's

recorded of the incident.

It's the same noise the diplomat's been hearing for months.

Days later, that diplomat and his wife are examined by doctors in Miami and

diagnosed with concussion -like symptoms.

Headache, fatigue, disorientation, and balance issues.

More diplomats and others start reporting exactly the same set of

Over the next two months, more than two dozen officials in Havana are diagnosed

with the strange condition.

What's even worse is some of these victims enter a second phase of the

where they have even greater cognitive difficulty and trouble hearing or

It's really horrible. These symptoms have just appeared, and there appears to

no treatment.

You have to wonder, what could cause this in so many different people?

To try to learn why...

The U .S. government opens an investigation in January of 2017.

The first group of embassy employees are thoroughly examined in the United

States, and a report is published in the Journal of the American Medical

Association in 2018.

Perhaps most seriously and notably, the study concluded that the patients had

sustained widespread injury to brain networks.

There's a clear physical change that has happened to the brains of these

patients. It's visible in the MRIs. But that change is minor compared to the

results of several neurological tests that target memory, executive

and spatial orientations.

According to the study, these same severe effects would occur after a

devastating car crash or explosion.

But none of these victims have experienced that type of trauma.

At a loss, doctors dub the mysterious illness Havana Syndrome.

Is some strange virus or infection spreading through the American embassy?

This, of course, is a huge concern to multiple government agencies.

For no apparent reason, their staffers are suddenly dropping like flies. It's

not killing anyone, but it's making them pretty much unable to function in their

jobs and sometimes in their daily lives.

In 2018, the U .S. government brings in the CIA.

Defense Department, State Department, and CDC to further investigate.

At the earliest onset of symptoms, these victims are hearing a chirping, a

screeching, a clicking, and they're also feeling a certain pressure in their

heads. They say they're hearing these sounds.

in their homes or in their hotel rooms, and there's a certain directionality to

the sensation, almost like it's coming through a wall or in a specific part of

the room.

Based on the victim's testimony, officials believe they have the answer.

Diplomats and CIA officers or spies are the ones who are afflicted. This is not

affecting the general public.

So the U .S.'s first guess is that it could be a covert sonic weapon.

In October 2017, President Trump holds a news conference where he calls the

incident, quote, a very unusual attack.

He's going public with the idea that this is a weapon.

Sound, like anything, can be and has been weaponized. It's not something we

think about because we can't see it, but at certain frequencies, It can cause

vomiting and internal distress and maybe even death.

It's something the Nazis tried to harness during World War II.

The Nazi regime had a team of scientists working on wonder weapons, which they

claimed would revolutionize the war. And their chief architect, Albert Speer,

develops one that's called the acoustic cannon.

The idea is to kill or injure someone by focusing or magnifying sound waves on a

reflective dish.

At a distance of around 600 to 1 ,200 feet, the sound is reported to cause

vertigo and nausea by vibrating structures in the inner ear. At closer

it could even damage internal organs.

But this weapon has one serious flaw.

It's huge.

The reflector dishes are so big that it's hard to maneuver, and any damage to

the dishes would render it entirely inoperable.

While the Nazis' acoustic cannon was never used in battle, it paves the way

modern versions.

In the early 2000s, the U .S. developed a weapon that it called an LRAD, long

-range acoustic device.

These LRADs are capable of projecting very powerful pulses or beams of sound

to two miles away.

And if you set it to emit high decibel chirping or beeping sounds, it could

be used as a deterrent.

Nowadays, our military uses LRADs for everything from crowd control to

pirates from cruise ships. At a high enough decibel, LRADs can be used as

weapons. they're certainly capable of creating pain, nausea, imbalance, and

permanent hearing loss.

It's a promising lead, but experts say there's one problem with the sonic

theory.

LRADs are not subtle weapons. They are definitely very, very loud. And given

that none of the patients in Havana reported hearing a loud sound, their

are not really consistent with the use of an LRAD. So the next question

Could some foreign power have developed a new sonic weapon, one that somehow

produces the same effects by primarily using sound outside the range of human

hearing? There's no evidence found in Cuba, but in 2019, the Chinese Academy

of Sciences announces a prototype for the first portable sonic gun.

The Chinese claim that they use focused waves of infrasound. These waves

painfully vibrate the subject's eardrums, eyes, and brain.

It may mess with the inner ear, causing vertigo and imbalance.

Infrasound may also cause nausea, vomiting, bowel spasms, and potentially

internal organs, like the heart. In field tests, according to the Chinese

it produced extreme discomfort.

Of course, this thing had to have been developed and tested years prior to

possibly even field tested covertly.

According to the South China Morning Post, which first reported the story,

devices have been approved for mass production by the Chinese government.

If that's the case, it's definitely been in the works for quite a while.

Still, many doubt this technology is the source of Havana Syndrome.

In the end, infrasound would be a poor choice because it spreads in all

directions. It would be difficult to target specific individuals.

Infrasound can't be easily focused.

It would also affect the user of the weapon.

probably more so than some of the targets, since they're closer to the

And frankly, the effects from an infrasonic weapon would probably be more

annoying than debilitating.

In February of 2022, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and

CIA state that there's still a possibility that this could be a sonic

Havana, but it would need to be placed extremely close to the target, meaning

against a wall or through a window.

In some of these Havana cases,

The victims were in secure facilities, away from public access.

So is it possible that this was a sonic weapon? Sure.

But is it probable?

No.

In 2016, after more than two dozen American diplomats develop

a mysterious illness called Havana Syndrome, some government officials

an ultrasonic weapon.

But computer security engineer Dr. Kevin Fu has a more surprising theory.

My laboratory uses analog signals to break into computer systems with lasers,

acoustics, and sound waves.

In other words, Dr.

Fu specializes in hacking some of our most sensitive electronics to identify

security flaws and protect against them.

A few of the examples include... creating a homemade radio transmitter to

fatal heart rhythms in a defibrillator. We have used laser pointers over

hundreds of feet to take over voice -controlled assistance.

We have also turned hard drives into listening devices through some of the

mechanisms on the inside of the spinning discs.

So when Dr. Fu first hears about Havana Syndrome, he realizes, hey, this sounds

kind of like a phenomenon I've encountered before.

My whole job is to glitch out electronics, and maybe that's what this

glitch.

Dr. Fu believes the Havana Syndrome conditions could have occurred without

massive secret weapon.

This theory states that this could have been caused by something that was

already inside the embassy staff quarters.

According to Fu, there's a good chance the afflicted American officials were

under surveillance while in Cuba, a detail he thinks is key.

to solving this puzzle.

I believe that some kind of unintentional accident with

eavesdropping devices may have caused the sensations that the witnesses

reported.

When Fidel Castro comes to power in 1959, American diplomats are unwelcome

Havana for nearly 20 years.

But in 1977, the United States reopens a limited diplomatic relationship to work

with Cuba on areas of mutual interest.

From then on, the Cubans keep a pretty close watch on any American diplomats in

their country.

As a State Department official, you'd come home and maybe you'd see the TV on

the window open. And you might be thinking, what's happening? And then you

realize that Cuban spies want you to get this message, that if you think you're

being watched, you probably are.

It's almost like a game sometimes.

There are reports of things like an undercover CIA agent finding his tires

punctured or maybe his family pet is poisoned.

Eventually in 2015, an American embassy reopens in Cuba.

One year later, the first cases of Havana syndrome are reported.

This is one reason why the sonic weapon theory never made sense.

Why would the Cuban government initiate a brazen attack on American officials at

the very moment when they were reopening diplomatic relations?

It just doesn't add up. That doesn't mean the Cubans quit spying on

Of course not. Everybody spies on each other, and we find their devices

frequently. So when we looked at what the witnesses were reporting about the

sensations in Havana, we started brainstorming about all sorts of

kinds of conditions that could make an eavesdropping device produce the same

signals that the witnesses heard.

If you're going to conduct a spying operation, you can't just hook up a

camera to Wi -Fi.

You've got to do it in a way that will go completely undetected.

And we know that one way spy devices secretly transmit information is through

the ultrasonic frequency range.

Ultrasound technology is most commonly used in health care applications, motion

detectors, and pest repellents. It's generally considered harmless.

But Dr. Fu's team has discovered a scenario where ultrasonic transmitters

become dangerous.

There's an interesting phenomena when two signals interfere with each other to

create a third tone.

It's called intermodulation distortion.

So although ultrasound is not audible, and it's designed not to be audible, if

two ultrasonic transmitters come together and cross paths in the air,

produce a byproduct that is quite audible to the human ear.

Dr. Fu's team is able to replicate this phenomenon.

creating the same metallic chirping sound recorded by American diplomats.

If you listen to the audio recordings of some of the incidents and the sound

from our experiments in the laboratory, we found that the two signals were

essentially identical.

But could these sounds actually make people sick?

According to Dr. Fu, it's possible.

We don't know if these particular sounds caused harm because our experiments

were all confined to the laboratory, not involving human subjects. But we do

know that sound can cause harm. It can cause nausea, internal distress.

It can even cause harm to the human body at intense enough frequencies.

But not everyone's convinced.

It doesn't make any sense as an intentional act, at the very least.

If you're spying on somebody...

You do not want your devices that you're using for surveillance to drive away

the people that you're trying to spy on, which is exactly what happened. The

reason why Dr. Fu and many others have researched this is because there's no

answers to what is causing the Havana syndrome. The U .S. government hasn't

able to figure it out. At least Dr.

Fu has replicated the noise, and that's more than most people have accomplished.

Part of the scientific process is about exploring many different hypotheses,

some of which may turn out to be incorrect or less likely. But we hope

research done in my laboratory is helping us come closer as a community to

conclusion to solve this mystery.

Initially, the mysterious Havana Syndrome only impacts U .S. diplomats in

But by March of 2018...

Diplomats at another embassy in Havana fall victim.

It starts happening to the Canadian embassy staff.

This is very strange because the Canadian embassy is about three miles

the U .S. embassy, so it's not like they're adjacent or anything.

Canadian diplomats and their families are reporting exactly the same kinds of

symptoms U .S. embassy staff had reported.

Disorientation, nausea, dizziness.

Ultimately, 40 Canadian diplomats fall ill. And so the Canadian government ends

up pulling its diplomats out of Cuba.

By 2019, Canada's workforce in Havana is reduced by half.

This illness, whatever it is, is severely limiting their ability to

diplomatic relations in Cuba.

That same year, Canadian officials launched their own investigation.

At this point, the Americans are probably glad to have the help. We've

clear motive.

No clear means and no good suspects.

It's causing a lot of confusion, frustration, and really starting to feel

of like they're in some sort of bad spy thriller.

Among the Canadian researchers is Dr. Alon Friedman, who works at a highly

regarded brain research center in Nova Scotia.

Dr. Friedman is a neuroscientist who studies the blood -brain barrier, and in

particular, the chemicals that can cross that barrier, which typically protects

your brain from most chemical attacks.

Although some researchers have looked at the causes being maybe sonic or

physical, Dr. Freeman is looking to see if it may be a chemical characteristic.

While the blood -brain barrier does protect against a lot of chemicals, it

out that the number of chemicals that can cross that blood -brain barrier is

still very large.

And so Dr. Freeman wants to look at every possibility.

It's not even really finding a needle in a haystack. It's looking at a haystack

and not knowing.

if there are any needles inside.

Dr. Friedman conducts brain scans and MRIs on 23 Canadian diplomats and

their families.

Initial evaluations confirm the Canadians have damaged brain tissue just

the Americans.

In addition, Dr. Friedman conducted a range of blood tests as well as

called mass spectrometry.

fingerprint for a chemical, allowing you to tell exactly what is there and how

it's comprised.

Specifically, he was on a search for neurotoxin, because all the symptoms are

consistent with some sort of damage or effect on the nervous system.

Turns out, they find neurotoxins. They find them in every single symptomatic

patient that they test.

Well, everyone has some toxins in their body, but based on this study, it

appears that the Havana syndrome could have been caused by a chemical weapon.

The pattern of brain injuries in the patients from Havana were consistent

regular low -dose exposure to a class of neurotoxins called cholinesterase

inhibitors. These chemicals have been used in some of the most deadly chemical

weapons attacks on the planet.

Now, cholinesterase inhibitors, as the name suggests, inhibit cholinesterase

from working. This chemical is crucial for the communication between the brain

and the muscles.

If your brain cells cannot talk to each other, then you have problems thinking.

Some cholinesterase inhibitors have been weaponized.

One famous example is Farin, originally developed by Hitler's Nazi Germany.

It was so devastating that even Hitler was scared to use it.

Another variant of this chemical is called Novichok. This was a chemical

was found in the bloodstream of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who

was poisoned in 2020.

Obviously, cholinesterase inhibitors can be very dangerous, even deadly. And so

Dr. Freeman wants to find out exactly what kind of cholinesterase inhibitor is

affecting these patients.

After further testing, Dr. Friedman's team is able to identify the chemical.

It isn't as nasty as sarin or Novichok. It is something else called temaphose.

Temaphose is not particularly lethal, but regular exposure can cause symptoms

such as dizziness.

Disorientation, sensitivity to sound, symptoms that align with what was

in Havana syndrome.

When the Havana syndrome first hits the news, a lot of people are saying, this

sounds a lot like a weapon.

But there's also a less sinister possibility.

Tamifoat is used widely throughout the world as an agent to control mosquitoes.

It attacks the nervous system of the larva, preventing them from turning into

adults, and therefore helping stop the spread of mosquito -borne illness.

It is, in a sense, a pesticide.

Dr. Freeman concludes that these diplomats and their families have been

to pesticides.

Could high levels of pesticide actually be responsible?

In March of 2015, Zika is officially detected in Brazil.

And by 2016, the World Health Organization has declared it a public

emergency. The Zika virus is transmitted by mosquito bites.

Countries are spraying for mosquitoes like crazy.

Tropical and semi -tropical places like Cuba are using vast quantities of

Temafos. And the timing seems to fit.

Cuba reports its first outbreak of the Zika virus in March of 2016.

The first American diplomats report symptoms of the Havana syndrome about

months later.

Canadian records confirm that in 2017, the Canadian embassy and its grounds

increased the use of Temafos pesticides.

which roughly coincides with symptoms in their embassy workers.

In fact, the EPA has actually outlawed Temaphos as a residential pesticide

because of its neurological effects.

But not everyone's convinced Friedman's solved the mystery.

Temaphos was being used all over the place throughout the Americas, not just

diplomatic residences.

It was in Cuban government offices, Cuban homes, and dozens of other places

where Havana syndrome didn't occur.

What about Brazil?

What about Colombia?

If Temafos caused this illness, you'd have seen it affect a much larger group

worldwide.

Regardless, Dr.

Friedman still believes a chemical could be the cause.

This doesn't mean that it couldn't be a neurological agent of some kind at play.

Friedman couldn't test for everything.

He tested for a handful of likely candidates, and it's possible that there

something else at play that he didn't test for.

In the end, we can't rule out that the Havana syndrome may have been caused by

chemical exposure.

Is there another chemical weapon out there that we don't yet know about?

Hopefully not, but maybe.

As growing fears about the mysterious Havana syndrome threaten relations

the U .S. and Cuba, the Cuban government launches its own investigation.

In 2018, Cuba's officials announced their findings.

and identify a surprising new culprit.

From very early on, the United States has believed that Cuba is behind Havana

syndrome somehow.

I mean, you give it that name, the president goes on live television to

the Cubans. This is a very bad look for them.

Some in the White House are actually calling this an act of war, so the

are very anxious to clear their name.

The Cuban government interviews about 300 neighbors of these diplomats.

They say that they've gone to the living quarters of embassy staffers, that

they've analyzed air and oil samples, and that they've conducted dozens of

medical examinations to see if people in the surrounding area were afflicted.

And they say they find nothing.

The Cubans are saying there's simply no known form of energy that can

selectively damage the brain the way the doctors describe.

They're even doubtful that there's a syndrome at all.

Instead, they offer an alternative explanation.

for both the sounds and the symptoms.

The Cuban government in their report theorized that this was not caused by

weapons and the chirping noise heard by everyone was crickets.

The rest of the symptoms, the Cuban government says, could be caused by

After all the hours investigating, evacuating diplomats, conducting

medical tests, to suggest that maybe people were just worn down by the sound

crickets? That feels like an insult.

Two biologists, UC Berkeley's Alexander Stubbs and the University of Lincoln's

Fernando Montealegre Zapata, research Cuba's claim.

To them, that metallic chirping noise recorded in Havana sounds vaguely

familiar. These biologists had a massive database of the sounds of different

kinds of insects. They're mating calls.

And what the biologists found is that the sounds that were recorded in

matched precisely that of one particular kind of insect, the Indies cricket.

And moreover, this particular Indies cricket is resident in Cuba.

For confirmation, they use state -of -the -art audio technology.

Forensic audio analysis can be incredibly specific these days.

Sound wave patterns can be kind of like fingerprints.

They can even be used to convict killers.

So what's interesting is that when you apply some of these acoustic forensic

techniques to what was recorded in Cuba, it's an exact match of the cricket

mating call.

Obviously, crickets aren't as menacing as a sonic weapon or a deadly

But this isn't your garden variety cricket.

The Indies cricket can chirp at 100 decibels, the same volume as a subway

You can imagine that if you had a couple in your residence, that could be a

really rough night.

Especially if you're not habituated to the sound.

If you're from another country and this is the first time you've ever heard it,

that could be extremely disruptive.

According to the Cuban report, the crickets may be magnifying stress that

diplomats are already experiencing.

The Havana syndrome has some classic telltale signs of psychogenic illnesses.

There are studies that show that people who have been exposed... to long -term

stress have similar brain scans as the Havana victims.

That stress might be self -perpetuating.

After the news of a possible weapon hits the media, the diplomats are put on

alert. They're told that someone could be watching them at home. They're told

not to sleep or to stand near their windows and to report any strange

They're afraid for their families.

They can never feel safe.

But those suffering from Havana syndrome strongly disagree.

Several people got sick before there was an alert, before it reached headlines,

and people went into panic mode. The first four cases were CIA officers.

These are people who are trained to deal with massive amounts of stress.

With opinions split over the cricket theory, the U .S. government calls in an

elite scientific team to conduct its own analysis.

The federal government has a semi -secret advisory board known as Jason.

It was originally called Project Sunrise and was later changed to the name Jason

from Greek mythology.

It was formed in the aftermath of the Soviet Sputnik launch in 1960.

Jason attracts the nation's most elite scientists to advise on defense matters,

kind of like what we saw in World War II with the Manhattan Project.

when Einstein and Oppenheimer were researching nuclear energy and weapons.

Today, there are between 30 and 60 of our country's best scientists involved

Jason. And they're only activated when there's a particularly difficult task at

hand. And at this point, the U .S. government sees Havana syndrome as such

difficult matter that then they turn to Jason.

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Jason's top secret 2018 report

released to the public. And while much of it is redacted, the Jason signs

that the noises on the Havana recordings are crickets.

While they agree on the source of the sound, they don't agree on the source of

the illness.

The report goes on to say, quote, it cannot be ruled out that the perceived

sounds, while not harmful, are introduced by an adversary as deception.

so as to mask an entirely unrelated mode of causing illness in diplomatic

personnel. Basically, they're saying these crickets could be a distraction to

hide another form of attack.

And suddenly, the Cubans blaming the crickets seems really convenient.

Maybe the Cubans are involved, maybe not. Either way, once again, we're left

with no idea what's making our people sick.

December 2017,

Moscow, Russia.

CIA operative Mark Polymeropoulos is asleep in his hotel room when he is

awakened by a strange sound.

In the middle of the night, I woke up when the room was spinning. I had a

terrible case of vertigo. I couldn't get up. I was falling over.

I had tinnitus, which is ringing in my ears. I had a splitting headache in the

back of my head.

And overall, there was just this incredible feeling of being disoriented.

frankly terrified.

At the time, Mark believed he had a bad case of food poisoning.

I'd been in Iraq and Afghanistan, been shot at a whole bunch of times, but I

flat out scared.

A veteran operative.

Mark's been posted on covert missions all over the world.

I was the deputy chief of operations of the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center

that entailed oversight over all CIA's clandestine operations from Dublin

to the farthest regions of Russia, which encompasses 11 time zones.

So my position at the time was the equivalent of a three -star general.

It was a routine trip where I'm talking to my counterparts in the Russian

security services.

Mark's symptoms subside for a few days.

I was eating at a very fancy restaurant in Moscow.

And the symptoms came back, particularly the vertigo. I remember clearly that

the room started spinning again.

The headaches came back even more severe, the tinnitus, the ringing in my

And I had to get back to my room, and in effect, for the last couple days of my

trip, I didn't really do much. The vertigo was so disorienting, and I kind

crawled up the stairs of the airplane to finally make my way back to the United

States, hoping that, you know, these symptoms would get better.

As time goes by, however, his symptoms only get worse.

I proceeded to go to multiple doctors.

And these included allergists, infectious disease specialists, multiple

neurologists, pain doctors. And for months and months, they could find no

alleviate my symptoms. But still, there was a mystery to them what had occurred.

One year later, news breaks of a similar illness affecting diplomats in Havana.

I still was having these symptoms. I still was feeling incredibly ill. When I

heard about what had happened to officers at the U .S. Embassy in Havana,

actually at the time thought I could have experienced the same thing.

Convinced there's a connection, Mark takes his complaint to the CIA's Office

Medical Services.

I went and I asked the CIA doctors there to take a look at me. But in about a 10

-minute quick interview and exam, they thought I did not look like the U .S.

officials who were afflicted by Havana syndrome.

But really what was interesting and pretty alarming is that officers that I

knew, would stop by my office and they'd say, hey, something happened to me.

Their symptoms were very similar.

They had an event occur, usually in a hotel room.

It was the same thing such as vertigo, splitting headaches.

Like myself, they were all involved in Russian operations.

Unfortunately, there still was a lot of resistance from inside the Office of

Medical Services, but really in that time frame, I started suffering from

fog and had about several weeks where I lost my long -distance vision.

Ultimately, the result of all this, I couldn't perform my duties.

And in mid -2019, I made the decision that I would retire.

Pauli Moropoulos believes he may be one of the first to experience Havana

syndrome outside of Cuba.

In June 2018, nearly a dozen diplomats are evacuated from Guangzhou, China,

similar symptoms.

Since then, even more possible cases have popped up in Georgia, Poland,

Australia, and the list goes on. Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and

Cases have even been reported.

On American soil.

At least two cases of Havana syndrome have been reported in the United States,

including one on the south side of the White House.

We don't know if these cases are linked. We don't have any idea of the cause.

But some doctors have dubbed it the immaculate concussion.

Now that Havana syndrome is happening outside of Cuba, it opens up a

array of possibilities.

It doesn't have to be caused by something developed in Cuba.

But it does have to be something small enough to be smuggled into Cuba and into

other countries.

And I'd say that if these many attacks in various countries are connected, that

pretty much rules out the accidental theories like pesticides or poorly

calibrated listening devices.

It seems more likely that this is originating from a country with more

than Cuba.

I don't think they have the capability to pull off so many incidents in so many

countries across the world.

So the question becomes, is there a weapon that could possibly fit the bill?

Something small, portable, and in the hands of a government connected enough

global politics to get an advantage from causing that kind of panic.

When cases of Havana Syndrome start surfacing worldwide in 2018,

U .S. officials can't find a definitive cause.

But former spies like Mark Polymeropoulos believe that they know

Obviously, I wasn't there in Cuba, but when talking to the victims, it is very

similar with what I felt at that hotel in Moscow in 2017.

Polymeropoulos thinks he's the victim of a unique deadly weapon.

Of course, you've heard the word microwave before.

Most of us have microwave ovens to heat food.

The difference with a microwave weapon is not the fundamental kinds of waves

it's producing. They're still microwaves.

It's that they're producing them at much, much higher energy. In other

you've supersized the system.

There's a small device on the inside of the microwave that emits tiny, tiny

radio frequency signals. And these tiny radio frequency signals heats up

molecules. In the case of a microwave weapon, you're not simply heating up a

of coffee.

but you're actually heating up human tissue.

A high -powered microwave weapon may explain the symptoms, the nausea, the

vertigo, the headaches, even the reported sounds.

It can really do a number on the electro -neurological functions of the brain.

Unlike a sonic weapon, which are very difficult to focus into a narrow area,

microwaves are very easy to direct.

You point a microwave one way, and that's the way it goes. It will not hit

person who's firing it or impact the surrounding neighborhood.

Microwave technology has been rapidly advancing recently.

Is it possible that a weapon has been developed that can target a single

individual, fit in a suitcase, and be deployed from a few hundred yards away?

Well, the U .S. has already created something pretty close.

In 2004, the U .S. Marine Corps commissions the development of a

weapon codenamed Medusa.

Medusa, or mob excess deterrent using silent audio.

This was basically a non -lethal microwave ray gun that could be

people, and it could potentially incapacitate them.

These microwaves stimulate the parts of the inner ear and mimic an actual audio

signal. This gets interpreted by the brain as sound. This is what's called

fray effect.

Medusa can make you feel like you're hearing different kinds of sounds, even

recognizable sounds like voices inside your head.

This could be the source of the sounds reported by those experiencing Havana

syndrome. Although the U .S. has been toying with these weapons for about 20

years, we know of another country that has been using them for longer.

The Russians deployed a microwave weapon against the U .S. during the Cold War.

Starting in 1953 and continuing until 1976,

Soviet authorities... Aim a near constant microwave beam at the U .S.

in Moscow.

Their goal was to interfere with communications inside the U .S. Embassy.

Intelligence officials called it the Moscow signal.

Although they detected it early on during routine checks, American

kept it quiet.

It's only when the American ambassador to Russia, Walter Stoffel, threatens to

resign in 1975 that members of his staff are informed.

The embassy officials get tested, and many of them have elevated white blood

cell counts. And Walter Stossel, like two of three ambassadors before him,

of cancer.

Stossel had a severe form of leukemia that reportedly caused his eyes to

Over 100 employees filed for damages against the U .S. for exposure to the

Moscow signal.

But a State Department study found there was no convincing evidence of adverse

health effects.

Now the lawsuits are dropped, and it basically fades from public view until

these afflictions, these mysterious cases arise in Havana.

Could Havana Syndrome be the next phase of a decades -old covert operation?

In my view, what happened to my colleagues at the U .S. Embassy in

and what's happened to myself and some others is absolutely a continuation of

what the Soviets were doing to us at the U .S. Embassy in Moscow.

That said, we do have other adversaries. We have the Chinese.

We have the Iranians. And it is entirely possible that more than one country is

doing it.

Polymeropolis isn't the only spy who believes this.

There's actually another account that is more shocking than his.

In 1996,

NSA officer Mike Beck suffers sudden severe fatigue while on assignment in a

classified foreign country.

This predates Palmaropolis and the Havana syndrome cases by about 20 years.

Beck and his attorney believe it's all related.

Beck cannot reveal what country he was in, but his attorney stated it was a

hostile nation that was not China or Cuba.

Beck's job was to go to a diplomatic building and make sure that it wasn't

bugged. And while there with his partner, he does find a suspicious

The very next day, they both get symptoms that are now associated with

Havana syndrome.

Beck fully recovers. But ten years later, both he and his partner develop

the same form of Parkinson's disease.

Beck is certain this isn't a coincidence, so he files a claim for

compensation, something that people do every day.

Only Beck's employer is the NSA, and his claim relies on top -secret

information.

Incredibly, as part of his claim, the NSA actually provides Beck with a

declassified document, which may finally prove what happened to him.

The memo Beck was given states, There is intelligence information from 2012

associating the hostile country to which Mr.

Beck traveled in the late 1990s with a high -powered microwave system weapon.

that may have the ability to weaken, intimidate, or kill an enemy over time

without leaving evidence.

It goes on to say this.

Intelligence information indicated this weapon is designed to bathe a target's

living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a

damaged nervous system.

Is this proof of the Havana syndrome?

Well, no, but it does prove what happened to Beck may be the same thing

happened in Havana.

But at the very least, we now have confirmation that such a weapon exists.

And if we ever find evidence that that weapon is in Cuba or some other country,

it may explain everything.

Meanwhile, though we can't say why it's happening, we know this illness is real.

And on October 8th, 2021, Congress passed the Havana Act to compensate

government officials who've experienced brain injuries as a result of Havana

syndrome.

So far, 1 ,000 people have come forward.

claiming injuries related to the so -called Havana Syndrome.

And while the investigation remains active, no concrete evidence has been

that a U .S. adversary is responsible.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.