Havana Syndrome: Mysterious Attacks on US Diplomats and Intelligence Officers

Starting in 2016, staff at the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba began reporting sudden onset of strange symptoms: intense sounds or pressure in the head, dizziness, tinnitus, visual disturbances, and in some cases traumatic brain injuries. The condition became known as Havana Syndrome. By 2017, similar cases emerged far beyond Cuba — in Washington D.C., Serbia, China, India, Moscow, Georgia, Poland, Taiwan, and Australia. By 2021, Vienna had become a major hotspot with roughly two dozen diplomats and intelligence staff affected; two workers at the US Embassy in Berlin also fell ill. In August 2021, a trip by the US Vice President's delegation to Vietnam was disrupted due to symptoms in a staff member. A close aide to CIA Director William J. Burns was struck during a visit to India in September 2021.\n\nIn early 2022, Olivia Troy, homeland security and counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, described in a CBS 60 Minutes interview an attack from 2019 inside the security perimeter around the White House: she felt a sudden stabbing pain on the right side of her head followed by dizziness and nausea.\n\nCIA Director Burns publicly stated that more than 1,000 incidents had been recorded since Havana in 2016. The National Academy of Sciences assessed that the symptoms were consistent with exposure to directed pulsed radio-frequency energy, pointing to a possible microwave weapon. Stanford professor Garry Nolan examined approximately 100 affected individuals, of whom 80–90% were Havana Syndrome cases. He noted parallels to injuries associated with anomalous aerial phenomena and cautioned against prematurely ruling out advanced human technology.\n\nOn 1 March 2023, the National Intelligence Council released its final assessment: seven intelligence agencies had reviewed roughly 1,000 cases and concluded it was 'very unlikely' that a foreign adversary conducted a sustained campaign with a directed-energy weapon. Five of seven agencies effectively ruled out a foreign perpetrator. Skeptics within the government remained unconvinced, noting that reported symptoms declined sharply after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.