60 Minutes story tonight (2/3 of the hour) on spate of mysterious attacks beginning in 2016 on US officials and staff

[Lezunto]

Pens,

These might be good for warming up take-out. Except for the unfortunate side effects of glow-in-the-dark brains.

I am only joking, folks. Now, put down that light saber ...

 

[Muse]

Pens,

These might be good for warming up take-out. Except for the unfortunate side effects of glow-in-the-dark brains.

I am only joking, folks. Now, put down that light saber ...

TBH, I try to stand 4+ feet away from my MWO when it's on. It's not the MW radiation I'm concerned about (I have a high quality MWO, it's good shape and I keep it clean, inside and out), it's the magnetic field. It only falls to ~2 milligauss at about 4 feet.

 

[hal2kilo]

It seems like this kind of "weapon" would generate EM frequencies that would disrupt operation of phones, computers, monitors, etc. Was that also experienced?

Additionally, I trust the CIA about as far as I can throw my refrigerator, so are we 100% sure an American actor wasn't testing it on Americans (not the first time that's been done) and were a little too successful...and are now just trying to cover it up?

This is not your 60's CIA.

 

[UNCjigga]

There’s still a non-trivial chance that “Havana Syndrome” is psychogenic phenomena and may not actually exist.

I believed all the initial reports too, but at some point you have to ask yourself how these “attackers” keep getting away in broad daylight, no photos/CCTV of anyone in a van pointing a device at something, etc. Think about every time Russians tried to off someone with poison, nerve agent or polonium tea. Within months, we had photos of the perps who did it.

CIA’s initial theory was that it was all psychological—job-related stress and burnout could be more to blame. Now they’re all-in on directed energy from a foreign power, but I’m less convinced. It’s funny because the more people suffer in more locations, the less plausible that these guys keep getting away with it.

Scientists are skeptical that "Havana syndrome" is anything more than a psychogenic illness

Reports of a so-called "sonic weapon" causing illness in diplomats has little physical basis, say doctors

www.salon.com

 

[Amused]

There’s still a non-trivial chance that “Havana Syndrome” is psychogenic phenomena and may not actually exist.

I believed all the initial reports too, but at some point you have to ask yourself how these “attackers” keep getting away in broad daylight, no photos/CCTV of anyone in a van pointing a device at something, etc. Think about every time Russians tried to off someone with poison, nerve agent or polonium tea. Within months, we had photos of the perps who did it.

CIA’s initial theory was that it was all psychological—job-related stress and burnout could be more to blame. Now they’re all-in on directed energy from a foreign power, but I’m less convinced. It’s funny because the more people suffer in more locations, the less plausible that these guys keep getting away with it.

Scientists are skeptical that "Havana syndrome" is anything more than a psychogenic illness

Reports of a so-called "sonic weapon" causing illness in diplomats has little physical basis, say doctors

www.salon.com

This.

The magical thinking surrounding electromagnetic radiation is simply astounding. Even here on a tech site to see the same mythical thinking that exists on alt-med and conspiracy sites is amazing to me.

For all these claims, no one can seem to replicate ANY results except HEATING. Because just as with all other forms of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation we use daily and FEEL the heat from, radio waves can only hurt you if they burn you.

To date ALL directed energy weapons using radio waves are effective by HEATING the skin of the target. That's it. Heat.

Frequency is largely irrelevant, wattage is. And with enough wattage and focus ALL non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves, to infra red, to visible light will BURN you. That's it. Exactly how it heats and burns you is dependent on frequency, but that's the only harm it can do. Heat and burn you.

And magnetic fields you cannot feel are harmless too. I mean, we're delving into the quack magnetic bracelet territory here.

We'll stand in front of an electric stove/oven/heater giving off EMR we can FEEL as heat and think nothing of it, yet we have magical thinking about radio waves we cannot feel.

Did Microwaves Harm US Employees at Its Embassy in Havana?

A recent review of unexplained symptoms in employees of the US Embassy in Havana pointed to microwaves. Was it mass psychogenic illness instead? Or something entirely different?

sciencebasedmedicine.org

A review of <em>Are Electromagnetic Fields Making Me Ill? How Electricity and Magnetism Affect Our Health</em>, by Bradley J. Roth

A new book explores some of the (un)scientific controversies about electromagnetic radiation and health.

sciencebasedmedicine.org

 

[Muse]

This.

The magical thinking surrounding electromagnetic radiation is simply astounding. Even here on a tech site to see the same mythical thinking that exists on alt-med and conspiracy sites is amazing to me.

For all these claims, no one can seem to replicate ANY results except HEATING. Because just as with all other forms of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation we use daily and FEEL the heat from, radio waves can only hurt you if they burn you.

To date ALL directed energy weapons using radio waves are effective by HEATING the skin of the target. That's it. Heat.

Frequency is largely irrelevant, wattage is. And with enough wattage and focus ALL non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves, to infra red, to visible light will BURN you. That's it. Exactly how it heats and burns you is dependent on frequency, but that's the only harm it can do. Heat and burn you.

And magnetic fields you cannot feel are harmless too. I mean, we're delving into the quack magnetic bracelet territory here.

We'll stand in front of an electric stove/oven/heater giving off EMR we can FEEL as heat and think nothing of it, yet we have magical thinking about radio waves we cannot feel.

Did Microwaves Harm US Employees at Its Embassy in Havana?

A recent review of unexplained symptoms in employees of the US Embassy in Havana pointed to microwaves. Was it mass psychogenic illness instead? Or something entirely different?

sciencebasedmedicine.org

A review of <em>Are Electromagnetic Fields Making Me Ill? How Electricity and Magnetism Affect Our Health</em>, by Bradley J. Roth

A new book explores some of the (un)scientific controversies about electromagnetic radiation and health.

sciencebasedmedicine.org

Frequency IS a big deal with EM radiation. The higher the frequency the more it penetrates, both structures and bodies. Now, an enemy combatant has their choice of frequencies from long wavelength radio waves all the way up to cosmic ray super high frequencies. Those, BTW, are capable of causing cancer because they ARE ionizing, as is some of the EM radiation (gamma rays) coming off of nuclear reactions.

Did you watch the 60 minute stories?

You poo poo magnetic fields, but there are studies proving that sustained pulsing magnetic fields of sufficient intensity and duration are harmful. The threshold is generally 2 milligauss. If you are exposed to that for hours you are not doing yourself any favors. You don't want your house where you suffer that all the time, e.g. under high voltage transmission cables, or perhaps near large transformers.

Deleterious effects from EM radiation (and there are all kinds and from multifarious sources where people live and work and travel) are not well understood. Their effects on humans are not easy to study.

 

[Amused]

Frequency IS a big deal with EM radiation. The higher the frequency the more it penetrates, both structures and bodies. Now, an enemy combatant has their choice of frequencies from long wavelength radio waves all the way up to cosmic ray super high frequencies. Those, BTW, are capable of causing cancer because they ARE ionizing, as is some of the EM radiation (gamma rays) coming off of nuclear reactions.

Did you watch the 60 minute stories?

You poo poo magnetic fields, but there are studies proving that sustained pulsing magnetic fields of sufficient intensity and duration are harmful. The threshold is generally 2 milligauss. If you are exposed to that for hours you are not doing yourself any favors. You don't want your house where you suffer that all the time, e.g. under high voltage transmission cables, or perhaps near large transformers.

Deleterious effects from EM radiation (and there are all kinds and from multifarious sources where people live and work and travel) are not well understood. Their effects on humans are not easy to study.

You have that exactly backwards, which shows your abject ignorance on the subject.

The higher the frequency, the less the penetration. Remarkably so.

Full fucking stop. And every thing you said from there only got worse.

Which is why the highest bands can't even make it through your windows.

Yet the lower TV and radio bands travel completely through your body.

Heat. That's it. If it's not burning you it's not hurting you.

Stop reading pseudoscience you can't even understand in the first place.



You need real science.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/204588/radio-frequency-penetration

 

[repoman0]

You have that exactly backwards, which shows your abject ignorance on the subject.

The higher the frequency, the less the penetration. Remarkably so.

Full fucking stop. And every thing you said from there only got worse.

Which is why the highest bands can't even make it through your windows.

Yet the lower TV and radio bands travel completely through your body.

Heat. That's it. If it's not burning you it's not hurting you.

Stop reading pseudoscience you can't even understand in the first place.



You need real science.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/204588/radio-frequency-penetration

You are oversimplifying what he said while aggressively (and incorrectly) calling him ignorant for it. “The higher the frequency, the less the penetration. Remarkably so. Full fucking stop.” — absolutely not. X-rays and gamma rays are very high frequency and have plenty of “penetration”. Don’t act like an angry know it all if you can’t get it right.

 

[repoman0]

Dp

edit: reasonably physics-based analysis of the topic: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.788613/full

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

You have that exactly backwards, which shows your abject ignorance on the subject.

The higher the frequency, the less the penetration. Remarkably so.

Full fucking stop. And every thing you said from there only got worse.

Which is why the highest bands can't even make it through your windows.

Yet the lower TV and radio bands travel completely through your body.

Heat. That's it. If it's not burning you it's not hurting you.

Stop reading pseudoscience you can't even understand in the first place.



You need real science.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/204588/radio-frequency-penetration

Thank you for being a voice of reason here.

Higher frequency means the waves have a greater chance of hitting something while traveling (molecules in the air, skin, walls, clothing, etc). Higher POWER means they can push harder through those things. High power high frequency waves cook things, like a microwave. High power low frequency things pass through stuff quickly, affecting very little on the way.

For non-ionizing radiation to be affecting people in this way, it'd be a new effect of radiation we haven't experienced before. If it's ionizing radiation, I'd be very curious as to what power source and what technology has been developed to project that level of energy in such a focused fashion to be able to penetrate walls/windows/whatever from a distance of a few blocks, and only affect that person. Unless I'm stupider than I thought, that sounds like something more like a particle accelerator level of power levels required. Even then, we'd see evidence closer to radiation sickness, I'd think.

My current bet is either a) it's just stress and it's being misattributed, or b) someone found a non-visible light based laser attack, which induces sickness/disorientation and little else, and is seemingly difficult to detect (I'm presuming the CIA have looked for that already).

 

[repoman0]

The Frey effect exists — high powered pulsed radio waves cause people to experience auditory hallucinations without causing them to experience the heat that creates pressure waves in their ears. You won’t see a ton of published research on it because no one puts humans in front of a military radar to study them. Plenty of radar engineers will tell you about it though.

 

[Jaskalas]

The Frey effect exists

Rather astounding to have seen such denial over it.
Thank you for calling it out by name.

 

[eelw]

If it's ionizing radiation, I'd be very curious as to what power source and what technology has been developed to project that level of energy in such a focused fashion to be able to penetrate walls/windows/whatever from a distance of a few blocks, and only affect that person.

That’s comes back to where the source is located. It’s assumed suspect hiding in a panel truck outside the embassy. But if that was the case, they would have caught them on surveillance. How secure are building around various embassies and did CIA get permission from local government to search surrounding building? If signal powerful and close enough, sure you can get pinpoint accuracy and target a specific person. But as noted heat generated going to be an issue. So a balance of strong enough signal to penetrate but not cook the subject while letting signal not target a subject but it will affect an entire room.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

That’s comes back to where the source is located. It’s assumed suspect hiding in a panel truck outside the embassy. But if that was the case, they would have caught them on surveillance. How secure are building around various embassies and did CIA get permission from local government to search surrounding building? If signal powerful and close enough, sure you can get pinpoint accuracy and target a specific person. But as noted heat generated going to be an issue. So a balance of strong enough signal to penetrate but not cook the subject while letting signal not target a subject but it will affect an entire room.

Right, which is why I suspect it's not a room-sized power generator attached to a particle accelerator to fire brain-death beams from blocks away.

 

[eelw]

Extra point to add. We here are only assuming a single point source. Over a decade ago, I there was this speaker system being developed that you can direct the sound signal to a pinpoint spot. It required 2 sources and the intersection was the target. Food for thought.

 

[KB]

The Frey effect exists — high powered pulsed radio waves cause people to experience auditory hallucinations without causing them to experience the heat that creates pressure waves in their ears. You won’t see a ton of published research on it because no one puts humans in front of a military radar to study them. Plenty of radar engineers will tell you about it though.

Its seems unlikely to be the frey effect. Nobody reported intense heat as a symptom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, ...

Experts, such as Kenneth Foster, a University of Pennsylvania bioengineering professor who published research on the microwave auditory effect in 1974, have discounted the effectiveness of the proposed device. Foster said that because of human biophysics, the device "would kill you well before you were bothered by the noise".
According to former professor at the University of Washington Bill Guy, "There’s a misunderstanding by the public and even some scientists about this auditory effect," and "there couldn’t possibly be a hazard from the sound, because the heat would get you first".[10]

 

[Muse]

You have that exactly backwards, which shows your abject ignorance on the subject.
Stop reading pseudoscience you can't even understand in the first place. You need real science.

Whoever the fuck you are, I was a physics major at a major American university, U.C. Berkeley. Pretty much got straight A's in physics. Get the fuck out of here with this bullshit.

 

[repoman0]

Its seems unlikely to be the frey effect. Nobody reported intense heat as a symptom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect

The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, ...

Experts, such as Kenneth Foster, a University of Pennsylvania bioengineering professor who published research on the microwave auditory effect in 1974, have discounted the effectiveness of the proposed device. Foster said that because of human biophysics, the device "would kill you well before you were bothered by the noise".
According to former professor at the University of Washington Bill Guy, "There’s a misunderstanding by the public and even some scientists about this auditory effect," and "there couldn’t possibly be a hazard from the sound, because the heat would get you first".[10]

I agree, but the point is that there are possible effects beyond just heat. I don’t share the extreme certainty that others seem to have that someone can’t have figured out how to manipulate pressure gradients within the inner ear to cause disorientation etc. If a simple pulsed radar waveform can make people hear things it’s not surprising that other waveforms could mess with what’s effectively a biological gyroscope and accelerometer in the inner ear

 

[Amused]

You are oversimplifying what he said while aggressively (and incorrectly) calling him ignorant for it. “The higher the frequency, the less the penetration. Remarkably so. Full fucking stop.” — absolutely not. X-rays and gamma rays are very high frequency and have plenty of “penetration”. Don’t act like an angry know it all if you can’t get it right.

And as typical with pseudoscience, you attempt to conflate IONIZING radiation with NON-ionizing radiation.

Just fucking stop now. The discussion here has nothing to do with ionizing radiation and ONLY with non-ionizing radiation. The highest frequency of which is visible light and ultra violet light.

How fucking penetrating is visible light?

Again, just stop.

As for radio wave frequencies is it a fucking hard fact that the higher the frequency the lower the penetration. And since we were actually discussing not only NON-ionizing radiation here, but RADIO FUCKING WAVES, you thinking you've "got me" by bringing up ionizing radiation is just pathetic.

 

[Amused]

Whoever the fuck you are, I was a physics major at a major American university, U.C. Berkeley. Pretty much got straight A's in physics. Get the fuck out of here with this bullshit.

Um, OK. Please provide a source that says radio wave penetration increases with frequency in radio waves.

Because that is exactly backwards.

Seriously. Source please.

EMF-Portal | Radio frequency (10 MHz–300 GHz)

www.emf-portal.org

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Penetration-depth-of-radiofrequency-into-human-tissues-28_tbl2_323083486

 

[repoman0]

And as typical with pseudoscience, you attempt to conflate IONIZING radiation with NON-ionizing radiation.

Just fucking stop now. The discussion here has nothing to do with ionizing radiation and ONLY with non-ionizing radiation. The highest frequency of which is visible light and ultra violet light.

How fucking penetrating is visible light?

Again, just stop.

As for radio wave frequencies is it a fucking hard fact that the higher the frequency the lower the penetration. And since we were actually discussing not only NON-ionizing radiation here, but RADIO FUCKING WAVES, you thinking you've "got me" by bringing up ionizing radiation is just pathetic.

View attachment 63807

Read his post again, angry little man. He was talking about the full spectrum. Not my fault you didn’t read it in your rage-induced blackout coma.

lol that you think you are educating me though. I’d say you could teach high school physics but not sure they’d let you within 100 yards of a school given how you’ve blown up here for no reason.

 

[eelw]

Um, OK. Please provide a source that says radio wave penetration increases with frequency in radio waves.

Because that is exactly backwards.

Seriously. Source please.

Dude pump enough power, any EM source can be fatal.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Dude pump enough power, any EM source can be fatal.

But that's his point, frequency isn't the causal factor for how 'dangerous' something is, power is far more relevant. There's lots of high freq shit flying around all the time but we're not all spontaneously disintegrating.

 

[Amused]

Dude pump enough power, any EM source can be fatal.

As I said, up the wattage on ANY RF and you can cook someone. How deeply you cook them is dependent of frequency. MM wave and higher will cook only the skin. Microwave and lower will have some penetration depth. Do it with Ultra LOW frequency and you'll cook them from the inside out

But the ONLY effect here is HEAT. Burning.

My point is this: The higher the radio frequency the LOWER the penetration depth on the human body. I have provided multiple sources for that.

Does anyone here not get this just by seeing the penetration power of your 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi vs your 5Ghz Wi-Fi???

Or the absolute lack of mm wave band 5G to make it through a glass window, much less your skin?

 

[repoman0]

But the ONLY effect here is HEAT. Burning.

And quick extremely high powered pulses of energy/heat create pressure waves. People can and do experience these as sound without experiencing a heating sensation.

I don’t even necessarily think this or a similar effect on the inner ear is what’s happening here, but it’s within the realm of physically possible. It’s funny as shit to me though that people who think they know more than they do are so certain it’s not.