Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Um. I think Dave's around somewhere sitting in for Jerry. Who's Can we say where Jerry is, Chuck, I don't think we can yet, but it's pretty cool. Okay, Yeah, Jerry's on He's on a cool field trip. That's for Uh. That's none you Okay, you ever say that when you were a little No, I had it said to me a lot, but I never I never had occasion to say it. None your business. Um. By the way, this is stuff you should know for those of you like say it. Yes, the anticipate patient. So Chuck um, speaking of anticipation, we're talking today about one of the greatest medical mystery reas that has hit the world, at the very least the United States in a really long time. It's a little something that's been flying under the radar and really flew under the radar for a while. But there's probably a lot of people out there haven't heard of this. Something called havana syndrome, and havana syndrome is we should say at the outset, there's not going to be any resolution to this episode. It's deeply Yeah, it's really dissatisfying. The whole thing is we don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is, and really, honestly, the theories are not not great. There's no one theory. You're like, of course that's it. Everybody else has been ridiculous. Yeah, So in one way it's kind of interesting and that we get to cover a lot of stuff, but in another way, it's again deeply unsatisfying. But the the whole thing of Havana syndrome is it all begins in that that, I believe the end of two thousand sixteen. Around December of two thousand and sixteen, just like a year after you, the United States had opened its embassy again in Cuba after decades of this kind of chilly cold war um like pretending one another isn't there um relationship. Just a year after that, there was a station agent, a CIA station agent in Havana who started complaining of some really weird symptoms after hearing a really weird noise, and that kicked this whole mess off. Yeah, there's uh, this is worth reading. I think from the Guardian in and I don't think this is the first one, but they were all very similar to people who were affected by this mystery. It says this the blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in the Havannah hotel. He moved just a few feet and there was silence. He climbed back into bed, and explicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he had walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room. And uh, you know, that doesn't really describe much. But when you talked to some of the people who uh, and we did personally talk to all of these people were given Uh. There were weird symptoms um earpain, tentatives, headaches, hearing loss, vertigo, dizziness, nausea, disorientation, blurred vision, nosebleed, fatigue. Uh. Sometimes the symptoms were sort of temporary and not too bad with some of the people. Sometimes it was um really bad, and some people ended up retiring and saying this is it. I'm out of here. Yeah. Some people went on to be diagnosed with swelling of the brain with a concussion um. Some people suffered what seems to be permanent hearing loss, and all of this was localized just in the Havanna Bureau of the American or the American Embassy took Cuba in Havana, like that's it. So there was suddenly this weird on symptoms. I think as many as ninety people came down with this what came to be called Havana syndrome. Some of them said I heard a weird noise and then all of a sudden, I had vertigo. Other people didn't hear anything. They just all of a sudden couldn't concentrate any longer. And it was this. The symptoms all seemed to Nobody said I had a fever or my legs started swelling. It all seemed to be kind of clustered around your um. You're hearing your ears, your nose, your throat kind of thing, but without the throat, without the nose, mainly just your ears and your brain. They seemed to be a cluster of neurological symptoms that no one had any idea what was going on. Yeah, so you know, of course the US is going to investigate something like this, and we'll get into There were a couple of pretty deep, well as deep as you can get in this case investigations. But the very first thing that happened was the FBI. It was like, hey, this is some sort of acoustic attack. Uh, some sort of sound waves are being used. Let's get in there and at least check out the locations, check out everything around where these people are living, where they're staying. And they found nothing. They came up really pretty much empty. And we should also point out this was I think a few Canadian diplomats too. It wasn't entirely us, right, but for the most part it was US, and it seemed to be it seemed to be concentrated. Uh in the homes of the diplomats, um and by. Diplomats were including CIA agents who weren't known who. They weren't like, hey I'm the CI agent here they were they were posing as diplomats. So the diplomats like Keaton, well who was he posing as Michael Keaton in uh what was it out of sight with He's an FBI guy And he showed up with a big T shirt that said FBI. And Dennis Farina had that great joke he says, he you got another one that says undercover. Yeah, I love that guy. He was the best. Who else could buy Dennis Farina could follow up after Jerry Orbach, nobody, and he did it. He did it with class. He did he brought his own, his own character. Just amazing stuff. Then I was about to say I didn't see any of that show. But I was about to say, except he was no singer like Jerry Orbach. But we might be wrong again, he could be. I really walked past that one. I guess so. Um So, the diplomats were being seemed to be affected at their houses and then there were two hotels in Havana that um that these these symptoms started their onset on. So again that was that was basically like the first um investigation the FBI. The FBI conducted it was just like I don't I don't know, but clearly it was an attack. You know, it's it's localized to diplomats and their families. It's in Havannah. It's not happening anywhere else for now. Um So, some sort of attack, we just don't know what it was. That was the first investigation, and so the State Department said let's take a little deeper. Yeah, I mean, they kind of kept it quiet for a little while I think the media eventually got wind of what they were calling a sonic attack, and then uh, the former president administration presidential administration, UM, as things were starting to I guess thaw a little bit, said you know what, you guys are out of here and kicked out to Cuban diplomats UM, kind of as payback basically when Cuba the whole time was going, we didn't do this, we don't know what you're talking about. Uh, And as we'll see later, they um supposedly even investigated and tried to help investigate. Yeah. Yeah, that was the one of the longstanding things that Cubans have said basically from the outset is twofold one. They had nothing to do with it, knew nothing about it, and that they would take something like that very seriously. And then too they seemed to suspect that, um, this eventually snowballed into an easy way to cut ties again with Cuba, that that was kind of something that was driving this narrative as well. Part of the problem also is you know, like you said, the State's Department was keeping this secret, not just from the American public. Congress hadn't even heard about this, and everyone found out about the same time. UM that when the media started reporting on it, Congress found out about it, and apparently Marco Rubio latched onto this because he's of Cuban ancestry. I'm not sure he is or his parents are from Cuba, but he hates the Castro regime, and so this was a big thing for him to kind of clamp onto and really kind of enrage his base, um, the Cuban expatriate community in in Miami, in South Florida. UM. And he, out of the gate, I think, even released a press release referring to this as a sonic attack, like really kind of taking whatever the FBI had surmise and just basically saying this is this is what happened. We just haven't figured out how, but it was an attack. And that really set the paradigm moving forward for basically everybody except for thankfully large swaths of the scientific community. Yeah. So they commissioned the National Academy of Science to to go undergo an investigation in twenty nineteen, and even by that time, people that understood things like acoustic or possible acoustic attacks or just acoustics basically said this wasn't some kind of a sonic attack. It's you know, it is possible that you can focus a sound beam to an area, but you would have to truck in some equipment that's so big the FBI would have found it. Uh. And even if they managed to do that and get away with it, um, there were so many different symptoms going on with these people. It can't all be explained away by an acoustic attack. And let's say that even happened, it definitely wouldn't cause brain damage, Like the worst acoustic attack wouldn't cause somebody brain damage. No, So really there's two ways. Because here's the other thing, like people said they heard a weird sound or whatever, but it wasn't necessarily some like they were clearly being attacked by the sound. That wasn't what they reported. They just some of them said I heard a weird sound first, and then all of a sudden, I have these weird symptoms. That's, you know, what gave rise to the sonic attack theory. But there's basically two ways to attack people with sound, especially sound they can't hear. It's either below our threshold of hearing, which is infrasound. What what I was trying to make a yoko on no joke, but right, that's the third route that she combines the two. It's a sound um infrasound is below our threshold, below twenty hurts, right, and you actually can cause things like vertigo in somebody or vomiting um loss of bowel control if you hit somebody with a loud enough infrasound blast. But like you said, yeah, you can make someone poop their pants with infrasound, but you would have to basically, like you said, truck in just this huge rack of sub waffers and shoot it right at somebody to make them lose control of their bowels. Like it would be very obvious that that this is being done. You can't use as as an excuse moving forward anyway, Oh I still will, Okay, ultrasound above our threshold of hearing or twenty killer hurts and above you um, you there is stuff on the market that you can you can actually you know, direct at somebody a beam of ultrasound and and you know, hurt their hearing, but you're not going to cause vertigo or anything like that. And to really like cause major symptoms or something approaching a concussion or traumatic brain injury, which some of these people were diagnosed with UM. There was a scientist who said, I think his name is Joseph Pompey's a psychoacoustics expert, which is awesome. He said that you would basically have to dip your head in a pool line with UM ultrasound ultrasonic transducers UM to to get like actual brain damage from that. So that didn't happen in anybody. UM. So again they said sonic attack, but it must have been some sort of exotic weapon that even the CIA isn't aware of. All right, I think good time for a break. Yes, I agree, go stick our head in a in a pool of ultrasonic transducers. I can't wait to see what happens and boot my pants. All right, great, okay, Chuck. So you said that the State Department sicked the National Academy of Sciences on the Savannason thing, right, Yeah, Like everyone at this point is saying it's not a sonic attack. So they started focusing on potential viral attack, UM, pesticide poisoning because this is when Zeka was a thing, and Zeca fumigation was going on. UM either microwaves, which is interesting, and then our favorite frankly one of our favorite topics was mass hysteria. Yeah, we did. Um, we've talked about it twice. At least. We did a short stuff on Gloria Ramirez, remember her, and then we also did a full length episode some really interesting Cases of mass hysteria from two thousand sixteen. Yeah, so put a pin in that um n AS is doing their study. They were, you know, they were sort of behind the eight ball a little bit because, um, by this point things had already progressed. You know, they were at disadvantage in a lot of ways. This was after the fact. Um they didn't know like these doctors who were who were treating these people, they didn't know they were investigating a mystery. They were treating people for a medical issue. So your approach to a situation like that is a lot different if you're not investigating. Like, no one is back there saying, hey, find out what weird thing happened to these people. They were just like treating tentatives and nausea and stuff like. Yeah, that seems to be a really big ball drop on the part of the State Department and a particular here. Yeah, in particular the Cuban Bureau or Havannah Bureau. There wasn't anybody at the top saying, hey, there's something clearly going on here. All of these people when you go to this one particular doctor and have the doctor this one medical center, somebody looking at you know, looking for all these symptoms and documenting this. They were just being treated individually. Finally, at one point they did kind of bring everybody together and have a meeting um. But but before that, there was just a lot of treatment going on. It wasn't being documented properly. So the n AS just right out of the gate, was like, this is what we're working with for real. Yeah, I mean they didn't even have stuff like original blood samples for when these people got sick. There was a lot of time that passed, so they just they really had no way to tell anything. They had incomplete data to begin with. Uh. And then of course you're dealing with Cuba, so you're not getting I mean, you know, they're investigating some stuff, but it's not like if this happened to Canada and we were really sharing information like that. Well, from what I read, the Cubans are saying like we were totally willing to collaborate. The State Department refused to let the the n AS talk to us. They couldn't. They couldn't accept our data. They couldn't. Um, yeah, I guess the Cubans had conducted neighborhood surveys, had done its own investigation, and the n AS was barred from using any of that data. And then one other thing that hamstrung them right out of the gate was, um, the medical files. These are medical files of diplomats and in some cases CIA agents. So not only is there like hippa stuff going on, um, like hippo protection, so that there are things have to be redacted, there's like national security stuff too, and you know, like the State Department is very you know, redaction happy, um when it comes to stuff like that. So they were basically handed medical files that had huge black bars everywhere over possibly important information. So you put all this stuff together and the National Academy of Sciences cannot possibly arrive at a clear picture of the problem, the symptoms, when, what happened, when, who was near whom, at what point, um, And so they can't they can't possibly map produce an epidemiological map. So whatever they come up with is going to be flawed. And they realized this from you know, from the get go. Yeah, So what they ended up coming up with, Um, the n A S said, you know what, it was a directed pulse radio frequency energy and we think that's the most likely cause. A couple of keywords, they're directed and pulsed, means someone did this. It was a very specific, intentional attack. It wasn't just some random thing that happened because of micro waves or cell phone towers or anything like that. Like, it was a purposeful thing. And uh, they said, you know, one of the reasons that we think it might be this is this thing called the Fry Effect f R E Y nothing to do with the deceased former Eagle Glenn Fry. Oh the heat is on, haven't I've told you about this before. There's a sarad Live sketch featuring Ben Stiller I don't remember. He sees Glenn Fry, who's actually Will Ferrell, our colleague and co worker um as Glenn Fry at a club and he's like, I'm gonna go I'm gonna seduce Glenn Fry to like his friends, And he goes over and he actually is successful, but to his own detriment because Glenn Fry makes him eat out of a dog hole and keeps them on the chain. And this is wild, like just crazy sex that's going on, and the guy like really regrets having seduced Glen fry But it's they refer to the heat as on as the h is. Oh, it's really I have It is impossible that I have not mentioned it before. So when the words Glenn Fryer uttered, that's the first thing. You yes, pretty much every time. Oh, I have another Glen fry story, if you know, if you want to hear it, I got all the time in the world. So you and I were traveling and um in our car and they're they're like, this Eagle song was on, and the one about the wheels driving you crazy, Keep take it easy. And I hate the Eagles to begin with, from start to finish. I hate their entire catalog, every every moment of it. That song in particular is one of the ones I really hate. And um, we have a pause button on our radio and so I paused it because this is live radio, and um, I I'm paus it, and you know there's the song still. I'm like, man, it's so this is a really long song. We do this like five times before I like realized that our radio can actually pause live radio and that we're not like in some new concentric circle. Right. There was a moment there were like did we die or is this is this? Are we in purgatory? Because this is awful? That's really funny. Uh. Well, I am back loving the Eagles after many years of not and so I wanted to thank listener Clayton Jaynes, who was invited me and Emily to the Eagles concert last time they came to Atlanta and I got to go backstage there and stand on the stage of Philips Arena and like touched on Henley's drum kid and look at Joe Ash's and Glenn Fries guitars that his son now plays in his absence. Yeah, I think I think he told us about that one. It was awesome and I know now why you weren't there. Yeah. Yeah, But Clayton is a good guy. He does he does other bands, like I think he works with Kiss a lot, so you probably enjoyed that. I would definitely go see Kiss for sure. Yeah, for sure. So if Clayton's listening, we want to go to the I want to meet those guys. Okay, they scare me. Still. There was another guy named Josh who's a cool guy I've lost touch with, but he used to invite us to the New Kids shows because he was like, he was like a production designer. He's like, it's it's like you're talking about with Clayton. He doesn't just work with the New Kids, but he's like this in demand production designer. But one of the shows that he's done for multiple years in a row is New Kids. And he kept inviting as to the New Kids show. And not not because I didn't want to go through the New Kids, but there was no I couldn't go to the New Kids every time. So but I turned out we turned out to be friends. So he's cool. Dude I haven't heard from in a while. So I guess if huch because we want to go. That's the first show I want to see when this whole thing? Oh yeah, then kiss? Uh So the fry effect, boy, that was a good long segway or not segwe a tangent? What do we call those tangents? Irritations? It's the life flood of the show. The fry effect basically is when pulse microwaves directed at a target can make a clicking sound in the target's ears, and only the person can hear that sound. So they kind of go back to those UM. I don't know how many people, but some of the people said they did hear a clicking sound before all this stuff happened, so they kind of were like, all right, it's the fry effect. So here's the problem with that. At this point, the the National Academy of Sciences there, the people the group they am paneled UM are just now just ticking off the scientific community because they're like, oh, there's this one there's this one quality that can happen from this one weird random thing. That's probably what it is. We'll just completely ignore everything else in favor of that one little piece of information. And so there was It's really kind of interesting if you read articles on on the Havana syndrome, there's a lot of cattiness going on, like you can get a scientist to call somebody else basically a clown um with this stuff. It's really interesting to read a lot of like flame war stuff. But the problem with the fry effect, well, there's multiple problems. One, uh, they recorded this sound. There's a recording of it out that the AP leaked um that you can hear, which would discount the fry effect because only the person being targeted by microwaves. Here's the clicking. That's a big problem. The other thing is that other acoustic or microwave experts say, to produce that clicking in the person's ears, you would cook them to death. Like that, The the amount of energy it would take to make that fry effect happen would kill the person. It wouldn't just you know, create the clicking in their ears. But that's kind of one of the things that they settled on UM as a potential explanation. Well, the State Department was like, sounds good to me. Yeah, and I mean the the the n A yes said like, we're considering all these other things, this is what we think is the most plausible, which is actually really the least plausible. Yeah, And you know, some of the people in the flame War were like why did they like they have these medical experts basically and neurology experts. What you need if you're going to investigate something like this is a lot of different kinds of experts. You need, some acoustic experts you need. They like apparently didn't even engage acoustic experts talking about this acoustic stuff, and they were like, you need a multidisciplinary team in here, in a lot of different fields if you're going to investigate something like this, and they just never did. Yeah. And one of the interpretations I saw was that again they were working backward from the Rubio FBI State Department um idea theory that it was a sonic attack, that that that that was what the premise they were really going on, and then they were trying to work backward to figure out, you know, what the attack was was made of rather than Okay, maybe maybe it was in tech, maybe it was also natural that kind of stuff for accidental who knows. Yeah, I mean there have been other smaller studies, not from the US government, Like there was one from Ben Gurion University that said, you know what, we studied some of these Canadian diplomats and based on their data, we think it was pesticide poisoning. But then a lot of people, and it seems like the most popular, including the Cuban Academy of Sciences, take that for what it's worth. But a lot of them came back and said, I hate to say it, but this was maybe mass hysteria and some sort of psychological uh, either illness or mass hysteria episode. Yeah, a lot of people agree with him on that. And Cuba, by the way, very um like a really good health care system and a really solid scientific community. So the community Cuban Academy of Science is not like the Banana Republic Academy Sciences or anything like that. From what I understand, I've never been to Cuba, UM. But the the that seems to be the most widely subscribe to theory that it was it was what's called conversion disorder, where you basically have a psychogenic illness. Somebody um is told what the suite of symptoms is, they start developing it themselves and then this this tight knit community, it starts to seem to spread. And the thing about is called conversion disorder. You are you are actually experiencing your body is experiencing those symptoms, just like in the placebo effect where you take a pill and it actually does make you healthy even though it's not an active ingredient, but your body, your mind can make your body do things if it thinks something is going on. This is the kind of like the the mirror image of that where you start to suffer because your mind tricks you into thinking that you have these symptoms, and it seems to spread because people are It's like fear is the contagion in in in instance like this. Yeah, and this stuff has happened before. I think we talked about at least one of the Portugal Yeah, in two thousand six in Portugal. Gosh, we're doing this in two thousand six. No, we talked about it after, for sure, you know we definitely when I was two years before we were born, we were just embryonic at that twinkle in um Adam Curry's eye. Uh, yeah, two thousand six in Portugal, those UM students in high school I think it was high school, right, or was it college? I think it was high school. Yeah. There were hundreds of students in fourteen different schools, all developed these weird symptoms rashes and dizziness and breathing difficulties. Uh. And then it happened again in New York in two thousand eleven, twelve high school students developed um what they thought was Tourette syndrome, or at least symptoms of tourette. It sounds like that that that sounds made up. If I were a principal, I'd be like, you're you're all suspended for even trying this, because all they did was yell. Yeah. There was another one in Oklahoma in two thousand and seventeen that actually was happening about the same time as a savannah Um syndrome outbreak, where there was actually the kids were paralyzed. They were getting they thought that there was some sort of crazy like mold or autoimmune disorder something like that, and they were suffering paralysis. And that's the thing about conversion disorder is these kids were paralyzed, but it was their mind that had paralyzed them because they thought they'd been exposed to something that that was making them paralyzed, and it turns out it was just in their minds. And that's what a lot of people think of and a syndrome is that it was just a psychogenic illness. Yeah, so I think we should take a break, but we'll leave you with this little cliffhanger. In this n a S report, they referenced data, uh from an earlier report by the CDC that was commissioned and completed, and Congress and everyone else looked around and said, what's CDC report? What are you talking about. So let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about this mystery right after this cliffhanger. Okay, Chuck. So everybody's saying, wait, wait, this is December when that journal of the American Medical Association published the n A S S findings finally mere months ago, and in that they like they made mention of a CDC report that no one else had heard of, and like you said, including Congress. And it turns out that the State Department had initially commissioned the CDC um shortly after this this outbreak began, um and said, can you guys figure out what's going on? And so it turns out that there was actually the n A S study was the second scientific study done on this and the CDC. It didn't really come up with much more than the n A Y S did. Yeah. They issued an eighteen page report titled and they spent half the time trying to figure out how to spell yeah. There was a vigorous debate over that. Uh no, it was really called Cuba Unexplained Events Investigation, And like you said, they kind of came up empty. Two. They were hamstrung in a lot of the same ways that the n A S was and had a state department that had dragged its feet and didn't have the protocols in place for the investigation. UM. I think one of the one of the only things that kind of came out of the CDC report that was helpful, which I guess is why the n AS used it in the first place, was it did fill in a few of the details about what happened to whom. Yeah, so they managed to nail down patient zero UM who first reported UM some neurological symptoms in mid December of two thousand and sixteen, and that was a CIA officer in Havana. UM. That CIA officer mentioned their symptoms to a second CIA officer who who like a couple of months later, developed the same symptoms. See where this is going. And so after that time, so apparently Patient zero, the first CIA officer who has happened to UM, was really instrumental in like spreading the word about this. Was it seems to have been very convinced that they had been attacked, that there was a sonic attack going on, and that the word needed to be spread about this. And so as a result, UM, the the I think the Havana UM embassy held a meeting and basically said, listen out for weird sounds and if you start to get this huge weird collection of symptoms, let us know because we're probably under sonic attack. That solves that and went back to bed. That's right, and uh, maybe not. Coincidentally, a lot of incidents has happened after that happened, and UM and at the end they said, you know, if you want to go home, right, here's here's one way to fast track. Now. Although Cuba think it's supposed to be very nice, so maybe they weren't trying to get out of there. But in the end, ninety five people were seeing for these symptoms. In the CDC report, it said that fifteen of those had a two stage illness. Uh, first was the noise that we talked about and those acute symptoms, and then second a few weeks later, a couple of weeks later, they had that neurological damage. I think thirty one of the cases, where maybe's forty nine were unlikely. And then of those fifteen who had that two stage syndrome, while the report was issued, there were six of them still getting treated, so it wasn't even like their treatment was compared, right, Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing, Like whether it's psychogenic illness or a sonic attack or you know, fumigation, um poisoning from you know, zekea pesticides like there there were still people that were still being treated for symptoms for over a year. These are nasty symptoms like vertigo is nothing to nothing, nothing fun. Were vomiting or dizziness or inability to concentrate. Um, there's a lot of terrible stuff that that people we're having to deal with. Whatever the um, the the reason for the symptoms were, which you know, makes a lot of people think like, no, this is this is a real thing, and these people were attacked and we need to find out what it is. The CDC at least said we have no idea, like we cannot figure it out. That they said, like and their conclusion that they couldn't possibly put forth any kind of explanation. They just mainly documented everything, which is certainly a mark in the CDC's favor and a mark against the The n A s that the CDC resisted, you know, saying yes it was microwaves and it was probably the Ruskies. Yeah, and that all came about you know, after everyone, um, a lot of scientists that has rejected the findings. Cuba rejected the findings. We told you earlier that they got all up in arms and said, hey, listen, we tried to help, we take this stuff seriously. Um, we weren't a part of this. But uh, in that n AS panel, UM, somebody said something about Russia, and you know, obviously Russia is in bed with Cuba, and they said, you know what, it's maybe it was Russia. We do know that in the seventies they were trying to weaponize microwaves. Um. They in fact, um, for like three years straight, three and a half years, pounded the American embassy in Moscow with microwaves. I don't even know if they had an endgame there. I think they were just like a let let's see what this does. Turn it on. And I don't think it really did anything if it went on for three and a half years. And apparently, um, of course we'll never know because this Russia. But supposedly they kind of gave up all that stuff decades ago. Yeah, this is the seventies when they were shooting microwaves at the American embassy in Moscow. UM, and yeah, as far as anybody knows that that technology wasn't pursued any further. So if there is any kind of sonic weapon that is concealable, that is, that is capable of producing the suite of symptom um, it is news to the world. UM. And there are people who say, like you know, security experts, that kind of group, who say, yeah, it's entirely possible that somebody has developed this without the US being aware of it. UM. I saw a quote that America tends to be very surprised that not that certain things exist, but that other people have caught up to America's technology. So yeah, um. But at the same time, it's kind of like it's suggesting that America or certain quarters of America UM, are fully aware that this is possible, which is why they're pursuing that sonic attack thing. But they can't just be like, it's this, see everybody, We've had this for twenty years now. We just didn't know that the Cubans had it kind of thing. So the US still um seems to be you know, with the expulsion of the Cuban to Cuban diplomats, UM is basically saying if Cuba doesn't know if they didn't do it, they know who did it, and they maybe even let it happen because apparently diplomatic residences in Cuba are owned and maintained by the Cuban government, so it's not like they just had no opportunity to do this kind of thing. But Cuba, like you said, it's extremely adamant that they had nothing to do with this and that they would never let this happen to any accredited UM diplomat in their country. And if you step outside of the United States, it's really kind of funny because the rest of the world is totally fine with Cuba. It's really just the United States that's you know, at odds with Cuba, and Cuba is cool with everybody else. Like apparently a million Canadians go to Cuba every year on on vacation, so it's kind of like something that they're not really happy about the idea that that if you go to Cuba you might suffer this sonic attack. UM that could at the very least hurt their tourism industry, if not just you know, impinging their you know, how they treat diplomats from other country or allow them to be treated it's it's a real insult in that respect. Yeah, And I think it's also one of the end results was the US government and it was kind of exposed a little bit of dragging their feet and not being coordinated and not maybe having their ducks in a row. And I think if anything like this were to happen again, I think they had enough egg on their face to sort of get it together to at least sort of be coordinated from the get go and have a multidisciplinary investigation going on. And this whole thing, like the the big argument and push and pull among the scientific communities, still very much ongoing. UM. There was a paper published that examined some brain scans of some of these diplomats that were taken at Penn State, I believe, UM, and these the authors of the study concluded that, you know, a lot of them showed evidence of trauma. And then other scientists responded and said, like, this doesn't show trauma at all. That's exactly what you would find from a random sample of the population. UM. Other people. Remember, I said that they recorded the sound that they heard. UM. Apparently a couple of biologists ran that sound through spectral analysis and showed that it exactly matches um, a specific kind of cricket that's um native to Cuba and the Caribbean. So there's just like it's still being hammered out. Like we said it the at the beginning, that this is not it's not settled. No one has any idea yet exactly what it is, and it seems like the most satisfying answer would be psychogenic illness. But even still, I mean, that doesn't seem to really explain everything necessarily. Yeah, well, a pretty good mystery. Still a good mystery. And who doesn't love that? Right? I know Glenn Fry I hated. I don't care what Clint Fry liked or didn't like. Um. If you want to know more about the Havana syndrome, go check out the copious amounts of articles about it. There's a lot of stuff out there. It's really interesting and engrossing stuff. See what you think? Uh? And since I said see what you think, it's time for a listener mail. When you think about that hs O story, do you go the h is boom boom boom boom. Oh nope, you know, isn't that from Beverly Hills cop I think the heat is on one. Yeah, that was the one where he's like hanging off of the back of the semi Yeah. Yeah. He did a few of those soundtrack e type things, and he was an actor on Miami Bodies, which is one of your favorite shows. What do you hate Miami Vice? It's fine. I refused to watch the episodes with Clem Fry. All right, I'm gonna call this just a nice email from a listener who was kind of growing up with. Hey, guys, I'm writing to say that I first discovered your podcast way back in when I was in the seventh grade. It just moved away from many of my neighborhood friends in your podcast was a source of a source of information and comfort during that transition. Having always been a nerd, I was immediately hooked on your podcast and have listened to it many of my travels for sports teams, college trips, and international adventures. In fact, your podcast had a major impact in keeping my curiosity alive and well throughout my life. I just accepted an offer for grad school in Georgia and wanted to write to say that although we have never met, you two have positively impacted my life for more than the past decade. So thank you for everything. I hope you're well. And that is from Abigail. Is a fine listener mail. Thanks a lot, Abigail, It's very sweet. I love and best of luck in grad school. That's great. Yeah, kill it, but not literally, no no no, that's a figure speech meaning go do a great job, the best you can do, a great job. Okay, Well, if you want to get in touch with this, like Abigail, Abidale's Abigail's new nickname, not Frank Abignail. No, Abbidale Master fortunerally known as Abigail. Yeah, we talked about Frank Abgnail in the five Successful Counterfeiters episode. He's number one, wasn't uh he was up there for sure. It was good. Well, anyway, if you want to get in touch with us, like anybody, including Abigdale, Abgdail or Abigail, you can send us an email to stuff podcast diheart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Um. I think Dave's around somewhere sitting in for Jerry. Who's Can we say where Jerry is, Chuck, I don't think we can yet, but it's pretty cool. Okay, Yeah, Jerry's on He's on a cool field trip. That's for Uh. That's none you Okay, you ever say that when you were a little No, I had it said to me a lot, but I never I never had occasion to say it. None your business. Um. By the way, this is stuff you should know for those of you like say it. Yes, the anticipate patient. So Chuck um, speaking of anticipation, we're talking today about one of the greatest medical mystery reas that has hit the world, at the very least the United States in a really long time. It's a little something that's been flying under the radar and really flew under the radar for a while. But there's probably a lot of people out there haven't heard of this. Something called havana syndrome, and havana syndrome is we should say at the outset, there's not going to be any resolution to this episode. It's deeply Yeah, it's really dissatisfying. The whole thing is we don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is, and really, honestly, the theories are not not great. There's no one theory. You're like, of course that's it. Everybody else has been ridiculous. Yeah, So in one way it's kind of interesting and that we get to cover a lot of stuff, but in another way, it's again deeply unsatisfying. But the the whole thing of Havana syndrome is it all begins in that that, I believe the end of two thousand sixteen. Around December of two thousand and sixteen, just like a year after you, the United States had opened its embassy again in Cuba after decades of this kind of chilly cold war um like pretending one another isn't there um relationship. Just a year after that, there was a station agent, a CIA station agent in Havana who started complaining of some really weird symptoms after hearing a really weird noise, and that kicked this whole mess off. Yeah, there's uh, this is worth reading. I think from the Guardian in and I don't think this is the first one, but they were all very similar to people who were affected by this mystery. It says this the blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in the Havannah hotel. He moved just a few feet and there was silence. He climbed back into bed, and explicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he had walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room. And uh, you know, that doesn't really describe much. But when you talked to some of the people who uh, and we did personally talk to all of these people were given Uh. There were weird symptoms um earpain, tentatives, headaches, hearing loss, vertigo, dizziness, nausea, disorientation, blurred vision, nosebleed, fatigue. Uh. Sometimes the symptoms were sort of temporary and not too bad with some of the people. Sometimes it was um really bad, and some people ended up retiring and saying this is it. I'm out of here. Yeah. Some people went on to be diagnosed with swelling of the brain with a concussion um. Some people suffered what seems to be permanent hearing loss, and all of this was localized just in the Havanna Bureau of the American or the American Embassy took Cuba in Havana, like that's it. So there was suddenly this weird on symptoms. I think as many as ninety people came down with this what came to be called Havana syndrome. Some of them said I heard a weird noise and then all of a sudden, I had vertigo. Other people didn't hear anything. They just all of a sudden couldn't concentrate any longer. And it was this. The symptoms all seemed to Nobody said I had a fever or my legs started swelling. It all seemed to be kind of clustered around your um. You're hearing your ears, your nose, your throat kind of thing, but without the throat, without the nose, mainly just your ears and your brain. They seemed to be a cluster of neurological symptoms that no one had any idea what was going on. Yeah, so you know, of course the US is going to investigate something like this, and we'll get into There were a couple of pretty deep, well as deep as you can get in this case investigations. But the very first thing that happened was the FBI. It was like, hey, this is some sort of acoustic attack. Uh, some sort of sound waves are being used. Let's get in there and at least check out the locations, check out everything around where these people are living, where they're staying. And they found nothing. They came up really pretty much empty. And we should also point out this was I think a few Canadian diplomats too. It wasn't entirely us, right, but for the most part it was US, and it seemed to be it seemed to be concentrated. Uh in the homes of the diplomats, um and by. Diplomats were including CIA agents who weren't known who. They weren't like, hey I'm the CI agent here they were they were posing as diplomats. So the diplomats like Keaton, well who was he posing as Michael Keaton in uh what was it out of sight with He's an FBI guy And he showed up with a big T shirt that said FBI. And Dennis Farina had that great joke he says, he you got another one that says undercover. Yeah, I love that guy. He was the best. Who else could buy Dennis Farina could follow up after Jerry Orbach, nobody, and he did it. He did it with class. He did he brought his own, his own character. Just amazing stuff. Then I was about to say I didn't see any of that show. But I was about to say, except he was no singer like Jerry Orbach. But we might be wrong again, he could be. I really walked past that one. I guess so. Um So, the diplomats were being seemed to be affected at their houses and then there were two hotels in Havana that um that these these symptoms started their onset on. So again that was that was basically like the first um investigation the FBI. The FBI conducted it was just like I don't I don't know, but clearly it was an attack. You know, it's it's localized to diplomats and their families. It's in Havannah. It's not happening anywhere else for now. Um So, some sort of attack, we just don't know what it was. That was the first investigation, and so the State Department said let's take a little deeper. Yeah, I mean, they kind of kept it quiet for a little while I think the media eventually got wind of what they were calling a sonic attack, and then uh, the former president administration presidential administration, UM, as things were starting to I guess thaw a little bit, said you know what, you guys are out of here and kicked out to Cuban diplomats UM, kind of as payback basically when Cuba the whole time was going, we didn't do this, we don't know what you're talking about. Uh, And as we'll see later, they um supposedly even investigated and tried to help investigate. Yeah. Yeah, that was the one of the longstanding things that Cubans have said basically from the outset is twofold one. They had nothing to do with it, knew nothing about it, and that they would take something like that very seriously. And then too they seemed to suspect that, um, this eventually snowballed into an easy way to cut ties again with Cuba, that that was kind of something that was driving this narrative as well. Part of the problem also is you know, like you said, the State's Department was keeping this secret, not just from the American public. Congress hadn't even heard about this, and everyone found out about the same time. UM that when the media started reporting on it, Congress found out about it, and apparently Marco Rubio latched onto this because he's of Cuban ancestry. I'm not sure he is or his parents are from Cuba, but he hates the Castro regime, and so this was a big thing for him to kind of clamp onto and really kind of enrage his base, um, the Cuban expatriate community in in Miami, in South Florida. UM. And he, out of the gate, I think, even released a press release referring to this as a sonic attack, like really kind of taking whatever the FBI had surmise and just basically saying this is this is what happened. We just haven't figured out how, but it was an attack. And that really set the paradigm moving forward for basically everybody except for thankfully large swaths of the scientific community. Yeah. So they commissioned the National Academy of Science to to go undergo an investigation in twenty nineteen, and even by that time, people that understood things like acoustic or possible acoustic attacks or just acoustics basically said this wasn't some kind of a sonic attack. It's you know, it is possible that you can focus a sound beam to an area, but you would have to truck in some equipment that's so big the FBI would have found it. Uh. And even if they managed to do that and get away with it, um, there were so many different symptoms going on with these people. It can't all be explained away by an acoustic attack. And let's say that even happened, it definitely wouldn't cause brain damage, Like the worst acoustic attack wouldn't cause somebody brain damage. No, So really there's two ways. Because here's the other thing, like people said they heard a weird sound or whatever, but it wasn't necessarily some like they were clearly being attacked by the sound. That wasn't what they reported. They just some of them said I heard a weird sound first, and then all of a sudden, I have these weird symptoms. That's, you know, what gave rise to the sonic attack theory. But there's basically two ways to attack people with sound, especially sound they can't hear. It's either below our threshold of hearing, which is infrasound. What what I was trying to make a yoko on no joke, but right, that's the third route that she combines the two. It's a sound um infrasound is below our threshold, below twenty hurts, right, and you actually can cause things like vertigo in somebody or vomiting um loss of bowel control if you hit somebody with a loud enough infrasound blast. But like you said, yeah, you can make someone poop their pants with infrasound, but you would have to basically, like you said, truck in just this huge rack of sub waffers and shoot it right at somebody to make them lose control of their bowels. Like it would be very obvious that that this is being done. You can't use as as an excuse moving forward anyway, Oh I still will, Okay, ultrasound above our threshold of hearing or twenty killer hurts and above you um, you there is stuff on the market that you can you can actually you know, direct at somebody a beam of ultrasound and and you know, hurt their hearing, but you're not going to cause vertigo or anything like that. And to really like cause major symptoms or something approaching a concussion or traumatic brain injury, which some of these people were diagnosed with UM. There was a scientist who said, I think his name is Joseph Pompey's a psychoacoustics expert, which is awesome. He said that you would basically have to dip your head in a pool line with UM ultrasound ultrasonic transducers UM to to get like actual brain damage from that. So that didn't happen in anybody. UM. So again they said sonic attack, but it must have been some sort of exotic weapon that even the CIA isn't aware of. All right, I think good time for a break. Yes, I agree, go stick our head in a in a pool of ultrasonic transducers. I can't wait to see what happens and boot my pants. All right, great, okay, Chuck. So you said that the State Department sicked the National Academy of Sciences on the Savannason thing, right, Yeah, Like everyone at this point is saying it's not a sonic attack. So they started focusing on potential viral attack, UM, pesticide poisoning because this is when Zeka was a thing, and Zeca fumigation was going on. UM either microwaves, which is interesting, and then our favorite frankly one of our favorite topics was mass hysteria. Yeah, we did. Um, we've talked about it twice. At least. We did a short stuff on Gloria Ramirez, remember her, and then we also did a full length episode some really interesting Cases of mass hysteria from two thousand sixteen. Yeah, so put a pin in that um n AS is doing their study. They were, you know, they were sort of behind the eight ball a little bit because, um, by this point things had already progressed. You know, they were at disadvantage in a lot of ways. This was after the fact. Um they didn't know like these doctors who were who were treating these people, they didn't know they were investigating a mystery. They were treating people for a medical issue. So your approach to a situation like that is a lot different if you're not investigating. Like, no one is back there saying, hey, find out what weird thing happened to these people. They were just like treating tentatives and nausea and stuff like. Yeah, that seems to be a really big ball drop on the part of the State Department and a particular here. Yeah, in particular the Cuban Bureau or Havannah Bureau. There wasn't anybody at the top saying, hey, there's something clearly going on here. All of these people when you go to this one particular doctor and have the doctor this one medical center, somebody looking at you know, looking for all these symptoms and documenting this. They were just being treated individually. Finally, at one point they did kind of bring everybody together and have a meeting um. But but before that, there was just a lot of treatment going on. It wasn't being documented properly. So the n AS just right out of the gate, was like, this is what we're working with for real. Yeah, I mean they didn't even have stuff like original blood samples for when these people got sick. There was a lot of time that passed, so they just they really had no way to tell anything. They had incomplete data to begin with. Uh. And then of course you're dealing with Cuba, so you're not getting I mean, you know, they're investigating some stuff, but it's not like if this happened to Canada and we were really sharing information like that. Well, from what I read, the Cubans are saying like we were totally willing to collaborate. The State Department refused to let the the n AS talk to us. They couldn't. They couldn't accept our data. They couldn't. Um, yeah, I guess the Cubans had conducted neighborhood surveys, had done its own investigation, and the n AS was barred from using any of that data. And then one other thing that hamstrung them right out of the gate was, um, the medical files. These are medical files of diplomats and in some cases CIA agents. So not only is there like hippa stuff going on, um, like hippo protection, so that there are things have to be redacted, there's like national security stuff too, and you know, like the State Department is very you know, redaction happy, um when it comes to stuff like that. So they were basically handed medical files that had huge black bars everywhere over possibly important information. So you put all this stuff together and the National Academy of Sciences cannot possibly arrive at a clear picture of the problem, the symptoms, when, what happened, when, who was near whom, at what point, um, And so they can't they can't possibly map produce an epidemiological map. So whatever they come up with is going to be flawed. And they realized this from you know, from the get go. Yeah, So what they ended up coming up with, Um, the n A S said, you know what, it was a directed pulse radio frequency energy and we think that's the most likely cause. A couple of keywords, they're directed and pulsed, means someone did this. It was a very specific, intentional attack. It wasn't just some random thing that happened because of micro waves or cell phone towers or anything like that. Like, it was a purposeful thing. And uh, they said, you know, one of the reasons that we think it might be this is this thing called the Fry Effect f R E Y nothing to do with the deceased former Eagle Glenn Fry. Oh the heat is on, haven't I've told you about this before. There's a sarad Live sketch featuring Ben Stiller I don't remember. He sees Glenn Fry, who's actually Will Ferrell, our colleague and co worker um as Glenn Fry at a club and he's like, I'm gonna go I'm gonna seduce Glenn Fry to like his friends, And he goes over and he actually is successful, but to his own detriment because Glenn Fry makes him eat out of a dog hole and keeps them on the chain. And this is wild, like just crazy sex that's going on, and the guy like really regrets having seduced Glen fry But it's they refer to the heat as on as the h is. Oh, it's really I have It is impossible that I have not mentioned it before. So when the words Glenn Fryer uttered, that's the first thing. You yes, pretty much every time. Oh, I have another Glen fry story, if you know, if you want to hear it, I got all the time in the world. So you and I were traveling and um in our car and they're they're like, this Eagle song was on, and the one about the wheels driving you crazy, Keep take it easy. And I hate the Eagles to begin with, from start to finish. I hate their entire catalog, every every moment of it. That song in particular is one of the ones I really hate. And um, we have a pause button on our radio and so I paused it because this is live radio, and um, I I'm paus it, and you know there's the song still. I'm like, man, it's so this is a really long song. We do this like five times before I like realized that our radio can actually pause live radio and that we're not like in some new concentric circle. Right. There was a moment there were like did we die or is this is this? Are we in purgatory? Because this is awful? That's really funny. Uh. Well, I am back loving the Eagles after many years of not and so I wanted to thank listener Clayton Jaynes, who was invited me and Emily to the Eagles concert last time they came to Atlanta and I got to go backstage there and stand on the stage of Philips Arena and like touched on Henley's drum kid and look at Joe Ash's and Glenn Fries guitars that his son now plays in his absence. Yeah, I think I think he told us about that one. It was awesome and I know now why you weren't there. Yeah. Yeah, But Clayton is a good guy. He does he does other bands, like I think he works with Kiss a lot, so you probably enjoyed that. I would definitely go see Kiss for sure. Yeah, for sure. So if Clayton's listening, we want to go to the I want to meet those guys. Okay, they scare me. Still. There was another guy named Josh who's a cool guy I've lost touch with, but he used to invite us to the New Kids shows because he was like, he was like a production designer. He's like, it's it's like you're talking about with Clayton. He doesn't just work with the New Kids, but he's like this in demand production designer. But one of the shows that he's done for multiple years in a row is New Kids. And he kept inviting as to the New Kids show. And not not because I didn't want to go through the New Kids, but there was no I couldn't go to the New Kids every time. So but I turned out we turned out to be friends. So he's cool. Dude I haven't heard from in a while. So I guess if huch because we want to go. That's the first show I want to see when this whole thing? Oh yeah, then kiss? Uh So the fry effect, boy, that was a good long segway or not segwe a tangent? What do we call those tangents? Irritations? It's the life flood of the show. The fry effect basically is when pulse microwaves directed at a target can make a clicking sound in the target's ears, and only the person can hear that sound. So they kind of go back to those UM. I don't know how many people, but some of the people said they did hear a clicking sound before all this stuff happened, so they kind of were like, all right, it's the fry effect. So here's the problem with that. At this point, the the National Academy of Sciences there, the people the group they am paneled UM are just now just ticking off the scientific community because they're like, oh, there's this one there's this one quality that can happen from this one weird random thing. That's probably what it is. We'll just completely ignore everything else in favor of that one little piece of information. And so there was It's really kind of interesting if you read articles on on the Havana syndrome, there's a lot of cattiness going on, like you can get a scientist to call somebody else basically a clown um with this stuff. It's really interesting to read a lot of like flame war stuff. But the problem with the fry effect, well, there's multiple problems. One, uh, they recorded this sound. There's a recording of it out that the AP leaked um that you can hear, which would discount the fry effect because only the person being targeted by microwaves. Here's the clicking. That's a big problem. The other thing is that other acoustic or microwave experts say, to produce that clicking in the person's ears, you would cook them to death. Like that, The the amount of energy it would take to make that fry effect happen would kill the person. It wouldn't just you know, create the clicking in their ears. But that's kind of one of the things that they settled on UM as a potential explanation. Well, the State Department was like, sounds good to me. Yeah, and I mean the the the n A yes said like, we're considering all these other things, this is what we think is the most plausible, which is actually really the least plausible. Yeah, And you know, some of the people in the flame War were like why did they like they have these medical experts basically and neurology experts. What you need if you're going to investigate something like this is a lot of different kinds of experts. You need, some acoustic experts you need. They like apparently didn't even engage acoustic experts talking about this acoustic stuff, and they were like, you need a multidisciplinary team in here, in a lot of different fields if you're going to investigate something like this, and they just never did. Yeah. And one of the interpretations I saw was that again they were working backward from the Rubio FBI State Department um idea theory that it was a sonic attack, that that that that was what the premise they were really going on, and then they were trying to work backward to figure out, you know, what the attack was was made of rather than Okay, maybe maybe it was in tech, maybe it was also natural that kind of stuff for accidental who knows. Yeah, I mean there have been other smaller studies, not from the US government, Like there was one from Ben Gurion University that said, you know what, we studied some of these Canadian diplomats and based on their data, we think it was pesticide poisoning. But then a lot of people, and it seems like the most popular, including the Cuban Academy of Sciences, take that for what it's worth. But a lot of them came back and said, I hate to say it, but this was maybe mass hysteria and some sort of psychological uh, either illness or mass hysteria episode. Yeah, a lot of people agree with him on that. And Cuba, by the way, very um like a really good health care system and a really solid scientific community. So the community Cuban Academy of Science is not like the Banana Republic Academy Sciences or anything like that. From what I understand, I've never been to Cuba, UM. But the the that seems to be the most widely subscribe to theory that it was it was what's called conversion disorder, where you basically have a psychogenic illness. Somebody um is told what the suite of symptoms is, they start developing it themselves and then this this tight knit community, it starts to seem to spread. And the thing about is called conversion disorder. You are you are actually experiencing your body is experiencing those symptoms, just like in the placebo effect where you take a pill and it actually does make you healthy even though it's not an active ingredient, but your body, your mind can make your body do things if it thinks something is going on. This is the kind of like the the mirror image of that where you start to suffer because your mind tricks you into thinking that you have these symptoms, and it seems to spread because people are It's like fear is the contagion in in in instance like this. Yeah, and this stuff has happened before. I think we talked about at least one of the Portugal Yeah, in two thousand six in Portugal. Gosh, we're doing this in two thousand six. No, we talked about it after, for sure, you know we definitely when I was two years before we were born, we were just embryonic at that twinkle in um Adam Curry's eye. Uh, yeah, two thousand six in Portugal, those UM students in high school I think it was high school, right, or was it college? I think it was high school. Yeah. There were hundreds of students in fourteen different schools, all developed these weird symptoms rashes and dizziness and breathing difficulties. Uh. And then it happened again in New York in two thousand eleven, twelve high school students developed um what they thought was Tourette syndrome, or at least symptoms of tourette. It sounds like that that that sounds made up. If I were a principal, I'd be like, you're you're all suspended for even trying this, because all they did was yell. Yeah. There was another one in Oklahoma in two thousand and seventeen that actually was happening about the same time as a savannah Um syndrome outbreak, where there was actually the kids were paralyzed. They were getting they thought that there was some sort of crazy like mold or autoimmune disorder something like that, and they were suffering paralysis. And that's the thing about conversion disorder is these kids were paralyzed, but it was their mind that had paralyzed them because they thought they'd been exposed to something that that was making them paralyzed, and it turns out it was just in their minds. And that's what a lot of people think of and a syndrome is that it was just a psychogenic illness. Yeah, so I think we should take a break, but we'll leave you with this little cliffhanger. In this n a S report, they referenced data, uh from an earlier report by the CDC that was commissioned and completed, and Congress and everyone else looked around and said, what's CDC report? What are you talking about. So let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about this mystery right after this cliffhanger. Okay, Chuck. So everybody's saying, wait, wait, this is December when that journal of the American Medical Association published the n A S S findings finally mere months ago, and in that they like they made mention of a CDC report that no one else had heard of, and like you said, including Congress. And it turns out that the State Department had initially commissioned the CDC um shortly after this this outbreak began, um and said, can you guys figure out what's going on? And so it turns out that there was actually the n A S study was the second scientific study done on this and the CDC. It didn't really come up with much more than the n A Y S did. Yeah. They issued an eighteen page report titled and they spent half the time trying to figure out how to spell yeah. There was a vigorous debate over that. Uh no, it was really called Cuba Unexplained Events Investigation, And like you said, they kind of came up empty. Two. They were hamstrung in a lot of the same ways that the n A S was and had a state department that had dragged its feet and didn't have the protocols in place for the investigation. UM. I think one of the one of the only things that kind of came out of the CDC report that was helpful, which I guess is why the n AS used it in the first place, was it did fill in a few of the details about what happened to whom. Yeah, so they managed to nail down patient zero UM who first reported UM some neurological symptoms in mid December of two thousand and sixteen, and that was a CIA officer in Havana. UM. That CIA officer mentioned their symptoms to a second CIA officer who who like a couple of months later, developed the same symptoms. See where this is going. And so after that time, so apparently Patient zero, the first CIA officer who has happened to UM, was really instrumental in like spreading the word about this. Was it seems to have been very convinced that they had been attacked, that there was a sonic attack going on, and that the word needed to be spread about this. And so as a result, UM, the the I think the Havana UM embassy held a meeting and basically said, listen out for weird sounds and if you start to get this huge weird collection of symptoms, let us know because we're probably under sonic attack. That solves that and went back to bed. That's right, and uh, maybe not. Coincidentally, a lot of incidents has happened after that happened, and UM and at the end they said, you know, if you want to go home, right, here's here's one way to fast track. Now. Although Cuba think it's supposed to be very nice, so maybe they weren't trying to get out of there. But in the end, ninety five people were seeing for these symptoms. In the CDC report, it said that fifteen of those had a two stage illness. Uh, first was the noise that we talked about and those acute symptoms, and then second a few weeks later, a couple of weeks later, they had that neurological damage. I think thirty one of the cases, where maybe's forty nine were unlikely. And then of those fifteen who had that two stage syndrome, while the report was issued, there were six of them still getting treated, so it wasn't even like their treatment was compared, right, Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing, Like whether it's psychogenic illness or a sonic attack or you know, fumigation, um poisoning from you know, zekea pesticides like there there were still people that were still being treated for symptoms for over a year. These are nasty symptoms like vertigo is nothing to nothing, nothing fun. Were vomiting or dizziness or inability to concentrate. Um, there's a lot of terrible stuff that that people we're having to deal with. Whatever the um, the the reason for the symptoms were, which you know, makes a lot of people think like, no, this is this is a real thing, and these people were attacked and we need to find out what it is. The CDC at least said we have no idea, like we cannot figure it out. That they said, like and their conclusion that they couldn't possibly put forth any kind of explanation. They just mainly documented everything, which is certainly a mark in the CDC's favor and a mark against the The n A s that the CDC resisted, you know, saying yes it was microwaves and it was probably the Ruskies. Yeah, and that all came about you know, after everyone, um, a lot of scientists that has rejected the findings. Cuba rejected the findings. We told you earlier that they got all up in arms and said, hey, listen, we tried to help, we take this stuff seriously. Um, we weren't a part of this. But uh, in that n AS panel, UM, somebody said something about Russia, and you know, obviously Russia is in bed with Cuba, and they said, you know what, it's maybe it was Russia. We do know that in the seventies they were trying to weaponize microwaves. Um. They in fact, um, for like three years straight, three and a half years, pounded the American embassy in Moscow with microwaves. I don't even know if they had an endgame there. I think they were just like a let let's see what this does. Turn it on. And I don't think it really did anything if it went on for three and a half years. And apparently, um, of course we'll never know because this Russia. But supposedly they kind of gave up all that stuff decades ago. Yeah, this is the seventies when they were shooting microwaves at the American embassy in Moscow. UM, and yeah, as far as anybody knows that that technology wasn't pursued any further. So if there is any kind of sonic weapon that is concealable, that is, that is capable of producing the suite of symptom um, it is news to the world. UM. And there are people who say, like you know, security experts, that kind of group, who say, yeah, it's entirely possible that somebody has developed this without the US being aware of it. UM. I saw a quote that America tends to be very surprised that not that certain things exist, but that other people have caught up to America's technology. So yeah, um. But at the same time, it's kind of like it's suggesting that America or certain quarters of America UM, are fully aware that this is possible, which is why they're pursuing that sonic attack thing. But they can't just be like, it's this, see everybody, We've had this for twenty years now. We just didn't know that the Cubans had it kind of thing. So the US still um seems to be you know, with the expulsion of the Cuban to Cuban diplomats, UM is basically saying if Cuba doesn't know if they didn't do it, they know who did it, and they maybe even let it happen because apparently diplomatic residences in Cuba are owned and maintained by the Cuban government, so it's not like they just had no opportunity to do this kind of thing. But Cuba, like you said, it's extremely adamant that they had nothing to do with this and that they would never let this happen to any accredited UM diplomat in their country. And if you step outside of the United States, it's really kind of funny because the rest of the world is totally fine with Cuba. It's really just the United States that's you know, at odds with Cuba, and Cuba is cool with everybody else. Like apparently a million Canadians go to Cuba every year on on vacation, so it's kind of like something that they're not really happy about the idea that that if you go to Cuba you might suffer this sonic attack. UM that could at the very least hurt their tourism industry, if not just you know, impinging their you know, how they treat diplomats from other country or allow them to be treated it's it's a real insult in that respect. Yeah, And I think it's also one of the end results was the US government and it was kind of exposed a little bit of dragging their feet and not being coordinated and not maybe having their ducks in a row. And I think if anything like this were to happen again, I think they had enough egg on their face to sort of get it together to at least sort of be coordinated from the get go and have a multidisciplinary investigation going on. And this whole thing, like the the big argument and push and pull among the scientific communities, still very much ongoing. UM. There was a paper published that examined some brain scans of some of these diplomats that were taken at Penn State, I believe, UM, and these the authors of the study concluded that, you know, a lot of them showed evidence of trauma. And then other scientists responded and said, like, this doesn't show trauma at all. That's exactly what you would find from a random sample of the population. UM. Other people. Remember, I said that they recorded the sound that they heard. UM. Apparently a couple of biologists ran that sound through spectral analysis and showed that it exactly matches um, a specific kind of cricket that's um native to Cuba and the Caribbean. So there's just like it's still being hammered out. Like we said it the at the beginning, that this is not it's not settled. No one has any idea yet exactly what it is, and it seems like the most satisfying answer would be psychogenic illness. But even still, I mean, that doesn't seem to really explain everything necessarily. Yeah, well, a pretty good mystery. Still a good mystery. And who doesn't love that? Right? I know Glenn Fry I hated. I don't care what Clint Fry liked or didn't like. Um. If you want to know more about the Havana syndrome, go check out the copious amounts of articles about it. There's a lot of stuff out there. It's really interesting and engrossing stuff. See what you think? Uh? And since I said see what you think, it's time for a listener mail. When you think about that hs O story, do you go the h is boom boom boom boom. Oh nope, you know, isn't that from Beverly Hills cop I think the heat is on one. Yeah, that was the one where he's like hanging off of the back of the semi Yeah. Yeah. He did a few of those soundtrack e type things, and he was an actor on Miami Bodies, which is one of your favorite shows. What do you hate Miami Vice? It's fine. I refused to watch the episodes with Clem Fry. All right, I'm gonna call this just a nice email from a listener who was kind of growing up with. Hey, guys, I'm writing to say that I first discovered your podcast way back in when I was in the seventh grade. It just moved away from many of my neighborhood friends in your podcast was a source of a source of information and comfort during that transition. Having always been a nerd, I was immediately hooked on your podcast and have listened to it many of my travels for sports teams, college trips, and international adventures. In fact, your podcast had a major impact in keeping my curiosity alive and well throughout my life. I just accepted an offer for grad school in Georgia and wanted to write to say that although we have never met, you two have positively impacted my life for more than the past decade. So thank you for everything. I hope you're well. And that is from Abigail. Is a fine listener mail. Thanks a lot, Abigail, It's very sweet. I love and best of luck in grad school. That's great. Yeah, kill it, but not literally, no no no, that's a figure speech meaning go do a great job, the best you can do, a great job. Okay, Well, if you want to get in touch with this, like Abigail, Abidale's Abigail's new nickname, not Frank Abignail. No, Abbidale Master fortunerally known as Abigail. Yeah, we talked about Frank Abgnail in the five Successful Counterfeiters episode. He's number one, wasn't uh he was up there for sure. It was good. Well, anyway, if you want to get in touch with us, like anybody, including Abigdale, Abgdail or Abigail, you can send us an email to stuff podcast diheart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.