Brain trauma suffered by U.S. diplomats abroad could be work of hostile foreign government

[babylonsister]

Brain trauma suffered by U.S. diplomats abroad could be work of hostile foreign government
Since 2016, dozens of American officials have come home from Cuba and China with unexplained brain trauma. Evidence shows it may be the work of another government using a weapon that leaves no trace
2019 Mar 17
Correspondent Scott Pelley


In 2016 and '17, 25 Americans, including CIA agents, who worked in the U.S. Embassy in Cuba suffered serious brain injuries causing impaired vision and memory loss among other persistent symptoms. Now, we've learned that at least 15 American officials in China suffered unexplained brain trauma soon after. The FBI is now investigating whether these Americans were attacked by a mysterious weapon that leaves no trace. Over many months we have been collecting evidence of what appears to be a hostile foreign government's plan to target americans serving abroad and their families.

60 Minutes Overtime: Is an invisible weapon targeting U.S. diplomats?

Mark Lenzi: For me it was November of 2017, when I started to feel lightheaded a lot. I was getting more headaches, my wife was getting headaches too.

Mark Lenzi is a State Department security officer who worked in the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China. He says that he and his wife began to suffer after hearing strange sounds in their apartment.

Mark Lenzi: Picture holding a marble. Then, picture if you had like a six foot in diameter funnel, metal funnel. The sound that marble would make as it goes around and it progressively gets faster as it gets, goes down towards the hole at the end. It's a sound like I've never heard before.

Scott Pelley: Was this subtle? Like, "Did I hear that?"

Mark Lenzi: No. It was, it was actually somewhat loud. I heard it about three or four times. Always in the same spot. Always over my son's crib and always right before we would go to bed.

"This was a directed, standoff attack against my apartment."

Lenzi wears prescribed glasses because sensitivity to light is among his persistent symptoms.

Mark Lenzi: The symptoms were progressively getting worse with me. My headaches were getting worse. The most concerning symptom for me was memory loss, especially short-term memory loss.

Mark Lenzi believes he was targeted because of his work. He uses top secret equipment to analyze electronic threats to diplomatic missions.

more...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brain-trauma-suffered-by-u-s-diplomats-abroad-could-be-work-of-hostile-foreign-government-60-minutes/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7d&linkId=64915177&fbclid=IwAR1zZcYk0RQ3INGXSHX_vZU607tmAueY_Wn9K3PyeezwzbwOd4h8ab9hfaE

[Blues Heron]

1. So they recorded the sound right?

Or didn't they.

[SidDithers]

2. Wasn't this shown to be naturally sourced?...

From NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/science/sonic-attack-cuba-crickets.html

The Sounds That Haunted U.S. Diplomats in Cuba? Lovelorn Crickets, Scientists Say
Diplomatic officials may have been targeted with an unknown weapon in Havana. But a recording of one “sonic attack” actually is the singing of a very loud cricket, a new analysis concludes.

In November 2016, American diplomats in Cuba complained of persistent, high-pitched sounds followed by a range of symptoms, including headaches, nausea and hearing loss.

Exams of nearly two dozen of them eventually revealed signs of concussions or other brain injuries, and speculation about the cause turned to weapons that blast sound or microwaves. Amid an international uproar, a recording of the sinister droning was widely circulated in the news media.

On Friday, two scientists presented evidence that those sounds were not so mysterious after all. They were made by crickets, the researchers concluded.

That’s not to say that the diplomats weren’t attacked, the scientists added — only that the recording is not of a sonic weapon, as had been suggested.

Alexander Stubbs of the University of California, Berkeley, and Fernando Montealegre-Z of the University of Lincoln in England studied a recording of the sounds made by diplomats and published by The Associated Press.

“There’s plenty of debate in the medical community over what, if any, physical damage there is to these individuals,” said Mr. Stubbs in a phone interview. “All I can say fairly definitively is that the A.P.-released recording is of a cricket, and we think we know what species it is.”

Sid