B (57:51)
It's quite a range, but not cheap for a device. They don't say exactly how they got it, that appears to some who have examined it to be capable of emitting the kind of energy or wave that could cause these debilitating symptoms, which are collectively known as Havana Syndrome. And to remind people, this dates back to the first supposed victims of this being people who were serving at the US Embassy in Havana. That's why it's named Havana Syndrome. There's a ringing in the ears followed by a sensation of intense pressure leading to long term chronic illness ailments, including headaches, vertigo, nausea. For some of these people, they were so bad they had to get medical treatment, they had to leave their jobs. So there's a long, decade long history about this. So the story is that investigators think they have found a device that may have been able to do this, although there's still some skepticism now how to think about where this fits in, because it is a very big development. If you go back to the end of the Biden administration, the intelligence community led by the CIA did an analysis that was supposed to look at the available intelligence, look at the issues with symptoms that people were having, and try to determine what was the cause of Havana Syndrome. And the official assessment found that these symptoms were likely almost certainly not caused by some kind of global coordinated campaign using a weapon or another device. In other words, to put it bluntly, it's not the Russians with the sophisticated ray gun that are going out and zapping people or some other foreign power, which is what the suspicion had been all along, that it was Russia with some novel weapon or device. And there were a number of reasons the intelligence community reached that conclusion. One of them, which was really kind of one of the pillars on which their conclusions rested, was that they found no evidence that anyone had built a device that was capable of doing this kind of damage that was both portable and could be concealed. Because given where people were reporting these incidents, including in some cases on the grounds of the White House, the presumption was that this was not some giant weapon or dish sitting on top of a van. This would have to be a really small device. And the intelligence community found, like, look, we just don't see any evidence that such a thing exists. And we're not sure you could even build one. An independent panel of experts outside the government, but convened at the government's request, found the opposite. They said, we think there actually is such a. That this could be possible. We see indications historically that governments have experimented with technology like this, this. So you have to leave open the possibility that in fact the weapon could exist. So this question of like, whether the weapon, quote, unquote, was even buildable or theoretically could be collapsed down to such a size that it could do this damage. Intelligence community finds no. So along comes a device that looks like it might actually fit that bill. Now, the other thing to keep in mind with this, too, is that while the intelligence community found. Found unlikely Havana Syndrome is caused by a weapon or deliberately caused, that opinion began to change in the White House. In the final days of the Biden administration and NSC officials who were looking at this and who had the intelligence portfolio actually brought a group of Havana Syndrome victims into the White House and met with them in the Situation Room and said in so many words to them, we believe you. We think this is real. They never told those people why they thought it was real, but they did make clear to them that new information had come to light that made them think that the intelligence community assessment was maybe wrong. I think when you put these two things together, it seems very likely that the thing that was the new development might be this device, or at least, you know, reports that this device could be out there in the wild. And we don't know for sure that it was those two things linked together, but the timing fits very well. So, as I wrote last year, the consensus on Havana Syndrome is cracking. And I think that this device raises a whole host of new questions about what is technically possible. Where did this device come from? It said that it has Russian components. I don't really know what that means. And I have to admit, my skepticism antenna kind of went off around that particular one. He's like, well, what does Russian component mean? Does it. Is there something in it that says Cyrillic writing in it? I don't know. But I do know from my own reporting that Homeland Security investigations, as part of its mission, does go out and acquire novel technologies that they think could have some kind of purpose that would be detrimental to US national security. And they brought this one back. And the DOD has been looking at it. The Defense Department, I should say. Elements within the Defense Department, by the way, have generally been a bit more inclined to think there may be something deliberate behind Havana Syndrome. It is, you know, roughly speaking, it's the CIA that takes the position that this is not being deliberately caused. So when we talk about the intelligence community assessment, that's true. It's really the CIA driving that ship. So I think this is significant. You know, it doesn't answer all the questions. It by no means proves Havana Syndrome was caused by a weapon, quote, unquote. But, you know, considering that the conclusion that it could not have been caused by a weapon or a device rested largely on the fact that there was no device. Now there's a candidate device, apparently, and that's super intriguing.
