Professor Kevin Fu and members of the Security and Privacy Research Group at the University of Michigan say they have an explanation for what could have happened in Havana: two sources of ultrasound — such as listening devices — placed too close together could generate interference and provoke the intense sounds described by the victims.
And this may not have been done intentionally to harm diplomats, the scientists concluded in their study, first reported by the Daily Beast.
The Associated Press has obtained a recording of what some U.S. embassy workers heard in Havana as they were attacked by what investigators initially believed was a sonic weapon.
Those who have followed the case closely say the new theory makes sense.
“This is a variation of what I have always thought,” James Cason, a former top U.S. diplomat in Havana, told el Nuevo Herald. “It explains the sonic part, that no one was spotted planting new devices inside the homes and doing it from the outside would require something huge.”
The health incidents — which took place between November 2016 and August 2017 at homes and two Havana hotels — were initially blamed on “sonic attacks.” The cause has perplexed the Department of State, the FBI and other U.S. agencies that have been trying to figure out just what made 24 intelligence officers, diplomats and relatives based in Havana ill. Many reported a variety of symptoms such as hearing loss, headaches, cognitive problems and other ailments that doctors said correlate with concussions.
University of Miami Dr. Michael Hoffer, who led the initial team of physicians who examined the victims, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Michigan report. The State Department said: “We still do not have a cause or source of the attacks. The investigation is ongoing.”
Most of the victims said they heard a shrill sound coming from a specific direction before experiencing the ailments.
Fu and his team used recordings of the sound obtained by The Associated Press and applied reverse-engineering to replicate what was heard by diplomats. By combining various ultrasound signals, they discovered that the resulting distortion produced an audible sound similar to what was heard in the original recording.
“When a second inaudible ultrasonic source interfered with the primary inaudible ultrasonic source, intermodulation distortion created audible byproducts that share spectral characteristics with audio from the AP news,” the university report said.
The Cuban government, which has independently investigated the incidents, has said that it found nothing suspicious in the recordings provided by U.S. agencies and that the sounds are similar to those produced by...
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