When the US State Department came for James Giordano in 2017, the Havana “affair” was still kept secret. The experienced neurologist, professor at Georgetown University (Washington) was not surprised: diplomats who fall ill, like that, by the dozens and for no reason, “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reason to want to be discreet”, the specialist said to himself, before agreeing to investigate this subject.
The victims he meets suffer from migraines and nausea. They say they are losing their sight, hearing, memory and balance, to the point of no longer being able to walk. All then worked for the American representation in Cuba, an old enemy of the United States and ally of Moscow during the Cold War. That Uncle Sam’s eyes and ears suddenly withered there, starting in 2016, seemed very strange to the scientist.
James Giordano is not the only scientist to have been contacted: dozens of studies have been launched. No cause has been found. Nothing abnormal, a priori: patients who present this kind of symptoms, or even much more singular ailments, are in reality all over the world, without their case ever being explained. History could therefore have been relegated to those health enigmas that populate medical textbooks. It took a completely different turn.
A sonic weapon, really?
In the absence of poison, toxin, infection, radiation or particular pathologies, James Giordano and his team speculate, in their report, on possible “ultrasounds” or “microwaves”, emitted by a weapon or a tool of monitoring. An idea selected by default, despite the absence of convincing evidence concerning the presence of these devices. But which, thanks to the context – an incident on an island with high diplomatic tension – will end up settling.
In 2020, theAmerican Academy of Sciences abounds, without further proof. The hypothesis is becoming popular. A documentary series produced by Canal +, released in October, has just brought it up to date. The work, titled Havana Syndrome – Threat to Americatakes the side of diving into the skin of the sick. It offers, in fact, new visibility to the explanation: many patients are convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind their ills.
That a “sonic” weapon is the cause of the symptoms is not far-fetched: such tools exist, and can cause similar effects. But many scientists reject this possibility in the case of Cuba. Instruments of this kind only act up close. However, hundreds of victims have been reported all over the world, even near the White House, in Washington DC. That a foreign power could operate in such a large and exposed area seems unlikely.
Many inconsistencies
The clinical picture is no more consistent: normally these weapons burn brain tissue in addition to causing tingling. Dozens of patients were examined. No lesion was demonstrated, reports a study published in March 2024 in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). What’s more, the symptoms reported are not specific. They correspond to a whole bunch of other pathologies. “The counter-hypotheses defended in the scientific community and within intelligence organizations are, in fact, very numerous,” summarizes Robert Bartholomew, sociologist of health at the University of Auckland (New Zealand), one of the detractors of the Russian track.
Faced with the concern of their fellow citizens, the United States still decided to close its embassy in 2017. They did not reopen it until 2022. The following year, American intelligence institutions indicated that They did not support the hypothesis of Russian aggression. “The information available does not allow us to conclude that adversaries of the United States were involved,” we can read in their joint report. Refuting in passing what some of their investigations had suggested in the past.
The role of these agencies is eminently political. It is therefore difficult to take their word for it. Especially since in April 2024, a newspaper investigation The Insider, Der Spiegel and the chain CBnews put a part back in the machine. Their work shows that Russian intelligence did indeed undertake research into “potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons”, and was present in the American theater of operations. There is nothing conclusive here: it is common for operators from both countries to cross paths. And there is no indication that these weapons were used.
The realm of the strange
The American government has long refused to recognize the suffering of the victims. Joe Biden has decided to compensate them, to the tune of $600 million, in 2021. The mystery remains unsolved. Scientists from all over the planet continue to examine the case, examine the victims, and debate. As during this conference organized by the Ministry of Veterans Affairs in May 2024, which recalls the lack of consensus, or during this scientific seminar organized by the international society of functional neurological disorders in Verona, this summer.
These experts are used to the strange: improbable cases pass through their offices every day. “Our patients lose the use of their arms, their legs, start shaking constantly, are no longer able to stand up, but we find no lesions in them,” says Béatrice Garcin, neurologist at the Avicenne hospital. , specialist in these disorders. Those who, like her, deal directly with these phenomena maintain a much colder outlook than the journalists who have tasted the Russian trail. “If you write about the other hypotheses, you will not be in the direction of the story,” one of them surprisingly warned us.
The direction of history, however, leads to many dead ends: the origin of these cases, called “functional neurological disorders” is also unknown, but these manifestations are so frequent that they represent the second reason for consultation in neurology. In many ways, they resemble those of Havana. But because they are not on a diplomatic mission, they do not say they heard a shrill noise before collapsing – which is what the American agents report, even if the recordings they made showed nothing– these cases do not make the headlines.
The track of neurofunctional disorders
Many specialists believe that the two phenomena are linked. This is particularly what Mark Hallett, one of the leading experts in functional neurological disorders, supports. The American, a distinguished researcher, examined 86 people suffering from Havana syndrome. Then he compared them to healthy civil servants. No objective medical measure has made it possible to differentiate them, apart from these balance problems and this clear depression. Victims of Havana syndrome see, hear, think as well as others. However, they feel the opposite.
These results are comparable to what we find in neurofunctional disorders. They made Mark Hallett’s team say that at least 28% of the patients thus examined could be affected by this pathology, which often occurs after stress, discomfort, or the onset of an illness. Their study was published in March 2024 in the Journal of the American medical association (JAMA), but did not experience the same exposure as the Russian track. If it is not enough to conclude, it provides a strong counterpoint, rarely brought to light.
Havana syndrome also brings to mind these children from immigrant backgrounds in Sweden. Suddenly fell into a pseudo-coma a few years ago. To these children, again, who regularly in France experience unexplained discomfort or convulsions. Where to these German telephone operatorswho when the telephone appeared in the last century, convinced themselves that it made them deaf. “There are plenty of people who hear strange sounds and then feel bad, all the time, without Russian spies hiding in their closet!”, underlines health sociologist Robert Bartholomew. He often tells his students the story of the glass harmonica, an instrument popular at the time of Benjamin Franklin: “There was a rumor that it made you sick. And people started to faint during concerts.”
“Epidemic of belief”
Psychiatrist at the University Hospital of Tours, Professor Wissam El Hage has a name for this type of phenomenon: he calls it an “epidemic of conviction”. “We announce something, for example that a new technology makes people sick. And suddenly, you have lots of testimonies which abound in this direction, without it necessarily having happened”, explains this specialist in collective psychogenic syndromes, formerly called “collective hysteria”. When a person suffers in front of everyone, others may feel bad, out of mimicry. History books are full of these cases. “The brain does not differentiate between real information and supposed information. If you think you are sick, or that you are really sick, for the brain it is almost the same thing,” continues Professor El Hage.
When the idea of psychogenic syndromes was raised by the American authorities, the American agents screamed. For them, this amounted to calling them liars and incompetent. Isn’t the essence of this type of profession precisely knowing how to keep calm in all circumstances, some experts have pointed out? “If this type of pathology, like neurofunctional disorders, occurs more often after trauma, no one is really immune to the powers of thought. No matter how much you manage your stress, seeing someone vomit risks making you sick. “It’s not imaginary,” explains Wissam El Hage, for whom these cases demonstrate a great lack of understanding of psychological functioning.
Scientists are struggling to deal with all these unexplained phenomena. In addition to the silence of science, they also come up against a form of mistrust from patients. Failing to have been taken sufficiently seriously by doctors – as was the case for American agents – they often focus on the hypotheses that make the most sense for them, even if they are not validated, which slows down the healing process. “All these highly publicized stories accentuate the myths and the use of charlatans: if medicine does not respond, or refutes the presuppositions of patients, why not go see those who claim to know?”, supports the neurologist Fabrice Bartolomei, practitioner at the La Timone hospital (AP-HM).
The doctor regrets that the press does not systematically give the hypotheses in order of probability. In fact, many articles only speak of the Havana syndrome through the prism of Russian aggression. And to summarize: “These stories are fascinating. They fuel our attraction to mystery, especially since we do not know exactly what in the brain causes such physical disorders. But even if one clue seems more engaging than another, we must, in these cases, keep in mind that we do not really know what happened.”
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