US embassies hit with high-power microwave weapons in Cuba, China and Russia

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US embassies were hit with high-power microwave weapons in Cuba China and Russia
US embassies were hit with high-power microwave weapons in Cuba, China and Russia. Picture: AFRL directed energy directorate

The mystery ailment that has afflicted U.S. embassy staff and CIA officers off and on over the last four years in Cuba, China, Russia and other countries appears to have been caused by high-power microwaves.

A committee of 19 experts in medicine and other fields concluded that directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy is the “most plausible mechanism” to explain the illness, dubbed Havana syndrome.

The report doesn’t clear up who targeted the embassies or why they were targeted.

What are high-power microwave weapons?

The technology behind the suspected weapons is well understood and dates back to the Cold War arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

High-power microwave weapons are generally designed to disable electronic equipment. But as the Havana syndrome reports show, these pulses of energy can harm people, as well.

Directed energy microwave weapons convert energy from a power source – a wall plug in a lab or the engine on a military vehicle – into radiated electromagnetic energy and focus it on a target. The directed high-power microwaves damage equipment, particularly electronics, without killing nearby people.

Two good examples are Boeing’s Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), which is a high-power microwave source mounted in a missile, and Tactical High-power Operational Responder (THOR), which was recently developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory to knock out swarms of drones.

When were directed energy microwave weapons conceived?

These types of directed energy microwave devices came on the scene in the late 1960s in the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

They were enabled by the development of pulsed power in the 1960s. Pulsed power generates short electrical pulses that have very high electrical power, meaning both high voltage – up to a few megavolts – and large electrical currents – tens of kiloamps. That’s more voltage than the highest-voltage long-distance power transmission lines, and about the amount of current in a lightning bolt.

As reported by The Conversation: “Plasma physicists at the time realized that if you could generate, for example, a 1-megavolt electron beam with 10-kiloamp current, the result would be a beam power of 10 billion watts, or gigawatts.

Converting 10% of that beam power into microwaves using standard microwave tube technology that dates back to the 1940s generates 1 gigawatt of microwaves. For comparison, the output power of today’s typical microwave ovens is around a thousand watts – a million times smaller.

The development of this technology led to a subset of the U.S.-Soviet arms race – a microwave power derby. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American scientists gained access to Russian pulsed power accelerators.

high-power microwave weapon usa
This high-power microwave generator built in the Soviet Union continues to operate at the University of New Mexico. Edl Schamiloglu, University of New Mexico, CC BY-ND

Today, research in high-power microwaves continues in the U.S. and Russia but has exploded in China. Dozens of countries now have active high-power microwave research programs.

Lots of power, little heat

Although these high-power microwave sources generate very high power levels, they tend to generate repeated short pulses.

This is why microwaves generated by these high-power microwave weapons don’t generate noticeable amounts of heat, let alone cause people to explode like baked potatoes in microwave ovens.

High power is important in these weapons because generating very high instantaneous power yields very high instantaneous electric fields, which scale as the square root of the power. It is these high electric fields that can disrupt electronics, which is why the Department of Defense is interested in these devices.

Do high-energy microwave weapons affect people? And how?

The National Academies report links high-power microwaves to impacts on people through the Frey effect.

The human head acts as a receiving antenna for microwaves in the low gigahertz frequency range.

Pulses of microwaves in these frequencies can cause people to hear sounds, which is one of the symptoms reported by the affected U.S. personnel. Other symptoms Havana syndrome sufferers have reported include headaches, nausea, hearing loss, lightheadedness and cognitive issues.

The report notes that electronic devices were not disrupted during the attacks, suggesting that the power levels needed for the Frey effect are lower than would be required for an attack on electronics.

This would be consistent with a high-power microwave weapon located at some distance from the targets. Power decreases dramatically with distance through the inverse square law. This means one of these devices could produce a power level at the target that would be too low to affect electronics but that could induce the Frey effect.

Who were behind the attacks on US embassies?

The Russians and the Chinese certainly possess the capabilities of fielding high-power microwave sources like the ones that appear to have been used in Cuba and China.

The truth of what actually happened to U.S. personnel in Cuba and China – and why – might (will) remain a mystery.

However, the technology most likely involved comes from textbook physics, and the military powers of the world continue to develop and deploy it. This text was written by Edl Schamiloglu in The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. More war news on Strange Sounds and Steve Quayle.

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7 Comments

  1. Israel was hacked by Terrorist government of Iran and 80 firms banks and many places , newspapers, etc… Also Worst hacking in US history’: Agencies said to fear nuclear networks accessed. They got into everything,’ one official says, as federal authorities express growing alarm over breadth and depth of intrusion into government networks, likely by Russian actors.US officials suspect a massive hacking operation that hit numerous government agencies and has been linked to Russia breached networks tied to the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile, Politico reported Thursday.
    .

    • Mainstream mockingbirds blame Russia for hack. I disagree. It’s cyberware/4th gen warfare—from red-chicommies. They had motive and opportunity. Money trail too. Also, our technocommies helped.

  2. .50cal lol…
    well already vaccines in USA has been very bad for nurses. I think it is a show off.
    Black seeds oil is better than vaccines and how many soon will be over 10 vaccines. How is possible 10 vaccines do same job. Russian vax and Johnson and Johnson Astransca want give you both of them. lol.. Scotty beam me up now.lol
    Iran’s making own vaccine using black seeds oil in it as of one of components?
    Disclaimer Always Apply with notice and without notice.
    Merry Christmas and happy New year in advance always to all beloved people in this blog and to Strange Sounds and to over 1.4 Billion Christian in the world.

    • Attaboy.

      Have a Merry Christmas, Mohsen and Strange Sounds. I will be working on my house, adding more attic insulating R-30.

      We have cold here. 15°. No wind, but 45mph South winds may pop up later.

      Making a hot batch of soup today. Have to plant a tree later. Poor duck got avian kung-flu. Burried her. I always plant a tree on top of the dead livestock. Organic material helps start the tree off very well. Old trick, but it still works. You can see the results on trees within two years compared to trees without that trick.

      • Thank you for your kind words. God Bless you all and God Bless USA
        and Canada , our pm is out of this world and controlled by queen of London.
        Again Merry Christmas and no to Sharia Law any where in North America.
        Brother Mohsen BC

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