"I Don't Believe in Havana Syndrome"...The Fate of a Scientist Who Experimented on Himself

Norwegian scientist secretly builds electromagnetic device
Suffers brain damage similar to the syndrome

It has belatedly come to light that a Norwegian scientist, who had been skeptical of the suspicion that a secret weapon generating powerful electromagnetic pulses was the cause of the so-called "Havana Syndrome," built a similar device and tested it on himself in 2024, only to suffer brain damage.

Citizens gathered at Havana's Revolution Square are holding a May Day march. Agence France-Presse, Yonhap News Agency

According to the Washington Post (WP), a U.S. daily, on February 14 (local time), a scientist working for a Norwegian government agency constructed a device in 2024 that emits electromagnetic pulses in the microwave band and tested it on himself, in order to refute the claim that "a secret weapon generating microwave-band electromagnetic pulses is the cause of Havana Syndrome." Contrary to his belief that the suspicion was nothing more than a baseless rumor, he experienced symptoms similar to Havana Syndrome.

Havana Syndrome is an unexplained neurological condition that was first reported in some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers stationed in Havana, the capital of Cuba, in 2016. They reported suffering from headaches, dizziness, memory loss, and fatigue, and also complained that they had heard strange noises at their residences in the middle of the night. Since then, similar cases have been reported in hundreds of personnel and business travelers who worked in China, Europe, India, and other parts of Asia. One retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel recently claimed that when he was living in northern Virginia in 2020, a Russian family lived across the street from his home, and that he experienced Havana Syndrome-like symptoms on five separate occasions at that time.

The U.S. government officially refers to these phenomena as "Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI)" and maintains that their cause is unknown.

After learning of the experimental results, the Norwegian government informed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States, and officials from the Department of Defense and the White House visited Norway at least twice in 2024 after hearing the news. Sources familiar with the experiment stressed that these results do not prove that the AHI cases are in fact caused by a secret electromagnetic weapon developed by a foreign government.

However, it is undeniable that the results of this experiment have added another piece of evidence supporting the suspicions. Paul Friedrichs, a retired U.S. Air Force major general who previously served as the Surgeon General of Air Combat Command and the Joint Staff Surgeon, and later oversaw biological threats at the White House National Security Council (NSC) under the Joe Biden administration, said, "I think there is compelling evidence that we should be concerned about the ability to build directed-energy weapons that can pose a variety of risks to humans." He declined to comment on the experiment conducted in Norway.

Meanwhile, citing comments from two experts, the WP reported that toward the end of the Biden administration the U.S. government secretly purchased another foreign-made device capable of producing electromagnetic pulses, and that this device could be related to AHI cases. The device is reported to be under testing at the U.S. Department of Defense.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.