The hostile reaction to the possibility that psychogenic illness may play a role highlights the stigma that surrounds this condition, which is widely misunderstood by the public and among many in the scientific community. Within hours of Pamela Spratlen’s resignation, an ex-CIA officer who claims to have been the victim of a 2017 “attack” in Moscow, Marc Polymeropoulos, said that Spratlen’s failure to rule out “mass hysteria” was “automatically disqualifying” as the task force leader and “insulting to victims.”3 One of the diplomats on the call complained that Spratlen was “very clearly saying that she has not ruled out that we’re crazy.”4

Such misconceptions are common and reflect widespread ignorance on the subject. Mass psychogenic illness is not a mental disorder; it is a collective stress response that evokes real symptoms. It is a well-documented condition that involves the converting of psychological stress into symptoms that have no organic basis. It is not a hypothetical concept; it is an established condition in the fields of psychiatry and medicine. Several diplomats who exhibited symptoms of “Havana Syndrome” only to be told later that they were likely suffering from stress, have criticized the government for not taking their claims seriously. They point out that the Biden administration has stopped referring to what happened as “attacks,” but rather “unexplained health incidents” or UHIs…

Ordinarily, most people do not pay close attention to their surroundings, but during these flaps, dozens of sightings often pop up in a short period of time because people begin to over-scrutinize their environment and notice things they ordinarily would not. A classic example is the Seattle windshield pitting epidemic of 1954 when rumors spread that the region was being subjected to radioactive fallout from Atomic bomb tests in the Pacific. As residents searched for evidence of the fallout, they noticed tiny pit marks on their windshields that were assumed to have been caused by the fallout. Investigators later found that pit marks are a common feature of windshields. Instead of looking through them, residents began looking at, and noticing for the first time, marks that had been present all along.10