Havana syndrome: Were our diplomats attacked with microwave weapons?

Note the last sentence, which mentions that 40 joules per square centimeter was required. That’s a lot of energy. To put it into context, let’s consider sunlight, which is roughly 1,000 watts per square meter. Doing the math, that translates to 0.1 watt/cm2, which means that in one second, a square centimeter on the earth’s surface gets about 0.1 Joule of energy from sunlight (1 watt = 1 Joule/second). The microwave weapon described above is providing 400 times more energy.

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Put in more familiar terms, astrophysicist Dr. Ethan Siegel explained to me in an email, “If you are talking about 40 J/cm2 over the entire human body, that’s about as much energy as a fully loaded Harley Davidson going 100 mph.” Yikes.

Okay, this is all interesting in theory, but do microwave weapons actually exist? Yes. The U.S. military uses a weapon called an active denial system that employs millimeter waves (which are a type of microwave, contrary to what the military website says) to heat up the surface of a person’s skin. It’s unpleasant, which makes the target leave. The military also developed a weapon that can do precisely what the American diplomats experienced in Cuba and elsewhere: It can cause brain damage and can cause people to “hear” sounds that aren’t really there.

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