THE Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting US spies, diplomats and troops that are colloquially known as Havana Syndrome, according to four sources briefed on the matter, CNN reported. A division of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, purchased the device for millions of dollars in the waning days of the Biden administration, using funding provided by the Defense Department, according to two of the sources.
The device is still being studied and there is ongoing debate — and in some quarters of government, skepticism — over its link to the roughly dozens of anomalous health incidents that remain officially unexplained. CNN has asked the Pentagon, HSI and the DHS for comment. The CIA declined to comment.
The device acquired by HSI produces pulsed radio waves, one of the sources said, which some officials and academics have speculated for years could be the cause of the incidents. Although the device is not entirely Russian in origin, it contains Russian components, this person added.
Officials have long struggled to understand how a device powerful enough to cause the kind of damage some victims have reported could be made portable; that remains a core question, according to one of the sources briefed on the device. The device could fit in a backpack, this person said.
The acquisition of the device has reignited a painful and contentious debate within the US government about Havana Syndrome, known officially as “anomalous health episodes.” The mysterious illness first emerged in late 2016, when a cluster of US diplomats stationed in the Cuban capital of Havana began reporting symptoms consistent with head trauma, including vertigo and extreme headaches. In subsequent years, there have been cases reported around the world. One key concern now for some officials is that if the technology proves viable it may have proliferated, several of the sources said, meaning that more than one country could now have access to a device that may be capable of causing career-ending injuries to US officials.
