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Related: About this forumHere's why scientists are questioning whether 'sonic attacks' are real
Heres why scientists are questioning whether sonic attacks are real
Using a sound wave to cause neurological damage would be hard to do
BY TINA HESMAN SAEY 7:00 AM, JUNE 1, 2018
An account of another alleged sonic attack has surfaced, this time from a U.S. government employee in China. The employee reported subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure, according to a U.S. Embassy health alert. The episode mirrors reports from American diplomats in Cuba in late 2016, and fuels the debate among scientists about what, if anything, is actually happening.
Last year, 24 of the diplomats who reported sonic attacks in Cuba were tested to gauge whether lasting harm had occurred. In March, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia reported in JAMA that the people had balance and thinking problems, sleep disturbances and headaches, and that some had widespread injury to brain networks.
But some scientists and engineers have been questioning whether such attacks are possible, and if the diplomats symptoms could have been caused by a sonic attack.
The attacks were supposedly committed with sounds outside the range of human hearing. But generating enough acoustical energy to cause hearing loss and brain damage from those types of sound waves would be no easy feat, says Andrew Oxenham, a hearing researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The intensity of very low frequency infrasound or very high frequency ultrasound drops rapidly over distance, so attackers would need enormous loud speakers to have enough intensity to do neurological harm.
More:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/scientists-are-questioning-whether-sonic-attacks-are-real
Science:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122857627
Mike Rows His Boat
(389 posts)Still controls the UN from there too.
Jacoby365
(451 posts)If it isn't "sonic", then it is something else, in my opinion. "subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure" could surely be caused by something other than sonic waves, I would think.
lapfog_1
(29,223 posts)right?
"Of the 21 medically confirmed U.S. victims, some have permanent hearing loss or concussions, while others suffered nausea, headaches and ear-ringing. Some are struggling with concentration or common word recall, the AP has reported. Some victims felt vibrations or heard loud sounds mysteriously audible in only parts of rooms, leading investigators to consider a potential sonic attack. Others heard nothing but later developed symptoms."
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-the-health-diplomats-cuba/
How did it happen if not a "sonic attack" by an unknown force and by unknown assailants?
There is this possibility...
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article203221919.html
Jacoby365
(451 posts)that some of the diplomats were hearing. Mike Rows His Boat was right, America doesn't do science anymore. Look at the symptoms and then reverse engineer what could cause them, instead of simply doubting they are real.
Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)Cuban scientists and a new American report both shoot down a list of bizarre theories
By R. Douglas Fields on February 16, 2018
HAVANAHeated charges have flown back and forth for months between the two countries that bracket the Strait of Florida. U.S. State Department officials contended Cuba staged a sonic attack on employees of the American embassy, causing a variety of neurological symptoms. Cuba has not only denied such an attack ever took place but has also emphasized the physical impossibility of a sound wave causing neurological damage trained on such a distant target.
But physicians and scientists fromM both countries now appear to be in agreement on one critical point: Both sides acknowledge they are baffled as to what happened to 24 embassy employees who were diagnosed with mild traumatic brain damage between November 2016 and August 2017.
The latest development is a preliminary publication in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association on Thursday, authored by the team of doctors at the University of Pennsylvania who examined 21 of the U.S. government employees. The study, commissioned by the federal government, found the patients had suffered from concussionlike symptomsbut without any blunt trauma to the head. The medical issues varied widely among the patients, and included cognitive difficulties and problems with balance, eye tracking, sleep disturbances and headache.
Adding yet another element to the mystery, the new findings show normal MRI brain scans in all patients, and normal hearing in all but three individuals. The authors of the JAMA study also discount the likelihood of sonic injury, infection or toxic agentsand they even downplay the frequent suggestion of mass hysteria. Many of the findings in the new report echo a previous investigation carried out by Cuban officials.
More:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ldquo-sonic-weapon-attacks-rdquo-on-u-s-embassy-don-rsquo-t-add-up-mdash-for-anyone/