WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:14.720 so i got a cryptic message recently i had just published another piece on havana syndrome 00:14.720 --> 00:21.240 and i got flooded with messages you have to understand in the five years i've been working 00:21.240 --> 00:26.540 on this story i've gotten a lot of tips people claiming to have evidence that explains it all 00:26.540 --> 00:32.680 or that it's actually a secret u.s government program or just some anecdote from someone who 00:32.680 --> 00:37.820 just wants to be part of the story but this one that came through on signal i thought i needed to 00:37.820 --> 00:42.600 look into and it ended up adding a real twist to the story that i hadn't anticipated 00:42.600 --> 00:54.060 the source identified himself as a former u.s government employee the message read i was 00:54.060 --> 01:00.060 subjected to the russian microwave weapons circa 1988 i also have information on other attacks 01:00.060 --> 01:07.500 on usg personnel that have not been widely reported on the source didn't want to go on the record 01:07.500 --> 01:11.340 but he told me to reach out to some people who could help me connect the dots 01:11.340 --> 01:31.660 i'm adam entis and i'm john lee anderson from vice world news this is havana syndrome 01:31.660 --> 02:01.640 episode 7 8 02:01.640 --> 02:12.120 six. If there's a there there. Ever since news of Havana syndrome first broke, perhaps the most 02:12.120 --> 02:17.280 pressing question has been, what is causing this? Over the years, there have been various theories 02:17.280 --> 02:22.820 coming from government officials, scientists, and journalists. For example, one theory that's 02:22.820 --> 02:27.580 gained a lot of traction is that the sickness in Havana was the result of a toxic poisoning. 02:28.240 --> 02:32.860 This was a theory put forth in 2019 in a report commissioned by the Canadian government, 02:33.300 --> 02:38.080 whose own embassy employees in Havana had come down with similar symptoms around the same time as the 02:38.080 --> 02:44.340 Americans. The doctors in Canada found organophosphate in some of their patients' systems. That's a 02:44.340 --> 02:50.240 chemical found in a pesticide used in Cuba to prevent the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness 02:50.240 --> 02:57.100 known to hurt kids especially. Incidentally, organophosphate has also been used as a lethal 02:57.100 --> 03:03.760 nerve agent. The Russians used it to try to kill the double agent Sergei Skirpal in England in 2018. 03:03.820 --> 03:09.540 NBC News confirming this morning that the couple who are critically ill in the hospital behind me are a 03:09.540 --> 03:15.080 former member of Russian military intelligence and his daughter. The British... It was also used in the 03:15.080 --> 03:20.780 murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother. A horrifying discovery from Malaysian 03:20.780 --> 03:26.640 officials. They say Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was killed by a 03:26.640 --> 03:33.380 chemical weapon. Another theory that we have talked about a few times that's gotten traction is that 03:33.380 --> 03:40.480 Havana syndrome is the result of mass psychogenic illness. In other words, perhaps no one or just a 03:40.480 --> 03:46.440 handful of people really were sick from some novel illness. But the rest of the cases are the result of 03:46.440 --> 03:52.400 others convincing themselves that they too are sick. Supporting that theory is the fishbowl environment 03:52.400 --> 03:57.140 that the spies and diplomats found themselves living in. They all went to each other's homes for parties, 03:57.140 --> 04:02.980 all sent their kids to the same international school. Rumors travel quickly, and panic can spread 04:02.980 --> 04:11.560 quickly. This was the same later in Guangzhou. As for the sound that many of these spies and 04:11.560 --> 04:17.600 diplomats, at least in Havana, report to have heard, well, some speculate that it could very well be 04:17.600 --> 04:23.260 crickets. In fact, there's this group of scientists who were asked by the State Department to advise 04:23.260 --> 04:28.920 them from time to time. They looked into this in 2018 and found that the likeliest explanation for 04:28.920 --> 04:34.700 the sound was the Indy's short-tailed cricket. This is what the Cuban government initially suggested 04:34.700 --> 04:40.120 as well. That the gringos may have just heard the sound of normal crickets and then basically become 04:40.120 --> 04:46.960 hysterical. But sources told me about a CIA analysis of the recorded sound. They said it was 04:46.960 --> 04:53.980 man-made, not crickets. The theory that has gained the most traction is that this is some kind of 04:53.980 --> 05:00.820 directed energy. Early on in our reporting, we spoke with a weapons expert at Georgetown University 05:00.820 --> 05:07.380 Medical Center, someone who the State Department had actually consulted with. He told us he thought the 05:07.380 --> 05:14.880 patients may have been targeted with radiofrequency waves or electromagnetic pulses. That waves of this 05:14.880 --> 05:20.940 electromagnetic energy may have somehow entered their brains through their ears and other soft tissue. 05:22.240 --> 05:27.120 For these researchers, the big clue for them was the victims who felt that they were in a beam of 05:27.120 --> 05:33.740 energy that seemed directional in nature. They would walk around their room and literally be followed by 05:33.740 --> 05:39.360 the beam. And when they ducked behind a pillar or opened the front door, it would suddenly stop. 05:41.400 --> 05:46.580 If this was a weapon, some kind of energy weapon, who would have access to something like that? 05:48.840 --> 05:54.080 Fingers had been pointed towards Russia. And when we got that tip from a source telling us to look 05:54.080 --> 06:00.180 into the history there, we were intrigued and soon found ourselves diving down a Cold War rabbit hole. 06:00.180 --> 06:11.240 Adam, our producer Jesse, and I are in Huntsville, Tennessee. 06:12.240 --> 06:14.040 John Lee Anderson, how are you? 06:14.880 --> 06:18.640 Here to meet the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock. 06:19.060 --> 06:24.580 I'm Jack Matlock. I was a foreign service officer for 35 years. 06:24.580 --> 06:30.400 Matt Matlock was the American ambassador of the Soviet Union right before it crumbled in the early 90s. 06:30.620 --> 06:33.380 But he'd spent a lot of time there before that posting. 06:33.800 --> 06:38.760 I spent 11 years at the embassy in Moscow in four different tours, 06:39.380 --> 06:43.620 translated Khrushchev's messages to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 06:44.440 --> 06:47.640 By the way, I issued Lee Harvey Othell's wife's visa. 06:48.340 --> 06:49.600 What was he like? 06:49.600 --> 06:55.260 He was an impossible sort of guy to deal with. 06:56.080 --> 07:00.320 From the moment Matlock and his colleagues in the Foreign Service arrived in Moscow in the early 60s, 07:00.620 --> 07:04.020 it was clear that the Soviets would have eyes on them at all times. 07:04.320 --> 07:08.880 We had to assume any areas that the Soviets had access to. 07:09.300 --> 07:13.500 We just assumed that we were probably bugged for sound. 07:13.500 --> 07:18.360 The Soviets weren't just interested in listening. 07:18.760 --> 07:21.540 They wanted to read whatever the American diplomats were writing. 07:22.260 --> 07:25.200 At one point, they figured out how to bug their typewriters. 07:26.060 --> 07:34.160 We found that the Selectric typewriters had been, I would say, very ingeniously bugged. 07:34.160 --> 07:39.640 But they managed to do that when they were shipped in, these typewriters. 07:40.140 --> 07:45.120 Normally, equipment was shipped in under diplomatic seal with couriers. 07:45.800 --> 07:48.700 Something happened, and they left them in customs overnight. 07:48.920 --> 07:51.420 So it was a really ingenious thing. 07:52.560 --> 07:57.000 The Americans were initially quite naive about Soviet eavesdropping capabilities. 07:57.320 --> 08:01.160 But once they figured it out, they tried to protect themselves and their secrets. 08:01.160 --> 08:10.080 We had set up several secure rooms that were insulated against the three ways you can get information out. 08:10.580 --> 08:14.500 Light, sound, and microwaves. 08:18.400 --> 08:19.080 Microwaves. 08:20.220 --> 08:26.540 Starting in the 1950s, the Soviets had positioned themselves in buildings surrounding the U.S. Embassy 08:26.540 --> 08:31.060 so they could watch the Americans through the windows and see who was coming and going. 08:31.160 --> 08:36.540 But also so they could aim microwave-emitting devices at the embassy. 08:37.220 --> 08:42.080 They did this for decades, on and off until at least the late 1980s. 08:42.540 --> 08:44.500 Which is something I knew a bit about, 08:44.960 --> 08:48.040 but as I heard more from the veterans of the Cold War in Moscow, 08:48.620 --> 08:51.580 their experiences were so specific and so familiar. 08:52.580 --> 08:56.780 Microwave energy was a known and active problem for the Americans in Moscow. 08:56.780 --> 09:02.200 Now, it's not completely known what the Soviets were using the microwaves for exactly. 09:02.440 --> 09:06.080 One of the theories was that perhaps they were using the microwaves 09:06.080 --> 09:09.800 to jam up the Americans' own surveillance equipment within the embassy, 09:10.220 --> 09:13.100 or specifically within the CIA station. 09:13.100 --> 09:16.500 It was directed at the upper floors of the embassy. 09:16.600 --> 09:22.460 The Soviets probably supposed that we had listening devices there. 09:23.740 --> 09:28.380 Another theory was that perhaps the Russians weren't trying to jam our devices, 09:28.820 --> 09:31.360 but instead trying to activate their own, 09:31.920 --> 09:35.620 that they had apparently built into the walls of the embassy years earlier. 09:35.620 --> 09:37.760 There's a history of this. 09:38.420 --> 09:41.220 A few years prior, the Soviets had given the U.S. embassy 09:41.220 --> 09:43.360 a wood carving of the American seal, 09:43.760 --> 09:45.600 like the seal on the back of the quarter. 09:46.380 --> 09:49.620 It was a beautiful gift that stayed on display at the embassy for years. 09:50.440 --> 09:52.000 What the Americans didn't realize 09:52.000 --> 09:55.120 was that the seal was actually an eavesdropping device. 09:55.780 --> 10:00.640 The Soviets switched it on by aiming a radio beam at the seal from a van outside. 10:01.320 --> 10:05.320 This would allow them to listen in on conversations happening near the seal. 10:05.620 --> 10:12.300 So the Americans knew the Soviets were capable of developing covert listening devices 10:12.300 --> 10:14.060 which used radio waves. 10:14.580 --> 10:17.760 And microwaves are on the radio frequency spectrum. 10:18.320 --> 10:20.160 So the concern was that perhaps 10:20.160 --> 10:23.500 the microwaves were activating devices similar to the seal. 10:24.300 --> 10:27.060 With the help of that source who contacted me on signal, 10:27.520 --> 10:32.260 I found someone else who had firsthand experience in Moscow with microwave energy. 10:32.900 --> 10:35.240 The microwaves had been a problem, 10:35.240 --> 10:40.420 and a mystery in Moscow for decades. 10:41.280 --> 10:41.840 Decades. 10:41.840 --> 10:48.100 Isabel Howe and her husband, Dave, lived in Moscow in the late 1980s. 10:48.680 --> 10:51.720 The Soviets, by this point, had sharpened their spy game. 10:52.360 --> 10:55.460 Isabel's husband helped run security at the U.S. embassy, 10:55.720 --> 11:00.200 so it was his job to prevent the Soviets from spying on the Americans inside. 11:00.760 --> 11:04.840 He ended up finding microphones hidden in the concrete walls of the embassy. 11:04.840 --> 11:08.100 But the Soviets weren't just watching the embassy. 11:08.520 --> 11:10.800 They were watching diplomats at home, too. 11:10.800 --> 11:17.520 The living room was a long living room, and it had floor-to-ceiling windows. 11:18.400 --> 11:22.160 And any time I went by those windows, I could look over there, 11:22.400 --> 11:30.300 and there would be some Soviets in uniform with their binoculars watching our building. 11:30.300 --> 11:34.220 I knew there was nothing I could do about it. 11:34.220 --> 11:41.980 Every place I went, I was followed by two KGB guys. 11:42.940 --> 11:45.020 Every place I went outside. 11:45.400 --> 11:49.760 You just couldn't live in Moscow without being constantly watched by the Soviet government, 11:49.900 --> 11:51.780 even when she was out for a run. 11:51.780 --> 11:55.520 They sort of tried to run along with me for a while. 11:55.820 --> 11:58.520 Then they just drove along beside me in a car. 11:59.540 --> 12:01.680 It was just hysterical. 12:02.440 --> 12:09.400 How about coming in from being out and finding that someone had defecated on your bed? 12:09.860 --> 12:10.320 Nice. 12:10.320 --> 12:26.300 It's amazing that when it comes to American diplomats and spies living in these high-risk places, 12:26.440 --> 12:28.240 not that much has really changed. 12:28.600 --> 12:32.140 It's literally the same old shit over and over again. 12:32.140 --> 12:42.920 Our townhouse was not only bugged with a sound, it was also bugged with cameras. 12:43.420 --> 12:47.920 If I went around and looked very carefully, which I did for a little bit, 12:48.260 --> 12:51.520 and then Dave said, don't do that anymore, they're serious. 12:52.340 --> 12:53.760 So I just stopped. 12:54.200 --> 12:55.960 But they were everywhere. 12:57.720 --> 13:00.860 Again, living in an embassy can feel like living in a fishbowl, 13:00.860 --> 13:03.340 especially in countries that are more adversarial. 13:04.180 --> 13:07.640 And when Isabel was there, the Cold War was still very much underway. 13:08.380 --> 13:12.160 Diplomats and their families rarely ventured away from the U.S. embassy compound. 13:12.620 --> 13:15.080 So pretty much anything they needed was there. 13:15.640 --> 13:16.640 They had their own bar. 13:17.040 --> 13:20.020 It was all within the compound. 13:20.640 --> 13:22.580 And it was a gossip. 13:23.260 --> 13:26.400 You could just imagine what gossip it would be. 13:26.980 --> 13:28.320 I knew this woman. 13:28.720 --> 13:29.620 She was single. 13:29.620 --> 13:31.860 She was a secretary. 13:32.340 --> 13:37.120 She announced when she came, her goal was to sleep with every Marine. 13:37.980 --> 13:39.620 And everyone knew that. 13:40.200 --> 13:45.740 Oh, it was sex parties and drinking parties, etc. 13:46.220 --> 13:48.860 The Marines must have been happy at that announcement. 13:49.420 --> 13:50.440 Oh, my God. 13:50.520 --> 13:52.500 I think they got into trouble, too. 13:52.500 --> 13:55.840 But at least they weren't sleeping with the Soviets, you know? 13:57.080 --> 14:01.080 And so if you pair that fishbowl atmosphere with the reports of microwaves, 14:01.260 --> 14:02.740 it can make for some chaos. 14:03.180 --> 14:07.140 There were some diplomats going home to the states and getting diagnosed with all kinds of illnesses 14:07.140 --> 14:09.100 and then blaming it on the microwaves. 14:09.100 --> 14:16.760 The State Department looked into the matter and concluded that, yes, the Soviets had been barraging the embassy with microwaves for decades. 14:17.520 --> 14:21.580 But they said that the radiation levels were not high enough to actually cause any harm. 14:22.220 --> 14:28.760 Of course, when the word began to get out, I suggested we really need to brief the staff. 14:28.760 --> 14:34.420 What was it like briefing the embassy staff? 14:34.620 --> 14:37.200 Well, of course, things got very emotional. 14:37.900 --> 14:43.500 You know, the way these things go, actually, it was some of the spouses that didn't even live in the embassy 14:43.500 --> 14:50.700 that began to get so excited, you know, when you talk about things that might affect your health. 14:50.700 --> 15:02.960 We asked them to keep it confidential, but the wife of one of our officers, I won't name them, though we're pretty sure, 15:03.240 --> 15:09.680 then leaked it to one of the correspondents, so it began to be, you know, news at home. 15:10.840 --> 15:13.860 When I hear this, it sounds pretty familiar to what happened in Havana, 15:14.420 --> 15:16.780 attempting to keep panic from spreading at the embassy. 15:17.340 --> 15:19.300 Or rather to minimize what was happening. 15:19.300 --> 15:30.800 Our producer, Ramon Campos-Iriarte, dug up this fascinating classified transcript 15:30.800 --> 15:35.280 of a once-secret phone call between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger 15:35.280 --> 15:40.640 and the then-Soviet ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Dobrynin, from 1975, 15:41.560 --> 15:43.940 in which they discussed the microwaves problem. 15:44.880 --> 15:48.060 On this call, Kissinger is letting the Soviet ambassador know 15:48.060 --> 15:51.240 that he understands about the barrage of microwaves in Moscow 15:51.240 --> 15:53.800 and that they've recently been ratcheting it up. 15:54.360 --> 15:55.960 He even suggests it's doing harm. 15:56.820 --> 16:00.560 He alludes to pulling out the then-American ambassador because he has cancer, 16:00.760 --> 16:04.140 and the implication is that it was somehow related to the microwaves. 16:05.120 --> 16:08.240 But Kissinger goes on to say to the Soviet that, quote, 16:08.240 --> 16:19.820 We asked the State Department about that Kissinger memo and whether those beams of energy were ever found to have hurt anyone. 16:20.420 --> 16:24.480 We also asked whether there's evidence that they continued after the 70s and 80s, 16:24.480 --> 16:26.000 but they declined to comment. 16:28.740 --> 16:31.360 But regardless of Kissinger trying to keep it quiet, 16:31.740 --> 16:35.940 people who were stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during this time, they all knew about it. 16:36.460 --> 16:40.860 When Isabel heard about the Havana Syndrome incidents, she immediately made the connection. 16:41.340 --> 16:44.580 It made her think, could the Russians be behind this too? 16:44.580 --> 16:52.700 When you first heard about, Isabel, when you first heard the stories, what crossed your mind? 16:53.840 --> 17:02.240 Oh, I immediately, I thought, hmm, yeah, the Russians are still trying to get a foothold in Cuba, 17:02.720 --> 17:05.720 and they are there with their expertise. 17:06.200 --> 17:11.380 I thought about that, and I thought things have improved a lot. 17:11.940 --> 17:13.960 Technology has improved a lot. 17:13.960 --> 17:16.820 They can target this much better now. 17:17.180 --> 17:21.700 I don't question any of that as a possibility. 17:26.560 --> 17:30.400 Microwaves haven't only been used in surveillance, but weapons too. 17:31.460 --> 17:35.320 The Soviets spent a lot of time developing them, and so did the U.S. 17:36.080 --> 17:40.960 I think the military has always wanted some sort of death ray. 17:40.960 --> 17:44.440 That's after the break. 17:44.440 --> 18:05.020 The problem with group insurance is that healthcare isn't a group decision. 18:05.440 --> 18:06.080 It's personal. 18:06.640 --> 18:11.320 Group 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a form of electromagnetic radiation, which is basically energy that moves as a wave. 19:51.980 --> 19:55.320 We're surrounded by low-energy radio waves all the time. 19:55.960 --> 19:58.880 Think cell phone signals and FM radio. 19:58.880 --> 20:03.500 Now that doesn't mean you could get sick from your cell phone or listening to the radio. 20:04.300 --> 20:10.060 Radio broadcasters are sending out waves that are much longer and at a much lower frequency than can hurt us. 20:10.420 --> 20:18.000 But we usually need to be protected from higher energy waves like microwaves, X-rays, and gamma rays. 20:18.000 --> 20:27.340 So when it comes to Havana syndrome, the theory that we heard early on was that someone could have harnessed the lower energy radio frequency waves, 20:27.340 --> 20:35.920 which includes microwaves, and then released them in short bursts in a way that could cause pressure in the head and injure the brain. 20:35.920 --> 20:45.720 As for the sound heard during those initial incidents, well, the theory goes, it's possible that while there wouldn't actually be sound produced, 20:46.100 --> 20:48.840 the patients could very well have perceived one. 20:48.840 --> 20:56.100 Back in the 1960s, a scientist named James Frey discovered that if you aimed pulsed microwaves at someone's head, 20:56.100 --> 21:01.520 the waves could cause someone to hear a clicking, even if there was no sound being produced. 21:02.560 --> 21:11.220 The fact is that science has been testing microwave energy, as well as its impact on humans, for a long time now, especially during the Cold War. 21:11.220 --> 21:21.660 The Soviet military budget supports increasingly more capable weapon systems and military forces that go far beyond any forces justifiable for defense purposes. 21:22.140 --> 21:27.100 There was always a sense of competition with the Russians. 21:27.780 --> 21:36.960 Cheryl Roefer is a scientist who studied laser technology at Los Alamos National Laboratory for over three decades, including during the Cold War. 21:36.960 --> 21:42.680 One of the things her colleagues were tasked with was creating the next big directed energy weapon. 21:43.000 --> 21:46.340 What was the interest in trying to explore this type of technology? 21:47.360 --> 21:52.620 Well, I think the military has always wanted some sort of death ray. 21:53.120 --> 21:56.740 I think you can trace this back to H.G. Wells. 21:56.740 --> 22:01.800 The USSR continues to make comparable advances throughout its military forces. 22:01.800 --> 22:08.300 Forces that will support its military doctrine, that if a war is to be fought, the Soviets will prevail. 22:08.980 --> 22:10.080 This was the Reagan era. 22:10.620 --> 22:15.660 Suddenly, the U.S. government was putting billions of dollars towards the development of all kinds of technology 22:15.660 --> 22:20.100 that was supposed to protect the United States and be a threat to the Soviet Union. 22:21.140 --> 22:27.420 Scientists like Roefer were tasked with finding ways to harness certain types of energy and turn it into a weapon. 22:27.420 --> 22:33.420 Roefer was working on lasers, while some of her colleagues down the hall were focused on microwaves. 22:33.880 --> 22:37.560 What was your takeaway from being down the hall from them? 22:37.660 --> 22:39.440 What were the challenges that they faced? 22:40.360 --> 22:40.840 Power. 22:41.680 --> 22:43.640 Power is always the question. 22:44.480 --> 22:49.400 How do you produce a power supply that will produce the power that you want? 22:49.960 --> 22:51.240 How do you stabilize it? 22:51.280 --> 22:53.580 How does the beam propagate through the air? 22:53.580 --> 22:59.440 However, if you want to zap something, you need a lot of power in the zap. 23:00.000 --> 23:05.180 Those are issues that scientists are still facing today, which is why, she argues, 23:05.480 --> 23:08.880 it's not possible that Havana Syndrome would be a microwave weapon. 23:09.560 --> 23:16.860 How is something happening inside people's heads without something happening on the outside of people's heads, 23:17.360 --> 23:18.640 like heating up? 23:18.640 --> 23:23.640 I don't see that that has been particularly well explained. 23:24.780 --> 23:28.520 Roefer says the main issue is powering a mobile weapon of this kind, 23:28.520 --> 23:33.620 and that doing so would require very large batteries, lots of electricity, 23:34.300 --> 23:36.700 that would be very cumbersome and noticeable. 23:36.700 --> 23:42.300 There's just certain basic chemistry and physics that goes into batteries 23:42.300 --> 23:49.800 that we haven't gotten around, and that requires a certain amount of weight to go with it. 23:50.800 --> 23:51.480 Oh, I see. 23:51.740 --> 23:53.380 But not everyone agrees. 23:53.520 --> 23:54.820 Yeah, well, she may be right. 23:55.000 --> 24:00.320 Including Doug Beeson, a former Air Force physicist who helped build weapons in the Air Force lab. 24:00.560 --> 24:05.340 You know, she may be right, but on the other hand, there's a lot of neat work going on out there. 24:05.340 --> 24:10.140 When I heard about the Havana Syndrome, to me it was obvious. 24:10.320 --> 24:14.920 I called up a few of my friends that I used to work with, and it was pretty obvious to them. 24:15.980 --> 24:19.320 For Doug, he thinks that when it comes to military weapons, 24:19.620 --> 24:22.080 there's a lot that the general public doesn't know about. 24:22.680 --> 24:28.620 For example, in recent years, the U.S. government has been working on what's called active denial weapons. 24:28.620 --> 24:33.120 These are directed energy weapons that aren't intended to kill people on the battlefield, 24:33.660 --> 24:38.740 but instead just make them extremely uncomfortable to try to force them to move away from a situation. 24:39.460 --> 24:43.840 The U.S. government has also been messing around with weapons that use high-powered radio waves, 24:44.180 --> 24:48.140 which, for those following along, microwaves are on the radio frequency. 24:48.140 --> 24:51.080 What if we told you the Pentagon has a ray gun? 24:51.520 --> 24:56.020 And what if we told you it can stop a person in his tracks without killing or even injuring him? 24:56.440 --> 24:57.340 Well, it's true. 24:57.940 --> 25:02.000 You can't see it, you can't hear it, but I can tell you firsthand, you feel it. 25:02.240 --> 25:08.960 In 2008, 60 Minutes reported on a new directed energy weapon the U.S. military was starting to train on. 25:09.080 --> 25:11.360 It's a gun that doesn't look anything like a gun. 25:11.660 --> 25:16.600 It's that flat-dish antenna which shoots out a 100,000-watt beam at the speed of light. 25:16.600 --> 25:18.220 Go home! 25:18.640 --> 25:24.640 Targets here are people, military volunteers creating a scenario soldiers might encounter in Iraq. 25:25.040 --> 25:25.520 Engage. 25:26.400 --> 25:31.520 The ray gun fires, and there it is, that flash of white-hot energy. 25:35.020 --> 25:41.860 So we know that these kinds of movable, directed energy weapons already exist because the U.S. has made them. 25:41.860 --> 25:47.440 And Doug says there may be classified work that's happening to further enhance these weapons. 25:47.700 --> 25:53.700 You can fine-tune those waves to have it penetrate deeper and deeper into the body. 25:54.560 --> 25:58.100 And there are various plates of the body that you can also affect. 25:58.640 --> 26:04.960 I can't go into details about exactly what type of effects because I think most of that's classified. 26:04.960 --> 26:16.180 But on the other hand, if you know anything at all about this type of technology, then, I mean, it's logic to be able to deduce. 26:17.240 --> 26:24.960 Doug's saying that it's possible Havana syndrome is the result of a weapon that the government already knows about but hasn't publicly acknowledged. 26:24.960 --> 26:29.200 And, in fact, there is some recent evidence to back that up. 26:29.740 --> 26:34.140 We spoke to a lawyer representing a former National Security Agency officer. 26:34.640 --> 26:41.340 That officer was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's a decade after visiting a hostile country in the 90s. 26:42.120 --> 26:44.640 He can't say which country, that's classified. 26:45.000 --> 26:52.900 But he believes the diagnosis is a result of an incident he experienced there, in which he woke up feeling very weak and fatigued. 26:52.900 --> 27:03.880 In response to a workman's compensation claim he submitted, the NSA told the officer that it had intelligence connecting that very country with a high-powered microwave weapon. 27:04.600 --> 27:10.140 In other words, the U.S. government is saying this kind of microwave weapon does exist. 27:10.620 --> 27:13.100 And that it's designed to injure or even kill. 27:13.800 --> 27:18.400 That response came just two years before the Havana syndrome incidents began. 27:18.840 --> 27:22.260 But the government still hasn't publicly linked these cases. 27:22.900 --> 27:40.860 By 2019, the White House officials who had been trying to take the lead in getting the CIA to get to the bottom of this mystery, 27:40.860 --> 27:46.020 National Security Advisor John Bolton and his deputy Charles Kupperman, are frustrated. 27:46.700 --> 27:50.860 They, too, had zeroed in on microwave weapons as a likely culprit. 27:51.860 --> 27:54.020 But things in the Trump administration shift dramatically. 27:54.980 --> 27:59.140 I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. 27:59.240 --> 27:59.920 That's rough. 28:00.420 --> 28:02.100 Bolton and Kupperman get canned. 28:02.340 --> 28:06.420 And I told him, John, I wish you well, but I'd like you to submit your resignation. 28:06.420 --> 28:07.400 And he did that. 28:07.860 --> 28:09.420 A new team comes in. 28:09.420 --> 28:13.240 A guy named Matt Pottinger becomes Deputy National Security Advisor. 28:13.860 --> 28:19.200 He's crucial in what happens next in the U.S. government's investigation into Havana syndrome. 28:20.300 --> 28:23.880 Pottinger decides he needs to pick up where Bolton and Kupperman left off. 28:23.880 --> 28:28.480 So he makes an effort to find out what else we can do, who else we can involve. 28:29.360 --> 28:32.240 And that's when he loops in the Pentagon and this guy. 28:32.700 --> 28:35.920 Dude, seriously, thanks for taking this subject on. 28:36.060 --> 28:37.000 And it's really important. 28:37.180 --> 28:41.220 So I normally don't do this shit because there's no upside. 28:41.360 --> 28:45.180 But just tell me to shut up when I start getting too long-winded and shit. 28:45.740 --> 28:49.540 I'm Chris Miller, career Special Forces officer. 28:49.540 --> 28:53.740 Miller had worked a variety of government and military jobs for decades. 28:54.380 --> 28:57.800 In late 2020, he was working for the White House National Security Council 28:57.800 --> 29:00.200 when he was suddenly thrust into a brand new job, 29:00.620 --> 29:03.740 one usually reserved for high-ranking political appointees 29:03.740 --> 29:06.300 that he was very much not prepared for. 29:06.800 --> 29:11.200 President Trump at the time decided to make a change at the Department of Defense. 29:11.640 --> 29:13.580 And Secretary Esper was asked to leave. 29:13.580 --> 29:17.260 And I came in to do that job for the final 73 days of the administration. 29:17.260 --> 29:23.140 So I was the acting Secretary of Defense for the final phase of the Trump administration. 29:23.460 --> 29:24.960 Like literally the last few months. 29:25.300 --> 29:27.600 But he comes in at a particularly intense time. 29:28.120 --> 29:29.980 This is right around the presidential election. 29:30.380 --> 29:32.880 But he soon learns about something else on his plate. 29:33.420 --> 29:34.020 Havana Syndrome. 29:34.580 --> 29:39.760 So just that curiosity, how did Havana Syndrome become something you were aware of? 29:40.140 --> 29:42.600 Well, I mean, great question, Adam. 29:42.600 --> 29:47.860 So I'm, you know, a nobody, and I read The New Yorker. 29:48.140 --> 29:54.880 And there was this article about the Havana Syndrome by this person I didn't even know at the time. 29:55.280 --> 29:58.080 Didn't give it a heck of a lot of thought, to tell you the truth. 29:58.080 --> 30:03.500 And lo and behold, I'm at the National Security Council in a job. 30:03.640 --> 30:11.320 And I start hearing very discreet, side-whispering meetings going on. 30:11.380 --> 30:18.920 And that it had to do with directed energy, whether it was to exploit communication devices or to attack people. 30:19.300 --> 30:22.680 And ka-ching went, I've read about this. 30:22.680 --> 30:29.100 There was some discussion that the radio frequency waves could be part of some sort of surveillance device gone wrong. 30:29.720 --> 30:35.300 That someone was aiming a device intended to collect data from diplomats and spies' cell phones and computers. 30:36.020 --> 30:41.520 But instead, perhaps accidentally, aimed the device at people's heads and zapped them. 30:42.380 --> 30:46.580 Miller gets much more involved once he gets his new job leading the Defense Department. 30:46.580 --> 30:52.880 He learns some surprising news, that these incidents have now spread to his area of jurisdiction. 30:53.320 --> 30:59.040 When I was at the Department of Defense, the person that had been at the National Security Council... 30:59.040 --> 31:03.580 He talks to a service member one day who shares that he'd had a bizarre experience overseas. 31:04.460 --> 31:09.220 ...who had been responsible for tracking these cases. 31:09.220 --> 31:20.000 He came to me one day and said, there's a Department of Defense employee that has suffered an attack. 31:21.000 --> 31:23.560 This incident occurred in the fall of 2020. 31:23.760 --> 31:30.880 The individual came in, and I spoke with him, and I listened to what he had to say. 31:30.880 --> 31:34.800 The Department of Defense employee was in a country with a large Russian presence. 31:35.300 --> 31:41.600 And he was driving with his two-year-old in the back seat when he had this sudden feeling that his head was going to explode. 31:42.600 --> 31:44.300 Then his son began screaming. 31:44.720 --> 31:50.460 As he continued driving through a busy intersection, the pain suddenly went away, and his son stopped screaming. 31:51.340 --> 31:57.220 I was asked not to report where exactly this happened, because there is a concern for the safety of the employee involved. 31:57.220 --> 32:03.360 But sources told me that they did figure out that there was a GRU vehicle close by at the time of the incident. 32:03.760 --> 32:05.320 That's Russian military intelligence. 32:05.740 --> 32:10.920 And he described it in this very clinical, military way. 32:11.540 --> 32:16.880 He used very specific terminology that resonated with me, which is being on the X. 32:17.260 --> 32:24.320 And being on the X is something that we were trained for to identify that when you're in an ambush, you're on the X. 32:24.320 --> 32:30.860 And the only requirement when you're on the X is to get off the X, because you're in the kill zone. 32:30.860 --> 32:38.480 And although he's being assaulted by this weapon system that he doesn't understand, he realized he was in the midst of an ambush. 32:38.480 --> 32:44.360 And he moved off the X, and the symptoms that he was experiencing, they just subsided. 32:44.360 --> 32:54.560 And when he described it that way, in a way that I, knuckle-dragger military guy, I was like, we have something here. 32:54.720 --> 32:58.140 And this isn't just some psychosomatic type thing. 32:58.540 --> 33:06.280 And I'm not criticizing anybody in the past, but when that occurred, it now became a Department of Defense issue. 33:06.380 --> 33:09.580 I couldn't just go, ah, it's a State Department thing or a CIA thing. 33:09.660 --> 33:12.240 It's now I own this as the Secretary of Defense. 33:12.240 --> 33:26.400 Who do you think, because the intelligence community had yet to identify a perpetrator or even identify a mode with which these injuries were being inflicted, what was your gut telling you about it? 33:27.220 --> 33:30.280 Completely noncommittal at that point. 33:30.540 --> 33:32.120 Let's follow the facts. 33:32.120 --> 33:38.300 The problem is that it's very difficult, and there's no smoking gun. 33:38.480 --> 33:43.620 But when you do the Venn diagram, it seemed pretty clear the Russians were involved. 33:44.400 --> 33:45.340 What's the Venn diagram? 33:46.140 --> 33:59.700 Well, when you lay on, when you do the signals intelligence, you do all the different intelligence aspects where the attack occurred, it obviously becomes, well, it's clearly not the Venezuelans. 33:59.700 --> 34:02.800 I mean, you know, you're like, they're not in that particular... 34:02.800 --> 34:10.080 Intelligence agencies knew that a Russian intelligence officer was there at the time of the incident because they used geolocation data. 34:11.020 --> 34:14.740 Good intelligence officers know that their cell phone can be tracked this way. 34:15.680 --> 34:18.100 This guy doesn't sound like a good intelligence officer. 34:19.660 --> 34:24.060 It's possible that he used his phone to call his girlfriend or to post on Instagram. 34:24.700 --> 34:25.620 We don't really know. 34:25.620 --> 34:28.480 But the Americans were able to identify his location. 34:29.280 --> 34:40.980 It's also around this time, in October 2020, that another person, a former very high-level CIA operative, goes public with his claim that he had a similar incident in his hotel room in Moscow. 34:40.980 --> 34:48.400 So that's now two new instances, with at least circumstantial evidence, that point to Russia's involvement. 34:48.800 --> 34:59.740 So when you start layering on all of the different intelligence and informational assets we have, the list of potential attackers gets really, really small. 35:00.520 --> 35:05.520 It's around this time that the White House National Security Council gets some long-sought news. 35:05.520 --> 35:11.400 The National Academies of Sciences had appointed an expert panel to investigate Havana syndrome. 35:12.220 --> 35:18.380 These are some of the country's top scientists, with access to key players, patients, and government agencies. 35:18.940 --> 35:21.980 By far the most authoritative report released thus far. 35:23.080 --> 35:29.920 And they essentially, in a heavily caveated way, back up the theory involving directed energy. 35:30.520 --> 35:33.440 At least for the cases that happen strictly in Havana. 35:33.440 --> 35:39.200 The most likely scenario, they say, is pulsed microwave energy. 35:40.080 --> 35:45.660 Not only that, but they make a point of saying that one country has been looking into this for a long time. 35:46.620 --> 35:47.100 Russia. 35:48.720 --> 35:50.540 Again, this was not surprising. 35:51.080 --> 35:55.300 The Cold War crew, Bolton and Kupperman, had been saying this for a long time. 35:55.640 --> 36:00.720 But this report was the first time that an unbiased party of experts was saying they agreed. 36:00.720 --> 36:04.900 The report dropped in December 2020. 36:05.900 --> 36:07.880 And the focus was now squarely on Russia. 36:08.800 --> 36:09.660 Chris Miller again. 36:10.060 --> 36:16.100 I was like, this actually makes a lot of sense to me, that this would be, you know, Cold War redux. 36:16.100 --> 36:24.340 And that's when the Pentagon decides it's going to muscle its way into the government's investigation of Havana Syndrome. 36:24.840 --> 36:34.640 At the end of the day, we have a moral, ethical obligation to make sure we recognize their sacrifices and take action and determine what actually happened. 36:34.640 --> 36:40.120 And let's be honest, the Department of Defense is the largest bureaucracy in the world. 36:40.120 --> 36:49.780 So I knew that by us becoming involved, it would gain more attention and, you know, would create momentum to do something. 36:51.220 --> 36:57.740 People at DOD propose kicking it up a notch, meaning respond to Russian intelligence with our own harassment. 36:57.740 --> 37:13.200 The concept that something that we might do might somehow trigger World War III is always the thing that's cited to me as why, like, you know, the Russians who have this escalatory ladder that's, they're willing to climb it much faster than we're willing to go up it. 37:14.140 --> 37:17.320 Is that something that you were finding you were confronting? 37:17.560 --> 37:21.620 Kind of the fear of the escalation that might come from the other side? 37:21.620 --> 37:26.180 Great question. Don't know. 37:27.280 --> 37:29.320 Let's be honest, we're dealing with bullies here. 37:29.980 --> 37:39.500 You know, when we're dealing with Iranians, we're dealing with the doggone Russians, when we're dealing with the Chinese, they're just, it's no different than the doggone school, you know, playground bully. 37:40.160 --> 37:45.300 Isn't it amazing that on something like this, like, there's just no breadcrumbs? 37:45.420 --> 37:50.400 I mean, the Russians are not, or whoever it is, usually are not that good at covering their tracks. 37:50.400 --> 37:53.820 Isn't it unusual that something would be this hard to crack? 37:54.220 --> 37:56.000 Some mysteries, you know, that are just really... 37:56.000 --> 37:58.040 Do you see my serious face? Do you see my serious face? 37:58.140 --> 37:59.260 The breadcrumbs are there, man. 37:59.700 --> 37:59.920 Yeah. 38:00.320 --> 38:02.520 The problem was we weren't paying attention. 38:03.240 --> 38:14.280 And the absolute power of the United States is when we actually start paying attention to something, we have a lot of resources to apply. 38:14.700 --> 38:15.920 We hadn't done that. 38:20.400 --> 38:22.380 Next time on Havana Syndrome. 38:24.320 --> 38:39.440 So I wanted to let you know that I had a meeting the other day with a source who told me that 25, roughly 24, 25, he believed CIA officers were hit in Vienna. 38:40.000 --> 38:41.520 Christ Almighty. Wow. 38:41.520 --> 39:06.900 Havana Syndrome is hosted and reported by Adam Entous and me, John Lee Anderson. 39:06.900 --> 39:13.000 It's produced and reported by Julia Nutter, Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, and Ramon Campos-Iriarte. 39:13.460 --> 39:18.040 And edited and executive produced by Annie Aviles and Kate Osborne. 39:18.280 --> 39:21.560 With original composition and sound design by Steve Bone. 39:21.560 --> 39:22.740 And he was just done growing up. 39:22.740 --> 39:44.700 And edited and discerned the feeling that art has become one of the best of gaining transport. 39:44.700 --> 40:14.680 Thank you.