Three soldiers (far right) carry karnyxes, long horns with frightening boar-headed mouths that produce eerie calls during battle.
Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Since antiquity people have harnessed sound as a weapon, and the practice continues – in new high-tech ways – today.
In late 2016, people working and living in the embassy district of Havana, including at the U.S. Embassy seen here, began hearing strange sounds before getting sick.
AP Photo/Desmond Boylan
Robert Baloh, University of California, Los Angeles
Havana syndrome has spread to government officials around the world and stumped doctors for years. Despite news of mysterious attacks, evidence suggests mass psychogenic illness may be the true cause.
A television reporter reacts to being hit by a heat ray during a demonstration of the U.S. military’s Active Denial System.
Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images
Electromagnetic beams of the right power and wavelength can cause pain and zap electronics. Could they also be used to disrupt a person’s nervous system?
Several countries are developing microwave weapons, like this U.S. Air Force system designed to knock down drones by frying their electronics.
AFRL Directed Energy Directorate
High-power microwave weapons are useful for disabling electronics. A new report says they ‘plausibly explain’ some ailments suffered by US diplomats and CIA agents in Cuba, China and other countries.
A neuro-otologist at the University of Miami reported “central vestibular” (inner ear) findings in 36 per cent of American diplomats and their families affected by Havana syndrome.
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