[polemic]

Maybe you've answered your own question. Directed-energy weapson exist - but the agencies that would have developed this particular capability have said that it isn't possible or doesn't match the reported symptoms. It would be fairly surprising if, between them, they didn't already have a wealth of research on the topic.

It's hard to say what the reality is though - e.g. maybe they didn't want to reveal an existing capabilty.

[arthurcolle]

Intelligence agencies minimizing effects of deployed secret technology, that would be a first

[DoctorOetker]

I don't like the false dilemma of "either a directed-energy weapon, or mass hysteria".

I think we should at least consider hydrogen cyanide, especially given that a known adversary (Iran / IRGC) has claimed that Mahsa Amini killed herself with cyanide, whereas the video imagery show 2 government employees simultaneously turning their back before she faints and starts collapsing, indicating prior knowledge of what would happen. They also like to take a step or 2 away of any diluting plume they seem to know to be poisonous (presumably hydrogen cyanide).

It looks like either dosage testing, or training for possibly foreign operations.

See my analysis at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42690702

[gonzo41]

Directed energy weapons already exist, they are called guns and rifles. Sci-fi electro weapons don't make practical sense. If you want to secretly kill someone, just get them drunk and have them have a car crash. This is spy stuff 101.

Havana Syndrome always struck me like they had people working too close to a secret transmitter by accident.

[antonvs]

> Sci-fi electro weapons don't make practical sense.

We all have fairly compact devices in our kitchens which, if you were to put your head in them and press the start button, would literally cook your brain.

Why wouldn’t a directed version of that make practical sense? Just because it’d be bulky compared to a gun? But that would depend on what you were trying to achieve. Killing people with polonium or ricin isn’t the most efficient approach either, but it’s been done.

Note that I’m not saying that’s what happened in the Havana case. Just questioning the statement I quoted.

[silverquiet]

It's weird to me to think that you could beam hundreds to thousands of watts of some sort of energy at an American embassy and not be detected. That's what has always made it seem rather outlandish. My suspicion has always been some sort of burnout/anxiety as the actual explanation, but certainly there could be another possibility.

[antonvs]

Again, I wasn’t proposing this is what happened in the Havana case. It’s not clear to me that what happened in Havana wasn’t just a panic of some sort, much like the recent drone panic. If it were some sort of attack, it raises a lot of questions about what the purpose was, why Cuba, why we haven’t seen anything like it since, why all the victims of the attack are still walking around attending meetings in Washington DC, etc.

That all said, I still don’t see why a microwave beam weapon is implausible in principle. It might not be the most practical thing ever - that’s why I compared it to polonium and ricin. But for example, using a parabolic reflector you can focus microwaves over the kind of distance between two buildings perhaps across the street from each other. If the beam only has a diameter of a few feet at the target, and only used for a short period, how is that going to be detected? You’d aim it at someone’s head visible through a window, for example, and the source of the beam could be behind a closed window with a curtain.

Btw this subthread seems to have been removed from the OP page at this point, apparently because the comment I replied to was flagged.