Havana Syndrome is a mystery, but not of physics

Physicists have good reason to rule out a microwave weapon because such a thing has never been demonstrated. (Representative Image: Reuters)

An exotic microwave weapon is the most exciting and attention-grabbing explanation for Havana Syndrome — a suite of neurological symptoms that has been afflicting people in the US diplomatic and intelligence services since 2016. But a new report by US intelligence agencies says there’s no credible evidence that those health problems are tied to microwave weapons or any other sort of attack by a foreign adversary.

Yet it’s hard to know what to believe because the latest report adds to a batch of conflicting findings from respectable research teams. In 2020, the National Academies of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering concluded that a microwave weapon was the most likely cause of Havana Syndrome, while a prestigious group of scientific advisers called JASON called it “highly unlikely” in a 2018 report.

The first case involved a US undercover agent in Havana, who, in November of 2016, heard a piercing noise and developed a permanent ringing in his ears and some hearing loss. He started suffering other health problems, as did some of his colleagues, though each case was different. After the number of victims grew to more than 20, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania scanned their brains and performed a neurological workup. The results were ambiguous — the Penn researchers claimed a fine-grained MRI showed subtle differences between the people with the syndrome and a control group, but other neurologists pointed out the result was consistent with the normal variation between brains.

The symptoms described by 1,500 people with Havana Syndrome symptoms, though — including tinnitus, dizziness, headaches, insomnia and brain fog — seem very real. So how do we know which explanation is most likely to be accurate?

One way to sort through the different conclusions is to look at the different fields of science involved — physics, neurology and psychology. We know far more about how microwaves work than we do about our own brains.

Physicists have good reason to rule out a microwave weapon because such a thing has never been demonstrated. Microwaves are extremely well-understood — they act predictably according to the laws of physics. And the laws of physics dictate that such a weapon couldn’t zap internal damage directly into people’s brains without causing external burns.

There may be a couple of misunderstandings about microwaves that are clouding the debate. Retired Los Alamos chemist Cheryl Rofer, writing in Foreign Policy in 2021, calls microwave weapons “wildly impractical.” It’s a myth, she wrote, that microwave ovens cook food from the inside outward — and this misconception could feed into the belief that microwaves could be secretly beamed into people’s heads to cause brain damage.

The microwaves emitted in ovens are absorbed by water, which is present in food, and turned into heat. That causes food to get hot, from the outside in, which Rofer points out should be obvious to anyone who has tried to defrost meat. Similarly, a microwave weapon would burn the outside of your head long before it would cook cells on the inside.

Another point against the microwave weapon theory is a large body of research conducted over decades on the safety of exposure to military radar equipment, power lines, mobile phones and WiFi. Bioengineering professor Ken Foster of the University of Pennsylvania started conducting such studies for the Navy in the 1970s. When I interviewed him for this 2018 column, he told me he found that microwaves can stimulate the cochlea and cause people to hear a clicking sound — something called the Frey effect. He tested this on himself.

The Frey effect was the prime suspect, according to a panel assembled by the National Academy of Sciences, but Foster says this panel was mostly medical doctors and didn’t include physicists with the right expertise. He says this effect would not be able to cause internal damage without also causing external damage.

But although we understand a lot about microwaves, we know a lot less about the mind and the brain. Other neurological phenomena are similar to Havana Syndrome.

That’s the main area of study for neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, and when I interviewed her about Havana Syndrome for this 2021 column, she said it’s not uncommon for what she calls psychogenic illness to cause paralysis, even put people into comas.

She also thinks Havana Syndrome is a real disorder. It’s not about being crazy, she said. It’s known that the mind can help influence the experience of pain and other symptoms.

Doctors can influence the mind’s effect on an illness. If they tell you your illness is common and many others find ways to function normally with it, it’s a lot easier to work toward recovery than if they say the condition is rare or unique and debilitating.

Havana Syndrome is real, and it’s scientifically interesting even if the wildest explanation isn’t the best one. Studying the problem further could lead to a deeper understanding of the interaction between body, brain and mind — something we still know far too little about.

Faye Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.

Credit: Bloomberg