U.S. government officials have doubted the stories of those suffering from an Anomalous Health Incident (AHI), sometimes called Havana Syndrome; but a portable pulsating microwave weapon discovered in a Russian criminal network may indicate a legitimate cause.
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U.S. diplomats, spies and military officers have suffered crippling nervous system-related injuries since at least 2016, and possibly earlier in the 1990s. Although a cause of the injuries has not been conclusively determined, pulsating microwave energy had been suspected as a possibility in 2020. Yesterday, CBS 60 Minutes presented a more recent development. On Sunday, March 8, 2026, CBS 60 Minutes reported that mission-directed U.S. agents who investigate illicit arms dealers heard that a Russian criminal network was selling a microwave weapon. According to CBS 60 Minutes, undercover agents of the Department of Homeland Security bought the microwave weapon in 2024. According to CBS 60 Minutes, the mission was funded by the Pentagon at a cost of $15 million.
Also, according to CBS 60 Minutes confidential sources, the microwave weapon is portable, concealable, low power, non-heat generating, silent, programmable for different rapid pulse scenarios, and remote control-operated with an energy range of several hundred feet that can penetrate windows and drywall. There is also video security captured that shows U.S. officials being apparently attacked by the weapon in Istanbul and Vienna with the associated physiological effects. Other possible victim locations reported are a home in Northern Virginia; CIA headquarters in Virginia; the White House in Washington D.C.; Guangzhou, China; and Havana, Cuba.
According to CBS 60 Minutes, the classified weapon obtained from the Russian criminal network, and now possessed by the U.S. military, was tested on animals in a U.S. military lab with physiological effects similar to reports from real world human victims.
Effects Studied, Such a Weapon was Suspected
A medical paper published by Microbiology and Immunology Professor Dr. David A. Relman and Public Health Physician Dr. Julie A. Pavlin in December 2020, indicated that in late 2016, U.S. Embassy personnel in Havana, Cuba began to report the development of an unusual set of symptoms and clinical signs, including a sudden onset of a loud noise with a directional component, pain in one or both ears, or across a broad region of the head, and in some cases a sensation of head pressure or vibration, and dizziness, followed in some cases by tinnitus, visual problems, vertigo, and cognitive difficulties.
Additionally, personnel attached to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, reported similar symptoms and signs to varying degrees, beginning in 2017.
As of June 2020, many of these personnel continue to suffer from these and/or other health problems.
The Department of State asked the National Academies of Science to review the cases, their clinical features and management, epidemiologic investigations, and scientific evidence in support of possible causes, and advise on approaches for the investigation of potential future cases. In the resulting medical paper titled An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies, the committee identifies distinctive clinical features, considers possible causes, evaluates plausible mechanisms and rehabilitation efforts, and offers recommendations for future planning and responses. As of 2020, evidence and hypotheses had not produced a conclusive cause. However, the committee felt that the acute symptoms were more consistent with a directed radio frequency (RF) energy attack, compared to chemical agents, infectious agents, or psycho/social stress.
The committee also discovered that there was significant research in Russia/USSR into the effects of pulsed, rather than continuous wave (CW) RF exposures because the reactions to pulsed and CW RF energy at equal time-averaged intensities yielded substantially different results that determines the biological effects of low-intensity RF emissions. In other words, focused pulsating energy might have a greater detrimental effect on human electro-physiological systems such as the nervous system, the neuromuscular system, and contractile and pacing elements of the cardiovascular system.
Michael Beck, a former National Security Agency (NSA) officer, alleged that a 1996 incident in a classified “hostile country” involving a directed-energy, microwave-based weapon caused him to develop Parkinson’s disease. A 2014 NSA letter confirmed U.S. intelligence indicating a foreign power used such weapons to damage the nervous systems of personnel.
— Guardian: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s
— NPR/kpbs: Long before Havana Syndrome, the U.S. reported microwaves beamed at an embassy
“The National Security Agency confirms that there is intelligence information from 2012 associating the hostile country [CLASSIFIED] to which Mr. Beck traveled in the late 1990s, with a high-powered microwave system weapon that may have the ability to weaken, intimidate, or kill an enemy over time and without leaving evidence. The 2012 intelligence information indicated that this weapon is designed to bathe a target’s living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a damaged nervous system. The National Security Agency has no evidence that such a weapon, if it existed, and if it was associated with the hostile country in the late 1990s, was or was not used against Mr. Beck.”
— National Security Agency (Unclassified//For Official Use Only) Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, October 16, 2014
Referring to Research from Dr. Relman’s National Academies of Science Study Published December 5, 2020
And what the Russians spoke about was the importance of the energy being pulsed in order to have biological effects on humans. When you produce pulses like this, you can actually stimulate electrically active tissue like brain tissue and the heart, for that matter, mimicking what the brain normally does, but now you’re driving it with your pulses from the outside.
The official word from the National Intelligence Council in March 2023 indicates and still maintains it is “very unlikely these are attacks from a foreign adversary.”
Reported Signs and Symptoms
vice-like pain in neck
disorientation
dizzy
spinal muscle cramping
spinal muscle burning
convulsion
extreme pain
shoulder pain
osteolysis
right ear
severe ear pain
intense pressure in temples
piercing headache
See 60 Minutes Report Sun. March 8, 2026
CBS 60 Minutes: U.S. military tested device that may be tied to Havana Syndrome on rats, sheep, confidential sources say
