The mysterious set of symptoms known as “Havana syndrome” was not caused by an energy weapon or foreign adversary, US intelligence has concluded.
The assessment concludes a multi-year investigation into approximately 1,000 “anomalous health incidents” (AHIs) among US diplomats, spies and other employees in US embassies and missions around the world.
Victims reported brain injuries, hearing loss, vertigo and strange auditory sensations, among other symptoms. Many suspected they had been victims of a targeted attack using some kind of directed energy weapon.
Of the seven intelligence agencies that undertook the investigation, five determined that “available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents”, according to an unclassified version of the report released on Wednesday by the House intelligence committee. Those five agencies deemed foreign adversary involvement “very unlikely”. One considered it “unlikely” and one declined to state a conclusion.
The findings were first reported by the Washington Post.
The assessment involved a painstaking effort to analyze syndrome cases for patterns that could link them, as well as a search, using forensics and geolocation data, for evidence of a directed energy weapon, unnamed officials told the Post.
“There was nothing,” one official said.
The officials told the Post they were open to new evidence that a foreign adversary had developed an energy weapon, but did not believe Russia or any other adversary was involved in these cases.
According to the AP, which was briefed on the assessment on Wednesday, in some cases the US was able to detect confusion and suspicion among adversarial governments who thought reports of the syndrome might be some kind of US plot.
The intelligence agencies “judge that there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon