Last night I didn't sleep so well. I received texts from a contact, texts he had forwarded from a Signal channel to which I did not have access. The texts were from a variety of people describing symptoms from anomalous health indicients (AHI) otherwise known as Havana syndrome. The name AHI took on a twisted new meaning, and the symptoms hit home.
Havana syndrome takes its name from the first widely reported cases originating in Havana, Cuba, among the American diplomatic community. It seems it started as odd, somewhat painful sounds in the night that left individuals in pain, suffering from headaches, confusion, buzzing and ringing in their ears, nausea, dizziness, distorted and blurred vision. Members of the diplomatic mission pieced together that is was something they were suffering together, not alone,and Havana Syndrome was born. The State Department and U.S. executive branch dismissed it as a species of cricket native to Cuba, their night chorus of vibrating legs creating oddly pitched sounds which drove home the adverse effects. The cases kept coming, expanding to China, Russia, Austria, the USA. Affected individuals expanded outward to include the Departments of Commerce and Defence, CIA, staffers at the White House. The Executive Branch dismissed it as a type of mass hysteria.
Foreign service officers like myself speculated Havana syndrome was caused by a type of sonic attack deployed by Russian or Chinese agents against U.S. diplomats, military personnel, and spies. It turns out we were not completely wrong. Russia developed a microwave weapon, reduced its size and energy needs so that it can be carried in a bag by a single individual. It targets one or two people, microwaves hitting them and causing the odd sounds inside their heads and an array of side effects. Probably the USA has similar weapons. The government still does not acknowledge this is happening.
In 2021 my wife, kids and I visited the touristy town of Sapa on the edge of the mountainous border of Vietnam and China. Vietnam's highest point, Mount Fancy Pants, rises above the town, which is a collection of Vietnamese resorts and their accompany infrastructure surround by indigenous mountain villages of Hmong. It's very picturesque and a major tourist draw for Vietnamese and smattering of international tourists. It's also isolated, accessible by one decent two-lane road which twists in hair-pin turns for perhaps 20 miles from the valley floor containing the main branch of the Red River, where a major highway goes from Hanoi into China. The drive from Hanoi to Sapa takes around 4-6 hours depending on the car and driver.
Why am I concerned about location and drive times? I have to wonder if and why a foreign adversary hit me in Sapa with a microwave gun. Was I even hit? If yes, was it there, and why the hell there? Maximum suffering for me and amusement for my attacker?
We stayed in a small hotel popular with guests from the U.S. Embassy, not too far from town, perched on a steep hillside. We spent a pleasant afternoon hiking the hillsides, marveling at the views that became ever more enveloped by clouds, talked to water buffalo, ducks, and puppy dogs, watches Hmong travel up and down the road in their traditional clothing. They were poor and seemed to put all of their value into their beautifully crafted clothing. We had an excellent dinner at the little hotel, which is famous for its cooking, sat around a wood burning stove and played card games as the hotel became completely encased in thick fog. My wife and I had a room, our two daughters another. It's hard to say if they were on a ground floo;, the site was so steep, but the rooms faced directly onto the valley. Either a sidewalk or balcony passed in front of them. I'll have to review the pictures my wife took.
Sometime in the night I woke. Something woke me. It wasn't a noise. I opened my eyes and felt the world spinning around me in the darkness. It was not a lazy spin, but fast, akin to being on a carousel. I felt ill and squeezed my eyes shut, tried to make the feeling go away. Lay there, frozen. It wouldn't stop. I'd never felt anything like it. In the dim light of dawn I opened my eyes again. Shit. The room was spinning around me. I can barely write about this without seeing and feeling that spinning room. I felt the the need to get to the bathroom, stepped out of bed, was flung to the floor. I crawled to the bathroom, everything still spinning, vomiting along the way, vomiting in the toilet. I was going to shit my pants next so hauled myself onto the toilet and was thrown violently off, sliding across the tiles of the bathroom floor, shitting myself a little and vomiting again.
So they day continued, but I figured out if I held my head and my gaze still, then the spinning stopped. Movement of any kind sent my world spinning violently again. Sometimes the spinning started again on its own, but not as crazy as when I moved my head or gaze. Closing mt eyes started the spinning again. I imagine it felt like being in rolling car crash. I've never been in one, but there is no other way to describe this feeling. I could not figure out what was happening to me. I'll save the answer for later. I still didn't know. it was horrifying. My wife thought I had food poisoning from fish we had eaten the night before, so she took the girls out to see one of the Hmong villages.
I am exhausted and will save the rest of this for another post.
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