The Underreported Cases of Civilians with "Havana Syndrome"

Civilians who claim to be affected by the illness do exist.

A screenshot from my Zoom call with Len Ber (left). My screen says “erica” because I was using my wife’s Zoom account.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for this publication about the latest U.S. intelligence report on “Havana Syndrome”, a mysterious illness that many people believe is caused by some sort of directed energy weapon. In that piece, I lauded the intelligence report’s conclusion, which was that the syndrome is not caused by attacks from a foreign government. I explained that, while I usually distrust anything that comes from the intelligence community, this latest report goes against what appears to be an obvious interest of theirs. Namely, the ability to attribute the so-called attacks to governments of countries like Russia, China, Cuba, or any other nation caught in the crosshairs of the U.S. empire.

The New Intelligence Report on "Havana Syndrome"

When I wrote that article, the only alleged victims of “Havana Syndrome” I had heard of were all U.S. officials of some kind. That, along with the attempts to blame it on foreign governments the U.S. tends to view adversarially, led me to perceive “Havana Syndrome” as little more than propaganda to help manufacture consent for any current or future escalations the U.S. empire might inflict on those countries. I did not know that there are civilians who also claim to be affected by the illness.

In my article, I stated that “I wouldn’t be all that surprised to find out that a major power has some kind of technology that’s capable of causing the sort of symptoms that have been reported”. However, because I thought that “the only people who experience ‘Havana Syndrome’ are U.S. spooks and diplomats or their family members” I was skeptical of the overall narrative. I didn’t mention this in my first piece on this topic (perhaps I should have) but if I had known of civilian cases, I would've been much more inclined to believe this mysterious syndrome actually exists in some capacity. I said almost exactly that in a text exchange I had with a family member the night I published that article:

Text exchange I had with a family member about why I distrust many theories about “Havana Syndrome”

After sharing that piece on social media, it gained a decent amount of traction (at least according to my humble expectations). Much of the feedback I received was at least somewhat critical, ranging from people pointing me to stories of civilian cases and other evidence to support the idea that someone is behind this phenomenon to much harsher criticisms including someone telling me I'm basically a shill for the CIA.

https://twitter.com/OutlawHacking/status/1633084141611745281

One person who responded to my article on Twitter was Leonid “Len” Ber, a physician who was born in the former Soviet Union and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He currently works in the regulatory field but has recently gone on medical leave. Len was diagnosed with Acquired Neurosensory Dysfunction, or “Havana Syndrome”, by Dr. Michael Hoffer of the University of Miami — the same doctor that diagnosed 25 U.S. diplomats from the cohort who first started experiencing symptoms of the mysterious illness in 2016 at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba.

There are hundreds of alleged cases of “Havana Syndrome” that have been used for recent intelligence reports, most of which were concluded to be due to other causes. The reports have been unable to find alternate explanations for those 25 cases, however.

“You state that this phenomenon only affects diplomats and spies,” Len tweeted in response to my article. “Not true. There are diagnosed cases of #HavanaSyndrome among civilians, but they are not being reported.”

https://twitter.com/PSardonicus/status/1632623658400202752

[Note: I wanted to embed Len’s actual tweet, as well as every other tweet included in this article, rather than just sharing screenshots. However, due to the ongoing conflict between Twitter and Substack, I was unable to.]

Len’s response piqued my interest. After looking into his story and reading some of his articles on Substack, I decided to reach out to him. I asked him over Twitter if he would be willing to have a conversation with me about his experience and if I could use that discussion to write a follow-up article to my original piece, to which he agreed. In the days leading up to our conversation, which occurred over Zoom, I watched a couple of interviews that Len had given previously to better familiarize myself with his story. In those interviews and during my own discussion with him, Len came across as genuine (at least in my opinion).

Len explained to me that some of his symptoms are consistent with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), but since his condition wasn’t caused by blunt-force trauma, his situation is more accurately categorized under Unconventionally Acquired Brain Injury (UBI).

“TBI is synonymous with concussion,” Len said. I responded by agreeing that if he hasn’t hit his head in some way then his symptoms are obviously not due to a concussion, which shows how TBI isn’t an accurate description of his condition. “It is a brain injury it’s just not traumatic, it’s not from a mechanical trauma,” Len continued. He went on to explain that “in the military medicine there’s actually a term called UBI” which is “associated with directed energy.”

During Len’s ongoing effort to try to find an explanation for his symptoms, the possibility that they’re a sign of some sort of psychiatric disorder has also been ruled out, which leaves the question of the cause unanswered.

Len told me his symptoms occur on a near daily basis, often several times a day. In fact, at the beginning of our Zoom call, Len told me he had experienced an “attack” earlier that day. (During our discussion he referred to his episodes as “attacks”, implying that there is someone behind them.)

In one of the interviews I mentioned earlier, Len describes his symptoms as something that started “out of the blue” which includes “noises and sounds that nobody could hear”. They also include “ringing in the ear” as well as a “painful, debilitating” feeling, as if “something grabs you and vibrates you like a tuning fork” that “starts suddenly and disappears suddenly” leaving him “confused” and “disoriented”.

Len’s symptoms are similar to that of the various kinds that have been reported by U.S. spies and diplomats. In the case of strange ringing noises, a report by the JASON advisory group from 2018 concluded with “high confidence” that the noise that people were experiencing in the U.S. Embassy in Havana was likely caused by a local species of cricket. That conclusion was used by many skeptics of “Havana Syndrome” — myself included — to portray the syndrome as mere propaganda rather than anything else, and that the diplomats and spies who supposedly suffered from the illness were either lying or had convinced themselves they were the victims of a non-existent directed energy attack from a foreign government.

After hearing about Len’s situation and others like it, I’ve come to view the conclusion from the JASON report differently. To me, it now appears that the report could’ve been used to explain away something the intelligence community wants to keep hidden, and Americans who do believe that the syndrome is caused by a directed energy weapon have had their focus turned toward the Russian or Chinese governments rather than our own. If our intelligence agencies manipulated these reports to cover something up, that would imply that our own government is complicit in whatever may be causing this mysterious illness.

However, as is the case with most lies our government tells us, there may be a shred of truth in the reports that seem to debunk some of the theories about “Havana Syndrome”. I still believe it’s entirely possible that many people who claim to be victims of the illness are either lying or there are other explanations for their ailments, whether they’re real or imagined.

Maybe crickets were responsible for some of the noises that were reportedly heard by those at the U.S. Embassy in Havana back in 2016, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that crickets explain every single case. For the cases that aren’t currently able to be explained, crickets might be a convenient cover story, especially if there really is some truth behind that explanation.

After being diagnosed by Dr. Hoffer, Len’s case was referred to Dr. James Giordano, who is a professor and Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at Georgetown University, and who also has ties to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Last year, Dr. Giordano forwarded Len’s case to the Department of Defense (DOD), but Len claims they have yet to look into it.

https://twitter.com/PSardonicus/status/155962817089830912

It’s not just the DOD either. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has also refused to investigate Len’s case, despite claiming that “Havana Syndrome” is a “top priority” in 2021. Len told me that after his diagnosis, he reached out to his representatives in Congress who then got in contact with the FBI on his behalf.

“When I got diagnosed I went to my congresswoman, to my House of Representatives, they assign people to handle my case, basically to beg the FBI to investigate,” Len said. He went on to say that they received a “standard response” in which the FBI claimed they were unable to investigate the case because there isn’t a clear violation of federal law that can be tied to it.

In one of the responses to my original article on “Havana Syndrome”, someone on Twitter actually posted what appears to be a copy of the letter that Len’s senator received from the FBI:

https://twitter.com/JustEenBierger/status/1632991452698497025

When it comes to alleged cases of “Havana Syndrome” that go underreported and underinvestigated, Len pointed out to me that it’s not just civilian cases but any domestic case in general. The focus seems to instead be on instances that have purportedly occurred overseas, which helps to promote the idea that these supposed attacks are caused by a foreign government.

“They don’t even want to acknowledge any domestic cases at all,” Len said. “The government actually does not, in their reports, they don’t mention any domestic cases.”

This isn’t just true for intelligence reports and much of the media coverage about “Havana Syndrome”. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the bipartisan Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, which provides compensation — at taxpayer expense — to those who claim to be victims of the illness, but only if those supposed victims work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or the Department of State.

According to CNN:

The legislation requires the CIA and the State Department to create regulations “detailing fair and equitable criteria for payment” to victims suffering from traumatic brain injuries. It also requires reports to Congress about how the agencies are using their new funding authorities, including the number of employees and dependents who received payments.

So not only are civilians excluded from the legislation, but it doesn’t even cover all government employees and service members, such as those who work for the Pentagon or the FBI. It seems a little odd to me that the only people covered by the HAVANA Act are the type of government agents whose jobs often require them to be overseas, meanwhile, civilians and many other federal employees are denied payment.

The fact that the U.S. spies and diplomats who claim to be victims of “Havana Syndrome” are entitled to compensation is one of the reasons I was skeptical of this syndrome even existing. As I wrote in my previous article, it “creates a financial incentive for people to claim to be victims of this conveniently mysterious phenomenon.” When it comes to Len’s case though, that financial incentive is absent, which in my opinion lends more credibility to his claim.

There are other civilians who claim to suffer from “Havana Syndrome” as well. Len told me about an organization called Targeted Justice, “the world’s leading information resource for Targeted Individuals” according to their website. (It should be noted that Len is on their advisory board.) Recently, Targeted Justice filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the FBI, of which Len is a plaintiff.

The lawsuit alleges that many people who claim to be victims of directed energy attacks, or “targeted individuals”, are also on an expansive watchlist that was created via executive order by former President George W. Bush in 2003, and requests that the names of the 17 plaintiffs be taken off of the list. While there’s no concrete evidence that being on that list affects whether someone ends up experiencing symptoms of “Havana Syndrome” or not, the plaintiffs are hoping that the removal of their names from the list will at least yield some positive results, based on the notion that there is at least a correlation between that list and individuals who claim to be “targeted”.

The watchlist, the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), is ostensibly a tool to track suspected terrorists, but according to a post Targeted Justice put on Substack, 97 percent of the people on the TSDB are what’s known as “Non-Investigative Subjects” who likely have no connection to terrorism in any way.

(I haven’t been able to confirm that number, but the idea that the vast majority of people on a government watchlist don’t deserve to be on it is not hard for me to believe.)

Many people might hear about someone being on such a list and immediately assume that person must be involved in some kind of criminal or terrorist activity, but those same people would probably be surprised to learn that the criteria for ending up on a watchlist are far broader than they should be. Whether or not there is actually a connection between “targeted individuals” and the TSDB, as Targeted Justice’s lawsuit alleges, the erosion of our civil liberties in the name of combatting “terrorism” is still a problem all its own.

Len told me that all 17 plaintiffs claim their symptoms have gotten worse since the lawsuit was filed.

As I’ve previously mentioned, one of the symptoms Len and other supposed victims of “Havana Syndrome” claim to experience is hearing a ringing sound and other noises. For some, including Len, that can also include hearing voices. Len referred to this phenomenon as V2K (Voice to Skull), and various forms of it have been reported over the years. Whether technology like that is really used for experimentation on unsuspecting citizens or not, there are versions of it that exist that are considered nonlethal means of crowd control.

In Len’s appearance on the Koncrete podcast (one of the interviews he gave which I cited earlier in this article), he was joined by Robert Duncan, a scientist from Harvard and M.I.T. who worked for DARPA and the CIA. During that interview, Duncan mentioned a couple of examples of mass shootings in which the shooters claimed to be the victims of directed energy attacks, and he alluded to the idea that those attacks, which possibly included V2K, may have been what drove the shooters to do what they did.

One of those shootings occurred at Florida State University back in 2014. According to NBC News, the shooter had posted in a “targeted individual” Facebook group asking if anyone had been “encouraged by your handler to kill with a promise of freedom” about a week before he committed the shooting.

If there is any truth to the idea that our own government is conducting experiments using directed energy attacks and using V2K technology to the point that it drives people — or in some instances, actively encourages them — to commit acts of mass violence, the ramifications of such an ugly reality would be difficult for many people to cope with.

While I have no hard evidence to explain what “Havana Syndrome” is or if it’s really the result of a coordinated effort to experiment on unsuspecting civilians, it’s not like we lack historical precedent for such heinous activity from our own government. The most notorious example of such nonconsensual experimentation is MK-Ultra, but there are others.

I asked Len what he thinks is the cause of his symptoms and he told me he believes it’s a form of nonconsensual experimentation. At a different point in our conversation, Len said “MK-Ultra never ended it just went underground and now it’s more vicious,” and I can’t help but feel as if there’s a dark truth to that statement.

I don’t know what causes “Havana Syndrome” and all the other symptoms experienced by those who claim to be “targeted individuals”, but if they truly are being attacked by some sort of directed energy weapon I would not be surprised at all to learn that our government is involved. Even if other governments such as Russia and China have similar technology — and if we have it, chances are, they have it as well — I’m sad to say that I would still suspect our own government before I would suspect a foreign one.

I still believe that much of the official narrative about “Havana Syndrome” that has been pushed by politicians, the media, and members of the intelligence community is based on lies and falsehoods and is meant to propagandize the American public against foreign governments outside of the U.S. empire. After speaking with Len Ber and looking into other civilian cases, however, I now think that the rabbit hole goes much deeper than I originally thought. The underreported civilian cases of “Havana Syndrome” deserve far more attention than they currently receive, and those who do pay attention to them need a critical eye to see through any lies and manipulation that might be put out there to muddy the waters.

Whatever the truth about this mysterious illness ends up being — if we ever even get to know — I hope it’s at least possible for Len and others like him to find some sort of relief from their torment.

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