Havana Syndrome: An Unsolved Mystery and Allegations of a Cover-Up

Dozens of CIA officers have been afflicted by debilitating symptoms over the past decade. Are they the result of "mass hysteria"? Or of attacks with directed-energy weapons — and if so, who is responsible? And has there been a cover-up? These questions continue to haunt US intelligence and scientists alike as Havana syndrome remains fiercely disputed.

In early April 2019, a CIA officer stationed in London woke suddenly in his hotel room with the most excruciating headache of his life. Soaked in sweat, he felt as though his eyes were spinning in their sockets. He tried to get out of bed and reach the bathroom, but his sense of balance vanished. He collapsed back onto the bed and drifted into fitful sleep. The next morning, at a work meeting, he could not recall the names of colleagues he had known for years. At first he assumed it was a strange bout of food poisoning. But weeks later, troubling symptoms persisted: brain fog, loss of balance and worsening tinnitus.

By September he felt better and traveled to Poland on assignment. In a Warsaw hotel room, he was again jolted awake by a ferocious headache — even worse than in London. He described the sensation as "someone standing on my head and repeatedly hitting it with a baseball bat." Two hours later the pain returned, and he began to suspect an external attack. He slid onto the floor and curled up, and the pain eased somewhat. It was the last time he experienced the feeling of being "attacked," but he went on to endure chronic neuropathic pain, fatigue and other serious health problems for years.

Sources describe the man as a senior CIA officer recently assigned to an important post involving global operations against Russia. At the time, he knew only vaguely of stories that had emerged from Cuba two years earlier — US diplomats who believed they might have been targeted with an acoustic weapon. Those incidents, in which people reported hearing unusual sounds, feeling pressure and pain, followed by symptoms lasting for years, became known as Havana syndrome, after the city where the first reports surfaced.

Subsequently, dozens of CIA officers around the world reported episodes of Havana syndrome, officially termed "anomalous health incidents" (AHIs). Many believe AHIs are the work of a Russian intelligence campaign to injure or intimidate American spies with an unknown weapon emitting ultrasound or pulsed microwaves. The theory, however, has met strong resistance. Some scientists insist the idea of a portable weapon capable of inflicting such injuries belongs to science fiction. They argue many different conditions can cause pain, dizziness and cognitive problems.

Other experts suggest AHIs could stem from environmental factors, toxins — or even crickets. Some at the CIA have even accused those affected of faking illness to obtain medical compensation. Disagreements over the cause of Havana syndrome have produced bitter feuds and fractured friendships inside the agency.

In 2022, a scientific panel convened by the US government concluded that "the signs and symptoms of AHIs are real and compelling" and "may be caused by external stimuli." But a year later, a long-awaited report delivered the official assessment of the US intelligence community: "Available intelligence consistently indicates that no US adversary was involved in causing the reported incidents." The report concluded it was "very unlikely" a Russian campaign was behind AHIs.

Yet the mystery of Havana syndrome has refused to die. This summer, the 2023 "very unlikely" assessment was rescinded by Donald Trump's outgoing director of national intelligence, who alleged it rested on flawed analysis. Now, a decade after the first reports from Havana, two CBS journalists who have followed the story from the start are about to publish a book presenting evidence that Russia was behind at least some of the incidents. The book also alleges that parts of the US government and intelligence community covered up evidence.

David Relman, a Stanford professor who chaired the official 2022 scientific panel on Havana syndrome, told the Guardian he believes a small subset of AHI cases "can best be explained by exposure to pulsed microwave energy." His panel had access to patient records and more than 1,000 classified documents on the subject. "To any reasonable person reviewing all the evidence I can see, it inevitably leads to the conclusion that there may have been a cover-up," he said.

Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados are longtime producers for CBS's 60 Minutes. They covered the Obama administration's policy of restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015, and when reports emerged the following year about a mysterious condition affecting staff at the reopened embassy in Havana, they reached out to a senior US diplomat who had served there. "I expected him to say: 'This is nonsense,'" Zill recalled. "But he said: 'Oh no, this is absolutely real. And I can introduce you to some of the people who were affected.'"

The two spoke with more than a dozen of them, but as they prepared to publish, more reports emerged of similar cases among US diplomats in China. Then came rumors of other locations worldwide. When the first 60 Minutes segments on the subject aired, victims began contacting the producers. Many of the new sources were CIA officers who could not speak publicly because most details of their work are classified. But those stationed around the world, unknown to one another, told strikingly similar stories.

One pattern links several key cases: the alleged victims were working, or had worked, in areas tied to Russian interests. In some instances, the locations of the alleged attacks were notable: allies of Moscow where part of the elite was seeking to improve relations with the West. That was true in Cuba, where the first cluster appeared during the Obama-era thaw, infuriating hardliners in the Cuban regime and their backers in Moscow. It was also true in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia and Vietnam. Some CIA officers posted in Kyiv at the time of the 2014 Maidan revolution — which Russian President Vladimir Putin regarded as a US-backed coup — later suffered AHIs in various locations around the world.

The roots of Havana syndrome predate Cuba. A foundational case is Mike Beck, a counterintelligence officer at the National Security Agency who fell ill while on temporary duty at an undisclosed location in the 1990s to inspect listening devices at a US diplomatic facility. Beck developed a rare form of Parkinson's disease at 45 and died this year. A declassified NSA statement, included in his 2014 compensation claim, noted that "there is intelligence from 2012 linking the hostile nation Mr. Beck visited in the late 1990s to a high-powered microwave weapon system capable of degrading, threatening or killing enemies over time without leaving evidence." The hostile nation, unnamed in the document, is Russia, according to sources.

The first AHIs of the modern wave occurred in late 2014, when several US government employees at the consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, fell ill. One was found unconscious on a consulate stairway after feeling sudden intense pressure in the chest and hearing a "high-pitched screech." The following year, a researcher at a US defense institute was working in the Balkans. In Belgrade, upon entering her hotel room, she felt "a sinking sensation, as if I were in an elevator dropping suddenly." Inside, the strange feelings continued. "I had a sense of falling, of gravity pulling me down, and nausea." Her government computer screen went blue and never worked again. Later she felt weak, had difficulty speaking clearly and developed pain "like a drill in my eye." Unable to concentrate, she eventually had to leave her job. Only much later did she connect the episode to Havana syndrome.

The next cluster of AHI patients included people at the CIA's new center focused on Russia. In 2017, when Donald Trump first took office, the agency launched a campaign against increasingly brazen expansion by Moscow's intelligence services. Marc Polymeropoulos, appointed deputy director of European and Eurasian operations in 2017, said: "They wanted us to apply the tactics and mindset we had used in the global war on terror to the Russians." He was one of several veterans moved into senior roles focused on Russia.

In early December 2017, Polymeropoulos and another senior CIA official traveled to Moscow to meet counterparts at the SVR and FSB. The formal meetings were tense and unproductive. One night, Polymeropoulos woke in his hotel room. "I was dizzy and had a splitting headache. At first I thought it was food poisoning, I thought I would vomit and have diarrhea, and I remember thinking, oh my God, the room is spinning and my ears are ringing." Back in Washington, he struggled with persistent migraines and with superiors who insisted his symptoms were unrelated to other AHIs. He saw numerous doctors, but because of the classified nature of his work he could not share details of where he had fallen ill.

He left the CIA in 2019 and, frustrated at being blocked from medical evaluations, became the first CIA officer to publicly tell his Havana syndrome story under his real name, recounting to journalist Julia Ioffe what happened in Moscow. The publicity prompted the CIA to send him to Walter Reed military medical center, where he was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury. In 2023 he was confirmed eligible for compensation under the HAVANA Act, which allows payments for "employees who suffered brain injury from hostile acts while on duty." The sum was not large, but he regarded it as a moral victory after years of fighting for recognition.

One early hypothesis was that AHIs might result from failed data-collection efforts — a machine designed to extract secrets from a spy's electronics but with an unfortunate side effect when power was turned up too high. Some still regard that as possible, although even if intelligence-gathering was the original intent, the harmful health effects would quickly have become apparent to the operators.

Some observers insist the entire notion of "Havana syndrome" is an invention. They ask why, if Russia possessed a brain-frying weapon, it would not use it more widely against its enemies. Why are there not more reports of collateral victims? Sociologist Robert Bartholomew and neurologist Robert Baloh co-authored a book claiming the whole story is a hoax — "a case study in the social construction of mass psychogenic illness" — arising from a high-stress work environment and amplified by intrigued journalists. Cellular neuroscientist Douglas Fields argued in an article that medical studies of patients showing cognitive changes relied on unreliable methods, and that the energy-weapon theory "defies the laws of physics."

Other scientists, including some who have reviewed patients' medical records, strongly disagree. "Initial skepticism is entirely appropriate, but over time we began to see a growing number of individuals undergoing clinical evaluation that cannot be faked," said James Giordano, an emeritus professor of neurology at Georgetown University Medical Center. He argues that objective signs are emerging with a very distinct pattern, including "profound sensations of tumbling or falling" as well as pressure in the head, chest and throat, and cognitive effects. He acknowledges exposure to chemicals or drugs could cause similar symptoms, but that would show up in blood tests. Another key factor is the sudden onset and the sense of a specific location where the attack was most pronounced.

When the Biden administration took office in 2021, then CIA director Bill Burns and director of national intelligence Avril Haines vowed to get to the bottom of the issue. Burns met many in the AHI group, including Polymeropoulos, listened carefully and promised a full investigation. Burns also fired the CIA's medical director, who had angered some AHI patients by accusing them of faking illness. That same year, more than 100 CIA officers and other US government officials reported AHIs at locations around the world. In Vienna, there were so many cases that the CIA station's work was nearly paralyzed and the station chief was recalled. A string of government employees also reported incidents on US soil, including some who claimed to have been attacked on the White House grounds.

Burns and Haines launched two investigations: one to review intelligence on whether a foreign adversary was behind Havana syndrome, and another convening a panel of scientists and doctors to determine whether a weapon could cause the symptoms. Relman, who chaired the scientific panel, said members were given access to public and classified scientific research on pulsed radio-frequency energy, showing that the scientific basis for a "device" capable of causing AHI symptoms was plausible. He said opposing scientists simply were unaware of research into such technology that had been conducted for decades in several countries, notably the Soviet Union and later Russia.

On medical findings, Relman acknowledged many — perhaps most — AHI claims could be explained by other factors. But there were dozens of cases "unusual in the distinctiveness of their features and nearly impossible to explain on the basis of known medical and environmental conditions." In short: publicity about AHIs may have fueled a wave of false reports, but a small core group of cases appeared genuine.

Determining who might carry out such attacks was beyond Relman's remit. That fell to the second expert group, which concluded in 2023 that a foreign adversary was "very unlikely" to be responsible, disappointing many AHI patients. Even those who have seen intelligence on Havana syndrome can disagree about what it means. Two sources offered the Guardian utterly different interpretations of classified data concerning possible Russian involvement.

One source stressed the absence of "smoking gun" evidence — human intelligence or an intercepted communication showing Russian agents discussing a program to use directed energy against Americans. The source said: "Everyone sees how strong our intelligence collection on Russia is. If this really were a large-scale Russian program, we would expect to see something in some of these channels, but we don't." Another former intelligence official countered: "If you wait for an intercept of someone saying: 'My name is Igor and I'm about to press my secret laser button' before you believe it, that will probably never happen. But to any reasonable person with access to the intelligence and who knows how to read it, the Russian fingerprints are clear."

If so, the question is why the 2023 intelligence assessment concluded a foreign actor was "very unlikely." Toward the end of the Biden administration, a revised version said that while five US intelligence agencies still found it "very unlikely," one believed there was "roughly a one-in-two chance" a foreign actor had used a "novel or prototype weapon" in some attacks. This summer, both Biden-era assessments were rescinded by Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, in a memo issued just before she left office. Gabbard said the earlier assessments were tainted by "selectively excluding evidence" and "distorting sources," although the statement offered no new evidence or revised assessment.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer representing more than 30 AHI patients, welcomed Gabbard's memo and called it a first step toward reversing the CIA's cover-up. Asked why the CIA would mount such a cover-up, Zaid suggested it may be to protect reputations after earlier negligence. "This has built up to the point where the agency cannot let the truth come out because it would reflect very badly on them." Burns, in comments for Rey and Zill's book, said "it is simply untrue that there was a CIA 'cover-up'" and described the earlier investigation as "a serious whole-of-intelligence-community effort."

Rey and Zill believe the alleged cover-up resulted from multiple factors over many years. "There was no single smoke-filled-room meeting that led to decisions," Rey said. "There were many versions of 'This is a problem' or 'The president won't want to hear this.' There was bureaucratic dysfunction, careerism and things that got in the way of a proper investigation." One example was the FBI sending criminal investigators, rather than counterintelligence investigators with access to classified information, to Havana after the attacks. Another was an early investigation at CIA headquarters in late 2019, said to have found that in some cases phones linked to Russian intelligence officers had been near suspected Havana syndrome incidents, including the 2019 attacks on the senior CIA officer in London and Warsaw.

In London, a suspicious phone was said to have been just 10 meters from his hotel room. But when then CIA director Gina Haspel was briefed on those findings, she was said to have complained they were not solid enough to take to the president, who was highly sensitive to Russia-related issues. Rey and Zill write: "The meeting ended abruptly after Haspel yelled out that if she took a report like this to President Trump, she would be fired."

Outside the CIA, some have found intriguing clues about possible links between Russian intelligence officers and AHIs. Christo Grozev, a journalist and investigator who has exposed several Russian intelligence operations, claims leaked travel data show at least four intersections between suspected AHIs and the movements of officers from the GRU's Unit 29155, Russia's military intelligence unit notorious for sabotage and assassination operations in Western countries. He also says he traced trips by "members of a technical unit apparently adjacent to 29155" to Cuba during the initial attacks.

Perhaps the most significant evidence to surface recently is the reported US acquisition of a "Havana syndrome-type device" in a covert operation. First reported this year by independent journalist Sasha Ingber, two sources confirmed to the Guardian that a device was collected and brought to the US in late 2024 for testing, after being purchased from a dark web seller. Rey and Zill's book recounts meeting a person who claimed to be part of the secret team that obtained the device. The source told them the device was "portable," emitted non-thermal pulsed microwaves and was acquired from "a complex Russian illegal network."

The device is said never to have been used in a Havana syndrome incident, but animal testing reportedly indicated it could cause AHI-like symptoms, which could demonstrate that building such a device is scientifically feasible. That would make the case for a weapon involved in some incidents more plausible — and raises troubling new questions. If such weapons are common enough to be bought on the dark web, how many devices are out there, and who can access them? Could AHIs have not one perpetrator but many? And is there a future in which such weapons become a common feature of warfare? Giordano said: "We know technology has reached the point where it can be used in a weaponized way. I regard it as a clear and present threat."

For those who have had symptoms for years, the seizure of the device and the rescinded intelligence assessments offer a glimmer of hope that one day they will receive official confirmation that they were targeted by a foreign adversary. For many of them, the lack of recognition at home is angrier-making than the attack itself. Polymeropoulos said: "The Russians are our enemies, I put them in the same box as al-Qaida, the Taliban, or any other group I fought against. Do I want to see them held accountable? Of course. But I am actually more disappointed and feel more betrayed by my own government."

The book "The Havana Syndrome" by Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados is published in the US by Crown Publishing on October 13 and in the UK by WH Allen on October 15.