A small, concealable microwave weapon – bought from Russian gangsters by undercover Homeland Security agents in 2024 – may finally explain years of crippling brain injuries reported by American intelligence officers and diplomats, 60 Minutes reports. The Pentagon spent $15 million on the covert purchase, and the device has upended the government’s longstanding insistence that so-called Havana Syndrome was psychosomatic.
The weapon is small enough for one person to carry, silent, concealable, and programmable for different scenarios. It fires a pulsed microwave beam that can penetrate windows and drywall from several hundred feet away. Military researchers have spent over a year testing it on rats and sheep, and the resulting injuries match what human victims have reported. Classified security camera footage reportedly shows Americans being struck – in one video from an Istanbul restaurant, two FBI agents dining with their families simultaneously grab their heads when someone carrying a backpack enters.
The CIA spent years insisting a microwave weapon would need to be truck-sized. A former CIA officer who worked on the agency’s investigation told 60 Minutes the unit’s mission from day one was to “bring down the temperature” by steering conclusions toward environmental causes. He described senior staff mocking victims by pretending to have strokes at happy hours.
Two expert panels led by Stanford professor Dr. David Relman had already concluded that pulsed microwave energy was the most plausible explanation, drawing on decades of Soviet research. The CIA buried those findings. “This is a massive CIA cover-up,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA executive who was disabled after an incident in a Moscow hotel in 2017. Another senior intelligence official described it to 60 Minutes as “the biggest cover-up I’ve seen in my adult life.”
Previously:
- Scientific report: mystery microwave beam weapon used on diplomats in Cuba and elsewhere
- U.S. Senator: “directed energy attacks” responsible for so-called Havana Syndrome
- Those weird sonic attacks at U.S. embassies? Microwave weapons, experts say.
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