Diplomatic personnel from the State Department and even CIA agents posing as diplomatic staff were on the receiving end of unexplained attacks in 2017 that were referred to as "sonic attacks" at the time because the victims reported hearing sounds directed at their heads.
We would later learn that the attacks weren't sonic in nature at all, but we've never seen a definitive explanation for why the victims heard sounds even though sound waves weren't involved.
We've seen theories, but an official report from the federal government now says the various symptoms and side effects were caused by directed microwaves.
From NBC News:
A team of medical and scientific experts who studied the symptoms of as many as 40 State Department and other government employees concluded that nothing like them had previously been documented in medical literature, according to the National Academies of Sciences report. Many reported hearing a loud sound and feeling pressure in their heads, and then experienced dizziness, unsteady gait and visual disturbances. Many suffered longstanding, debilitating effects.
“The committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by (government) employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy,” the report says. “Studies published in the open literature more than a half-century ago and over the subsequent decades by Western and Soviet sources provide circumstantial support for this possible mechanism.”
This feels like a conveniently timed report released at the tail end of a regime when it no longer matters.
The Trump regime used these attacks to justify a diplomatic and economic pullback from Cuba initiated by President Obama and even used them to increase tensions with China. The regime could not and still does not point a finger at either Cuba or China (or anyone else for that matter) but that did not stop them from using the attacks for their own perceived advantage.
This report does not explicitly say the attacks were caused by a weapon of some description and it does not point fingers at Russia, but what other possible explanation can we draw from a report that references studies conducted by Soviet scientists experimenting with weaponized microwaves during the Cold War? Are we suppose to conclude that aliens did it? Vladimir Putin is big fan of the Cold War and it seems reasonable to say that reversing President Obama's decision to normalize ties with Cuba would have been a priority of his.
Maybe I'm wrong and maybe this is just wild speculation on my part, but I infer that Putin knew the Republican party wanted to pull back from Cuba but needed an excuse to do so. An attack on American diplomats and their families on Cuban soil was the perfect excuse.
I don't think that qualifies as a conspiracy theory, but my theory that the Trump White House always knew Cuba couldn't possibly be responsible might qualify.
Joe Biden's decisive victory without winning the state of Florida and its significant Cuban population will hopefully enable his administration to reset relations with Cuba -- again -- and finish what President Obama started. Winning Florida and the conservative Cubans who see communism around every corner is a lost cause.