Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In last week's episode, Sound
Speaker 1: of the Overground, we looked at the extraordinary story of
Speaker 1: the Warminster Thing. Over time, the Thing came to be
Speaker 1: thought of as a supposed to UFO event that sparked
Speaker 1: off a litany of strange sightings in the mid nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies throughout the Warminster area in the English county of Wiltshire.
Speaker 1: Everything from classic cigar shaped objects spotted in the sky
Speaker 1: to the sighting of possible alien entities and even contact
Speaker 1: were alleged to have taken place. Initially, however, the thing
Speaker 1: was reported as little more than a mysterious, sinister sound
Speaker 1: with no discernible origin. This sound was described variously as
Speaker 1: oscillating between an ominous drone and a clattering racket, as
Speaker 1: if nuts and bolts were being swished about in a
Speaker 1: steel bucket. In March twenty nineteen, it was reported that
Speaker 1: as many as four percent of people are plagued by
Speaker 1: a mysterious, low pitched sound with no quantifiable source that
Speaker 1: has become known as the HUM. I myself am one
Speaker 1: of those people, although I suspect this might simply be
Speaker 1: a case of tinatus after years of refusing to turn
Speaker 1: down my earphones. In the UK, perhaps the most well
Speaker 1: known version of this is the Bristol Hum, so called
Speaker 1: after a spate of people there in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: and then again in twenty sixteen, complained of being kept
Speaker 1: awake by it. Also in twenty sixteen, just over seven
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers away in Cuba, employees of the US embassy
Speaker 1: in Havana also began complaining of being plagued by a
Speaker 1: strange and ominous sound, in a plot that could have
Speaker 1: been lifted straight from the most ludicrous spy novel. It
Speaker 1: really is a story that has to be heard to
Speaker 1: be believed. It was late afternoon in the western suburbs
Speaker 1: of Havana, an area of mostly wealthy neighborhoods populated by
Speaker 1: government officials and diplomats. US diplomats only recently installed in
Speaker 1: the Cuban capital, were facing an uncertain few months ahead,
Speaker 1: due firstly to the incoming President Donald Trump's unexpected election victory.
Speaker 1: This was followed soon after on November twenty fifth by
Speaker 1: the death of ex president and arguably the most iconic
Speaker 1: and influential figure in Cuban history for Del Castro. That weekend,
Speaker 1: one US diplomat recently moved to the city with much
Speaker 1: to think on, was enjoying the tranquility of another warm
Speaker 1: evening at home with his family. The man opened his
Speaker 1: back doors to joyed the last of the evening sun
Speaker 1: when he was suddenly confronted by a hideous din that
Speaker 1: seemed to rattle around his skull. Closing the doors immediately,
Speaker 1: with the sound still ringing in his head, he hurried
Speaker 1: about the house, shutting every window he could find, but
Speaker 1: it was only by turning the TV up that he
Speaker 1: was finally able to offset the infuriating buzz. With the
Speaker 1: noise having finally abated, a few days later, the diplomat
Speaker 1: was back in the garden hosting a colleague in their
Speaker 1: family from next door, when, at roughly the same time
Speaker 1: as before, the noise started again. Hearing it for the
Speaker 1: second time, the man apologized to his guests, speculating that
Speaker 1: it was probably just insects, but the colleague was less sure. This,
Speaker 1: he thought sounded different, more artificial. Somehow, What's more, he'd
Speaker 1: been hearing it too in his home, sometimes for up
Speaker 1: to an hour at a time. After speaking to the
Speaker 1: embassy about it, maintenance workers were sent to investigate, but
Speaker 1: no faulty electrics or any other obvious cause could be found.
Speaker 1: It was a few weeks later when a second younger
Speaker 1: colleague in his thirties turned up at the embassy's medical
Speaker 1: clinic suffering from headaches and hearing problems. The man explained
Speaker 1: that he'd been at home alone when he began experiencing
Speaker 1: discomfort from an unusual sound that seemed to be vibrating
Speaker 1: right inside his head. Whenever he moved from certain spots,
Speaker 1: the sound would disappear, only to reappear again when he
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Speaker 1: news of these peculiar incidences began filtering through the embassy,
Speaker 1: some began to wander if these were not, in fact
Speaker 1: deliberate sonic attacks being directed at the embassy employees. Certainly,
Speaker 1: given the nature of the job, the US Cuban Embassy chief,
Speaker 1: Geoffrey de Laurentis, had little choice but to take them seriously.
Speaker 1: Being a veteran of US diplomatic missions, he was more
Speaker 1: than familiar with the many underhand tactics often employed by
Speaker 1: the various secret services of nations to unsettle diplomatic staff
Speaker 1: an occupation or hazard, especially considering that many diplomatic staff
Speaker 1: are often assumed with good reason to be spies, as
Speaker 1: detailed in a twenty eighteen pro Publica article written by
Speaker 1: Tim Golden and Sebastian Roteller titled The Sound and the
Speaker 1: Fury Inside the Mystery of the Havana Embassy. Such tactics
Speaker 1: might traditionally include withholding food parcels for embassies, to simply
Speaker 1: puncturing diplomats car tires. Often it might be something as
Speaker 1: subtle as breaking into their homes just to rearrange furniture
Speaker 1: or leave a window open, a gentle reminder that they
Speaker 1: were always being watched. As Golden and Rotella went on
Speaker 1: to explain, for De Laurentis, it wasn't out of the
Speaker 1: question that some embassy staff were being harassed in this way,
Speaker 1: but as for being targeted by a sophisticated sonic weapon,
Speaker 1: he was less sure, since diplomatic relations had only been
Speaker 1: reinstated the year before, having been non existent since nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, Unless it was a rogue agent, which he
Speaker 1: considered unlikely that the Cuban government would sanction such actions
Speaker 1: seemed equally unlikely. Then, in February twenty seventeen, it happened again,
Speaker 1: this time effecting the wife of an embassy employee in
Speaker 1: the coastal neighborhood of Flores. Furthermore, having heard a strange sound,
Speaker 1: she claimed then to have looked out of her window
Speaker 1: to see a van speeding away from the scene. With
Speaker 1: evidence mounting, the US State Department presented a note of
Speaker 1: protest to the Cuban government, formally acknowledging their concern that
Speaker 1: embassy staff were coming under attack. In response, Cuban President
Speaker 1: at the time, Raoul Castro, claimed no knowledge of any
Speaker 1: such attack, and even took the unusual step of allowing
Speaker 1: the FBI to fly to Havana and carry out an
Speaker 1: investigation of their own. As news spread of the apparent
Speaker 1: sonic attacks, more and more embassy staff came forward to
Speaker 1: share their own unusual experiences. Accounts ranged from the general
Speaker 1: hearing of insect like buzzing noises, to more concentrated beams
Speaker 1: that seemed to fix on them, to even just the
Speaker 1: feeling of something gently vibrating in the ear. Many also
Speaker 1: claimed to have suffered serious side effects from the attacks,
Speaker 1: from vomiting to severe loss of hearing. By the end
Speaker 1: of April twenty seventeen, eighty members of embassy staff and
Speaker 1: their family had come forward after being sent to a
Speaker 1: team of medical specialists in Miami led by a doctor
Speaker 1: Michael Hoffer. Twenty four were eventually determined to have been
Speaker 1: significantly harmed by the mysterious threat, and soon the effects
Speaker 1: of the mysterious sound were being felt by Canadian embassy
Speaker 1: staff too, with twenty seven individuals who claimed to have
Speaker 1: suffered headaches, nausea, and even nosebleats said to have sought
Speaker 1: treatment for it. Over the course of May twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: to February twenty eighteen, the FBI made at least four
Speaker 1: trips to Cuba, interviewing countless embassy staff and Cuban government
Speaker 1: officials in their efforts to find the culprit. The CIA's
Speaker 1: Directorate of Science and Technology, as well as the Pentagon's
Speaker 1: Defense Advancement Research Projects Agency also looked into it, but
Speaker 1: none found anything to account for the reports, not least
Speaker 1: of all, any evidence that people were being targeted by
Speaker 1: some kind of sonic device. By then, however, reports had
Speaker 1: filtered into the media, and the urge to talk up
Speaker 1: the potential return of Cold War eraspy tactics complete with
Speaker 1: James Bond's style sonic weapons, was too good to refuse.
Speaker 1: The US military had long been trying to develop a
Speaker 1: device just like it of their own. Similar weapons have
Speaker 1: in fact already been developed, such as the mob excess
Speaker 1: deterrent using silent audio or meduceth short, which is designed
Speaker 1: to break up large mobs or as a deterrent to pirates.
Speaker 1: They had nothing, however, that was capable of conducting such
Speaker 1: seemingly covert and concentrated attacks, and as more apparent victims
Speaker 1: came forward, experts were left increasingly baffled as to what
Speaker 1: an Earth was causing it. One State Department led medical
Speaker 1: investigation was left concluding that despite any physical evidence to
Speaker 1: explain why some individuals had clearly been left with sustained
Speaker 1: injury to widespread brain networks. The lack of evidence linking
Speaker 1: the apparent sonic attacks to the Cuban government didn't stop
Speaker 1: the Trump administration in retaliating, and kind having already been
Speaker 1: intent on rolling back the Obama administration's efforts to try
Speaker 1: and bring the nations closer together and keen to foster
Speaker 1: a more uncompromising image on the international stage, they maintained
Speaker 1: the line that US embassy staff were under attack and
Speaker 1: the Cuban government were responsible. In late September twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: twenty four or forty seven diplomats assigned to Havana were
Speaker 1: ordered home by the State Department, while fifteen Cuban diplomats
Speaker 1: were sent packing the other way. Before long, however, some
Speaker 1: were beginning to wonder if there'd been an attack at all.
Speaker 1: A number of experts noted similarities between the way things
Speaker 1: had unfolded in Havana and something known as conversion disorder.
Speaker 1: The disorder has been described in the International Journal of
Speaker 1: Social Psychiatry as the rapid spread of illness, signs and
Speaker 1: symptoms among members of a cohesive social group for which
Speaker 1: there is no corresponding organic origin, otherwise known as mass hysteria.
Speaker 1: As some experts speculated, rather than being the side effects
Speaker 1: of a sonic weapon, perhaps all these ailments that embassy
Speaker 1: staff were suffering were in fact perfectly normal medical issues
Speaker 1: reframed as something nefarious, due entirely to the US State
Speaker 1: departments unfounded and perhaps politically motivated insistence that something underhand
Speaker 1: was going on. Under the circumstances, such a possibility would
Speaker 1: be perfectly understandable. After all, when your own leaders are
Speaker 1: telling you, despite the lack of all evidence to the contrary,
Speaker 1: that what they say is taking place, why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: believe them? If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to
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Speaker 1: Unexplained The book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have
Speaker 1: never before been covered on the show, is now available
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Speaker 1: the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,
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Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
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