Scientists Believe US Embassy and CIA Officers Hit with High-Power Microwaves

alan-crowe|5 years ago

When I worked in radar, the people in the transmitter lab had little, hand held, microwave detectors as an additional layer of safety. If a wave guide hadn't been assembled correctly and was leaking microwaves, they would be warned before they were cooked. This was 1980. Such gadgets should be very cheap today.

Given the history, with the Great Seal Bug

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

I would expect plenty of monitoring; it is cheap and easy.

jaybrendansmith|5 years ago

We appear to be right back to the original explanation, an exposure to high-energy microwaves. I'd be curious to know if this is clearly an attack, or if this 'Frey effect' could happen accidentally because of nearby microwave transmission or similar?

gabrielblack|5 years ago

What about misused or defective radio equipment ? I guess that they have powerful microwave sat equipment, in there. This is a more reasonable explanation then mysterious "death ray" that, anyway, should be detectable and traceable with the right equipment, in case someone want to prove its existence. Moreover, what's the logic in creating a gratuitous diplomatic incident and possibly cause reprisals against the responsible ? IMHO , this story is the perfect click bait so nobody want to consider more logic and simple explanations.

lolc|5 years ago

What I don't get about this explanation is that I'd expect high-profile embassies to be at least monitored for radio activity or even shielded against it.

But maybe I'm just expecting too much vigilance here.

beerandt|5 years ago

The couple of stories I read in detail happened at/near employee houses, not at the embassy.

amscanne|5 years ago

IIUC, the microwave bursts are extremely directional, so you can’t really monitor for this effectively. Similarly, it’s bit unrealistic to cover the entire embassy in thick steel (and have no windows).

netsharc|5 years ago

1. The article is a copy of the original: https://theconversation.com/scientists-suggest-us-embassies-... . I wonder if scitechdaily is just a content farm or if they had a license to copy that content.

2. This Vanity Fair article believes it's mass hysteria: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/the-real-story-behin...

williamtwild|5 years ago

Isn't vanity fair a fashion magazine?

redsummer|5 years ago

I’ve heard the Great Seal Bug described as being activated by microwaves, and wonder if all these embassies and offices were riddled with similar bugs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

schappim|5 years ago

It is plausible, but the Great Seal (aka “the Thing”) only operated at 800Mhz. The microwave range is from 1 gigahertz (GHz), up to about 300 gigahertz.

17 comments