Havana Syndrome
A Paranoid's History of the United States #9
In 2016, American embassy personnel in Cuba began reporting strange sounds followed by debilitating symptoms - ear pain, headaches, dizziness, and cognitive difficulties. Quickly labeled as attacks by a mysterious sonic weapon, these incidents led to diplomatic breakdowns and accusations against foreign adversaries.
This episode explores the science of mass psychogenic illness and how normal physiological responses to stress can manifest as real physical symptoms. And it reveals how institutional failures by government agencies, media outlets, and even prestigious medical journals amplified a narrative that fit political agendas despite contradicting scientific evidence.
From the Salem witch trials to modern diplomatic crises, this story demonstrates how our beliefs shape our perception of reality, and how these psychological mechanisms can be exploited to advance geopolitical interests.
GUEST: Dr. Robert Bartholomew is a medical sociologist and Lecturer on Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has spent over 35 years studying mass psychogenic illness. Co-author of Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria, Bartholomew specializes in how beliefs can manifest as genuine physical symptoms in otherwise healthy individuals. With dozens of published articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and part of his PhD focused on this phenomenon, he offers critical insight into how social factors influence our health experiences. Bartholomew approaches these topics with scientific rigor while making complex psychological concepts accessible, helping audiences understand how cultural context shapes our interpretation of ambiguous physical sensations.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Havana Syndrome Could Have Been Weaponized (NBC News)
SOCIAL MEDIA
HOSTED BY JOSEPH L. FLATLEY. For bonus content, subscribe to my newsletter.
TRANSCRIPT
INTRODUCTION
ARCHIVAL: “Havana Syndrome evidence”
ANCHOR (clip): “Tonight we have important developments in our five-year investigation of mysterious brain injuries reported by US National Security officials. The injured include White House staff CIA officers, FBI agents, Military Officers and their families. Many believe that they were wounded by a secret weapon that fires a high energy beam of microwaves or ultrasound.”
UNNAMED WOMAN: “And bam, inside my right ear, it was like a dentist drilling on steroids, that feeling uh when it that it gets too close to your eardrum it’s like that you know times 10. It was like a high-pitch metallic drilling noise and it knocked me forward at like a 45-degree angle.”
LENNY: In late 2016, something strange happened at the American Embassy in Havana, Cuba. CIA officers stated hearing noises outside their homes — grinding, buzzing, or piercing sounds followed by unexplained physical symptoms. These included ear pain, headaches, dizziness, and trouble thinking clearly. The incidents quickly got attention within diplomatic circles, then hit mainstream media and captured public imagination.
The Havana Syndrome story has a lot in common with the BENNEWITZ AFFAIR, which we covered in Episode 2. Both show how government interests can shape and amplify mysterious events. And in both cases, ambiguous happenings got tangled up with political agendas. Just like the Air Force Office of Special Investigations turned unexplained lights into an elaborate cover story for classified military activities, the labeling of Havana Syndrome as attacks by foreign enemies happened at a critical moment in U.S. / Cuba relations.
Both stories show how convenient narratives can be exploited through selective information sharing, strategic media coverage, and resistance to alternative explanations. When these narratives line up so neatly with existing foreign policy goals, we have to ask: are intelligence agencies using — or even manufacturing — mysteries to advance their interests?
ARCHIVAL: “Havana Syndrome Could Have Been Weaponized”
ANCHOR: “There’s a new theory about the mysterious and debilitating symptoms reported by dozens of government workers. Some officials now suspect the so-called Havana Syndrome could have been an unintended consequence of electronic intelligence gathering, which was then weaponized to intentionally cause harm.”
LENNY: We watched this play out in real time in Havana. As reports mounted, embassy staff quickly embraced a theory: these symptoms were caused by sonic weapons targeting Americans. This idea gained traction in the State Department under the Trump administration, who viewed it as Cold War-style hostility. The sonic attack theory was compelling because it provided a clear explanation and fit perfectly into existing narratives about Cuban antagonism.
The American Embassy shared this intelligence with its Canadian counterpart, whose diplomats soon reported similar symptoms. This apparent spread reinforced the belief that embassy personnel were being deliberately targeted.
The reported symptoms—headaches, dizziness, ringing ears, fatigue, and cognitive issues—are actually common complaints with numerous potential causes, from stress to inner ear problems. Yet in this context of diplomatic tension, these everyday ailments took on extraordinary significance.
This became known as “Havana Syndrome.”
To better understand Havana Syndrome, I spoke with Dr. Robert Bartholomew, one of the world’s foremost experts on mass psychogenic illness. As a medical sociologist and Lecturer on Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, he has spent over 35 years studying how beliefs can manifest as physical symptoms and spread through social networks. Along with neurologist Robert Baloh, Bartholomew co-authored HAVANA SYNDROME: MASS PSYCHOGENIC ILLNESS AND THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE EMBASSY MYSTERY AND HYSTERIA.
His analysis reveals broader patterns in how societies respond to ambiguous threats, offering crucial insights for diplomatic relations, healthcare, and national security concerns.
We’ll be right back.
PART 1
LENNY: I think part of the reason that psychogenic illnesses persist is because [...] to some people, it probably sounds more outlandish than angels or aliens, or, you know, Cuban microwaves.
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: There’s a lot of misconceptions about it. Mass psychogenic illness refers to the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms for which there’s no plausible organic ontology. Now, what does that mean? There’s no underlying physiological reason for the symptoms [...] For example, about a third of the patients that see neurologists do not have any organic condition that can be seen. It’s considered to be psychological. So what does that mean? Think of it as the placebo effect in reverse. If I give you a sugar pill and tell you you’re going to feel better often you will. It’s the power of the mind. It’s the power of belief. It’s the power of framing. But if I give you a sugar pill and. Tell you you’re going to feel better, and then someone suddenly rushes into the room and says, Oh my God, that sugar pill I just gave you, it’s been contaminated with rat poison. There is a good chance that within the next few minutes you might get stomach pain, headache, nausea, you might even vomit, but there’s nothing physically wrong with you. Think of it as a software problem, an overstimulation of the nervous system, and these episodes reflect the event scenario. So if you think you’ve had food poisoning, you’re more likely to have stomach pain, headache, nausea. If you think you’ve been exposed to some toxic chemical in the air, your eyes might start watering and get red.
LENNY: That was Dr. Robert Bartholomew, co-author of the book HAVANA SYNDROME: MASS PSYCHOGENIC ILLNESS AND THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE EMBASSY MYSTERY AND HYSTERIA.
Mass psychogenic illness – or MPI – refers to what happens when people in close proximity begin experiencing similar physical symptoms that can’t be explained by any identifiable disease or exposure to harmful substances.
What makes MPI so interesting is that the symptoms are absolutely real. The physical sensations, pain, and distress are genuine physiological experiences. The key difference is that these symptoms come not from an external pathogen or toxin, but from psychological and social processes.
MPI can be thought of as the “placebo effect in reverse,” sometimes called the “nocebo” effect. Where a placebo can produce positive health outcomes through the power of positive expectation, the nocebo effect shows how negative expectations can produce harmful physical symptoms. If someone strongly believes they’ve been exposed to something dangerous, their body may physically manifest symptoms consistent with that exposure. Even if the harmful agent isn’t actually present.
If people think they’ve eaten contaminated food, they’re likely to experience stomach issues like nausea, vomiting, or abdominal pain. If they believe they’ve been exposed to a chemical in the air, they might develop breathing problems, eye irritation, or skin reactions. In Havana Syndrome, the belief in a sonic or microwave weapon led to reports of hearing symptoms, headaches, and cognitive effects — exactly what you’d expect from such a device.
The spread of symptoms typically follows social networks rather than the patterns of physical exposure you’d expect with an actual pathogen or toxin. Close-knit groups with shared beliefs and concerns are particularly vulnerable. In Havana, the first cases appeared among CIA officers — a small, tight group under significant stress — before spreading to other embassy staff and eventually to Canadian diplomats.
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
LENNY: So it sounds like [....] creating these symptoms, this phenomenon is pretty common. And one thing I hear is, when I hear people talk about this, they use words like psychotic or, you know, psychotic or mentally ill, but that’s not what you’re talking about.
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: That’s correct. There are delusions in psychiatry where people lose touch with reality, and then there are social delusions that sociologists and social psychologists refer to, and that’s what I’m referring to here. It is a social delusion. It is a large-scale belief, and something that there’s really no solid evidence to support the existence of.
LENNY: Perhaps the biggest misconception is that MPI is a sign of psychosis or mental illness. In fact, MPI affects normal, healthy people who are responding to perceived threats in high-stress situations. It’s a collective stress response, not individual psychopathology.
Another common myth is that people affected by MPI have weak minds or are somehow psychologically disturbed. In reality, psychogenic illness can affect anyone. Most victims are healthy individuals who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances that trigger this particular type of response.
It’s also wrong to dismiss MPI by saying “it’s all in their heads.” While the origin of the symptoms may be psychological, the physical manifestations are real and measurable. People experiencing MPI undergo genuine physiological changes in how their brains and bodies function. They aren’t imagining the pain, discomfort, or other symptoms they report.
Throughout history and across cultures, episodes of mass psychogenic illness have been documented with remarkable consistency. These episodes reflect the social anxieties and medical understanding of their time, showing how our cultural context shapes the expression of psychological distress.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND EXAMPLES
ARCHIVAL: “What Caused The Mass Hysteria…”
HOST: “1692. A merciless Witch Hunt in the new world. ‘she must be under some evil hand.’ A community of Pious Puritans in New England believe the devil was among them. ‘Tell me, who does come into my house? That's a ghost here in this house.’”
LENNY: We’ll get back to Havana syndrome in one second. But maybe it’ll help for the context to maybe give a historical case of something happening that seemed inexplicable at the time, but in retrospect, is psychogenic illness.
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: Well, the witch scare of the 1690s in Salem, you know, there was a search for imaginary enemies. People believed in witches and witchcraft and the ability to bewitch people. It’s not that dissimilar to Havana syndrome, the search for an imaginary enemy. The usual suspects, China, Russia or the Cubans working with them, right? And if people said there were witches, somebody visited your house, your pet died, or you fell unwell after they left, right? ‘Oh, must have been a spell cast by a witch.’ With Havana syndrome, you get the initial belief, and then it spreads. These things happen all the time, and mass psychogenic illness happens all the time.
LENNY: Many people forget that the origins of the witch trials of the 1600s began with medical symptoms. In Salem, young women initially exhibited disordered speech, convulsive movements, and bizarre conduct that defied rational explanation. As the hysteria spread through the community, a wider range of symptoms emerged: anxious palpitations, neurological-like episodes, trance-like states, sensory complaints like dizziness, and other unexplained physical ailments. These manifestations weren't random but followed patterns consistent with what we now understand as mass psychogenic illness — where psychological distress converts into genuine physical symptoms.
The social and cultural context of Salem created perfect conditions for this phenomenon to take hold. With a community already steeped in beliefs about witchcraft and supernatural forces, these symptoms were quickly attributed to malevolent spiritual influences. This pattern of social contagion, where symptoms spread through observation and shared belief, mirrors what we see in modern cases of mass psychogenic illness. The power of nocebo effects demonstrates how strongly our beliefs shape our physiological experiences, even without any organic cause. The Salem witch trials stand as a stark historical example of how collective anxiety, when channeled through prevailing cultural frameworks, can manifest in dramatic physical symptoms with devastating social consequences.
LENNY: And the mass part, you know [...] people are primed, right?
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: There’s an old saying, it’s been out there for hundreds of years: Speak of the devil, and he is bound to appear. And that’s what’s happened here. Now suddenly people, whether it’s Bigfoot, whether it’s UFOs, whether it’s lake monsters, these episodes go in waves. You get these flaps of sightings, and when there’s an initial, sensational case gets reported, then all of a sudden, people are scrutinizing their environment where ordinarily they wouldn’t. They’re staring at the sky, they’re staring at the woods, they’re staring at the water, and they start redefining ambiguous objects that ordinarily they wouldn’t even notice very much.
LENNY: In the wake of national trauma, these patterns become even more pronounced. When an entire society is primed to look for threats, the line between ordinary discomfort and evidence of attack blurs dramatically. When we return, we’ll explore how these psychological mechanisms apply to Havana Syndrome, and how institutional forces amplified rather than clarified the mystery.
PART 2
ARCHIVAL — “Top 13 Bigfoot Sightings”
HOST: “It’s May 2012, near the town of Quincy, Florida. Retired Army Ranger Stacy Brown, Sr., now deceased, and his filmmaker son, Stacy Brown, Jr., are camping in Torreya State Park on a search for the elusive Bigfoot. They start hearing some noises, so they pull out their FLIR thermal camera and head off down a trail.”
BROWN: “We’d hear something running on our right, then we would hear something running on our left. And it just… It stopped real quick. And then Dad looked up at the... you know, over there at the tree, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I see something.’”
BROWN: “The camera goes dead. He’s like, ‘We gotta go! We gotta go!’ He’s like, ‘Do you got your gun?’”
LENNY: We don't just see reality; we build it. Our expectations and beliefs shape what we perceive, turning the ordinary into something extraordinary. Think of UFO sightings: a weather balloon, an experimental plane, or just the air itself can become something alien when seen through the lens of belief. The sky becomes a blank canvas, a Rorschach test, where we project our hopes and fears.
This power of belief is real. Like the nocebo effect, where negative expectations cause real symptoms, our beliefs can warp our senses. If we expect to see something extraordinary, we're more likely to accept weak evidence or misinterpret what we see. Once convinced, those beliefs are hard to shake.
Take the events in Havana. The sounds of crickets and cicadas, normally just background noise, were interpreted as attacks from a sophisticated weapon. Common headaches and dizziness, which we might normally dismiss, became proof of those attacks. By changing the context, by expecting something extraordinary, ordinary things were transformed into a new, alarming reality.
After the break, we’ll examine the Havana Syndrome phenomenon through the lens of institutional misinformation.
And we’ll explore what responsibility scientific, governmental, and media organizations bear for spreading these narratives.
Stay tuned.
CONCLUSION
ARCHIVAL — “Electronic Harassment”
ANCHOR: “Hundreds of people in the valley say they are hearing voices in their heads, and those voices are being transmitted by microwave or other methods. Well, several viewers asked us to investigate what they call electronic harassment. KMIR 6’s Angela Monroe joins us now with what she’s discovered. Angela.”
MONROE: “Electronic harassment. Synthetic telepathy. Voice-to-skull technology. Chances are you haven’t heard of these terms. But after searching the internet I found dozens of websites dedicated to the phenomenon and several Valley residents who say they’re victims.”
LENNY: You talk about, in your book HAVANA SYNDROME. You know, what would be required? There’s no such thing as sound waves or microwave weapons that could inflict the kind of damage that the Havana syndrome people are claiming.
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: So you got basically four different theories for Havana syndrome. The first theory that came out was it was a sonic weapon that was being used to harass the American diplomats. They were using sound waves that were directed at them. Now the curious thing is, none of this happened at the embassy. It happened to embassy staff in their homes and in one of two hotels and in one apartment complex, and supposedly they were using these sound waves to make them feel unwell. It’s really far-fetched. It’s not possible to target people inside a building. I’ve seen these hotels. I was recently in Havana. These are large structures. To be able to target somebody inside a hotel, 99% of the sound waves would bounce off the outer wall. It would defy the laws of physics. It would be like a person standing at one end of a football field with a squirt gun and trying to hit a target at the other end. It would defy the laws of physics. It just ain’t going to happen. The second explanation is it’s pesticides that were being sprayed to kill mosquitoes that were carrying the Zika virus. The problem with that explanation is other people didn’t get sick. There is no neurotoxin in the world that only affects American and Canadian diplomats and their families. End of story. Not pesticides. And then they came up with a third explanation, that it’s microwave radiation, and this thing called the Frey Effect, that can affect the nervous system. This gained popularity when the National Academy of Sciences issued their report at the end of last year suggesting it could be the Frey Effect. Here’s the problem. The National Academy of Sciences panel, as best I can tell, there wasn’t a single expert on the Frey Effect. The first scientist to identify the mechanism in the frey effect was Kenneth Foster. He is a bio engineering professor at University of Pennsylvania. I was in touch with him yesterday, he says it’s definitely not the frey effect. It’s just not possible. And now you come to the final explanation, mass psychogenic illness. This is by far the most likely explanation. The first people affected were CIA agents from this small station in Havana. It’s a defining feature of mass hysteria. Follow social networks. They commonly begin in small, cohesive groups and spread outward. They commonly evolve people of higher status, spreading to people of lower status. That’s exactly what happened here. And so look, if I had $100 to bet on on all these explanations, I’d put it all on mass psychogenic illness, and I would sleep well.
LENNY: And you know, mass psychogenic illness is known. It’s been understood for a long time, and you know, it was determined that Havana Syndrome was mass psychogenic illness years ago. So how does the story come back and how does the media get it so wrong?
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: Well, that’s a good question. The studies that have come out have suggested, well, the CDC study wasn’t sure. There was a study put out with the National Academy of Sciences. Said they’re really not sure. But if we had to make a guess, it’s pulse microwave radiation using the frey effect, two other studies that were never released until recently, the contents were kept secret all the time while the government was peddling the microwave and or Sonic or fray effect explanations, and the first one was the FBI report. The FBI report has still never been made public, but it was recently released, the contents their conclusion it was mass psychogenic illness and many of the attacks that occurred, that were recorded when they were occurring were the sounds of crickets and cicadas. The other report is the so called Jason report — J, A, S, O, N, — and that is a group of top scientists in their field who have been giving classified advice since the 1960s in the Cold War to the State Department, and they said it was highly unlikely it was the frey effect and pulse microwave radiation. And they said there’s a lot going for the mass hysteria explanation. Funny thing, those reports, the JASON report was only released a few days ago, and that was because of a Freedom of Information Act request that was filed then the FBI report still hasn’t been released. I think you’ve got politics mixing with science. I also think the US State Department knows what happened at this point, most intelligence agencies have figured it out, but now they’re embarrassed to think that they’ve mistaken the sounds of crickets and cicadas for a sonic attack. I mean, it just shows incompetence, and it’s going to be greatly embarrassing to the intelligence community.
MEDIA, SCIENCE, AND GOVERNMENT
LENNY: The Havana Syndrome case shows how media coverage, scientific research, and government actions can interact to shape public perception and potentially worsen mass psychogenic illness.
Studies published in prestigious journals — like the Journal of the American Medical Association — have been criticized for their flaws and overreaching conclusions. These studies often lacked appropriate control groups, failed to account for the nocebo effect, and didn’t adequately consider psychogenic explanations. Yet their publication in respected medical journals lent credibility to the idea that diplomats had suffered brain injuries from an external attack.
Why did the media get it so wrong? Why did the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION get it so wrong?
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: I can only think of one explanation as and that is, politics has been mixed with science, possibly pressure from the American government, at best, poor judgment. The [...] JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION study will go down in medical history as one of the worst studies ever published. I mean, it should never have been published. There are serious, serious flaws with that study, 2019, study. They’ve got serious problems with those studies, and it’s a concern, given that it’s such a prestigious medical journal, I don’t think those are poor studies. I know they are poor studies.
LENNY: Headlines about “brain damage” and “sonic attacks” created a narrative that was hard to dislodge, even as evidence for these claims remained elusive. This coverage likely contributed to the spread of symptoms by establishing expectations about what experiences constituted an “attack” and what symptoms might follow.
The government’s reaction heavily influenced the story as well. Early claims of deliberate 'attacks' by the State Department fueled fear among embassy staff, potentially skewing how they perceived their symptoms. Political pressures further pushed officials to adopt interpretations that fit their policy goals. Both media and government, without solid proof, quickly blamed foreign enemies, reflecting existing tensions more than actual science. This hasty blame, and the resulting breakdown in relations with Cuba, shows how these perceived attacks had serious real-world political consequences.
Perhaps the Havana Syndrome story was spread precisely because it provided a justification for dismantling relations with Cuba.
GEOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
LENNY: As a result of the Havana Syndrome controversy, the U.S. expelled Cuban diplomats, which effectively derailed the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba that had begun under the Obama administration.
Politicians have used Havana Syndrome to advance particular political agendas. During Foreign Relations Committee hearings, then-Senator Marco Rubio asked leading questions clearly intended to ridicule the possibility of psychogenic illness as an explanation, preferring interpretations that implicated the Cuban government.
I saw Marco Rubio on Fox News, kind of saber rattling about this. And it’s really interesting that this story can actually be used, you know, now that we’re, you know, can be used to blame China or Cuba or countries that, you know, we don’t want to have good relationship, whether you know it, um, there just seems to be a political component that masks the science.
ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW: Absolutely. I’ve studied mass psychogenic illness for 35 years. I did part of my PhD on it. I’ve published dozens of articles and peer reviewed medical journals. Marco Rubio, if you’re listening, doesn’t know anything about mass psychogenic illness, based on his Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing back in 2018 the way he described it as people being hypochondriacs and things like this, and the way he dismissed it was very unscientific and very ignorant. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
LENNY: The attribution of Havana Syndrome to deliberate attacks has been used to justify increased security measures, resource allocation, and policy decisions that might otherwise be difficult to support. The narrative of American diplomats under attack serves strategic purposes that extend beyond the immediate question of what caused the reported symptoms.
MISINFORMATION BUBBLE
LENNY: The Havana Syndrome case represents a profound institutional failure, with both government agencies and news organizations spreading dangerous misinformation that has real-world consequences. This isn’t merely a case of scientific disagreement — it’s a failure to uphold basic standards of evidence and responsible reporting.
Government agencies framed ambiguous symptoms as “attacks” despite contradictory internal findings, selectively releasing information that supported their preferred narrative. Meanwhile, media outlets amplified sensational claims without adequate scrutiny, abandoning basic journalistic principles in favor of dramatic headlines. Even prestigious medical journals published flawed studies that gave scientific weight to dubious claims. The resulting diplomatic breakdown, wasted resources, and unnecessary suffering represent the real-world costs of institutional misinformation.
Without meaningful accountability for these failures, we will inevitably repeat this pattern when similar situations arise in the future.