This Is So Strange

Back in September, I first noted a very odd report that a number of U.S. diplomats in Cuba had reportedly been injured by what was thought to be some sort of sonic attack. (See follow-ups here, here, and here.)

Today, Josh Lederman at the AP has troubling new information on this bizarre situation: Doctors Identify Brain Abnormalities in Cuba Attack Patients.

Doctors treating the U.S. Embassy victims of mysterious, invisible attacks in Cuba have discovered brain abnormalities as they search for clues to explain the hearing, vision, balance, and memory damage, The Associated Press has learned.

It's the most specific finding to date about physical damage, showing that whatever it was that harmed the Americans, it led to perceptible changes in their brains. The finding is also one of several factors fueling growing skepticism that some kind of sonic weapon was involved.

Medical testing has revealed the embassy workers developed changes to the white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate, several U.S. officials said, describing a growing consensus held by university and government physicians researching the attacks. White matter acts like information highways between brain cells.

Loud, mysterious sounds followed by hearing loss and ear-ringing had led investigators to suspect "sonic attacks." But officials are now carefully avoiding that term. The sounds may have been the byproduct of something else that caused damage, said three U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. They weren't authorized to discuss it publicly and demanded anonymity.

Physicians, FBI investigators, and U.S. intelligence agencies have spent months trying to piece together the puzzle in Havana, where the U.S. says 24 U.S. government officials and spouses fell ill starting last year in homes and later in some hotels. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday he's "convinced these were targeted attacks," but the U.S. doesn't know who's behind them. A few Canadian Embassy staffers also got sick.

Doctors still don't know how victims ended up with the white matter changes, nor how exactly those changes might relate to their symptoms.

Utterly baffling — and really scary that no one seems to be able to figure out the cause. Or the reason. Or the perpetrator.

[H/T to Shaker SKM.]