U.S. officials are reportedly looking into a suspected directed energy weapon attack that targeted federal personnel in Miami, Fla. last year, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke with Politico late Thursday.
The reported Miami attack is part of a growing number of similar attacks that sickened U.S. personnel in 2019 and 2020, and the attacks have gained the attention of the top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee this week.
News of the Miami incident comes as investigators are reportedly looking into two other incidents on U.S. soil, including one which sickened U.S. Secret Service personnel at the White House in November and another incident that sickened a White House staffer for President Donald Trump in 2019.
Other Americans were sickened in a 2016 attack in Havana Cuba, and then again in China and Russia in 2017. Politico reported last week that U.S. troops deployed in Syria were also sickened in another incident. Those targeted with these suspected directed energy weapon attacks have exhibited flu-like symptoms that have come to be known as “Havana Syndrome” after the first reported incident in Cuba.
It was unclear which federal agency was targeted in the Miami attack. Representatives for the NSC, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined Politico requests for comment about the Miami incident.
The number of mysterious directed energy or sonic attacks led Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Vice-Chair Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to issue a joint statement Friday, vowing to protect Americans and determine who is behind the attacks.
Warner and Rubio wrote, “For nearly five years, we have been aware of reports of mysterious attacks on United States Government personnel in Havana, Cuba and around the world. This pattern of attacking our fellow citizens serving our government appears to be increasing. The Senate Intelligence Committee intends to get to the bottom of this. We have already held fact finding hearings on these debilitating attacks, many of which have resulted in medically confirmed cases of Traumatic Brain Injury, and will do more.”
Victims of various suspected directed energy weapon attacks have often reported hearing grating noises, before the onset of nausea, dizziness, headaches and even memory loss.
Investigators of the incidents at the U.S. diplomatic posts in Cuba and China have long suspected U.S. personnel were subjected to an illness-inducing sound consistent with a directed radiofrequency energy attack.
Last week, Politico reported military briefers told the top members of Congress in the “Gang of Eight” and the Senate Armed Services Committee about a number of suspected sonic attacks.
The briefers reportedly identified Russia as the likely source of the various sonic attacks but also listed China as another possible culprit.
