Federal agents are reportedly looking into a suspected directed energy weapon attack near the White House in November of last year while President Donald Trump was still in office, as well as another suspected attack on a White House staffer the year prior.
The suspected November attack took place near the Ellipse, the large oval lawn on the south side of the White House, according to sources for CNN. U.S. Secret Service agents were sickened during the incident, according to multiple current and former officials.
Details about the November attack are still limited, but CNN reported defense officials briefed lawmakers on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on the matter earlier this month. Recent reports have detailed defense officials’ efforts to brief lawmakers about several different incidents of directed energy attacks, including at least one in Syria in the fall of 2020 that sickened several U.S. troops with flu-like symptoms. CNN’s reporting is the first indication investigators are also looking into an attack that may have targeted the Trump White House.
CNN further reported a White House official reported similar symptoms while walking her dog in a Virginia suburb outside Washington in a 2019 incident. That incident was previously reported by GQ last year.
The mysterious flu-like illness has come to be known as “Havana Syndrome, “after nearly 50 U.S. diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba in late 2016. Those diplomats described hearing 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.
Following the 2016 incident, a similar incident took place at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China in early 2017, and then another in Moscow, Russia in late 2017.
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.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Gang of Eight, expressed concern to Politico about Russian aggression in the Middle East and said, “I think that’s a question that has to have answers and beyond that, we’ve all seen some of these attacks on diplomatic facilities. I don’t want to link the two, but again, I just can’t comment on any of that.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Armed Services Committee, declined to comment on any details about any alleged sonic attacks against U.S. troops in Syria, but said, “On a number of topics where we have been briefed in a classified setting, I think the American people need and deserve to know more.”
