Mystery illness in Washington raises concerns over ‘directed energy attacks’ on US soil

US federal investigators have launched a probe into a mysterious illness among several White House officials, possibly caused by "directed energy weapons", late last year.

The incidents affected two officials on the National Security Council in November 2020, one the day after the presidential election and one several weeks later, CNN said.

The mysterious incidents, both of which occurred at the White House grounds, along with a previous suspected case in northern Virginia in 2019, have raised concerns that the wave of episodes first seen only among Americans overseas in Cuba is now occurring on US soil and may even be at the US President's front door.

The cases are consistent with an inexplicable constellation of physical symptoms that have struck more than 130 US diplomats, spies and troops around the world and have come to be known as "Havana Syndrome" after US diplomatic personnel in Cuba experienced similar occurrences in 2016.

The New York Times also reported at least one episode taking place overseas in the last two weeks.

The mysterious illness disrupts the nervous system  and causes a varying set of issues, including ear-popping, vertigo, pounding headaches, nausea and a "piercing directional noise".

US investigators have struggled for the past five years to explain the strange experiences reported by US diplomats and other government workers in Cuba, Russia, China and elsewhere.

A report by the US National Academy of Sciences concluded that the strange health incidents were most likely caused by exposure to "directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy", also known as microwave energy.

A 2014 National Security Agency memo revealed that the agency had intelligence, which pointed to the possible existence of "a high-powered microwave system weapon ... designed to bathe a target's living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a damaged nervous system."

The Biden administration has ramped up its efforts to "identify the cause of these incidents, determine attribution, increase collection efforts, and prevent" what the intelligence community now terms "anomalous health incidents," a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

US lawmakers on Capitol Hill expressed disquiet over “the intelligence community failure” to provide Congress with enough information on what it knows and how it's responding -- and has not properly taken care of the victims.

Congress has also expressed concern that the government has failed to coordinate efforts out of multiple agencies -- including the Pentagon, intelligence community and State Department -- to address the mysterious problem.

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