1,500+ U.S. personnel suffered brain injuries from invisible attacks. Now we have the brain scans, the science, and evidence the attacks stopped when Russia invaded Ukraine. The official verdict was wrong—this investigation isn’t over.
At Whale Hunting, we don’t just report—we pursue. Our Expeditions are long-term investigations into topics and stories we think are important. One of those Expeditions is Havana Syndrome. You may have heard the official verdict—“no clear evidence of a weapon,” case likely closed. But behind the scenes, the story didn’t stop. We are continuing to dig and so are a lot of other people – victims, government officials, journalists. And the deeper we go, the more the scientific and intelligence communities quietly confirmed what we suspected: this isn’t over.
That’s why we relaunched our investigation publicly last month—not as just a spy story, but as a forensic one. We're bring fresh reporting, new interviews, and a systematic, evidence-first approach. We’ll map the data, break down the science, and examine the things hiding in plain sight.
If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll get access. If you want to go deeper, become a paid member. Either way, we invite you to join the hunt.
If you have an interest in investigating, please write us at syndrome@projectbrazen.com and we'll figure out how to collaborate. Need more confidential means? Click here for options.
Quick recap: In our last edition, we dove deep into the Havana Syndrome mystery - examining how over 1,500 U.S. personnel across 96 countries have reported sudden neurological attacks since 2016, with symptoms ranging from directional phantom sounds to lasting brain injuries. We explored the leading scientific theory that pulsed microwave energy could be responsible, analyzing how the "Frey effect" and other documented microwave bioeffects align remarkably well with victims' experiences. Through expert perspectives from neuroscientist Dr. James Giordano, bioengineer Kenneth Foster, and physician-scientist Prof. Beatrice Golomb, we weighed the evidence both for and against a directed-energy weapon.
We concluded that while the physics makes such a weapon theoretically plausible - and historical precedents like the Soviet "Moscow Signal" prove directed-energy harassment is possible - the practical engineering challenges are formidable: a device powerful enough to cause these effects would require megawatt-level peak power and sophisticated focusing systems difficult to deploy covertly. Most puzzling of all, despite years of investigation and monitoring, no smoking gun has emerged - no device captured, no electromagnetic signatures detected, no perpetrators caught in the act.
We're left with a genuine medical mystery where the science says it's possible, the victims' suffering is undeniably real, but the lack of forensic evidence keeps us from definitively answering whether this represents a new era of covert warfare or has another explanation entirely.
This week we turn to the medical mystery itself. What happened to all these people?
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On a warm evening in March 2017, a veteran American diplomat stood in her kitchen in Havana when she felt a sudden burst of pressure in her head, followed by a stabbing pain unlike anything she'd experienced before. In the weeks that followed, she was plagued by severe headaches, dizzy spells, and vision trouble. Puzzled doctors noted that her symptoms mimicked a concussion, yet she hadn't suffered any blow to the head. Brain scans soon provided a startling clue: her white-matter brain volume had significantly shrunk, a pattern "not like anything we've ever seen before," according to Dr. Douglas Smith, a University of Pennsylvania brain injury specialist. It was as if she'd sustained a concussion without a concussion – what some would come to call an "immaculate concussion," a traumatic brain injury with no apparent impact. These tangible neurological changes validated that something real and physical had happened to her brain, even if the cause was a mystery.
