Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In last week's episode, Sound of the Overground, we looked at the extraordinary story of
the Warminster Thing. Over time, the Thing came to be thought of as a supposed to UFO event that sparked off a litany of strange sightings in the mid nineteen seventies throughout the Warminster area in the English county of Wiltshire. Everything from classic cigar shaped objects spotted in the sky to the sighting of possible alien entities and even contact were alleged to have taken place. Initially, however, the thing was reported as little more than a mysterious, sinister sound
with no discernible origin. This sound was described variously as oscillating between an ominous drone and a clattering racket, as if nuts and bolts were being swished about in a steel bucket. In March twenty nineteen, it was reported that as many as four percent of people are plagued by a mysterious, low pitched sound with no quantifiable source that
has become known as the HUM. I myself am one of those people, although I suspect this might simply be a case of tinatus after years of refusing to turn down my earphones. In the UK, perhaps the most well known version of this is the Bristol Hum, so called after a spate of people there in the nineteen seventies and then again in twenty sixteen, complained of being kept
awake by it. Also in twenty sixteen, just over seven thousand kilometers away in Cuba, employees of the US embassy in Havana also began complaining of being plagued by a strange and ominous sound, in a plot that could have been lifted straight from the most ludicrous spy novel. It really is a story that has to be heard to be believed. It was late afternoon in the western suburbs of Havana, an area of mostly wealthy neighborhoods populated by
government officials and diplomats. US diplomats only recently installed in the Cuban capital, were facing an uncertain few months ahead, due firstly to the incoming President Donald Trump's unexpected election victory. This was followed soon after on November twenty fifth by the death of ex president and arguably the most iconic
and influential figure in Cuban history for Del Castro. That weekend, one US diplomat recently moved to the city with much to think on, was enjoying the tranquility of another warm evening at home with his family. The man opened his back doors to joyed the last of the evening sun when he was suddenly confronted by a hideous din that
seemed to rattle around his skull. Closing the doors immediately, with the sound still ringing in his head, he hurried about the house, shutting every window he could find, but it was only by turning the TV up that he was finally able to offset the infuriating buzz. With the noise having finally abated, a few days later, the diplomat was back in the garden hosting a colleague in their family from next door, when, at roughly the same time
as before, the noise started again. Hearing it for the second time, the man apologized to his guests, speculating that it was probably just insects, but the colleague was less sure. This, he thought sounded different, more artificial. Somehow, What's more, he'd been hearing it too in his home, sometimes for up to an hour at a time. After speaking to the embassy about it, maintenance workers were sent to investigate, but no faulty electrics or any other obvious cause could be found.
It was a few weeks later when a second younger colleague in his thirties turned up at the embassy's medical clinic suffering from headaches and hearing problems. The man explained that he'd been at home alone when he began experiencing discomfort from an unusual sound that seemed to be vibrating right inside his head. Whenever he moved from certain spots, the sound would disappear, only to reappear again when he
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and winning is not guaranteed. See website for details. When news of these peculiar incidences began filtering through the embassy, some began to wander if these were not, in fact deliberate sonic attacks being directed at the embassy employees. Certainly, given the nature of the job, the US Cuban Embassy chief, Geoffrey de Laurentis, had little choice but to take them seriously.
Being a veteran of US diplomatic missions, he was more than familiar with the many underhand tactics often employed by the various secret services of nations to unsettle diplomatic staff an occupation or hazard, especially considering that many diplomatic staff are often assumed with good reason to be spies, as detailed in a twenty eighteen pro Publica article written by Tim Golden and Sebastian Roteller titled The Sound and the
Fury Inside the Mystery of the Havana Embassy. Such tactics might traditionally include withholding food parcels for embassies, to simply puncturing diplomats car tires. Often it might be something as subtle as breaking into their homes just to rearrange furniture or leave a window open, a gentle reminder that they
were always being watched. As Golden and Rotella went on to explain, for De Laurentis, it wasn't out of the question that some embassy staff were being harassed in this way, but as for being targeted by a sophisticated sonic weapon, he was less sure, since diplomatic relations had only been reinstated the year before, having been non existent since nineteen sixty one, Unless it was a rogue agent, which he considered unlikely that the Cuban government would sanction such actions
seemed equally unlikely. Then, in February twenty seventeen, it happened again, this time effecting the wife of an embassy employee in the coastal neighborhood of Flores. Furthermore, having heard a strange sound, she claimed then to have looked out of her window to see a van speeding away from the scene. With evidence mounting, the US State Department presented a note of protest to the Cuban government, formally acknowledging their concern that
embassy staff were coming under attack. In response, Cuban President at the time, Raoul Castro, claimed no knowledge of any such attack, and even took the unusual step of allowing the FBI to fly to Havana and carry out an investigation of their own. As news spread of the apparent sonic attacks, more and more embassy staff came forward to
share their own unusual experiences. Accounts ranged from the general hearing of insect like buzzing noises, to more concentrated beams that seemed to fix on them, to even just the feeling of something gently vibrating in the ear. Many also claimed to have suffered serious side effects from the attacks,
from vomiting to severe loss of hearing. By the end of April twenty seventeen, eighty members of embassy staff and their family had come forward after being sent to a team of medical specialists in Miami led by a doctor
Michael Hoffer. Twenty four were eventually determined to have been significantly harmed by the mysterious threat, and soon the effects of the mysterious sound were being felt by Canadian embassy staff too, with twenty seven individuals who claimed to have suffered headaches, nausea, and even nosebleats said to have sought
treatment for it. Over the course of May twenty seventeen to February twenty eighteen, the FBI made at least four trips to Cuba, interviewing countless embassy staff and Cuban government officials in their efforts to find the culprit. The CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, as well as the Pentagon's Defense Advancement Research Projects Agency also looked into it, but none found anything to account for the reports, not least of all, any evidence that people were being targeted by
some kind of sonic device. By then, however, reports had filtered into the media, and the urge to talk up the potential return of Cold War eraspy tactics complete with James Bond's style sonic weapons, was too good to refuse. The US military had long been trying to develop a
device just like it of their own. Similar weapons have in fact already been developed, such as the mob excess deterrent using silent audio or meduceth short, which is designed to break up large mobs or as a deterrent to pirates. They had nothing, however, that was capable of conducting such seemingly covert and concentrated attacks, and as more apparent victims came forward, experts were left increasingly baffled as to what
an Earth was causing it. One State Department led medical investigation was left concluding that despite any physical evidence to explain why some individuals had clearly been left with sustained
injury to widespread brain networks. The lack of evidence linking the apparent sonic attacks to the Cuban government didn't stop the Trump administration in retaliating, and kind having already been intent on rolling back the Obama administration's efforts to try and bring the nations closer together and keen to foster a more uncompromising image on the international stage, they maintained the line that US embassy staff were under attack and
the Cuban government were responsible. In late September twenty seventeen, twenty four or forty seven diplomats assigned to Havana were ordered home by the State Department, while fifteen Cuban diplomats were sent packing the other way. Before long, however, some were beginning to wonder if there'd been an attack at all. A number of experts noted similarities between the way things had unfolded in Havana and something known as conversion disorder.
The disorder has been described in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry as the rapid spread of illness, signs and symptoms among members of a cohesive social group for which there is no corresponding organic origin, otherwise known as mass hysteria.
As some experts speculated, rather than being the side effects of a sonic weapon, perhaps all these ailments that embassy staff were suffering were in fact perfectly normal medical issues reframed as something nefarious, due entirely to the US State departments unfounded and perhaps politically motivated insistence that something underhand was going on. Under the circumstances, such a possibility would
be perfectly understandable. After all, when your own leaders are telling you, despite the lack of all evidence to the contrary, that what they say is taking place, why wouldn't you believe them? If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to
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