The Use of Acoustic Weapons

October 23, 2017 Opinion , OPINION/NEWS , South America

AFP photo

By

Ricardo Swire

Internal security officials counteract a diverse range of national safety challenges. In some cases state-of-the-art weapons are secretly deployed to create havoc, one futuristic combative environment recently manifesting on a Caribbean island. Not long ago American diplomats assigned to Cuba were mysteriously afflicted. From November 2016 to Spring 2017 sonic devices, functioning outside the normal range of sound, were strategically placed around the Americans’ Havana residences. On May 23, 2017 American officials expelled two Cuban diplomats from Washington.

The Havana placed mystery weaponry was unheard by human ears, which suggests either low frequencies aka infrasound or high frequencies called ultrasound. Specially calibrated instruments have recorded Infrasound at a faster speed than ultrasound. Infrasonic devices cause negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and depression. Nausea, vomiting, organ damage, burns or death depend on the weapon’s broadcast frequency and power level. Most devices function on 1 Hz to 30 kHz frequencies.

The recent acoustic attack caused sixteen American grievances ranging from dizziness, headaches, fatigue, cognitive difficulties to insomnia, two victims suffering permanent hearing loss, others mild traumatic brain injury. Historically, Cuba’s former iconic president referred to the local US Embassy’s “Interests Section” as “a nest of spies.” Cuban intelligence apparatus routinely recorded digital videos of American diplomats’ activities often broadcasted on the island’s nightly news.

The internal security position adopted after a failed US supported Bay of Pigs invasion, repeated attempts to kill Cuba’s leader and the Missile Crisis. In June 2017, one day after the American Havana episode, Canadian diplomats on Cuba complained of identical physiological symptoms, one treated for hearing loss. In 2015 Canada contributed to Cuba/USA discussions that restored diplomatic relations and reopened the US Embassy in Havana. Intelligence data suggest the possibility of an unknown third subversive element, operating without the knowledge of Cuba’s formal leadership.

Positioning “sound-based” devices to conduct surveillance is common practice among International intelligence agencies. Notwithstanding, if equipment is “misconfigured” a device can unknowingly trigger inaudible noise. Since biblical times, sound has been used as an invisible weapon. Modern militaries, law enforcement agencies and elite private security companies depend on sonic devices during operations. The Vortex Launcher aka Vortex Canon, Wind Canon or Shockwave Weapon, transmits an invisible whirlwind force that causes blunt impact on targets.

Acoustic weapons also have the capability to project chemical irritants. The device is often used to disable or destroy targets and control disruptive crowds. In November 2005 the ocean-liner Seabourn Spirit deployed its “Long Range Acoustic Device” (LRAD), a “military type” sonic weapon, to counter a Somali pirate rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and machine gun attack, one hundred miles off Somalia’s coast. The US military created LRAD in 2000, after the attack on USS Cole as it refuelled in Aden Horbor Yemen. The forty-five pound dish shaped device directs a piercing high-pitched one hundred and fifty decibel tone via a beam.

The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) Intelligence Unit and Mossad rely on another acoustic weapon called “The Screamer” to induce nausea and dizziness on designated targets. On two occasions American internal security agencies and law enforcers have utilized “Sonic Cannons.” In August 2005 sound emissions were interwoven in New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina crowd control processes. The second sonic blast deployed in 2009, as part of security measures during the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. In the United Kingdom select private security officials, responsible for safety of massive shopping Malls, use high-frequency sound to deter teenage loitering.