Pattern-Seeking Patriots: Podcast Edition
Pattern-Seeking Patriots: Podcast Edition
A Hoax in Havana Shows the Damage from Conspiracy Politics
WE HATE NOT KNOWING. That’s the bottom line about conspiratorial thinking.
Human intelligence evolved from basic pattern-seeking in animals, and a million years later, we still fall into the trap. Because the things that helped or hurt animals could be detected by patterns (of movement, color, sound, or behavior, etc), we still look for patterns everywhere. Even where they do not exist.
A classic example is the Biblical numerologist, who scours the Gospel for codes, revelations, and predictions. Because he wants to find patterns, he selects evidence until he does. The truth is out there!
This search for meaningful explanations came up when I appeared recently on the podcast “Conspiracyland,” with Mike Isikoff, the chief investigative reporter for YahooNews. We talked about Havana Syndrome, the subject of a special three-part report he did.
Not Havana addiction, which is what I have. I have been obsessed with Cuba for decades. I wrote three books all or partly about Cuba. I’ve been more than 25 times. I have Havana addiction.
But I do not have the syndrome. Havana Syndrome, if you remember, was the theory that around 2015, US diplomats in Cuba were attacked with some kind of mysterious sonic beam or microwave weapon.
There was no such thing, and I’ve harped on this many times. Mike Isikoff does a wonderful job of unwinding the real story. The reality is that some American diplomats reported actual pain and illness in 2015, but even the CIA has now concluded it was not an attack by a hostile power. Back in 2015, the US embassy asked staff to report any more unexplained pains or illness, and inevitably got more reports. Finally, Rex Tillerson on the Sixth Floor of the State Department was looking for a Trumpy way to undo the Obama policy on Cuba.
Presto: a diverse group of injured and ill people with other problems were put in a box labeled “Havana Syndrome,” and the Trump administration effectively shut down our embassy in Havana.
Although some of the illnesses may have been psychosomatic, or psychological in origin, most were physically real. But their accumulation into a unified theory was an example of mass psychogenic illness, or an orchestrated social phenomenon (like fads for feinting). It’s often thought that psychogenic means fake; that’s not true. The illnesses are real, only the surrounding theories are false.
There were a lot of dubious “facts” behind Havana Syndrome, all of them debunked by experts. No such microwave weapon exists, even in theory. No “sonic beam” could create such harm. The Cubans had no motivation to attack us, when we were giving them the embassy presence they always wanted. Some people reported piercing sounds—which turned out to be subsonic pest repellers, broken motors, and failing electronic circuits. The sounds that several diplomats recorded—screeching, maddening, almost digital—turned out to be West Indian locust during mating season.
It never made sense. Why would the Cubans use a top secret miracle weapon to attack a low-ranking human resources staffer? Why were Canadian diplomats supposedly effected? Why did one person report feeling an attack, but not those standing on either side of him? Why did “Havana” Syndrome start showing up in the Beijing embassy, and why is it now raging in Vienna? (22 US diplomats have been diagnosed there.)
Some diplomats reported severe headaches, dizziness, ringing noises, nausea, brain fog, and more. About 1/3rd of adult Americans have had a transitory stroke—a mini clot, sometimes called a warning stroke—which can cause every symptom on that list. Yet these mini strokes are almost undiagnosable, and rarely even reported.
We just don’t like not knowing. As Conspiracyland amply documents, the idea of a secret communist energy weapon (the “Moscow Signal”) has been trotted out to explain illness in our diplomatic corps since the 1950s. It’s always easier to draw a pattern. Politicians saw a benefit, and the conspiracy theory called Havana Syndrome flourishes to this day. Fitting “evidence” to what you already believe has dangerous consequences.
Thanks to Mike Isikoff and YahooNews for having me on “Conspiracyland” to talk about Cuba. The series starts here. I appear on the bonus track of episode 3, online today.