A CIA whistleblower has said that Americans should be ‘terrified’ of alleged government gaslighting of former intelligence employees who believe they have been struck down by ‘Havana Syndrome’.
The medically-retired CIA officer spoke with investigative journalist Catherine Herridge about her experience with the debilitating mystery disorder, and how the authorities have treated her since.
Speaking under the pseudonym Alice, the former CIA employee said she spent two decades in government service and began experiencing ‘Havana Syndrome’ – also known as Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs).
The syndrome is a disputed medical condition experienced by a cluster of US and Canadian government officials who were based in around a dozen overseas locations, which started among employees in Havana in 2016.
Symptoms include dizziness, cognitive problems, insomnia, and headaches. The most prominent theory is that it is caused by pulsed electromagnetic energy and ultrasound emanating from sonic weapons.
Alice told Herridge her injuries are so debilitating that she relies on a service dog. She needed several breaks during the interview and wore dark-tinted glasses to shield her eyes from the studio lighting.
‘I was serving in Africa and I experienced an anomalous health incident in my home on a Saturday night,’ Alice told Herridge.
‘I heard a weird noise. It was a really weird sound that I’ll never, never forget it… and after about a second or two, I felt it in my feet, kind of like the reverb from a speaker.’
A CIA whistleblower (pictured) has said that Americans should be ‘terrified’ of government gaslighting of former intelligence employees who believe they have been struck down by ‘Havana Syndrome’
One of the sonic weapons that could cause Havana syndrome is said to be a smaller version of this 1990s Soviet microwave generator, which is kept at the University of New Mexico
Alice said she went to the master bedroom to ask her partner whether he could hear the off-putting noise too.
‘I said, “Hey, do you hear that weird noise?” And the first sign that something was off, I should have known, was when he said, “what noise?”
Alice went back to where she heard the noise. ‘Immediately, as soon as I reentered the space, I heard the noise again,’ she said.
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‘My ear started hurting. I started having vertigo.
‘The room was spinning, my head started pulsing. It hurt so badly and I had a ton of pain in my left ear and my ears started ringing and I thought I was going to pass out.’
Alice said she believes several different, concealed weapons could be behind the strange symptoms experienced by herself and many of her colleagues, adding that she thinks Moscow is to blame.
‘I think there are weapons that can be fit in backpacks, ones that can be fit in the trunks of cars, ones that can be planted at a position with line of sight to people from across the street,’ she said.
‘I believe the Russian GRU (Russian military intelligence) came to my house late at night and took me off the battlefield,’ she added.
Asked if her old self died the day she experienced an AHI, Alice responded, ‘A little bit. I was paid for my brain. I was paid for my ability to write well and to write for the president.
‘I was paid to meet with foreigners and to get information that would help advance US security objectives …and I can’t do that anymore the way I used to and it’s really, that’s one of the hardest parts.’
Symptoms of Havana Syndrome include loud noise, ear pain, intense head pressure or vibration, dizziness, visual problems, and cognitive difficulties
The syndrome first surfaced at the US embassy in Havana, (pictured) when government employees suddenly found themselves afflicted with the mysterious malady
But Alice said the CIA has been gaslighting her and other AHI survivors in the years since by making them ‘question our own injuries’.
‘We swore this oath and every day I watch them really continue to deny people’s humanity and their injuries,’ she told Herridge.
‘People that put themselves and their families on the line in horrible, horribly dangerous places and situations to protect this country.’
Speaking about the intelligence agencies, she added: ‘If they’re politicizing this, what else are they not telling the president?’
‘It’s a coverup and it’s terrifying and it should be terrifying to all Americans.’
Herridge said the Labor Department does list Alice’s Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI as a ‘work injury’, and she qualified for some compensation through the Havana Act – but nowhere near enough to cover her medical expenses.
‘It is a full-time job to try to get medical treatment and is another full-time job to try to handle the bureaucracy of trying to access benefits,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone over a hundred thousand dollars out of pocket.’
Alice said AHI survivors need specialized care that is not covered by usual medical insurance.
‘The reality is a normal physician cannot help us. This is different. AHIs are much more complicated and we’re basically ticking time bombs,’ she said.
‘Catherine, I have already started having to go to funerals. Friends of mine, I mean my friend that was with me the day I got my dog has already passed away..a fellow AHI survivor, of a rare form of cancer.
‘I have friends in nursing homes. I have friends with dementia and Parkinson’s. In some ways, people have a heart attack and if you don’t die of it, we know how to fix a heart attack. We don’t know how to fix this.’
There have been several investigations into Havana Syndrome by government and non-government agencies, but none have been able to determine the cause.
They found that foreign adversaries are unlikely to be the cause of AHIs, and considered energy weapons and psychological causes like stress are potential causes.
A March 2024 letter obtained by Herridge from the former head of the DoD Cross-Functional AHI team, Brigadier General Shannon O’Harren, said they believed Havana Syndrome victims.
‘We believe your experiences are real and we are unwaveringly committed to continue to provide quality care for you and those who are eligible,’ the letter reads.
‘The Department of Defense believes us and has actually gone to bat for those of us from across the US government. I would not be getting care if it wasn’t for senior DOD leadership,’ Alice told Herridge.
But she had sterner words for the CIA. When asked why she was speaking out now, Alice said: ‘Because the CIA is betraying and not just betraying but making friends of mine and my life a living hell. I want them to stop hurting my friends.
‘I want them to give everyone I care about medical care and Havana Act payments and to take care of us in the long term.
‘I want them to stop denying what is happening to us and so there can be opportunities to collect the information that we need so that we can prevent this from happening to more people.’