A senior CIA officer, on a work trip to London in April 2019, woke at 1 am with intense head pain, sweating, vertigo and a spinning sensation in his eyes. He could not remember colleagues the next day and struggled to follow a meeting. He initially blamed food poisoning, but brain fog, loss of balance and tinnitus persisted for weeks. In September he was on a trip to Poland when a similar attack occurred in a Warsaw hotel room, described as “someone standing over me with a baseball bat and repeatedly hitting me on the head.” The intense pain subsided after he moved to the floor, but chronic nerve pain and fatigue followed for years.
The incidents were later called anomalous health incidents (AHIs) and, after reports from dozens of CIA officers worldwide, many linked them to a Russian intelligence operation using an unknown sonic or pulsed‑microwave weapon. Scientists challenged the weapon theory, citing environmental factors and psychogenic causes. In 2022 a US‑convened panel concluded that the signs were genuine and could be due to external stimuli, but the next year an official assessment declared it “very unlikely” that US adversaries caused the incidents. The assessment was rescinded in 2023 by Trump‑era director of national intelligence, who said the analysis was flawed.
Two CBS producers, Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados, have been covering the story since 2015. Their forthcoming book argues that Russia was behind at least some episodes and accuses parts of the US intelligence community of covering up evidence. Early access to their findings and Guardian interviews with patients and scientists form the basis of the article.
In late 2024, an undercover operation reportedly acquired a man‑portable device that emits non‑thermal pulsed microwaves from a dark‑web seller. Testing on animals has shown it can produce symptoms similar to AHIs, suggesting the technology could be weaponised. The discovery raises questions about how many such devices exist and who might use them, and it gives patients a new hope that a foreign adversary may have targeted them.
