微波武器：美國外交官神秘疾病的幕后真兇？

During the Cold War, Washington feared that Moscow was seeking to turn microwave radiation into covert weapons of mind control.

冷戰(zhàn)期間，華盛頓曾擔心莫斯科試圖將微波輻射變成隱蔽的精神控制武器。

More recently, the U.S. military itself sought to develop microwave arms that could invisibly beam painfully loud booms and even spoken words into people’s heads. The aims were to disable attackers and wage psychological warfare.

后來，美國軍方也在尋求開發(fā)微波武器，它可以在無形中傳送刺耳的聲音，甚至可以把話語送入人們的頭腦。其目標是令攻擊者失能，并用于心理戰(zhàn)。

Now, doctors and scientists say such unconventional weapons may have caused the baffling symptoms and ailments that, starting in late 2016, hit more than three dozen U.S. diplomats and their family members in Cuba and China. The Cuban incidents resulted in a diplomatic rupture between Havana and Washington.

現(xiàn)在，醫(yī)生和科學家說，這種非常規(guī)武器可能引發(fā)了令人困惑的癥狀和疾病，從2016年底開始，30多名美國外交官及其家人在古巴和中國受到襲擊。古巴的事件已經(jīng)導致哈瓦那和華盛頓之間的外交關系出現(xiàn)裂痕。

The medical team that examined 21 affected diplomats from Cuba made no mention of microwaves in its detailed report published in JAMA in March. But Douglas H. Smith, the study’s lead author and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a recent interview that microwaves were now considered a main suspect and that the team was increasingly sure the diplomats had suffered brain injury.

一個醫(yī)療小組檢查了在古巴受影響的21名外交人員，于3月份在《美國醫(yī)學會期刊》(JAMA)上發(fā)表了詳細報告，其中并未提及微波。但該研究的主要作者、賓夕法尼亞大學(University of Pennsylvania)腦損傷與修復中心主任道格拉斯·H·史密斯(Douglas H. Smith)在最近的采訪中表示，微波現(xiàn)在被認為嫌疑最大，該團隊越來越確定這些外交官遭受了腦損傷。

“Everybody was relatively skeptical at first,” he said, “and everyone now agrees there’s something there.” Smith remarked that the diplomats and doctors jokingly refer to the trauma as the immaculate concussion.

“一開始所有人都持相對懷疑態(tài)度，”他說，“現(xiàn)在所有人都同意這里面有問題，”史密斯說，外交官和醫(yī)生開玩笑地將這種創(chuàng)傷稱為完美的腦震蕩。

Strikes with microwaves, some experts now argue, more plausibly explain reports of painful sounds, ills and traumas than do other possible culprits — sonic attacks, viral infections and contagious anxiety.

一些專家現(xiàn)在認為，微波打擊比聲波攻擊、病毒感染和傳染性焦慮等其他可能的罪魁禍首更能合理地解釋受害者報告的那些痛苦的聲音、疾病和創(chuàng)傷。

In particular, a growing number of analysts cite an eerie phenomenon known as the Frey effect, named after Allan Frey, an American scientist. Long ago, he found that microwaves can trick the brain into perceiving what seem to be ordinary sounds.

特別是，越來越多的分析家引用了一種令人毛骨悚然的現(xiàn)象，它被稱為弗雷效應，以美國科學家艾倫·弗雷(Allan Frey)的名字命名。很久以前，他發(fā)現(xiàn)微波可以誘使大腦感知到似乎很普通的聲音。

The false sensations, experts say, could account for a defining symptom of the diplomatic incidents: the perception of loud noises, including ringing, buzzing and grinding. Initially, experts cited those symptoms as evidence of stealthy attacks with sonic weapons.

專家說，這種虛假的感覺可以解釋這些外交事件中的一個明顯癥狀：受害者感覺到極大噪音，包括鈴聲、嗡嗡聲和碾磨聲。起初，專家們認為這些癥狀是使用聲波武器進行秘密攻擊的證據(jù)。

Members of JASON, a secretive group of elite scientists that helps the federal government assess new threats to national security, say it has been scrutinizing the diplomatic mystery this summer and weighing possible explanations, including microwaves.

秘密的精英科學家團體JASON一直在幫助聯(lián)邦政府評估對國家安全的新威脅，他們表示，今年夏天該組織一直在仔細研究這個外交之謎，并考慮可能的解釋，包括微波。

Asked about the microwave theory of the case, the State Department said the investigation had yet to identify the cause or source of the attacks. The FBI declined to comment on the status of the investigation or any theories.

當被問及此案的微波假說時，國務院表示調查尚未確定襲擊的原因或來源。聯(lián)邦調查局拒絕評論調查的進展或任何假說。

The microwave idea teems with unanswered questions. Who fired the beams? The Russian government? The Cuban government? A rogue Cuban faction sympathetic to Moscow? And, if so, where did the attackers get the unconventional arms?

微波假說中充滿未解之謎。是誰發(fā)射了微波?俄羅斯政府?古巴政府?古巴的一個胡作非為的親俄派別?而且，如果是這樣，攻擊者是從哪里獲得這種非常規(guī)武器的?

At his home outside Washington, Frey, the scientist who uncovered the neural phenomenon, said federal investigators have questioned him on the diplomatic riddle and that microwave radiation is considered a possible cause.

發(fā)現(xiàn)這一神經(jīng)現(xiàn)象的科學家弗雷在他華盛頓郊區(qū)的家中表示，聯(lián)邦調查人員已就這一外交之謎向他咨詢，而且微波輻射被視為很可能的原因。

Frey, now 83, has traveled widely and long served as a contractor and a consultant to a number of federal agencies. He speculated that Cubans aligned with Russia, the nation’s longtime ally, might have launched microwave strikes in attempts to undermine developing ties between Cuba and the United States.

弗雷現(xiàn)年83歲，曾經(jīng)到處旅行，并且長期擔任多個聯(lián)邦機構的承包商和顧問。他推測，發(fā)動微波襲擊的可能是與該國長期盟友俄羅斯勾結的古巴人，企圖破壞古巴與美國之間發(fā)展關系。

“It’s a possibility,” he said at his kitchen table. “In dictatorships, you often have factions that think nothing of going against the general policy if it suits their needs. I think that’s a perfectly viable explanation.”

“這是一種可能性，”他在自家的廚房餐桌邊說。“在獨裁統(tǒng)治中，總會有一些派別，只要符合自身需要，它們絕不介意和通行政策對著干。我認為這是一個非常有道理的解釋。”

Microwaves are ubiquitous in modern life. The short radio waves power radars, cook foods, relay messages and link cellphones to antenna towers. They are a form of electromagnetic radiation on the same spectrum as light and X-rays, only at the opposite end.

微波在現(xiàn)代生活中無處不在。這種波長較短的無線電波可以驅動雷達、烹飪食物、傳播信息、以及把手機連接到天線塔。它是一種電磁輻射形式，與光和X射線在同一頻譜內，只不過位于另一端。

While radio broadcasting can employ waves a mile or more in length, microwaves range in size from roughly a foot to a fraction of an inch. They are seen as harmless in such everyday uses as microwaving foods. But their diminutive size also enables tight focusing, as when dish antennas turn disorganized rays into concentrated beams.

無線電廣播使用的是波長為一英里或更長的波，而微波的大小是從約一英尺到幾分之一英寸。在加熱食物等日常應用中，它被認為是無害的。然而，當?shù)翁炀€將散亂的射線轉變?yōu)榧鴷r，這種較小的波長可以實現(xiàn)緊聚焦。

The dimensions of the human head, scientists say, make it a fairly good antenna for picking up microwave signals.

科學家們說，人體頭部的尺寸恰恰使其成為拾取微波信號的極好天線。

Mr. Frey, a biologist, said he stumbled on the acoustic effect in 1960 while working for General Electric’s Advanced Electronics Center at Cornell University. A man who measured radar signals at a nearby G.E. facility came up to him at a meeting and confided that he could hear the beam’s pulses — zip, zip, zip.

生物學家弗雷先生說，1960年他在康奈爾大學的通用電氣高級電子中心工作時，偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了一種聲學效應。在一次會議結束后，一名在附近通用的設施內負責測量雷達信號的男子找到他，說自己能聽到電波的脈沖聲——嘶，嘶，嘶。

Intrigued, Frey traveled to the man’s workplace in Syracuse and positioned himself in a radar beam. “Lo,” he recalled, “I could hear it, too.”

弗雷感到好奇，于是前往在錫拉丘茲的工作場所，把自己定位在雷達波束之中。“你看，”他回憶說，“我也能聽到聲音。”

Frey’s resulting papers — reporting that even deaf people could hear the false sounds — founded a new field of study on radiation’s neural impacts. Frey’s first paper, in 1961, reported that power densities 160 times lower than “the standard maximum safe level for continuous exposure” could induce the sonic delusions.

弗雷隨后發(fā)表一系列論文，報道即使聾人也能聽到虛假的聲音，它們創(chuàng)立了一個關于輻射對神經(jīng)影響的新研究領域。弗雷在1961年發(fā)表的第一篇論文稱，功率強度比“連續(xù)暴露的最大安全水平標準”低160倍的微波，可能會引起聲音錯覺。

His second paper, in 1962, pinpointed the brain’s receptor site as the temporal lobes, which extend beneath the temples. Each lobe bears a small region — the auditory cortex — that processes nerve signals from the outer and inner ears.

他的第二篇論文于1962年發(fā)表，將微波的大腦的受體部位定位為顳葉，它們延伸到太陽穴下方。每個額葉上都有一小片區(qū)域，即聽覺皮層，負責處理來自外耳和內耳的神經(jīng)信號。

Moscow was so intrigued by the prospect of mind control that it adopted a special terminology for the overall class of envisioned arms, calling them psychophysical and psychotronic.

莫斯科對微波的精神控制前景非常感興趣，于是為這種預想中的武器類別創(chuàng)造了一個特殊術語，稱其為心理物理學和心理電學。

Soviet research on microwaves for “internal sound perception,” the Defense Intelligence Agency warned in 1976, showed great promise for “disrupting the behavior patterns of military or diplomatic personnel.”

國防情報局于1976年警告說，蘇聯(lián)對“內部聲音感知”的微波研究有“破壞軍事或外交人員行為模式”的極大前景。

Furtively, globally, the threat grew.

在全球范圍內，威脅在暗暗增長。

The National Security Agency gave Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who routinely gets security clearances to discuss classified matters, a statement on how a foreign power built a weapon “designed to bathe a target’s living quarters in microwaves, causing numerous physical effects, including a damaged nervous system.”

美國國家安全局(National Security Agency)向一名例行獲得安全許可以討論機密事宜的華盛頓律師馬克·扎伊德(Mark Zaid)做出陳述，說明了一個外國勢力如何制造出一種武器，“用以將目標的生活區(qū)浸沒于微波中，對其身體造成很多影響，包括使其神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)受損”。

Zaid said a NSA client of his who traveled there watched in disbelief as his nervous system later unraveled, starting with control of his fingers.

扎伊德說，他的一名美國國家安全局的客戶在那里旅行時，難以置信地看到他的神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)后來崩潰了，從失去對手指的控制開始。

Washington, too, foresaw new kinds of arms.

華盛頓也預見到了新型武器的出現(xiàn)。

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Air Force scientists sought to beam comprehensible speech into the heads of adversaries. Their novel approach won a patent in 2002, and an update in 2003. Both were assigned to the Air Force secretary, helping limit the idea’s dissemination.

在新墨西哥州的阿爾伯克基，空軍科學家們試圖向敵人的腦袋里灌輸可以理解的語音。這一新方法在2002年獲得了專利，2003年又獲得了更新。兩項技術都劃歸空軍部，從而限制了這一想法的傳播。

The lead inventor said the research team had “experimentally demonstrated” that the “signal is intelligible.” As for the invention’s uses, an Air Force disclosure form listed the first application as “Psychological Warfare.”

首席發(fā)明家說，研究小組已經(jīng)“通過實驗證明”——“信號是可以理解的”。至于這一發(fā)明的用途，一份空軍信息披露表將“心理戰(zhàn)”列為第一項應用。

Russia, China and many European states are seen as having the know-how to make basic microwave weapons that can debilitate, sow noise or even kill. Advanced powers, experts say, might accomplish more nuanced aims such as beaming spoken words into people’s heads. Only intelligence agencies know which nations actually possess and use such unfamiliar arms.

俄羅斯、中國和許多歐洲國家都被認為擁有制造基本微波武器的技術，這些武器可以使人虛弱、播撒噪音甚至殺人。專家說，擁有先進技術的國家可能可以實現(xiàn)更精確的目標，比如向人們的大腦發(fā)射言語。只有情報機構知道哪些國家確實擁有和使用了這種不為人所熟悉的武器。

The basic weapon might look like a satellite dish. In theory, such a device might be hand-held or mounted in a van, car, boat or helicopter. Microwave arms are seen as typically working over relatively short distances — across the length of a few rooms or blocks. High-powered ones might be able to fire beams across several football fields, or even for several miles.

基本的武器可能看起來像衛(wèi)星天線。理論上，這種裝置可能是手持的，也可能安裝在貨車、汽車、船只或直升機上。典型來講，人們認為微波武器能在幾個房間或街區(qū)這樣相對短的距離內發(fā)揮效用。高能微波武器可能能夠在幾個足球場甚至幾英里的范圍內發(fā)射光束。

As a candidate, Donald Trump faulted the Obama administration’s normalization policy as “a very weak agreement” and threatened to scrap it on reaching the White House. Weeks after he won the election, in late November 2016, the U.S. embassy in Havana found itself battling a mysterious crisis.

作為總統(tǒng)候選人的唐納德·特朗普曾指責奧巴馬政府的正?；呤?ldquo;一項非常軟弱的協(xié)議”，并威脅要在入主白宮后廢除它。在他于2016年11月底贏得大選幾周后，美國駐哈瓦那大使館發(fā)現(xiàn)自己正在與一場神秘的危機作斗爭。

Diplomats and their families recounted high-pitched sounds in homes and hotel rooms at times intense enough to incapacitate. Long-term, the symptoms included nausea, crushing headaches, fatigue, dizziness, sleep problems and hearing loss.

外交官和他們的家人描述了在家里和酒店房間里聽到的尖銳聲音，有時強度大到足以使他們喪失行動能力。長期的癥狀包括惡心、劇烈頭痛、疲勞、頭暈、睡眠問題和聽力下降。

In October, Trump expelled 15 Cuban diplomats, producing a chill between the nations. Administration critics said the White House was using the health issue as a pretext to end President Barack Obama’s reconciliation policy.

去年10月，特朗普驅逐了15名古巴外交官，兩國關系因此降溫。批評人士說，白宮以健康問題為借口，結束了奧巴馬總統(tǒng)的和解政策。

The day after the expulsions, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a closed, top-secret hearing on the Cuba situation. Three State Department officials testified, as did an unnamed senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency.

驅逐事件發(fā)生后的第二天，參議院外交關系委員會(Senate Foreign Relations Committee)就古巴局勢舉行了一次閉門的機密聽證會。三名國務院官員和一名未具名的中央情報局高級官員出席作證。

In January, the spooky impact of microwaves on the human brain never came up during an open Senate hearing on the Cuba crisis.

今年1月，參議院就古巴危機舉行公開聽證會時，沒有提到微波對人腦的可怕影響。

But in a scientific paper that same month, James C. Lin of the University of Illinois, a leading investigator of the Frey effect, described the diplomatic ills as plausibly arising from microwave beams. Lin is the editor-in-chief of Bio Electro Magnetics, a peer-reviewed journal that explores the effects of radio waves and electromagnetic fields on living things.

但是，在同月發(fā)表的一篇科學論文中，“弗雷效應”的首席調查員、美國伊利諾伊大學的詹姆斯·C·林(James C. Lin)描述了外交人員因微波束而生病的可能性。林是《生物電磁》(Bio Electro Magnetics)雜志的主編。這本雜志是一份同行評議的期刊，探討無線電波和電磁場對生物的影響。

In his paper, he said high-intensity beams of microwaves could have caused the diplomats to experience not just loud noises but nausea, headaches and vertigo, as well as possible brain-tissue injury. The beams, he added, could be fired covertly, hitting “only the intended target.”

在他的論文中，他說，高強度的微波束有可能導致外交官們不僅聽到巨大噪音，還感到惡心、頭痛和眩暈，以及腦組織受損。他補充說，波束有可能是隱蔽發(fā)射的，只打擊“既定目標”。

In February, ProPublica in a lengthy investigation mentioned that federal investigators were weighing the microwave theory. Separately, it told of an intriguing find. The wife of a member of the embassy staff, it reported, had looked outside her home after hearing the disturbing sounds and seen a van speeding away.

今年2月，ProPublica在一項漫長的調查中提到，聯(lián)邦調查人員正在權衡微波理論的重要性。另外，這項調查還包括一個令人感興趣的發(fā)現(xiàn)。該調查稱，一名使館工作人員的妻子在聽到令人不安的聲音后，曾向屋外張望，并看到一輛貨車疾駛而去。

A dish antenna could fit easily into a small van.

碟形天線很容易裝進小貨車。

The medical team that studied the Cuba diplomats ascribed the symptoms in the March JAMA study to “an unknown energy source” that was highly directional. Some personnel, it noted, had covered their ears and heads but experienced no sound reduction. The team said the diplomats appeared to have developed signs of concussion without having received any blows to the head.

對古巴外交官們進行研究的醫(yī)療小組將3月份《美國醫(yī)學會雜志》(JAMA)研究中提到的癥狀歸因于一種不明能量來源。這種能量來源具有很強的方向性。這項研究指出，一些工作人員遮住了耳朵和頭部，但他們聽到的聲音沒有減小。研究小組稱，外交官們似乎出現(xiàn)了腦震蕩的跡象，盡管他們的頭部并沒有受到任何擊打。

In May, reports emerged that U.S. diplomats in China had suffered similar traumas. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the medical details of the two groups “very similar” and “entirely consistent" with one another. By late June, the State Department had evacuated at least 11 Americans from China.

今年5月，有報道稱，美國駐華外交官也遭受了類似的創(chuàng)傷。美國國務卿邁克·龐皮歐(Mike Pompeo)稱中國和伊朗外交官的醫(yī)療細節(jié)“非常相似”、“完全一致”。截至6月底，美國國務院已經(jīng)從中國撤離了至少11名美國人。

For his part, Frey says he doubts the case will be solved anytime soon. The novelty of the crisis, its sporadic nature and the foreign setting made it hard for federal investigators to gather clues and draw conclusions, he said, much less file charges.

弗雷說，他懷疑此事不會很快得到解決。他說，危機的新奇、偶發(fā)性質和外國背景使得聯(lián)邦調查人員很難收集線索并得出結論，更不用說提起訴訟了。

“Based on what I know,” he remarked, “it will remain a mystery.”

“根據(jù)我所知道的，”他說，“這將繼續(xù)是個謎。”