Havana Syndrome evidence suggests who may be responsible for mysterious brain injuries

tonight we have important developments in our five-year investigation of mysterious brain injuries reported by US National Security officials the injured include White House staff CIA officers FBI agents Military Officers and their families many believe that they were wounded by a secret weapon that fires a high energy beam of microwaves or ultrasound this this is our fourth story and for the first time we have evidence of who might be responsible most of the injured have fought for America often in secret and they're frustrated that the US government publicly doubts that an adversary is targeting Americans the story will continue in a moment one of them is Carrie we're disguising her and not using her last name because she's still an FBI agent working in Counter Intelligence she says in 2021 she was home in Florida when she was hit by a crippling force and Bam inside my right ear it was like a dentist drilling on steroids that feeling uh when it that it gets too close to your eardrum it's like that you know times 10 it was like a high-pitch metallic drilling noise and it knocked me forward at like a 45° angle this way she says she was by a window in her laundry room my right ear was line of sight to that window while this thing was happening in my ear and when I leaned forward it kind of knock it didn't knock me over but it knocked me forward immediately felt pressure and pressure and pain started coursing from inside my right ear down my jaw down my neck and into my chest at the same time FBI agent Carrie told us the battery in her phone began to swell until it broke the case finally she passed out on a couch because of chest pain she was checked by a cardiologist and then returned to duty and I remember complaining to my colleagues uh for months after that I felt like I had early Alzheimer short-term memory long-term memory confusing memories uh multitask my Baseline changed I was not the same person Carrie's Story matches those we've uncovered over the years it was like this piercing feeling on the side of my head it was like I remember it was on the right side of my head and I I got like vertigo Olivia Troy was Homeland Security adviser to vice president Mike Pence in our 2022 report she told us she was hit outside the White House and then severe ear pain started started so I I liken it to if you put a Q-tip too far and you bounced off your eardrum well imagine taking a sharp pencil and just kind of poke in that and this man told us he was among the first publicly known cases in 2016 from our Embassy in Cuba that's how the incidents became known as Havana syndrome he's medically retired from an agency we can't name blind in one eye and struggling for balance what we're hearing about now a major medical study for the government was led by Dr David railman of Stanford University in our 2022 report he told us what we found was we thought clear evidence of an injury to the auditory and vestibular system of the brain everything starting with the inner ear where humans perceive sound and sense balance and then trans translate those perceptions into uh brain electrical signals his study found directed pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism for example a focused beam of microwaves or acoustic ultrasound more than 100 officials or family members have unexplained persistent symptoms if I turn too fast my gyroscope is off essentially it's like a step behind where I'm supposed to be so I'll turn too fast and I will literally walk right into the wall or the door frame now for the first time the case of FBI agent Carrie suggests which adversary might be responsible she spoke with the FBI's permission but wasn't allowed to discuss the cases she was on when she was hit we have learned from other sources one of those cases involve this must T going 110 mph pull over pull over in 2020 near Key West Florida deputies tried to stop the Mustang for speeding it ran 15 miles until it hit spike strips laid in its [Music] path get out come here a search of the car found notes of bank accounts City Bank discover savings 75,000 and this device that looks like a walkie-talkie can erase the car's computer data including its GPS record there was also a Russian passport what's your first name Vali v i t a l i i Vitali kovalev was the driver from St Petersburg Russia not Florida why did you run let me be honest with me you didn't know why you ran I don't know and we don't know why he ran but what we learned suggests he was a Russian spy what we see here is Bali kovik fitting exactly this formula Christo grev is a journalist legendary for unmasking Russian plots in 2020 he uncovered the names of the Russian secret agent who poisoned Vladimir Putin's rival Alexi naalii grev is lead investigator for our collaborator on this story The Insider a magazine by Russian Exiles we asked him to trace Vitali kovalev he studied in a Military Institute he studied Radio Electronics with a particular focus on use within the military of U of micro Electronics he had all the technology knowhow that would be required for somebody to be assisting an operation that requires high technology and then all of a sudden after working for two years in a Military Institute he up and decides to become a chef kovalev immigrated to the US and worked as a chef in New York and Washington DC even appearing at far left in a TV cooking segment traditional Russian recipes thanks to our wonderful but kovalev was actually a Russian military electrical engineer with a top secret security clearance can someone like kovalov simply decide to drop all of that and become a chef it is not an easy job to just leave that behind once you're in the military and you've been trained and the ministry of Defense has invested in you you remain at their beck and call for the rest of your life we don't know what Koval was up to but our sources say over months he spent 80 hours being interviewed by FBI agent Carrie who had investigated multiple Russian spies kovalev pled guilty to evading police and reckless driving he was sentenced to 30 months while he was in jail Carrie says she was hit in Florida and a year later when she awoke to the same symptoms in the middle of the night in California it felt like I was stuck in this state of like disorientation not able to function what is happening and my whole body was pulsing have Mark Zade is car's attorney he has a security clearance and for decades has represented Americans working in National Security Zade has more than two dozen clients suffering symptoms of Havana syndrome which the government govern now calls anomalous Health incidents I have CIA and state department clients as well who believe they've been impacted domestically there are dozens of CIA cases that have happened domestically that is at least believed uh and and we're not even just talking about physical manifestation we're talking about evidence of computer issues in the midst of of the incident where computer screens just literally stop working or go flicker on and off do you know whether there are other FBI agents who have also suffered from these anomalous Health incidents there are other FBI agents and Personnel not just agents analysts uh I represent one other FBI person who was impacted in Miami and I also know of FBI person who believe they were hit overseas in the last decade were any of these members of the FBI Counter Intelligence people in addition to carry the one thread that I know of with the FBI Personnel that is common among most if not all of my clients other than the family members connected to the employee was they were all doing something relating to Russia Vitali kovalev served his his time and in 2022 went back to Russia ignoring American warnings that he was in danger because he'd spent so much time with the FBI Christo grev found this death certificate from last year which says kovalev was killed at the front in Ukraine do you think kovalev was sent to Ukraine as a punishment one theory is that he was sent there in order for him to be disposed of is kovalov really dead or is this another cover story that is a very good question and we actually worked on both hypothesis for a while I do believe at this point that um he was dead we're dealing with energy weapons it's not going anywhere look how effective it's been it's next generational weaponry and unfortunately it's been refined on some of us and we're the test subjects when we come back you will hear from the Pentagon official who led a global investigation into who is targeting Americans us intelligence says publicly there is no credible evidence that an adversary is inflicting brain injuries on National Security officials and yet more than 100 Americans Americans have symptoms that scientists say could be caused by a beam of microwaves or acoustic ultrasound the Pentagon launched an investigation run by a recently retired army lieutenant colonel Greg edgreen has never spoken publicly until now the story will continue in a moment are we being attacked my personal opinion yes by whom Russia Greg Ed green ran the investigation for the defense intelligence agency he would not discuss classified information but he described his team's work from 2021 to 2023 we were collecting a large body of data ranging from signals intelligence human intelligence open source reporting um anything regarding the internet travel records Financial records you name it unfortunately I can't get into specifics based on the classification but I can tell you at a very early stage I started to focus on Moscow can you tell me about the patterns you began to see one of the things I started to notice was the caliber of our officer that was being impacted this wasn't happening to our worst or our middle range officers this was happening to our top five 10% performing officers across the defense intelligence agency and consistently there was a Russia Nexus there was some angle where they had worked against Russia focused on Russia and done extremely well what has been the impact on American National Security the impact has been that the Intelligence Officers and our diplomats working abroad are being removed from their post with traumatic brain injuries they're being neutralized tonight we're reporting for the first time an incident at last year's NATO Summit in Lithuania a meeting that focused largely on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and was attended by President Biden multiple sources tell us that a senior official of the Department of Defense was struck by the symptoms and sought medical treatment we told Ed green what we'd learned it tells me that there are no barriers on what Moscow will do on who they will attack and that if we don't face this head-on the problem is going to get worse the problem first appeared in public in 2016 US officials reported being hurt in Cuba and the incidents became known as Havana syndrome but we have learned it started 2 years earlier when it at least four Americans reported symptoms in Frankfurt Germany there is also evidence of what could be Revenge attacks for example in 2014 three CIA officers were stationed in Ukraine Vladimir Putin's Obsession 2014 was the year that a popular Revolt over through Putin's preferred leader later those CIA officers went on to other assignments and reported being hit one in usbekistan one in Vietnam and the third officers family was hit in London the thinking if it is Russia investigative reporter Christo grev believes he knows who's involved in 2018 grev was the first to discover the existence of a top secret Russian intelligence unit which goes by a number 29 155 these are people who are trained to be versatile uh assassins and sabotage operators they're trained in counter surveillance they're trained in explosives they're trained in using poison and technology equipment actually inflict pain or damage to the targets grev works with our collaborators on this report a magazine called The Insider and Germany's D spegel he has a long track record uncovering Russian documents and grev says he found one that may link 29155 to a directed energy weapon and when I saw it I literally had tears in my eyes because it was spelling out what they had been doing it's a piece of accounting an officer of 29155 received a bonus for work on quote potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons which told us that this particular unit had been engaged with somewhere somehow empirical tests of a directed energy unit there it is there it is written down in black and white it's the closest to a receipt you can have for this we've also found that Russia's 29155 may have been present in toi Georgia when Americans reported incidents there do you believe that you were attacked absolutely she asked us to withhold her name for her safety she is the wife of a justice department official who was with the embassy in tobli she's a nurse with a PhD in anesthesiology on October 7th 20121 she says that she was in her laundry room when she was blindsided by a sound as I'm reaching into the dryer um I am completely consumed by a piercing sound that I can only describe as when you listen to a movie and the main character is also consumed by the sound after a bomb goes off that is similar to the sound that I heard and it just pierced my ears came in my left side felt like it came through the window into my left ear I immediately felt fullness in my head and just a piercing headache and when I realized that I needed to get out of the laundry room I left the room and went into our bedroom next door and projectile vomited in our bathroom we have learned that hers was the second incident that week sources tell us earlier in the neighborhood a Us official their spouse and child were hit we have also learned of a phone call that was intercepted nearby a man says in Russian is it supposed to have blinking green lights and should I leave it on all night we have no idea what he was talking about but the next day the incidents began sources tell us that an investigation centered on this Russian Albert aaran his name on on travel manifests and phone records appears alongside known members of unit 29155 he is also the son of the commander he was groomed to become a member of the unit since he was 16 his number is in the phone books of all members of the unit clearly he's more than just the son of the boss he's a colleague of these people grev found Albert aov's phone was turned off during the tbli incidents but our sources say there is evidence someone in toi logged into a very onoff's personal email during this time most likely grev believes a very onof himself placing him in the city We Believe members of unit 2155 were there in order to facilitate supervise or maybe even personally Implement attacks on American diplomats and American government officials using an acoustic weapon after you were able to get out of the laundry room call your husband what did you do then I went downstairs I first looked on our security camera which is right beside our front door to see if anyone was outside there was a vehicle right outside of our gate I took a photo of that vehicle and noticed that it was not a vehicle that I recognized and I went outside did you see anyone around the vehicle I did we sent you a photograph of Albert aano and this is the picture that we sent you you did and I wonder if that looks anything like the man you saw outside your home it absolutely does and when I received this photo I had a a visceral reaction it made me feel sick I cannot absolutely say for certainty that it is this man but I can tell you that even to this day looking at him makes me feel that same visceral reaction and I can absolutely say that this looks like the man that I saw in the street this 40-year-old wife and mother is among the most severely injured people we have met my headaches and brain fog continued later on into that weekend I started having trouble walking down the stairs specifically at night I had trouble finding the steps to get down the stairs so my coordination and vestibular system started just really falling apart she was medically evacuated and now doctors say she has holes in her inner ear canals the vestibular system that creates the sense of balance two surgeries put metal plates in her skull another surgery is likely it's devastating it's absolutely devastating despite experiences like hers the office of the Director of National Intelligence said last year it's very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible but the dni also acknowledged that some intelligence agencies had only low or moderate confidence in that assessment this month the National Institutes of Health reported results of brain scans NIH said there's no evidence of physical damage but the medical science of socalled anomalous Health incidents remains vigorously debated for its part the Director of National Intelligence says the symptoms probably result from pre-existing conditions conventional illnesses and environmental factors attorney Mark Zade represents more than two dozen Ahi clients what do you make of the intelligence Community assessment so I've had access to classified information relating to Ahi I can't reveal it I wouldn't reveal it I will tell you that I don't believe it to be the entire story and I know of information that undermines or contradicts what they are saying publicly are you saying that the government wants to cover this up there is in my view without a doubt evidence of a cover up now some of that cover up is not necessarily that oh we found a weapon and we don't want anybody to know about it what I've seen more so is we see lines of inquiry that would take us potentially to answers we don't want to have to deal with so we're not going to explore any of those Avenues you know if my mother had seen what I saw she would say it's the Russian stupid Greg edgreen who ran the military investigation told us he had the Pentagon support but in the Trump and Biden administrations he says the bar for proof was set impossible High I think it was set so high because we did not as a country and a government want to face some very hard truths and what are those can we secure America are these massive Counter Intelligence failures can we protect American soil and our people on American soil are we being attacked and if we're being attacked is that an act of war after what he learned in his classified investigation Greg edgreen retired from the Army to start a company to help the victims he hopes to channel government contracts into treatment programs as with all spy stories much is classified in what remains as circumstantial none of the witnesses tonight wanted to speak some fear for their families but all felt compelled to shine a light on what they see as a war of Shadows a war America may not be winning if this is what we've seen with the hundreds of cases of anomalous Health incidents I can assure you that this has become probably Putin's biggest victory in his own mind this has been Russia's biggest Victory against the West in terms of the long term would you consider this to be life altering absolutely life altering for our whole family a suspected attack on Americans before vice president Harris arrived in Vietnam I believe Russia is assisting other governments at 60 minutes overtime.com

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 1,741,785

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Havana Syndrome, russia, brain trauma, u.s. diplomats, white house, unexplained illness, microwave

Id: JdPSD1SUYCY

Length: 26min 51sec (1611 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2024