Has high tech era crime begun to influence health? If so, how?

Fatigue has been reported by some medical doctors as the most common complaint heard from their patients. Inability to concentrate is another common complaint.

These ailments can have many causes. Often they are long term chronic. Interestingly, they also happen to be symptoms of elevated exposure to microwave radio signals.

In recent years, evidence has been mounting that proximity to cell phone towers and other sources of radio frequency signals is a likely causative factor for some people.

Some people, however, report a SUDDEN onset of symptoms, like fatigue and inability to concentrate, without being close to antenna installations or having moved. With all the health activism "noise" being made about cell phone towers, sudden onset microwave exposure symptoms haven't attracted much attention.

Except for Dr. Reinhard Munzert of Erlangen, Germany.

Dr. Munzert has been paying considerable attention to sudden onset microwave exposure symptoms, and has presented what he has learned on this web site:

www.mikrowellenterror.de/english/index.htm

Dr. Munzert has come to the shocking conclusion that some sudden onset microwave symptoms are the result of CRIMINAL use of microwave technology.

Let me quote a couple of paragraphs from Dr. Munzert's site, describing the criminal uses of microwave technology:

"Not only the good guys can apply non-lethal weapons: '...there is mounting evidence that home-brew HPM weapons are being used to attack people...The latest research and finding on this horrific trend in Europe is quite frightening' (News from Infowar, Volume I Number 6, August 28, 2002).

"[snip] ... Through the illegal usage of innovative high-tech weapons, people are not 'shot', rather their living quarters are bathed in (high frequency) electromagnetic waves. A high tech-gang in Germany is using and testing HPM-weapons that supply continous or pulsed waves over long periods of time.

"The effects of the HPM-beam on the victims include headache, irregular heartbeat, painful testes, burned skin, eye damage and cancer."

Readers can be forgiven for responding, "Oh, well, that kind of thing doesn't happen in my neighbourhood", or, "My neighbours have trouble changing light bulbs - they certainly don't know how to build high-tech weapons" or "Oh, that kind of thing only happens in military test labs."

Dr. Munzert captured a screen shot of an amazon.com description of a book titled "The Poor Man's Ray Gun" by David Gunn. At the time Dr. Munzert captured the blurb about this 24 page book, which describes construction of a microwave weapon using microwave oven parts, this sentence was posted on the amazon.com site:

"The author shows in complete detail, and with plenty of photographs and diagrams, how to build a ray gun that is capable of setting fire to a piece of plywood at 500 feet made from only parts of a microwave oven."

(That sentence isn't on the current amazon.com site; not hard to wonder why!)

Let me comment that in terms of creating sudden onset symptoms, a tightly focussed "ray gun" would not be useful to a criminal wishing to target someone, because along with symptoms it would heat the walls of a targeted home, setting them on fire, thus exposing the criminal act. The reason David Gunn's ray gun creates fires, and not subtle physiological symptoms, is the tightness of focus.

Far more relevant to the question of criminal activity causing sudden onset symptoms would be the simple NON-focussed, door-removed microwave oven. By removing the door, and of course, bypassing the interlock switch that shuts the oven off when the door is opened, a wide, not tightly focussed microwave beam is emitted.

Well within the capability of the average teenager.

This form of a weaponized microwave oven would not cause fires, and used through, say, an apartment wall, might not produce enough heating of a person on the other side of the wall to be directly noticeable.

But other rather serious side effects of exposure to non-burning microwave radiation - headache, irregular heartbeat, fatigue, inability to concentrate, painful testes, eye damage and cancer - can devastate a target of a simple door-removed microwave oven.

Dr. Munzert's site claims there are targets of criminal use of microwave radiation in Germany. To date, this writer is not aware of a single case where a court has acknowledged the criminal use of microwave signals anywhere in the world.

Does that mean it's not happening? Does that mean we don't need to worry about that, "... thank God?"

Good question. This writer has heard one report, indirectly, from a close friend who lives in central Texas, that one instance of use of a microwave oven to harass students in a university dorm did occur. Unfortunately, proof in the form of a police report and/or mainstream media article hasn't come to light.

And of course, there's that January 2004 report from the U.S. Department of Justice titled "Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act", section III. Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Complaints, in which 720 complaints were received in a 6-month period, curiously labelled "unrelated."

A footnote explains what "unrelated" means:

"Examples of this category include complaints that the government is broadcasting harmful electronic signals to individuals, claims that the government is intercepting dreams, and allegations that the government is using subliminal messages to force people to engage in certain acts."

720 complaints acknowledged by a major federal justice agency in 6 months is more than just a few.

And, "harmful electronic signals" - could that be the use of weaponized microwave ovens?

Is it possible the targets alleging "government" is targeting them with harmful electronic signals are doing so because of the now obvious misapprehension that harmful signals exist only in military laboratories? Dr. Munzert's site shows that is certainly no longer true, and hasn't been true for as long as microwave ovens have been available.

This writer doesn't have firm answers to these questions. However, let me share some other things that have been done with radio signals and are also capable of penetrating walls, at least non-conducting walls.

Let's look at a really ancient medical device, the Russian-designed "Lida" machine. This machine was originally designed as a drugless sedation device. It carries a U.S. patent number, 3,773,049.

One of these units was obtained from the Soviet Union and studied by Dr. Eldon Byrd and Dr. Ross Adey, at the Loma Linda Veterans Hospital, Research Unit. The earliest known sighting of a Lida machine was in a North Korean prisoner of war camp by a repatriated POW, captured during the Korean War.

The Lida doesn't use microwave, although there is more recent literature indicating that microwave frequencies can also be used. The basic method of the Lida machine is very much like biofeedback - except instead of the commonly used sound feedback, the Lida transmits simple pulses of radio signal at rates matching relaxed brain activity.

The original Lida machine transmitted in the medical equipment band at 40 megahertz, at a power level of 40 watts.

Drs. Byrd and Ross are on record as verifying that the unit works on animals, but this writer hasn't seen literature on human testing. It is likely that concerns about medical effects of exposure to radio frequency radiation have prevented this technology from coming into general use.

The process of inducing brain activity to change speed by applying pulsed radio signals is called "entrainment." Listening to certain sounds can accomplish the same thing, though sounds are consciously perceived, while the Lida principle could, in theory, be applied through walls to cause someone to be forced into a state of drowsiness without their understanding why.

Would the use of a Lida-like machine in the workplace, without the target being aware, constitute criminal causation of sudden onset symptoms? Well, overwhelming fatigue on the job has been reported by some of those 720 people complaining to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Perhaps even more invasive, what would be the outcome of setting the pulse rate of a Lida-like device a bit higher, into the WIDE AWAKE brain activity speed range? What if such a signal were aimed at the bedroom of a target, either through an apartment wall, or, with tighter focus, from a neighbouring house?

Would keeping someone wide awake at night, with very little chance they could figure out how or why, be sudden onset symptoms caused by criminal activity?

Here again, some of those 720 people complaining to the Department of Justice do indeed complain of heavy sleep deprivation, lasting years.

And pulsing radio transmitters are easily available to those who would like to "settle a beef" with a neighbour and who has the skills to set up and operate the equipment.

Already, we have seen that quite a range of disabling symptoms can be caused by microwave signals and radio signals in general, and the U.S. Department of Justice registered 720 complaints of this nature over just six months. It's becoming clear that there actually are criminals at work.

Among those complaining about radio frequency harassment, many report that police deny such crimes are possible, even though both microwave ovens and Lida technology have been available, not classified, for some decades now.

Are there any other radio frequency technologies which are available to criminals? The answer is emphatically, yes.

Next on the list are the now popular airport luggage and cargo scanners, some of which operate at the top of the microwave frequency range. Several years ago, this writer phoned a Massachusetts maker of these scanners, and the salesman told me I could have a unit, no questions asked, if I handed over something like $100,000. I stressed that I was in no way connected with any law enforcement agency, and that was "no problem."

The reader probably doesn't need help imagining how "through wall radar" scanners might be used by those of criminal inclination.

Interesting too, that those who have complained about electronic harassment report noises from neighbours, especially in apartment settings, which are perfectly synchronized with the actions of the targeted person. One target complains that for years, every time she would start to urinate, the water in the downstairs bathroom would be turned on, and kept on, and turned off when the target's urine stream stopped. Every time.

By now some readers will be thinking, there can't be any more, can there? Unfortunately for society, yes, there is more.

In World War II, radar came into being. Technicians standing near energized antennas discovered that the radar signals, which are streams of very short, powerful microwave pulses, cause a buzzing sound to be heard, as if it were originating within or behind the skull.

Simply, one short pulse of microwave signal causes one click in the hearing sense of someone standing in line with a moderately powerful signal.

We don't hear ordinary microwave communications signals because they aren't short pulses. It's the pulsing that acts like tapping a nail with a hammer, to force sound into the hearer's hearing sense.

In 1974, at the University of Utah, the successful transmission of VOICE into the skull of a test subject, using only a pulsed microwave signal, with no special implants or other artificial aids, was announced. The experimenter was Dr. Joseph Sharp, then affiliated with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, using a pulsed microwave transmitter supplied by Dr. Joseph Lin of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Sharp used a simple algorithm to convert a smooth voice wave form into a string of "clicks", with each click being sent at the test subject as a short microwave pulse.

Sharp's success was published in the official journal of the American Psychological Association, "American Psychologist", in their March, 1975 issue.

And not unexpectedly, the U.S. Air Force announced an updated version of "voice to skull" with better fidelity than Joseph Sharp's original, in 1994.

A moderately powerful radar set can produce a buzzing sound in the skull of someone in direct line with the antenna. A couple of hundred watts will do, and that's not huge piece of equipment.

A criminal wanting the ultimate "revenge weapon" need only co-opt the services of a radar technician, to modify the set so that Joseph Sharp's voice conversion method would control the pulsing. The criminal can then, from hiding, through non-conducting walls, force a target in the next apartment or house to hear things, including voices, involuntarily.

A little pricey, but not out of reach of the upper middle class. Not at all.

By now, you can probably guess, YES, many of the 720 people complaining to the Justice Department also hear various strange sounds, including voices.

But for 33 years, it has been no secret that this can be done by equipment, and is not a guaranteed indication that the hearer is mentally ill. Unfortunately, just as most police officers deny radio frequency crimes are possible, so do most psychiatrists, resulting in false diagnoses, and heaping considerable trouble on already struggling targets of radio frequency crimes.

As of the date of writing, those are the proven beyond doubt, through wall, radio frequency weapons available to the sophisticated criminal. But there is one little encore item, called "Silent Sound." Silent Sound carries U.S. patent #5,159,703.

Know about those telephone voice changers? Which can take a deep male voice and move it up into a high female frequency range to disguise the caller? Well, "Silent Sound" uses a similar technology to raise a speaker's voice a little higher, up near the upper limit of hearing.

At frequencies around 14,500 Hertz, a voice sounds mostly like a faint "ringing in the ears."

Someone hearing "Silent Sound", which isn't truly silent, just hears a faint ringing, and can't make out any words. So what use is "Silent Sound?"

Proponents claim it makes for dandy subliminal messages. Much better, they say, than the older "time slice" subliminal method in which every so many frames of a movie would show goodies available at the snack counter.

And "subliminals" are basically "lite" hypnosis. How well they work depends on the ability of the hearer to be hypnotized. Statistically, it's been reported that something like 4 out of 5 people can be hypnotically influenced to some degree.

All that's needed is some means of CONVEYING the "Silent Sound" to the target, such as pulsed microwave "voice to skull" technology, and not only can you force your neighbour to listen to you through his or her non-conductive walls, but you may be able to play "hypnotic tricks" on your target!

Best of all, for the revenge artist, the target can't even talk about what he or she hears without instantly being labelled a nut case.

There are more sophisticated versions of "Silent Sound" where the later patents deal with how to control volume level in stores, but the basic technology has been reported as effective in reducing shoplifting according to department stores using subliminals.

At this point, reader, you are probably wondering about the folks complaining about electronic harassment. Yes, they DO, once again, report "ringing in the ears" quite often!

A final point to ponder. Unknown to many, organized groups of over-zealous "law and order" groups of citizens have been quietly forming and operating throughout the U.S. and Canada. These groups have been documented as harassing people who are "not liked" for various reasons - going well beyond simply watching out for genuine criminal activity.

(Search for "Cause Stalking" on amazon.com, or google, for a book on this topic.)

Is it possible such groups have taken notice of the technologies described here?

[Eleanor White is a retired engineer and has been a ham radio operator since the 1950s.]