Summary
In late 2016, American diplomats in Havana, Cuba started hearing a mysterious buzzing sound, followed by debilitating symptoms. On this week’s On the Media, why the government now disputes theories that it was a secret Russian weapon. Plus, what the electric hum of your refrigerator and the uncanny hearing ability of pigeons reveal about the world we live in.
1. Adam Entous, staff writer at The New York Times, Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer at The New Yorker, and Robert Bartholomew, sociologist and author of Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria, on the investigation into the mysterious affliction that spread across the globe. Listen.
2. Jennifer Munson, OTM Technical Director, and Nasir Memon, New York University professor of computer science and engineering, on the obscure technology called electrical network frequency analysis, or ENF, and the world of audio forensics. Listen.
3. Robert Krulwich [@rkrulwich], co-creator and former co-host of Radiolab, and John Hagstrum, a geophysicist emeritus at the U.S. Geological Survey, on the mysterious avian disappearance that rocked world headlines. Listen.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I started very, very loud, like ear piercingly loud. |
| 0:03.6 | Then the severe, severe ear pain started. |
| 0:06.3 | On this week's On the Media, we bring you three audio puzzles, beginning with the Havana Syndrome. |
| 0:12.9 | So I liken it to like, if you take a Q-tip and you bounce off your spear, you know, like, |
| 0:16.3 | that you get that jarring, like, ah. |
| 0:18.5 | Well, imagine taking like a sharpened pencil and then poking that off the ear drum. |
| 0:23.8 | Also, a hum that you live with can help law enforcement solve crimes. |
| 0:28.8 | You hear it with my refrigerator, a TV, elevators, and buildings, you hear it. |
| 0:35.2 | Everything is interconnected, right? |
| 0:36.6 | It's very common. |
| 0:38.7 | Plus, how an invisible disturbance ruined a series of high-stakes pigeon races. |
| 0:44.0 | It was built as the race of the century, but many of the homing pigeons carefully prepared |
| 0:49.0 | by their owners never returned. |
| 0:51.6 | The mysteries of sound and the limits of our senses, it's all coming up after this. |
| 0:59.8 | From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. |
| 1:03.7 | I'm Michael Owens, you're filling in this week for Brooklads' Stone. |
| 1:07.5 | We begin the show in Havana, Cuba in the fall of 2016. |
| 1:13.4 | I'm slaying on my bed with my laptop, you know, like, you know, next to me and I'm watching the show. |
| 1:18.2 | This is a CIA officer going by the pseudonym Tony. |
| 1:21.8 | And then all of the dogs and the neighborhoods started barking. |
| 1:25.5 | And then this loud sound just blasted into my bedroom. |
| 1:32.8 | It started very, very loud, like ear-pursingly loud. |
... |
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