How the Soviets Weaponized EMFs During the Cold War
During the Cold War, American state department employees dreaded assignments to Moscow, known as “the sickest embassy in the world.” From the 1950s to 1979, Russians blasted the U.S. Embassy with non-ionizing microwave radiation (2.5 to 4.0 GHz), some say for 40 hours a week. According to a well-known study, “Although the [microwave radiation] intensity reaching the embassy was approximately 500 times less than the U.S. standard for occupational exposure, it was twice the highest limit allowed by the Soviet standard.” 2.5 to 4 GHz are part of the range (up to 10 GHz) that includes modern wireless networks and cell towers, radar, 4 and 5G, smart meters, and cell and cordless phones.
Dr. Paul Dart MD, a researcher studying the health effects of smart meters, noted that “The US embassy personnel had a statistically significant increase in depression, irritability, concentration problems, memory loss, ear, skin, and vascular problems, and other health problems. The longer they worked there, the worse these problems were likely to be.”
Cover-up
Foreign Service Officer James Schumaker recalled that “the bombardment of the upper floors of the embassy began as soon as we moved in (after WWII) back in 1953. It was known that the Soviets had been irradiating the embassy, but it was kept under wraps for years, partly because no one knew the consequences.” Officially, there was no EMF bombardment. But there were political reasons as well. “Henry Kissinger wanted to avoid damaging chances for détente,” Shumaker said.
The CIA investigated the Moscow “signal,” as it was known, to learn if the central nervous system was impacted by microwave electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs). According to Foreign Policy Magazine, the CIA theorized that the Soviets were trying to achieve mind control with the low-level radiation. “The U.S. wanted to figure out what was going on without tipping off the Soviets that they knew about the irradiation, and so the diplomats working in the embassy — and being exposed to daily radiation — were kept in the dark.”
A secret project under the Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA), called “Project Pandora,” investigated behavioral effects of microwaves, but didn’t yet grasp biological health impacts. This secret left embassy staff with a variety of health issues. High ranked officials were not immune; three American ambassadors to Moscow died of cancer. Llewellyn Thompson and Charles Bholen died before 1976, and Walter Stoessel died of leukemia in 1986. Shumaker himself was diagnosed with leukemia in 1985. Project Pandora devolved into an exploration of mind control using microwaves.
Research
A 1971 study by the Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) documented the biological impacts of microwave and radio frequency (RF) radiation — precisely what the Soviets used in Moscow. The, exhaustive and lengthy, includes:
- Cataract lesions
- Burns at the site of surgical implants, i.e. pins
- Liver enlargement
- Decreased fertility in men
- Altered “fetal development”
- Nervous system effects, including: headaches, insomnia, restlessness, cranial nerve disorders, seizures and convulsions
- “Psychophysiologic” disorders, such as: depression, anxiety, neurasthenia (generally feeling lousy), dizziness, insomnia, fatigue, irritability, memory loss, chest pain, and tremors.
Several blood disorders, including increased white blood cell counts, were also identified. The report also notes biochemical, metabolic, gastrointestinal, and endocrine gland changes and disorders. Under “miscellaneous effects,” the study lists “loss of hair, sensations of buzzing vibrations,” and “sparks between dental fillings (!).”
Another study, comparing the Moscow embassy staff with other U.S. embassy personnel from around the world, found that the Moscow staff members had a statistically significant increase in depression, irritability, concentration, memory loss, ear and skin problems, and vascular problems. Again, the longer employees stayed, the worse the problems became.
Dr. Neil Cherry, a New Zealand environmental scientist, reported, “The dominant resulting cancers for embassy personnel were brain tumor, leukemia, and reproductive organ cancer. This confirms that low-level, chronic microwave exposure is associated with very significant increases in illness and mortality in organs across the whole body, consistent with widespread cellular chromosome damage.”
While dozens of studies conclude that microwave exposure has clear health impacts, the official position is that “no adverse health effects of the radiation were shown” in embassy staff members. Despite research, this continues to be the official position — that microwave technology such as cell towers and phones and smart meters is safe. Over time, the evidence of the dangers of EMFs and RFs has accumulated.
Watch this episode of Open Minds with Jeromy Johnson giving advice on how to clear your home of EMF:
Cell Phone Towers
Cell phone technology has evolved at breakneck speeds, but health impacts have been disregarded by developers and U.S. agencies. “From the early genesis of cell phone technology in the early 1980s, cell towers were presumed safe. There are several fallacies in this thinking, including the fact that broadcast exposures have been found unsafe even at regulated thresholds,” according to a Canadian Science Publishing environmental review.
The paper goes on to describe “adverse effects,” of EMF radiation including increased cancer in those living near towers, childhood leukemia clusters, lymphoma clusters, and elevated rates of mental illness. In addition, “elevated brain tumor incidence, sleep disorders, anxiety, elevated blood pressure, etc.” are documented. This is just a partial list of pathologies associated with cell tower technology.
In 2001, researchers studied a new cell tower in La Ñora, Spain. The results were that those in close proximity to the tower experienced higher level of general discomfort, sleep disturbance, depression, headache, nausea, poor concentration and dizziness. In 2002 in France, depending on where they lived in relation to towers, residents complained of fatigue, with complaints lessening further from the tower. Irritability, headaches, sleep disruption, depression, memory loss, and skin problems were also reported in varying degrees, depending on cell tower proximity.
Additional studies include Shebeen El-Kom, Egypt in 2003, Akrotiri, Cyprus in 2005, and Selbitz, Bavaria in 2009 — and RF and EMF levels at all sites were far below the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) guidelines for “safe” levels. Without exception, there were elevated complaints of headaches, memory changes, tremors, irritability, sleep disruption, depression, memory loss, poor concentration, and skin problems. In each case, reported severity directly correlated with cell tower proximity.
A study was done on those who self-described as having electrical hypersensitivity. In Austria, for example, those who self-identified with Electrical Hypersensitivity Syndrome went from two percent in 2004 to almost 8 percent by 2008.
Smart Meters
Smart meters are a recent technology that transmit data to energy suppliers for billing purposes. This technology replaces the human “meter readers” who, for decades, have visited meters to recorded usage. The new meters use low-frequency RFs to send transmissions every four to six hours, according to manufacturers and utility companies,
But researchers have noted unusual transmission patterns from smart meters — “bizarre patterns of sharp spikes of RF,” according to the Stop Smart Meters website. Many have also observed meters transmitting every 30 seconds, or 2880 times a day.
A Harvard Medical School graduate, Dr. David Carpenter MD, has focused on EMFs and public health for 18 years. He challenges manufacturers and utilities to prove the safety of smart meter technology, rather than forcing end-users to prove that reported cancers, nervous system damage, sleep disorders, and compromised immune function were the result of smart meter RF exposure. “An informed person should demand that they be allowed to keep their analog meter,” he said.
“The question to ask is what is the evidence that smart meters are safe, and have no adverse effects on human health. There is no such evidence. No studies have been done on human health and smart meters in the home, but there is evidence from a variety of sources demonstrating convincingly and consistently that radio frequency and electromagnetic frequency exposure over time increases the risk of cancer, and damage to the nervous system.” Dr. Carpenter also stated that constant EMF/RF exposure, over time, can produce “electromagnetic sensitivity,” an increasing intolerance to EMFs, RFs, and WIFI; like an “allergy” to EMFs.
5G
Called, “the new wireless revolution,” 5G is a planet-wide wireless system believed to be faster and more energy-efficient than 4G. Is 5G safe? According to Wireless Design Magazine, yes. But researchers disagree.
At the 2017 Environmental Health Trust Forum, Dr. Ben-Ishai, of the Hebrew University Dept. of Physics, presented evidence that 5G technologies interact with human skin and the sweat glands and affect oxygen metabolism. “Before rolling out 5G technologies that use these frequencies, research on human health effects must be done to ensure the public and environment are protected.” Dr. Devera Davis, president of the Environmental Health Trust, said, “If you seek faster downloads of movies, games, and porn, you may not mind volunteering your living body in a giant uncontrolled experiment on the human population.”
Resources
The Powerwatch Article Library: An exhaustive British database of studies of EMFs, RFs, electrical wiring, power lines, substations, cell phones and towers, cordless phones, and household appliances.
Open Minds: Dangers of the Smart Meters
Watch this episode of Open Minds with Jerry Day’s advice on how to rid yourself of smart devices surveilling and transmitting EMF into your home:
About the Author
Neuroscience in Advertising; When Does it Become Mind Control?
By now you’re probably used to how predictive advertising has become, but it probably felt intrusive at first. Advertisers have always used subtle tactics to convince you to buy things, but now the privacy boundary is increasingly blurred. While it’s somewhat known that advertising finds its roots in propaganda, are developments in technology and neuroscience changing the fundamental nature of marketing into something that borders on mind control or manipulation?
The foundational elements of public relations and advertising were developed by a man named Edward L. Bernays, who happened to be the nephew of none other than Sigmund Freud. Freud gave a copy of his General Introductory Lectures, his seminal work on psychoanalysis, to Bernays as a gift in the nascent phase of his career.
Bernays was intrigued by Freud’s research, notably the idea that irrational forces drive human behavior. He took the idea and parlayed it into what he referred to as “engineering consent,” a concept that instead of bowing to consumer demands, cultivated them.
