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Electronic harassment is the alleged use of electromagnetic waves to harass a victim. Psychologists have identified evidence of auditory hallucinations, delusional disorders or other mental illnesses in online communities supporting those who claim to be targeted. Individuals suffering from auditory hallucinations, delusional disorders or other mental illness have claimed that government agents make use of electric fields, microwaves (such as the microwave auditory effect) and radar to transmit sounds and thoughts into their heads, referring to technology that they say can achieve this as "voice to skull" or "V2K" after an obsolete military designation.

There are extensive online support networks and numerous websites maintained by people fearing mind control. Palm Springs psychiatrist Alan Drucker has identified evidence of delusional disorders on many of these websites and other psychologists are divided over whether such sites negatively reinforce mental troubles or act as a form of group cognitive therapy.

"Psychotronics"

In Russia, a group called "Victims of Psychotronic Experimentation" attempted to recover damages from the Federal Security Service during the mid-1990s for alleged infringement of their civil liberties including "beaming rays" at them, putting chemicals in the water, and using magnets to alter their minds. These fears may have been inspired by revelations of secret research into "psychotronic" psychological warfare techniques during the early 1990s, with Vladimir Lopatkin, a State Duma committee member in 1995, surmising "Something that was secret for so many years is the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories."

In the US, there are a growing number of people who hear voices in their heads that claim the government is using "psychotronic torture" against them, and who campaign to stop the use of alleged psychotronic and other mind control weapons. These campaigns have received some support from government representatives including Dennis Kucinich and Jim Guest. Yale psychiatry professor Ralph Hoffman notes that people often ascribe voices in their heads to external sources such as government harassment, God, and dead relatives, and it can be difficult to persuade them that their belief in an external influence is delusional. Other experts compare these stories with accounts of alien abductions.

Incidents

Many violent incidents have been associated with individuals who claim to have been tormented as targeted individuals. In most cases, authorities believe they were suffering from mental issues and delusions.

In the United States Capitol shooting incident (2013) on October 3, 2013 in Washington, D.C. Miriam Carey, 34, an unarmed African American dental hygienist from Stamford, Connecticut, attempted to drive through a White House security checkpoint in her black Infiniti G37 coupe, struck a U.S. Secret Service officer, and was chased by the Secret Service to the United States Capitol where she was fatally shot by law enforcement officers. A young child, Carey's daughter, was found unharmed in the car after it was ultimately stopped. Carey had told police in December 2012 that she thought Obama was eavesdropping on her and the government was electronically monitoring her house, and she believed she was some kind of a prophet.

The Washington Navy Yard shooting occurred on September 16, 2013, when lone gunman Aaron Alexis fatally shot twelve people and injured three others in a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) inside the Washington Navy Yard in Southeast Washington, D.C. The attack, which took place in the Navy Yard's Building 197, began around 8:20 a.m. EDT and ended when Alexis was killed by police around 9:20 a.m. EDT. After the Navy Yard shooting, the media speculated that Alexis had appeared to be suffering from mental illness. The media reported that Alexis had filed a police report in Rhode Island on August 2, 2013, in which he claimed to be the victim of harassment and that he was hearing voices in his head. According to an FBI official after the shooting, Alexis was under "the delusional belief that he was being controlled or influenced by extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves". A message later obtained by federal authorities from Alexis' personal computing devices said, "Ultra low frequency attack is what I've been subject to for the last 3 months. And to be perfectly honest, that is what has driven me to this." On August 4, 2013, naval police were called to Alexis' hotel at Naval Station Newport and found that he had "taken apart his bed, believing someone was hiding under it, and observed that Alexis had taped a microphone to the ceiling to record the voices of people that were following him". At the time of the incident, he was working for the contractor at the base.

On November 20, 2014, a gunman, identified as 31-year-old Myron May, shot an employee and two students at Strozier Library on the university campus shortly after midnight. He was a lawyer and an alumnus of the university, who was obsessed with targeted individual conspiracy theories and believed that the U.S. government was watching him. He was fatally shot by responding police officers after he shooting at them outside Strozier Library. After the shooting, it was revealed that May had mailed a total of ten packages to friends throughout the country beforehand; the contents of the packages are unknown.

See also

• Directed-energy weapon
• Electronic warfare
• Tin foil hat
• The Corley Conspiracy an opera based on alleged electronic harassment
• On the Origin of the "Influencing Machine" in Schizophrenia

References

1. ^ Monroe, Angela (November 12, 2012). "Electronic Harassment: Voices in My Mind". KMIR News. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
2. ^ Weinberger, Sharon (January 14, 2007). "Mind Games". Washington Post. Retrieved January 12, 2014. Cite error: The named reference "WaPo20070114" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
3. ^ Kershaw, Sarah (November 12, 2008). "Sharing Their Demons on the Web". New York Times.
4. Matthews, Owen (July 11, 1995). "Report: Soviets Used Top-Secret 'Psychotronic' Weapons". The Moscow Times. Retrieved March 5, 2014.
5. David Montgomery (November 26, 2014). "How Miriam Carey's U-turn at a White House checkpoint led to her death". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 28, 2014.
6. Kevin Johnson, Donna Leinwand Leger and Doug Stanglin (October 5, 2013). "Official: D.C. suspect thought Obama was speaking to her". USA Today. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Text "http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/04/miriam-casey-connecticut-us-capitol-case-depression-washington/2921377/" ignored (help)
7. Cite error: The named reference WPmorello was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. Simon, Richard; Cloud, David S.; Bennett, Brian (September 16, 2013). "Navy Yard shooter 'had a pattern of misconduct'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
9. Gabbatt, Adam (September 16, 2013). "Washington DC shooting: Aaron Alexis named as navy yard gunman – as it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
10. Eric Tucker 18 September 2013. Aaron Alexis, Navy Yard Shooting Suspect, Thought People Followed Him With Microwave Machine. The Huffington Post. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.
11. Greg Botelho and Joe Sterling. September 26, 2013. FBI: Navy Yard shooter 'delusional,' said 'low frequency attacks' drove him to kill. CNN. Retrieved: 26 September 2013.
12. Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY (March 18, 2014). ""Report: Concerns about Navy Yard shooter never reported"". Retrieved October 19, 2014.
13. Gunman at Florida State Spoke of Being Watched By ASHLEY SOUTHALL and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS NOV. 20, 2014
14. "FSU gunman mailed 10 packages before shooting, contents not dangerous"

External links

• Eric Tucker, 18 September 2013. Aaron Alexis, Navy Yard Shooting Suspect, Thought People Followed Him With Microwave Machine, The Huffington Post
• Profile: Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, BBC News, 25 September 2013
• FSU Shooter Myron May Left Message: 'I Do Not Want to Die in Vain', NBC News, 21 November 2014

• Mind control
• Paranoia
• Pseudoscience
• Harassment