WASHINGTON — Two U.S. intelligence agencies investigating a series of unexplained health incidents among U.S. government officials believe it is possible that foreign adversaries have developed advanced technology that could be responsible for the symptoms experienced in a small number of cases, known widely as “Havana syndrome,” the intelligence community said in a report published Friday.

The updated assessment from the two unidentified agencies marks a split from five other intelligence organizations within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence analyzing the phenomenon. Those five other agencies still assess that it is unlikely that foreign actors have the capability to conduct attacks that could cause the reported symptoms.

Since 2016, when a cluster of bizarre health incidents affected U.S. officials in Havana, hundreds of U.S. officials have reported similar symptoms of experiencing sudden and acute head pain and vertigo.

All seven agencies still lack any direct evidence that a foreign government is responsible for any specific episode, officials said.

One of the two agencies that changed their assessments from their last report on the matter, in 2023, said there is an even chance that a foreign actor has deployed technology that could be responsible for a “small, undetermined” subset of reported cases, but still cannot specify an affected cluster of cases.

The second agency only said that new evidence has emerged revealing that “foreign directed energy research programs have been making progress,” an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told reporters Friday.

“The goal of our analysis is to find out what happened to them – not to question whether they had medical symptoms,” the official said. “Our analysis is focused only on considering foreign responsibility, and the intelligence does not link a foreign actor to these events. Indeed, it points away from their involvement, and analytic integrity is saying just that.”

A National Security Council official said the new intelligence community assessment “includes a shift in key judgments by some intelligence components,” which “only reinforces why it is vital that the U.S. government continue critical research, investigate credible incidents, and strengthen efforts to provide timely care and long-term clinical follow-up.”

The Miami Herald reported on Thursday on a November meeting where NSC officials indicated to a group of victims that they had seen new information questioning the 2023 assessment’s conclusions that no foreign adversary had the capability nor involvement in attacks on American officers.

In December, a House intelligence subcommittee overseeing the CIA also concluded in an interim report that “it appears increasingly likely… that a foreign adversary is behind some” of these incidents.

An investigation by CBS’s 60 Minutes, the Insider and Der Spiegel uncovered new information linking a Russian military intelligence unit with some incidents. The former leading investigator into Havana Syndrome at the Pentagon also told 60 Minutes he believed Russia was behind the attacks.

But, indicating daylight between the outgoing Biden administration and the intelligence community, the ODNI official downplayed the significance of the analytic shift. The official also said that incidents included in the 60 Minutes report had been vetted by the intelligence community and did not pass scrutiny.

“What I would say is that dozens of analysts and leadership participated in this study, and all of us are in agreement that there’s no intelligence linking a foreign adversary to any of the events reported as AHIs,” the official said, referring to anomalous health incidents, the government term for the phenomenon.

“It’s worth stressing that both of the components that say roughly even chance – the language that is used is ‘small, undetermined subset,’” the official said. “That language is very precise, because none of those components can pinpoint or identify specific events, whether Havana or anywhere else, because there’s no intelligence – and they agree there’s no intelligence – linking any foreign actor to a specific event.”

The assessment still relies on a controversial National Institutes of Health study that found no signs of brain injuries and concluded that the people affected do not “have a consistent set of physical injuries,” which undermines the syndrome theory and that the illnesses result from similar events. However, that study was shut down after the Miami Herald published participants’ complaints that they were coerced to join the research and that researchers expressed bias and mishandled their personal information. Several other studies did find signs of brain and other significant injuries.

Still, the change in the assessment has been received as vindication by some of the Havana Syndrome victims.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a retired senior CIA officer injured in Moscow in 2017, highlighted the role of the NSC in supporting the victims and research that he believes is behind the updated assessment.

“The NSC pushed ongoing research and investigative work on anomalous health incidents, which apparently led to a breakthrough in reporting, as noted in this most recent ICA assessment, which now suggests the potential culpability of a foreign adversary,” he said. “All of this was accomplished despite the CIA’ and ODNI’s ongoing analytic obstinance and gaslighting of victims. “

“I hope that the incoming Trump administration and a new Congress on a bipartisan basis pushes strongly to get to the truth” on the incidents, he said.

Patient Zero, a retired intelligence officer who was the first to report an incident in Havana in late 2016, also questioned how the CIA handled the investigation.

“You can’t find anything if you’re not looking for it,” he said. “The CIA stopped all investigative efforts three years ago; of course, their position hasn’t changed. The story here is the two agencies that have been actively investigating and now changed their assessments of capability and culpability of a foreign actor. “

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