Do you wake up in the middle of the night? Do you have a sore throat, coughing? Does your dog wake up howling? Do you experience fatigue, depression, migraines or joint pain? Then the answer is simple. Since at least 2016, the corporate media has told us there is one inescapable condition – drumroll, please – Havana Syndrome.

First detected by the intrepid staff at the US (and Canadian) embassies in Havana, Cuba, this mass psychosis and clustering of anomalous health events has its origins in that all-purpose villainous stereotype – the Russians. Malevolent agents of Moscow have deployed secretive yet powerful sonic devices – ultrasound, or microwave, take your pick – to cause mass psychogenic illnesses targeting American and Canadian personnel.

This is a very appealing conspiracy theory; a hostile foreign government, utilising a mysterious and purportedly powerful technology, inflicts a mass malady on the ‘good guys’. Sonic weapons blasting out microwaves to distort our brains is the stuff of entertaining Hollywood movies. There is just one problem with all this – the CIA admitted it was completely false.

Whatever medical conditions arose among the American or Canadian personnel, alternative and plausible explanations are available. There are no foreign powers behind the psychogenic conditions. No, brain injuries, no physiological abnormalities – nothing, However, conspiracy theories take on a life of their own, so that it seems like we are forever playing a game of whack-a-mole.

Sonic attacks and solar eclipse of the heart

The sonic boom scenario propounded by advocates of Havana Syndrome are serving a direct political purpose – to increase domestic opposition to the Cuban government, and its supporters in Moscow. Claiming a foreign directed conspiracy against American and Canadian citizens relies on, and inflames, fears of foreigners with high-power technology, whether microwaves, sonic sounds, or some other sinister sounding terminology.

When you promote conspiratorial thinking in one area, you can rest assured that this pattern will carry over to other topics. That was the case with the April 8 solar eclipse, an astronomical event guaranteed to fascinate millions of people. Rather than be awed by the science of this celestial event, millions of Americans turned to conspiracy theories about the alleged political and sociological ramifications of the eclipse.

To be sure, solar eclipses have long fascinated humankind for centuries. Numerous non-Western civilisations have recorded observed solar eclipses. Multiple gods and supernatural characters have been created, prompted by the celestial event. The ancient Irish carved images of a solar eclipse into stone at the Loughcrew Megalithic cemetery at Meath, Ireland, in 3340 BCE.

The ancient Chinese, Babylonians, the Maya – observed and kept meticulous records of solar eclipses. Carved in stone, Maya hieroglyphs depicted astronomical events, and they tried to make sense of mathematical patterns. Solar eclipses were interpreted as omens for sovereigns and rulers; the Chinese who observed the eclipse described the sun being ‘eaten up.’

The Chinese recorded observations of the eclipse on tortoise shells and oxen shoulder blades. It is no secret that eclipses have been noted as a sign of end times. The beginnings of an apocalyptic rapture, the solar eclipse is referenced obliquely in the biblical account the book of Joel; the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood as the lord himself returns. Assyrian and Babylonian priest-mathematicians went to great lengths to predict the next solar eclipse from records on clay tablets.

The most famous eclipse is that of 1919; British astronomers, observing the solar eclipse from Principe off the coast of Africa, confirmed Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Gathering confirmatory evidence of the gravitational warping of light, that eclipse made Einstein a world famous scientist. He would go on to travel the world, giving lectures and media interviews. Einstein theorised that a large enough body, such as the Sun, has enough mass to cause light to bend.

However, the latest solar eclipse did not prompt a flurry of scientific enquiry. The floodgates opened for a veritable tsunami of conspiracy theories, particularly from the ultrarightist MAGA cesspit. From theorising about an apocalyptic end times, to concerns about Biden declaring martial law, the internet was ablaze with the hobby horses of the extreme right.

In the age of retweeting and Instagram social media influencers, thousands of years of accumulated scientific knowledge – in this case of solar eclipses – is summarily thrown out. Alex Jones, far right commentator and narcissistic fantasist, pumped out numerous conspiracies, alleging that the Biden administration was shutting down the mobile phone network as a prelude to a coup. MAGA delusional trolls shouted about how your kids would turn transgender, that the end of the world was upon us.

When millions of people are getting their advice from Instagram and TikTok, repudiating scientific knowledge becomes a serious societal problem. Yes, we can all see that there are extensive educational resources on the internet. The Smithsonian publishes its own magazine. The articles, videos and podcasts of Scientific American are readily available.

In this age of Covid denial and conspiracism, scientific evidence is being overwhelmed by social media obstinacy. We need to return to institutional analysis and the preponderance of evidence. Secret weapons deployed by foreigners is a recycled trope, leading us to speculate all sorts of social implications. Let’s listen to the scientists, not the Instagram-celebrities.