People reporting strange sounds and body sensations are being pushed toward psychiatric care instead of being tested, a pattern that mirrors how US diplomats were first dismissed.

• Complaints of auditory symptoms are routinely written off as mass hysteria or a mental health problem rather than investigated.
• Private radio-frequency testing says it has picked up signals at specific spots on people's bodies.
• Turnout has been large: hundreds showed up for testing in California, with similar results in Chicago and on the East Coast.
• The most affected group shifts with local demographics, but one Virginia cluster stood out — around a hundred military subcontractors reporting the same symptoms.
• Belgian officials have asked for their own diplomats and staff to be tested.

Outlook: Expect more pressure on governments to run objective testing, since the law and medicine have not caught up with the technology involved.