Nicolas Maduro is seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed US federal agents en route to a courthouse on January 5. Photo / Getty Images
Nicolas Maduro’s bodyguards did not know what had hit them when United States forces swooped in to snatch the Venezuelan leader from beneath their noses.
One moment they were ready to fight. The next, a wave of sound knocked them off their feet, leaving them bleeding from the nose and vomiting blood, according to one account of the daring raid.
Experts have questioned the details from that account, which has been circulated by the White House, but also say a mysterious weapon could indeed have been deployed by US special forces.
The US, and its adversaries, spent decades exploring sonic and radio-wave technologies to cripple enemy combatants.
CNN reported this week that two intelligence sources had concluded the top-secret technology may be behind the so-called Havana Syndrome, a mysterious affliction which has bedevilled American diplomats around the world.
The first instances of the condition were reported in 2016, when American diplomats stationed in the US Embassy in Cuba began suffering from unexplained cognitive symptoms, including extreme headaches, vertigo, memory loss, and hearing loss.
Since then, cases of Havana Syndrome have been reported by diplomats and government personnel in more than 15 countries.
According to the New York Times, diplomats stationed in China have also experienced light-headedness, sleep issues and their children getting nosebleeds.
Havana Syndrome symptoms, usually associated with head trauma, have no obvious cause. Some believe the illness arises as a result of a targeted sonic attack.
Others put it down to stress, air pollution, and chemical agents like pesticides.
The bodyguard’s account has surfaced amid reports that the US acquired its own device capable of afflicting Havana Syndrome-like symptoms in 2025, raising suspicions it may have been deployed on the battlefield.
A guard who supposedly witnessed the American assault on Maduro’s compound on January 3 claimed the group defending the Venezuelan leader was hit by some kind of “sonic weapon”.
“Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside,” the unnamed individual said in an interview shared by a conservative influencer over social media.
“We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, shared the interview with the caption: “Stop what you are doing and read this”.
Stop what you are doing and read this…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 10, 2026
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/v9OsbdLn1q
The White House has not commented on whether Leavitt was confirming the accuracy of the story by retweeting it.
Thomas Withington, a research associate at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said it was “entirely plausible” that US commandos had used a sonic device to subdue Maduro’s bodyguards.
However, he said he had not come across such extreme reactions to similar weapons.
Withington has previously experienced one of those sonic devices and described it as “horribly uncomfortable”.
“But having those sorts of nosebleeds and horrible physiological results is new to me,” he added.
Iain Boyd, director of the centre for national security initiatives at the University of Colorado, said a weapon combining radio and sonic waves could have a similar effect.
“If you had a person in a room, and you exposed them at close range to powerful waves [radio and sonic], then ... vomiting and nose bleeding could be resultant effects,” he told the Telegraph.
“The radio waves can interfere with brain activity [causing nausea and vomiting] and the sonic waves can increase pressure internally [causing a nosebleed].”
However, Boyd said it was “not technically feasible” that the effect would work over a large area or that a weapon requiring “an enormous input of electrical power” could have been transported by the US to Venezuela.
American special forces poured into Caracas on January 3, with a team of helicopters dispatched to Maduro’s compound to capture the former leader alongside his wife.
Any such weapon would have to be relatively small to take on the “smash and grab” raid, which was accomplished without losing any American lives or equipment.
Not long ago, the closest the US had come to developing a sonic weapon was blasting rock music outside the Vatican diplomatic mission in Panama City, where Manuel Noriega in 1989 took refuge following an invasion by American forces.
The mix of AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses and Led Zeppelin did the trick. A little over a week of musical barrage later, the Panamanian dictator, like Maduro a South American leader arrested on drugs charges, surrendered.
Over the following years, the Pentagon funnelled money into a non-lethal weapons programme. David Hambling, a journalist, described the results as “somewhere on the spectrum between shouting and shooting”.
Washington has taken steps in developing such weaponry, but from what is publicly known such developments have been limited.
The US has deployed a long-range acoustic device in Iraq and Afghanistan, which began as a loudhailer device for ships but has since been used for crowd control.
It can cause ear pain, disorientation, eardrum ruptures and irreversible damage. Its use is widely restricted around the world.
The US also developed a weapon known as the active denial system, which uses concentrated radio waves to heat the skin of targets. Although it was deployed to Afghanistan, it was never used.
“Development of similar weapons at different radio frequencies is widespread for defending against drones and other airborne threats,” Boyd said.
The US Navy also created a weapon known as electromagnetic personnel interdiction control, which was meant to disable the vestibular system, leaving the targets unable to stand up.
That bears some resemblance to the account of Maduro’s capture. But there is no evidence it ever worked or was anything other than a laboratory prototype.
America is not the only power that has apparently taken the plunge into developing these technologies.
Suspicion has built in recent years that a foreign power, possibly Russia, is bombarding American officials with microwaves and damaging their nervous system, causing the global reports of Havana Syndrome from diplomats and government officials.
Whether this is the result of the deliberate deployment of a covert weapon, or a byproduct of an operation to collect intelligence, is a matter of some debate.
CNN reported that the Pentagon had spent more than a year testing a weapon investigators believe could be the cause of Havana Syndrome, having purchased it as part of an undercover operation for an eight-figure sum.
The device produces pulse radio waves and is small enough to fit in a backpack. It contains Russian components but is not entirely Russian in origin, a source said.
There is still some debate if a weapon is indeed the cause of the hundreds of Havana Syndrome illnesses reported around the world. But the reporting is sure to spur questions about whether the US could have adapted its use on the battlefield.
On the other hand, attributing the US troops’ success to sophisticated technology could be an attempt by the Venezuelans to cover up their own failings.
Despite signs for months that Trump was preparing to move against Maduro, the Army was unable to operate or maintain advanced anti-aircraft systems like the S-300, according to the New York Times.
Analysis of satellite imagery also showed that defences were still in storage this month when the US military launched Operation Absolute Resolve and bundled the Venezuelan leader into a helicopter.
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