The capture of Nicolás Maduro by the US special forces has generated one of those stories that, due to its form and timing, seem designed to colonize the collective imagination even before a verifiable version of the events can be established. The rumor: Washington has been able to use a secret weapon more typical of a Marvel movie.
It’s not impossible, and that’s the catch.
The perfect rumor. We are not talking about something completely new, because this theory already sounded strongly with Washington and Cuba as protagonists years ago. The return of the “sonic weapon” now appears as a perfect story to explain a humiliating defeat. Also to elevate the operation to the category of a technological demonstration: a group of special forces captures Maduro and, according to a guard, leaves the defenders bleeding, dizzy and lying on the ground unable to get up.
It is a type of narrative that has automatically gone viral because it does not require nuance: it turns a confusing combat into a clear scene of absolute superiority and ends with a deterrent conclusion (“no one should confront the United States”), which is exactly the phrase that an intimidation campaign would want to put in the mouth of the enemy.
From TikTok to institutional speaker. The origin of everything is quite flimsy: it appears in a TikTok video, a testimony that is impossible to verify (an alleged member of the Venezuelan security forces as a witness), then translated and subsequently amplified by commentators with the clear intention of dramatizing it and making it viral. Then something happens that changes everything: the White House spokesperson shares it and promotes it as required reading.
Without confirming anything, this gesture gives it authority and creates the most certain ambiguity: it is not official, but it is no longer a simple hoax, and in that gray area it fuels conversation, fear and propaganda. The Pentagon and SOUTHCOM take refuge in operational security, which leaves the ideal vacuum for the myth to grow without the need for evidence.
@franklinvarela09 loser of January 23 recognizing the surrender of Diosdado Cabello eschunlo friend s #greenscreenvideo
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What we know about the assault. The operational framework described was already, in itself, that of a high-risk mission with specialized means: nighttime heliborne insertion, armed support helicopters, shooting, American wounded, and a high number of casualties on the defending side, including foreign military allies of the regime.
With surprise, local air superiority, electronic warfare, cyber support, and precise fire, a defensive collapse can occur without the need for mysterious “lightning strikes.” That is why the rumor that has gone viral is not essential to explain the result: it is, in any case, an embellishment that transforms a complex tactical victory into a fable of technological domination.
But there is something else.
Technology that exists. What really makes the rumor not die instantly and that many specialized media have remembered it, is that it is based on a real background: Washington has been researching non-kinetic and “less lethal” capabilities for decades to incapacitate without killing, from the so-called Active Denial System (millimeter microwaves that cause intense pain) to long-range acoustic devices such as LRAD and dazzling lasers to deny vision.
Combining sensory effects (pain, disorientation, temporary blindness, confusion) to break an adversary’s coordination without resorting to immediate lethal fire has also been explored. There is no doubt that the existence of programs of this type does not prove that they were used in Caracas, but it does provide veracity: “it may exist” is enough for the story to survive.
A briefing slide from about a decade ago describing the “Non-Lethal Weapons Demonstrators” available to the US military at the time, including the Active Denial System and Acoustic Call-type systems
“Sonic” as a label. They recalled in Forbes that sound as a weapon has physical limits and is riddled with historical exaggerations: it is easy to promise “paralysis” or “panic” due to frequencies, but much more difficult to demonstrate consistent effects beyond hearing damage or disorientation due to extreme volume.
Furthermore, TWZ analysts explained that a witness under stress can describe any devastating sensory experience as a “sound wave”: nearby explosions, flashbangs, overpressure, daze and trauma. The language of the victim in this scenario does not identify the mechanism, it only transmits an experience, and that difference is crucial when the story travels through networks as if it were a technical report.
An ADS prototype loaded into the back of a heavy truck
EPIC, the hypothesis. Forbes also emphasized a more “consistent” alternative with certain symptoms: EPIC, a concept that would use radiofrequency pulses to interfere with the inner ear and balance, causing extreme vertigo, inability to stand, and visual disorientation.
The idea would be tactical and attractive because, unlike sound, radio waves pass through obstacles and could feel like pressure or “pop” in the head by affecting the vestibular system. The problem is that there is no public evidence that this program went beyond early phases or that it exists as an operational capacity, so here it works more as a credible anchor than as proof.
Havana Syndrome. We told it a few years ago. The debate on the anomalous health incidents associated with the so-called Havana Syndrome prepared the ground: there was already a conversation about possible invisible mechanisms (acoustic, radioelectric or other) capable of producing real symptoms without an obvious explosion.
Official assessments have ranged between skepticism about foreign authorship and caution not to rule out that a small number of cases could fit well-known scientific principles used for harassment or incapacitation. In this scenario, any “invisible weapon” story is feasible because it leads one to think that the strange is not impossible, just classified.
The most plausible explanation. If the strongest hypothesis is to be chosen, it is possibly a combination of actual combat, explosions, distraction devices, smoke, shock and disorganization, amplified by testimony that has every incentive to exaggerate and turn defeat into technological inevitability.
Details like “vomiting blood” or “hundreds killed by zero casualties” sound like hyperbole, and fit a classic conflict pattern: the loser attributes the disaster to an intangible (here a “superweapon”) to save the furnitureand the winner benefits by letting it circulate, because it reinforces deterrence and the aura of invincibility without committing to anything verifiable.
Strategic reading. Be that as it may, true or false, the theory has already served one function: installing the idea that Washington can “turn off” human defenses with incomprehensible technology, which is psychologically devastating even if it is never proven.
In high-value capture operations, the decisive advantage is not always to kill more, but to prevent the enemy from coordinating: to blind, confuse, disorient, slow down. In that framework, the story of the “sonic weapon” seems less like a chronicle of what happened and more like an example of perception warfare.
Imagen | US Force, USN
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