If you were among the 50 million people who watched the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and US President Joe Biden, you can argue that Biden wasn't at his best during the event. A lot of people came up with possible excuses for his performance, some more outrageous than others.
Joe Biden was Supposedly Hit By a Ray Gun
It's election season, so the conspiracies are bound to reemerge again. With the latest debate showing President Joe Biden's poor execution of his responses and arguments, people are quick to create justifications for it, and one particular explanation involved an energy weapon.
Conspiracy theorists on social media believe that the candidate was hit with directed energy that gave the president Havana Syndrome. In case you don't know, it's the name for a set of illnesses that US spies have contracted in the last decade.
The theories state that such weapons had been used by countries like Russia and China before, wherein the target would suffer brain damage as a result of being hit by the ray gun, as per Gizmodo. A lot of people are already convinced that this is what happened.
A social media influencer Igor Sushko shared his beliefs on X, even adding credibility to the statement, saying that scientists who worked on directed energy beam research for the US intelligence community thought of Havana Syndrome upon seeing Biden during the debate.
"This is according to former KGB spy Yuri Shvets who defected to the US in 1993," he concluded. There was a video included showing Biden stuttering in the June 27th debate while he did well enough the following day.
In a follow-up sub-post, Sushko added that Yuri Shvets' source said that the energy beam could be "precisely directed toward a person's brain from a significant distance, and calibrated to cause the kind of milder symptoms," which was what Biden exhibited during the debate.
Others were convinced about the theory, but with something this controversial, there are understandable contradictions. Some responded by saying that President Biden was just old in age, while others pointed out the absurdity of it all.
There Are Simpler Explanations
The current US President is now 81 years old, which may explain why he already has difficulty in speaking without stuttering or halting. However, others have pointed out that Donald Trump is closer in age with him being 78 years old.
One person said they had asked Biden's top aides to let the candidate rest, but they denied the request. "What a bad decision to send him out looking sick and exhausted." Another said that he was over-coached and over-practiced, as per Business Standard.
These are certainly more plausible than the president being hit with an energy beam that caused him to suffer from Havana Syndrome. This prevented him from refuting some of the false claims that Trump had given during the debate.
For instance, the Republican candidate claims that he had actually won the 2020 elections. Biden's performance led to Democrats calling for the president to end his re-election campaign and do some "soul-searching" instead.