We are increasingly under daily assault by a variety of electric fields, some of which are widely considered to cause cancer, anxiety, depression and other health problems.

But there is one place to which some “electrically sensitive people” have traveled to escape the assault: the area of Green Bank, West Virginia.

Green Bank is in a valley sheltered by mountains and so remote, fewer than 200 people call it home. Which is why it was chosen to locate the Green Bank Observatory, the location of the most massive moving object on land: a 100-meter radio telescope that collects very weak signals from outer space. 

To detect the signals, the telescope requires no interruption caused by some modern technology. So after World War II, when Green Bank was chosen as a location for this national telescope, restrictions were put in place. 

Within a 10-mile radius, the West Virginia Radio Astronomy Zone, strict rules apply: No radio waves. And as technology has advanced, it has also meant: no operational mobile phones on site, no microwaves, no wireless transmitters, no cordless phones, and no WiFi.

Most might consider Green Bank’s status to be inconvenient. But it’s actually a point of attraction for a small number of people who have moved here for relief from life’s daily exposure to invisible electric fields. They say electricity and radiation cause them everything from intense headaches, to heart and brain issues.

Lia Langston moved here from Nebraska six years ago, fleeing electric fields that she’s convinced contributed to her liver failure and her organs shutting down. 

“If I would be driving in the car and there were major power lines, I would get very anxious and the side of my head would get, just feel such pressure that I knew I was having a problem,” Langston told Full Measure.

She says a specialist connected her problems to electricity.

"My cells have a condition that allows too much calcium inside, and that causes my cells to be like an antenna that just gather all the electricity and radiation and makes me sick. Causes me great pain.”

Full Measure asked: “What did the neurologist diagnose you with? How did he explain to you what was happening?”

Langston replied: “He put all the dots together and said that my various symptoms were radiation. And whether it was from electricity or the LED lights or WiFi, I seemed to be sensitive to all of them. 

"My neurologist told me that if I didn't leave, I would die within three weeks because my heart was giving out on me. And he was in a mentorship for electrical sensitivity, which was remarkable. So my husband threw me in the RV, packed what we could, sold everything, and here we are.”

Andrew McAfee isn’t just a sufferer, he’s also a licensed electrician who troubleshoots houses of electrically sensitive people. He also lives in the Green Bank area.

“I call it electrical sensitivity," he said. "By reducing our exposure to external sources of electromagnetic forces, we have a chance to finally be free of what's causing the disease."

Overall, major health groups insist the levels of radiation we’re exposed to are safe.

But as wireless technology has exploded, most American children have a mobile device, and there’s WiFi everywhere — which has resulted in increasing concerns about what chronic exposure might do to our health.

Numerous expert health groups and studies have classified as possibly cancer causing the electromagnetic fields created by microwaves, cell phones, cell phone towers, laptops, smart devices and other everyday tools – with the greatest risks to children. Other concerns include fertility issues, immune and genetic changes, and brain effects that can fuel depression and anxiety.

But even in America’s last legislated quiet zone, there are rumblings. Recent loosened restrictions approved by the Green Bank Observatory allow common WiFi. The shift, say some, is driven by the local school’s needs.

Those who have come here seeking refuge hope the change isn’t enough to reach into their homes and make them sick. But they worry it’s only the beginning of more changes that will impact their health.

“It’s really a death knell to all of us who have invested in this area to have it protected,” McAfee says. “It would be very easy for citywide WiFi with emitters on every pole to then go up and be ubiquitous all over the county.”

Full Measure asked: “Are you actively lobbying to try to stop the WiFi change that's already happened, or to stop future changes?” 

“We wanna hold it right here,” he says.

For more on this story, watch "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” Sunday. Attkisson's most recent book is "Follow the $cience: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails.”