I’m loathe to drive traffic through to the Daily Mail, but this is a good article about Silent Guardian, the public face of microwave beam weapons, and surely just the tip of the iceberg of what’s going on at the Directed Energy Directorate in the USA.
“It is a bit like touching a red-hot wire, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. There is no burn mark or blister.
A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.
When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation – similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker – that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings.
It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.
Anyone in the beam’s path will feel, over their entire body, the agonising sensation I’ve just felt on my fingertip. The prospect doesn’t bear thinking about…
It is easy to see the raygun being used not as an alternative to lethal force (when I can see that it is quite justified), but as an extra weapon in the battle against dissent.
Because it is, in essence, a simple machine, it is easy to see similar devices being pressed into service in places with extremely dubious reputations.
There are more questions: in tests, volunteers have been asked to remove spectacles and contact lenses before being microwaved. Does this imply these rays are not as harmless as Raytheon insists?
What happens when someone with a weak heart is zapped?
And, perhaps most worryingly, what if deployment of Silent Guardian causes mass panic, leaving some people unable to flee in the melee? Will they just be stuck there roasting?
Full story at the Daily Mail