No, that's not a giant satellite dish for TV-starved soldiers in the field. Instead, it's the latest in the Pentagon's arsenal of so-called nonlethal weapons. The bureaucratically named Active Denial System, which had a media demonstration this week, is designed to project a beam of millimeter wave energy that causes a sensation of intense heat--you feel like you're on fire, but only long enough to make you flee. By all accounts from those involved, it's a far cry from Stephen King's Firestarter or the really scary beam used by the aliens in War of the Worlds. When a crowd gathers menacingly outside an embassy, for instance, the ADS system would just shoo them away unharmed.
The ADS technology, being tested by the U.S. Air Force's 820th Security Forces Group, operates on a 95GHz millimeter radio frequency wavelength. The beam literally goes only skin-deep, just enough to activate pain receptors, and the effects dissipate quickly when a person gets out of its path, backers say. "The pain is comparable to an intensified version of opening an oven and feeling the initial blast of hot air," Staff Sgt. Jason Delacruz, an ADS operator who has been exposed to the beam, said in a statement. ADS is still several years away from deployment.
January 26, 2007 12:45 PM PST
Photo by: Photo by Airman 1st Class Gina Chiaverotti
