Electromagnetic heat Weapon
The Soviets were known to have potent blinding lasers. They were also feared to have developed acoustic and radio-wave weapons. The 1987 issue of Soviet Military Power, a cold war Pentagon publication, warned that the Soviets might be close to “a prototype short-range tactical RF [radio frequency] weapon.” The Washington Post reported that year that the Soviets had used such weapons to kill goats at 1 kilometer’s range.
The Pentagon, it turns out, has been pursuing similar devices since the 1960s.
Typical of some of the more exotic proposals are those from Clay Easterly. Last December, Easterly–who works at the Health Sciences Research Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory briefed the Marine Corps on work he had conducted for the National Institute of Justice, which does research on crime control. One of the projects he suggested was an electromagnetic gun that would “induce epilepticlike seizures.” Another was a “thermal gun [that] would have the operational effect of heating the body to 105 to 107″ degrees Fahrenheit. Such effects would bring on discomfort, fevers, or even death.
But, unlike the work on blinding lasers and acoustic weapons, progress here has been slow. The biggest problem is power. High-powered microwaves intended to heat someone standing 200 yards away to 105 degrees Fahrenheit may kill someone standing 10 yards away. On the other hand, electromagnetic fields weaken quickly with distance from the source. And beams of such energy are difficult to direct to their target. Mission Research Corp. of Albuquerque, N.M., has used a computer model to study the ability of microwaves to stimulate the body’s peripheral nervous system. “If sufficient peripheral nerves fire, then the body shuts down to further stimulus, producing the so-called stun effect,” an abstract states. But, it concludes, “the ranges at which this can be done are only a few meters.”
Nonetheless, government laboratories and private contractors are pursuing numerous similar programs. A 1996 Air Force Scientific Advisory Board report on future weapons, for instance, includes a classified section on a radio frequency or “RF Gunship.” Other military documents confirm that radio-frequency antipersonnel weapons programs are underway. And the Air Force’s Armstrong Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas is heavily engaged in such research. According to budget documents, the lab intends to spend more than $110 million over the next six years “to exploit less-than-lethal biological effects of electromagnetic radiation for Air Force security, peacekeeping, and war-fighting operations.”