Zap!
The US Military today unveiled a brand new weapon that comes right out of Buck Rogers. An honest-to-goodness ray gun. If hit by the beam, a person feels as if they are about to catch on fire, but the sensation, as scary as it is, is non-lethal and in fact does no real damage at all.
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. - The military calls its new weapon an "active denial system," but that's an understatement. It's a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they are about to catch fire.
Apart from causing that terrifying sensation, the technology is supposed to be harmless — a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons.
Military officials say it could save the lives of innocent civilians and service members in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
The weapon is not expected to go into production until at least 2010, but all branches of the military have expressed interest in it, officials said.
During the first media demonstration of the weapon Wednesday, airmen fired beams from a large dish antenna mounted atop a Humvee at people pretending to be rioters and acting out other scenarios that U.S. troops might encounter in war zones.
The device's two-man crew located their targets through powerful lenses and fired beams from more than 500 yards away. That is nearly 17 times the range of existing non-lethal weapons, such as rubber bullets.
Anyone hit by the beam immediately jumped out of its path because of the sudden blast of heat throughout the body. While the 130-degree heat was not painful, it was intense enough to make the participants think their clothes were about to ignite.
The report does not mention if the weapon was demonstrated by Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering. Raytheon could have had a lot of fun with that.
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Helpful Media Reports — Thursday, 25 January , 2007 @ 10:06 am
By Dan Patterson, Wednesday, 24 January , 2007 @ 7:49 pm
Want it.
By Gaius, Wednesday, 24 January , 2007 @ 8:02 pm
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I'm waiting for the improved version!By Uncle Pinky, Wednesday, 24 January , 2007 @ 10:02 pm
Wilma Deering. Ray guns. Must… do… deep… breathing… exercises. And think about numbers. Shouldn’t this be posted over at Ace’s?
By Gaius, Wednesday, 24 January , 2007 @ 10:09 pm
Heh. Erin Gray was a hottie. Still is, actually. She’s aged very gracefully judging from the picture over at Wikipedia….
By Uncle Pinky, Wednesday, 24 January , 2007 @ 10:38 pm
Back in ‘86 I pegged Rick Schroeder with a hot dog at the Air and Space Museum. The field trip kids I was with assumed it was because he was wealthy and famous. Nope. He was allowed to be near the demi-goddess Grey and I was not. By my lights that meant he should be punished. That was one of my first forays into the heady realm of cocky, semi-celeb bashing. Someday I’ll tell you about my Theismann take-down.