Electromagnetic weapon

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Electromagnetic (radiation) weapons are a type of Wikipedia:directed energy weapons which use Wikipedia:electromagnetic radiation to deliver heat, mechanical, or electrical energy to a target to cause various, sometimes very subtle, effects. They can be used against humans, electronic equipment, and military targets generally, depending on the technology.

High-energy radio frequency weapons (HERF) or high-power radio frequency weapons (HPRF) use high intensity radio waves to disrupt Wikipedia:electronics.

High and low power, Pulsed Microwave devices use low-frequency Wikipedia:microwave radiation which can be made to closely mimic and interact with normal Wikipedia:human brain waves having similar amplitudes and frequencies. The heart, lungs, and other vital organs are controlled by very low voltage electric signals from the human brain. It should be possible to disrupt, catastrophically, such signals - from a distance - using this technology. Wikipedia:Taser-like motor effects are also possible. The purpose of the PEP (Pulsed Energy Projectile), the LIP (Laser Induced Plasma) weapon and the Wikipedia:Active Denial System (ADS) is to induce pain, although the PEP has lethal capabilities.

Research and development

The University of Florida and the University of Central Florida, in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research, conducted a study begun in 2004 called "the Sensory Consequences of Electromagnetic Pulses Emitted by Laser Induced Plasma Channels". According to Dr. Jonathan Moreno, author of the book MIND WARS (2009), this project will have to be brought out of the laboratory and onto the battlefield to determine the full effects of using these weapons on humans. (Google award/contract M67854-04-C-5074)

The University of Texas-Austin Institute for Advanced Technology (IAT) conducts basic research to advance electrodynamics and Wikipedia:hypervelocity physics related to electromagnetic weapons.

In 2011, Boeing completed the first flight test with its Wikipedia:Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project missile.

The United States military spent $40 million dollars researching a non-lethal electromagnetic weapon for the purpose of crowd-dispersal.

Project Pandora

Project Pandora was conducted by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which became Defense ARPA (DARPA), included externally induced auditory input from pulsed microwaves which create the effect of hearing mechanical or clicking noises. Test subjects reported clearly hearing the sounds whether or not they were wearing ear protection, such as ear plugs. The Wikipedia:Walter Reed Army Institute of Research inherited this mission and this research, but only with respect to investigating the adverse health effects of exposure to microwave radiation. The research was not done in humans. Project Pandora is no longer under study.

Examples

• Wikipedia:MEDUSA (weapon)
• Wikipedia:Active Denial System

Effects

Use against equipment and electronics

When used against equipment, directed electromagnetic energy weapons can operate similarly to omnidirectional Wikipedia:electromagnetic pulse (EMP) devices, by inducing destructive voltage within electronic wiring. The difference is that they are directional and can be focused on a specific target using a Wikipedia:parabolic reflector. Wikipedia:Faraday cages may be used to provide protection from most directed and undirected EMP effects.

Directed energy weapons such as Boeing’s Airborne Laser, a chemical laser which has been mounted in a 747 jet is reportedly able to destroy incoming missiles by heating and warping the thin pressurized skin typical of such missiles.

Electromagnetic weapons, including high power microwaves, were used during the Wikipedia:Gulf War to disrupt and destroy the enemy's electronic systems and may have been used for other purposes. The degree of exposure to electromagnetic fields by Iraqi civilians and battlefield troops is unknown.

Use against humans

When used against humans electromagnetic weapons can have dramatic effects, such as the intense burning sensation caused by Raytheon's Active Denial system, or more subtle effects such as the creation—at a distance—of a sense of anxiety or dread, intense drowsiness, or confusion in an individual or a group of people. Three military advantages of such weapons are:

1. That the individual or group of people would not necessarily realize that they were being targeted by such a device.
2. That microwave radiation, like some other radio frequency radiation, can easily penetrate most common building materials.
3. That with specialized antennas the radiation and its effects can be focused on either an individual or a large area such as a city or country.

Potential military(/law enforcement) uses for such weapons include:

1. Capability to influence an enemy force (or population) to flee rather than to stand and fight by imposing on them a sense of great anxiety or impending disaster.
2. Ability to convince captured enemy combatants that the great sense of physical well-being which seemed to accompany their being even slightly cooperative was much more desirable than the overwhelming sense of uneasiness and dread associated with their being uncooperative or hostile.
3. Ability to impose a feeling of overwhelming drowsiness on an already weary enemy force.
4. Ability to deprive an enemy force of sound, uninterrupted sleep for a prolonged period.
5. Capability to persuade, indirectly, the close comrades of an enemy soldier that the soldier — perhaps an infantry officer who admittedly hears voices or strange noises that no one else is hearing — is mentally unsound and is not to be taken seriously. Such feelings, voices, or strange noises and dreams can be imposed on the enemy with some precision by specialized, microwave-type radiation antennas.

Sometimes described as being non-lethal, electromagnetic weapons can pose health threats to humans.

Some bio-effects of electromagnetic (radiation) weapons include effects to the human central nervous system resulting in drowsiness, localized physical pain (e.g. headaches or joint pain), difficulty breathing, vertigo, incontinence, nausea, disorientation, or other systemic discomfort. Electromagnetic radiation weapons may cause cumulative damage to the human body. Electromagnetic weapons can affect the human nervous system and might lead to diseases of the nervous system such as Primary Lateral Sclerosis.

Millimeter-wave pulses can affect the epidermis (skin) and Wikipedia:dermis, the thick sensitive layer of skin and connective tissue beneath the epidermis that contains blood, Wikipedia:lymph vessels, Wikipedia:sweat glands, and nerve endings, generating a burning sensation or actual burn from as far as 700 meters.

Ethical considerations

1. Faced with peaceful, non-violent protestors, law enforcement officials having, say, airborne, brain-wave-synchronized, electromagnetic weapons at their disposal could covertly influence the protestors to disband without the demonstrators even being aware that such an effort was underway.
2. Law enforcement officials could also use an electromagnetic pulse device to knock out unshielded mobile phones and cameras, reducing the capacity of civilians present to document police activity.
3. Faced with rioting and overt violence a government could covertly create a perimeter fence of radiation through which the rioters could not pass without feeling unbearable pain.
4. Using electromagnetic weapons law enforcement officials could, over time, covertly harass a "person of interest" into committing suicide and thereby effectively admit his involvement in the crime.
5. A US citizen could, under the protection of the US Constitution, launch from behind drawn blinds a covert electronic attack on an unwanted, unsuspecting neighbor thereby influencing the neighbor to sell his house and move away. Even if the neighbor suspected - or knew - he was being harassed electronically he probably could not convince the authorities to search his unfriendly neighbor's home without his being able to produce indisputable evidence of the harassment. (And, since claims of electromagnetic neurological interference are often considered a mark of paranoid delusions, the victim would be understandably reluctant to attempt to do so.)
6. Unknown to that population, a government or military could attempt to calm the emotions of a small population of people enraged, say, by the murder or accidental killing of a child, through sophisticated electromagnetic radiation weapons.

See also

Wikipedia:Directed energy weapons Wikipedia:Electronic warfare Wikipedia:High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

Wikipedia:Laser applications Wikipedia:List of plasma (physics) articles Wikipedia:Sonic weaponry

References

Additional sources

• Electromagnetic Weapons, Frying Tonight, The Economist, October 15th-21st, 2011, page 89
• High-Power Electromagnetic Radiators: Nonlethal Weapons and Other Applications, by D. V. Giri, published by Harvard University Press
• Gertz, Bill. Report: China building electromagnetic pulse weapons for use against U.S. carriers. The Washington Times. URL accessed on April 29, 2012.
• Hambling, David. Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows ‘Potential for Death’. Wired Magazine. URL accessed on April 29, 2012.

External links

• Award/Contract for Non-lethal weapons study from 2004
• High-power microwave weapons - full power ahead?Template:deadlink Jane's Defence Weekly, 25 August 2006.
• The Joint Non-lethal Weapons Program
• Another Runaway General, Army Deploys Psy-Ops on US Senators: [4]
• CIA Mind Control Experiments - MK Ultra Documentary (Part 1): [5]
• Brain waves associated with female orgasm, Rutgers University research: [6]
• Computer translates electrical signals in the brain, signals associated with thoughts, into words: [7]