Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon
December 6th, 2006This weapon is old news, but note the tenacity with which the military carried out the Dr. Mengele inspired research. How many hundreds or thousands of people have dedicated their careers to this thing? What could have been accomplished if all of this time, effort and money was directed at non-evil objectives?
This, actually, is nothing when you consider the time, effort and money that has been blown on nuclear weapons (about $5.5 trillion just up until 1996) and military/intelligence satellite projects (historical estimates: unknown due to appropriations secrecy, but roughly $20 billion just in 2006). Even the most hardened researchers into government profligacy are moved to tears by these numbers.
This is what happens when Machine induced psycopathy takes over. Peoples’ lives become absorbed with creating (and chasing) hideous grotesqueries rather than doing anything truly constructive or beneficial. The Myth of the Machine gets people to believe that what they’re doing is good, true and beautiful, even as they carry out the bidding of the most diabolical criminals on the planet. To what end? It’s simple. The technologies of death and control have created a world in which 2% of people own more than half of the wealth. There’s not much room at the top of the pyramid, after all.
Which begs the question…
I wonder if this weapon has a mode that hasn’t been publicized yet? A mode similar to what the aliens had in the War of the Worlds films. The beam hits you and all that’s left is a puff of ash. But not to fear, children. This weapon just induces excruciating, unimaginable pain. And the U.S. Air Force wants to use it on Americans first, in Jesus Land, before deploying it where “the terrorists” are holding up freedom and democracy in Iraq.
Freedom and democracy you can feel!
You need to be pretty smart (and have almost pathological tunnel vision) to be able to build a death ray, but just about anyone can see a pyramid scheme when you strip away the bullshit.
Added bonus on this article: It contains actual references to tinfoil. No really! Tinfoil, in the truest sense of the word. Tinfoil, in terms of protection from a government ray gun. You would, however, need a to wrap yourself up “like a turkey” to get any level of protection from this thing.
I’m sure some activists will don Obi-Wan Kenobi style robes made out of Reynolds wrap as they try to wave their peace signs at the directed energy weapons. Personally, I’m waiting for the twits to try tin foil reflector “LICK BUSH” signs, or maybe the good old trashcan lid fashioned into a microwave shield. My guess, however, is that if it was possible to bounce any of the energy back at the fascists running the directed energy machine, the cops/soldiers would simply blow the heads off of the protesters who tried it. Back to the drawing board for the full time activist class…
I don’t know who’s more nuts, Darth Vader, or the idiots who think they can wave signs at him and think it will accomplish anything.
Via Wired:
The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you’ve been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards — and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.
You’ve just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq — even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.
According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force’s Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.
The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves — 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.
The longer waves are thought to limit the effects of the radiation. If used properly, ADS will produce no lasting adverse affects, the military argues.
Documents acquired for Wired News using the Freedom of Information Act claim that most of the radiation (83 percent) is instantly absorbed by the top layer of the skin, heating it rapidly.
The beam produces what experimenters call the “Goodbye effect,” or “prompt and highly motivated escape behavior.” In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.
“It will repel you,” one test subject said. “If hit by the beam, you will move out of it — reflexively and quickly. You for sure will not be eager to experience it again.”
But while subjects may feel like they have sustained serious burns, the documents claim effects are not long-lasting. At most, “some volunteers who tolerate the heat may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters,” the Air Force experiments concluded.
The reports describe an elaborate series of investigations involving human subjects.
The volunteers were military personnel: active, reserve or retired, who volunteered for the tests. They were unpaid, but the subjects would “benefit from direct knowledge that an effective nonlethal weapon system could soon be in the inventory,” said one report. The tests ranged from simple exposure in the laboratory to elaborate war games involving hundreds of participants.
The military simulated crowd control situations, rescuing helicopter crews in a Black Hawk Down setting and urban assaults. More unusual tests involved alcohol, attack dogs and maze-like obstacle courses.
In more than 10,000 exposures, there were six cases of blistering and one instance of second-degree burns in a laboratory accident, the documents claim.
The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million. Its existence was revealed in 2001 by news reports, but most details of ADS human testing remain classified. There has been no independent checking of the military’s claims.
The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.
This may mean yet more rounds of testing for the ADS.
…
The beam penetrates clothing, but not stone or metal. Blocking it is harder than you might think. Wearing a tinfoil shirt is not enough — you would have to be wrapped like a turkey to be completely protected. The experimenters found that even a small exposed area was enough to produce the Goodbye effect, so any gaps would negate protection. Holding up a sheet of metal won’t work either, unless it covers your whole body and you can keep the tips of your fingers out of sight.
Wet clothing might sound like a good defense, but tests showed that contact with damp cloth actually intensified the effects of the beam.
System 1, the operational prototype, is mounted on a Hummer and produces a beam with a 2-meter diameter. Effective range is at least 500 meters, which is further than rubber bullets, tear gas or water cannons. The ammunition supply is effectively unlimited.
Where’s George Orwell when ya need him?
check this
http://www.jp-petit.com/Disclosure/disclosure_a_doubt.htm
and search for “antimatter bombs”. the article (and website) also contain some other goodies.
it is the website of a french physicist.
Serious actual battlefield problems here, similar to the Aegis system, a missile-defense for ships, using controllable phased array radar. When these radars are turned up high, they cook passing seagulls right out of the sky, with the same effect as these weapons. I wouldnt be surprised if Aegis system radiation is substantially similar to this.
Anyhow: these are rather delicate. what would a few dozen ball-bearings do to the face of your million-dollar baby? – and how many would you deploy and lose before you realized you’d been boondoggled?
and for the C-130 deployed… at distance, that radar must dissipate in strength or spread out. If you have friendly troops in the area, they’d be toast — meaning you either couldnt use the weapon as support for them, or they wouldnt be able to stay in the area to complete their mission.
lots of money, and serious problems: the perfect DARPA money-sucker. No wonder they love it.
Can anyone name a single weapon, lethal or not, that has not been abused by law enforcement, the military, and those in power?
exactly, MM!
wondering “if” it could be abused is silly. Will someone get suckered into spending tons of tax cash on it? why not, its not their money! will it *work* ?
Depends on what you mean by that.
Most, not all, but most technological innovation in the U.S. has been derived from military or government projects. The government throws a lot, and I mean A LOT, of shit at the wall. Most of it doesn’t stick. However, some of it winds up being able to kill or control people according to specification. Some of it goes straight to the consumer. Look at the government grant system, especially as it relates to university research. It’s absolutely shocking.
Aside from quickly demolishing the device or the vehicle containing it, there’s another general countermeasure to both it and the loud-sound projectors that the Israelis have reportedly deployed against demonstrators: Responsive jamming of the signal to cancel it, pretty much the same thing that those electronic quiet headphones do. You’d need a set of such jamming devices spread throughout the crowd, perhaps carried in backpacks. Come to think of it, this could also be used to mitigate the everyday annoyance caused by people playing music too loud in their cars and apartments. An eminently marketable consumer electronics product.
yep, university projects such as this are a huge money pit — and that in itself is a problem for The Machine, whether its realized or not. the fact that they *really* want this, and are willing to spend money on it is obvious. and its making plenty of people happy in the grant offices, universities and research labs, for the life of their careers!
But it remains: one tar bomb to the face of this boodoglle and its rendered ineffective, and some municipality has to pay the huge bill for their crowd control. So as a *useful* tool of control, it may need another year, or another SIXTY years, we dont know — but it definitely doesnt look usable as is. Far too delicate.
Another, cheaper response to this weapon was suggested by the note about foil-covered signs. Indeed, if enough people in the crowd faced their signs directly at the generating vehicle, the signal would indeed be focused back at the vehicle. If, meanwhile, others near the vehicle had (perhaps before the device is turned on), damsged the vehicle and torn the protective clothing worn by its operators, they would be unable to avoid their own signal and would be powerfully motivated to either turn it off or not turn it on in the first place.
Despite what the article would have you believe (state propaganda, in some regards), the weapon has a purely line of sight field of fire, so only the side of you facing and exposed to the beam is affected. Gaps not exposed directly to the beam are unaffected, you DO NOT have to be wrapped like a turkey to be protected from the effect. Millimeter length radio waves (what is being generated and focused with this device, similar to those found in aircraft borne radar systems, on which I’ve worked for years) will not bend around a solid object.
Also, reflecting the beam back on its source (or operators) is elementary, with a little preparation and coordination.
[…] Well, well, well… We already know that Americans will soon be saying hello to the goodbye weapon, and who wouldn’t enjoy a missile punch at bullet prices? […]