Friday, October 9. 2009
Alan Watt - Flashmobs, Revolutions and BrainchipsMonday, September 28. 2009
New Directed Energy Center to Impact Future Weapons for Naval and Joint Forces
Navy.MIL | The Navy demonstrated its commitment to "game-changing" directed energy technological programs at the Naval Directed Energy Center (NDEC) ribbon cutting ceremony held at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) Sept. 10.
The focus of activity in the new building will be directed energy systems and applications, which use electromagnetic energy to project military force and augment conventional capabilities.
"This ribbon-cutting celebrates NAVSEA'S (Naval Sea Systems Command) investment in the Navy's future," said NSWC Dahlgren Division Commander Capt. Sheila Patterson. "This new Naval Directed Energy Center will double the space available for developing our directed energy programs and provide laboratories, computing spaces and offices to help us get the latest technology to our warfighters as soon as possible and protect them from harm's way."
Military officials foresee NDEC as the Navy's center of excellence for directed energy where complex systems engineering and integration problems can be solved and cutting edge solutions made a reality for U.S. troops.
Directed energy systems offer unique alternatives to traditional kinetic weapons such as guns and bombs because a myriad of targets can be engaged with more precision and variable effects.
"Directed Energy Weapons are a critical game-changing technology for the Navy-Marine Corps Team," said James Thomsen, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. "It's a technology that we need to understand better. We need to develop it and use it wisely."
"The standing up of the Naval Directed Energy Center is a perfect example of how Dahlgren is leading the way in developing and fielding directed energy warfare solutions, technologies and systems for our Sailors and Marines," said Susan Hudson, NSWC Dahlgren Electromagnetic and Sensor Systems Department Head.
"Our team of government employees, academia and contractors are harnessing various directed energy disciplines in order to develop systems that will enhance what's available to warfighters in order to achieve mission success in the changing operational environment."
The facility is the first in a series of planned construction projects designed to accommodate increasing directed energy activity at Dahlgren.
Moreover, NSWCDD technologists have been making a difference in directed energy research and development throughout the decades. Their understanding – and discoveries – led to the methodologies behind the electromagnetic launch of projectiles using stored electrical energy. These methodologies are critical to the evolution of the Railgun Program.
"Our scientists well understand that the introduction of directed energy weapons into 21st century naval forces has the potential to change naval tactics as fundamentally as computers have changed the way we work and communicate," said Patterson.
As the global security environment becomes increasingly complex and challenging for U.S. defense, NSWC Dahlgren's Directed Energy Warfare Office (DEWO) provides alternative and wide ranging deterrent options for U.S. Naval Forces and Combatant Commanders. DEWO options range from high energy lasers and high power microwaves to directed energy initiatives that counter improvised explosive devices.
For more news from Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, please visit www.navy.mil/local/nswcdahlgren.
By Lewis Page
The Register | American death-tech goliath Boeing has announced a long-delayed in-flight firing for the smaller of its two aeroplane raygun-cannon prototypes, the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL). The ATL blaster, mounted in a Hercules transport aircraft, apparently "defeated" an unoccupied stationary vehicle.
"This milestone demonstrates that directed energy weapon systems will transform the battlespace and save lives," said Boeing exec Greg Hyslop. "The ATL team has earned a distinguished place in the history of weapon system development."
"The bottom line is that ATL works, and works very well," added corporate raygun honcho Gary Fitzmire.
The ATL is much smaller than Boeing's headlining laser weapon, the jumbo-jet-mounted Airborne Laser (ABL), intended to blast enemy ICBMs as they soar upward from pad or silo. Rather the ATL is intended to pick off individual ground targets, somewhat in the fashion of existing Hercules-based side-firing AC-130 gunships. Indeed Boeing has referred to the ATL in the past as its "Laser Gunship".
ATL does resemble the ABL in some important respects, however. Like the bigger weapon, it is a chemically-fuelled laser rather than a solid-state electrically powered one, meaning that it can fire only a limited number of blasts before its sealed, six-ton laser module must be maintained and refuelled with hazardous toxic chemicals.
Just how many shots the ATL can fire before being rearmed is unclear, but hints dropped by Pentagon sources suggest it could be as few as six. This compares poorly with the firepower available aboard a normal AC-130, leading some analysts to wonder what the point of the ATL really is.
Boeing say that it will offer "ultra-precision" and "dramatically reduce collateral damage", though so far nothing of this sort has really been shown. A 40mm cannon aboard a normal AC-130 could "defeat" a stationary ground vehicle without damaging its surroundings: a .50-cal sniper rifle fired from a helicopter could do the same to a moving one.
It hasn't escaped notice, however, that neither of those things could strike silently - perhaps from so far off that the carrying aircraft wouldn't be noticed either - and without leaving any solid evidence of US military presence. Nor have observers failed to note that the US military agency in charge of ATL is the secretive Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
Boeing have evidently had some problems with the ATL - airborne test firings were expected last year, but this success didn't happen until last Sunday. However it would seem that the system may soon be as ready for frontline use as it will ever be, at least until electric lasers without fuel limitations are weaponised.
In years to come, the secret supertroopers of SOCOM may be able to cause a cell tower to stop working, a vehicle's fuel tank to suddenly explode, or a single person to inexplicably be incinerated - all completely silently and tracelessly, without anyone knowing they were ever there and not so much as a spent bullet left behind.
The Register | American death-tech goliath Boeing has announced a long-delayed in-flight firing for the smaller of its two aeroplane raygun-cannon prototypes, the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL). The ATL blaster, mounted in a Hercules transport aircraft, apparently "defeated" an unoccupied stationary vehicle."This milestone demonstrates that directed energy weapon systems will transform the battlespace and save lives," said Boeing exec Greg Hyslop. "The ATL team has earned a distinguished place in the history of weapon system development."
"The bottom line is that ATL works, and works very well," added corporate raygun honcho Gary Fitzmire.
The ATL is much smaller than Boeing's headlining laser weapon, the jumbo-jet-mounted Airborne Laser (ABL), intended to blast enemy ICBMs as they soar upward from pad or silo. Rather the ATL is intended to pick off individual ground targets, somewhat in the fashion of existing Hercules-based side-firing AC-130 gunships. Indeed Boeing has referred to the ATL in the past as its "Laser Gunship".
ATL does resemble the ABL in some important respects, however. Like the bigger weapon, it is a chemically-fuelled laser rather than a solid-state electrically powered one, meaning that it can fire only a limited number of blasts before its sealed, six-ton laser module must be maintained and refuelled with hazardous toxic chemicals.
Just how many shots the ATL can fire before being rearmed is unclear, but hints dropped by Pentagon sources suggest it could be as few as six. This compares poorly with the firepower available aboard a normal AC-130, leading some analysts to wonder what the point of the ATL really is.
Boeing say that it will offer "ultra-precision" and "dramatically reduce collateral damage", though so far nothing of this sort has really been shown. A 40mm cannon aboard a normal AC-130 could "defeat" a stationary ground vehicle without damaging its surroundings: a .50-cal sniper rifle fired from a helicopter could do the same to a moving one.
It hasn't escaped notice, however, that neither of those things could strike silently - perhaps from so far off that the carrying aircraft wouldn't be noticed either - and without leaving any solid evidence of US military presence. Nor have observers failed to note that the US military agency in charge of ATL is the secretive Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
Boeing have evidently had some problems with the ATL - airborne test firings were expected last year, but this success didn't happen until last Sunday. However it would seem that the system may soon be as ready for frontline use as it will ever be, at least until electric lasers without fuel limitations are weaponised.
In years to come, the secret supertroopers of SOCOM may be able to cause a cell tower to stop working, a vehicle's fuel tank to suddenly explode, or a single person to inexplicably be incinerated - all completely silently and tracelessly, without anyone knowing they were ever there and not so much as a spent bullet left behind.
'ET'- ha! And they keep denying they have alien assistance!
Saturday, December 27. 2008
US Police Could Get 'Pain Beam' Weapons
By David Hambling
A modified version of this laser rifle created to dazzle enemies by the US Air Force has been adapted by the Department of Justice to inflict pain from a distance (Image: US Air Force)
The two devices under development by the civilian National Institute of Justice both build on knowledge gained from the Pentagon's controversial Active Denial System (ADS) - first demonstrated in public last year, which uses a 2-metre beam of short microwaves to heat up the outer layer of a person's skin and cause pain.
'Reduced injuries'
Like the ADS, the new portable devices will also heat the skin, but will have beams only a few centimetres across. They are designed to elicit what the Pentagon calls a "repel response" - a strong urge to escape from the beam.
A spokesperson for the National Institute for Justice likens the effect of the new devices to that of "blunt trauma" weapons such as rubber bullets, "But unlike blunt trauma devices, the injury should not be present. This research is looking to reduce the injuries to suspects," they say.
Existing blunt trauma weapons can break ribs or even kill, making alternatives welcome. Yet ADS has recorded problems too - out of several thousand tests on human subjects there were two cases of second-degree burns.
Dazzle and burn
The NIJ's laser weapon has been dubbed Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response - PHaSR - and resembles a bulky rifle. It was created in 2005 by a US air force agency to temporarily dazzle enemies (see image, right), but the addition of a second, infrared laser makes it able to heat skin too.
The NIJ is testing the PHaSR in various scenarios, which may include prison situations as well as law enforcement.
The NIJ's portable microwave-based weapon is less developed. Currently a tabletop prototype with a range of less than a metre, a backpack-sized prototype with a range of 15 metres will be ready next year, a spokesperson says.
The truly portable mini-ADS could prove the more useful, as microwaves penetrate clothing better than the infra-red beam, which is most effective on exposed skin. Although the spokesman says: "In LEC [Law Enforcement and Corrections] use there is always a little bit of skin to target."
Torture concerns
The effect of microwave beams on humans has been investigated for years, but there is little publicly available research on the effects of PHaSR-type lasers on humans. The attraction of using a laser is that it can be less bulky than a microwave device.
Human rights groups say that equipping police with such weapons would add to the problems posed by existing "non-lethals" such as Tasers. Security expert Steve Wright at Leeds Metropolitan University describes the new weapons as "torture at the touch of a button".
"We have grave concerns about the deployment and use of any such devices, which have the potential to be used for torture or other ill treatment," says Amnesty International's arms control researcher Helen Hughes, adding that all research into their effects should be made public.
Wednesday, December 10. 2008
The Freeman Perspective: HAARP and ChemtrailsSaturday, November 1. 2008
Military Investigates Amnesia Beams
[Photo: Columbia Pictures]
By David Hambling
Wired | A team of scientists from the United States and China announced last week that, for the first time, they had found a means of selectively and safely erasing memories in mice, using the signaling molecule αCaMKII. It's a big step forward, and one that will be of considerable interest to the military, which has devoted efforts to memory manipulation as a means of treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But some military research has moved in another direction entirely.
In the 1980s, researchers found that even low-level exposure to a beam of electrons caused rats to forget what had just happened to them (an effect known as retrograde amnesia — the other version, anteretrograde amnesia, is when you can't form new memories). The same effect was also achieved with X-rays. The time factor was not large — it only caused memory loss about the previous four seconds — but the effect was intriguing.
One theory was that the amnesia was a result of the brilliant flash experienced when the electron beam struck the retina. And, indeed, it turned out that it is possible to produce amnesia in rodents using a flash of light:
Retrograde amnesia was demonstrated for the 80-, 85-, and 100-V foot-shock test trials. At 40 V the voltage may not have been great enough to be felt by the subject. For groups examined at shock levels above 100 V, the foot shock was so potent that a photoflash was ineffective in producing RA. Our conclusion was that the photoflash was an effective amnesiac until the intensity of the foot shock became more potent than the photoflash; this is consistent with the recency theory generated in serial learning and memory tasks.
This might help explain some of the disorienting effects of strobe lights used as nonlethal weapons, but there seems to have been little further research on this.
However, there have been plenty of studies on the physical effects of radio and microwave exposure on the brain. Many of those investigations have been conducted by the military.
The Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate has carried out its own experiments in this area, which did not confirm the results of earlier studies suggesting that microwaves could cause memory loss. (The report is now removed from the AFRL website, alas.) Most scientists chalk up such effects to heating. But the Directed Energy Bioeffects division continues to research the human effects of various forms of radiation. What's more, a 2003 paper on microwave effects on the nervous system, from a team that includes Navy and Air Force scientists, states that "research with isolated brain tissue has provided new results that do not seem to rely on thermal mechanisms." It is hard to assess the real effect on working memory and other brain functions, they add.
"The many exposure parameters such as frequency, orientation, modulation, power density, and duration of exposure make direct comparison of many experiments difficult…. It is concluded that the diverse methods and experimental designs as well as lack of replication of many seemingly important studies prevents formation of definite conclusions concerning hazardous nervous system health effects from RF [radio frequency] exposure."
Still, it’s interesting to see that the notes for a classified course run by the Directed Energy Professionals Society (the people who build laser and microwave weapons) include "memory loss" as a potential effect of such devices.
I doubt whether they have a functioning Men In Black-style "Neuralizer." But as memory research continues to advance, it certainly starts to look like more of a possibility.
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