wasser@viking.DEC (John A. Wasser) (09/23/85)
> Is it possible to direct radio waves towards a particular > location some distance away, in order to affect the behavior > of a person at that location? Is any research done on > questions like this? I would expect the Soviets would > have experimented with this kind of thing ... > -Tom (tedrick@berkeley) If you expect the Soviets would do research on using radio against humans, you should also expect that the Americans (you know, US) would do the same research. I worked for a company that did a number of military contracts (mostly electronic counter-measures to protect planes from missile attack). One of my coworkers with Secret clearance mentioned experiments to see if humans could be jammed by radio. He didn't go as far as saying what the experiments showed but I got the impression that there was no useful effect. One sure way of effecting humans at a distance is to fry them with microwaves... either with a big radar or a high power maser. The costal early warning systems (that track planes hundreds of miles away) are designed to send radar pulses at small private planes only every tenth scan to keep from cooking the pilot. Someone at Raytheon was telling me about a missile control system that would bounce a powerful microwave source off a target to give the missiles something to home in on. He said that even if the missiles missed, the pilot would be cooked (probably an exaggeration... but maybe not). -John A. Wasser Work address: ARPAnet: WASSER%VIKING.DEC@decwrl.ARPA Usenet: {allegra,Shasta,decvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-viking!wasser Easynet: VIKING::WASSER
floyd@brl-tgr.ARPA (Floyd C. Wofford ) (09/26/85)
In article <543@decwrl.UUCP> wasser@viking.DEC (John A. Wasser) writes: > >> Is it possible to direct radio waves towards a particular >> location some distance away, in order to affect the behavior >> of a person at that location? >> -Tom (tedrick@berkeley) > > One sure way of effecting humans at a distance is to fry > them with microwaves... either with a big radar or a > high power maser. > telling me about a missile control system that would bounce a > powerful microwave source off a target to give the missiles > something to home in on. He said that even if the > missiles missed, the pilot would be cooked (probably an > exaggeration... but maybe not). > > -John A. Wasser Is it possible to direct radio waves? Yes, and these devices are called antennas. Depending on the transmitter frequency, the main lobe of the beam can be quite small, on the order of a few meters or less. The tube sources for RF power (klystrons, gyrotrons, BWO's, TWT's, ...) in these devices are capable of producing sufficient power to harm someone. The power that one sees are affected by pulsing the sources. An effective countermeasure is to take a high power source and pulse it. The energy coming into a receiver can then be sufficient to cook the front end of the other guy's device. He knows this too, and is playing a similar game. This is the same phenomenon as the EMP from a nuclear blast, an impulsive, high-powered radio wave. It only takes one and bye bye system. The wave would be more spherical (no antenna in the blast to direct the energy). Much research is going on to harden integrated circuits to withstand this type of phenomena. In a seeker system, if it is an active system, the illumination of the target is probably not sufficient to cause the death of the occupant or occupants. The logistics of generating that type of RF power for the purpose would make the cost prohibitive. There are cheaper ways of doing the same thing. The pulse power of the system would be enough to do harm but effects are usually cumulative. To fry someone would require a large average power of RF. Expensive. There are long term effects due to exposure to radio frequency radiation. Much research is being conducted in this area and being reported in the open literature. The August 1984 Transaction on Microwave Theory and Techniques (IEEE publication) is devoted to microwave interaction with biological systems. There are many other journals which would report similar material. The effects that concern most people who work around the stuff are damages to the eyes and genitals, you know the blind leading the impotent. I have not heard of any adverse psychological effects of being exposed to RF energy, except perhaps paranoia. I have heard of some in-vitro experiments on certain neural tissue (of a type of sea slug, I think) where the diffusion mechanism across a bilipid membrane was stopped by an RF pulsed source for the duration of the pulse. The long term effect was to cause a total stoppage of the mechanism. I have of no other experiments, but I am sure that there are more than Carter has pills. (I don't find the subject overly interesting at this point hence my lack of any great detail.) floyd@brl.arpa
dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady) (09/26/85)
> One sure way of effecting humans at a distance is to fry > them with microwaves... either with a big radar or a > high power maser. > -John A. Wasser I remember sitting on the 02 level of USS Dewey (DDG 45) and chatting with a fire control type who informed me that the missile fire control radars (SPF 55s, if I remember back that far) were officially classed as weapons. I've no idea if that's actually true, but it is interesting (not to mention disturbing!) to note that perhaps we really do have death rays... -- D Gary Grady Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC 27706 (919) 684-3695 USENET: {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
schear@ttidcb.UUCP (Steve Schear) (10/08/85)
In article <543@decwrl.UUCP> wasser@viking.DEC (John A. Wasser) writes: > >> Is it possible to direct radio waves towards a particular >> location some distance away, in order to affect the behavior >> of a person at that location? Is any research done on >> questions like this? I would expect the Soviets would >> have experimented with this kind of thing ... >> -Tom (tedrick@berkeley) > > If you expect the Soviets would do research on using radio > against humans, you should also expect that the Americans > (you know, US) would do the same research. > > I worked for a company that did a number of military > contracts (mostly electronic counter-measures to protect > planes from missile attack). One of my coworkers with > Secret clearance mentioned experiments to see if humans > could be jammed by radio. He didn't go as far as saying > what the experiments showed but I got the impression that > there was no useful effect. > > One sure way of effecting humans at a distance is to fry > them with microwaves... either with a big radar or a > high power maser. The costal early warning systems (that > track planes hundreds of miles away) are designed to send > radar pulses at small private planes only every tenth scan > to keep from cooking the pilot. Someone at Raytheon was > telling me about a missile control system that would bounce a > powerful microwave source off a target to give the missiles > something to home in on. He said that even if the > missiles missed, the pilot would be cooked (probably an > exaggeration... but maybe not). > > -John A. Wasser > >Work address: >ARPAnet: WASSER%VIKING.DEC@decwrl.ARPA >Usenet: {allegra,Shasta,decvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-viking!wasser >Easynet: VIKING::WASSER While attending a well known west coast institute in the early seventies my classmates and I did some unsponsored research into just this subject. Using a tunable microwave source we were able to interfere (at relatively low power densities) selectively with the central nervous system of mice (and latter humans). We were able to do this by resonating certain activity sites on neurotrans- mitter molecules rendering them temporarily inoperative. No long term (one year) side effects were noted (then again we aren't M.D.s) although several of the mice died (appearently because their ability to breathe had been interrupted for too long an interval). Since this research was unsponsored it was never published. Several of the team members had thought up some illegal (and perhaps lethal) uses for our discovery, but to my knowledge it was persued no further.