Heat-Beaming Weapons

Shooting PainThe future of heat-beaming weapons.
By William Saletan
Posted Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007, at 6:27 AM ET

If you're worried about terrorism, upset about the war in Iraq, and depressed by global chaos, violence, and death, cheer up. We've just invented a weapon that fires a beam of searing pain.
Three weeks ago, the U.S. armed forces tested it on volunteers at an Air Force base in Georgia. You can watch the video on a military Web site. Three colonels get zapped, along with an Associated Press reporter. The beam is invisible, but its effects are vivid. Two dozen airmen scatter. The AP guy shrieks and bolts out of the target zone. He says it felt like heat all over his body, as though his jacket were on fire.
The feeling is an illusion. No one is harmed. The beam's energy waves penetrate just one-sixty-fourth of an inch into your body, heating your skin like microwaves. They inflame your nerve endings without actually burning you. This could be the future of warfare: less bloodshed, more pain.