Natural Science Forum / Physics / Acoustics / June 2004

>Not as crazy as it sounds...
>
>New York Times
>March 23, 2003,
>Sunday MAGAZINE DESK
>By Marshall Sella (NYT)
>
> No one ever notices what's going on at a Radio Shack.
>Outside a lonely branch of the electronics store, on a
>government-issue San Diego day in a strip mall where
>no one is noticing much of anything, a bluff man with
>thinning, ginger hair and preternaturally white teeth
>is standing on the pavement, slowly waving a square
>metal plate toward people strolling in the distance.
>''Watch that lady over there,'' he says, unable to
>conceal his boyish pride for the gadget in his giant
>hand. ''This is really cool.'' Woody Norris aims the
>silvery plate at his quarry. A burly brunette 200 feet
>away stops dead in her tracks and peers around,
>befuddled. She has walked straight into the noise of a
>Brazilian rain forest -- then out again. Even in her
>shopping reverie, here among the haircutters and
>storefront tax-preparers and dubious Middle Eastern
>bistros, her senses inform her that she has just
>stepped through a discrete column of sound, a sharply
>demarcated beam of unexpected sound. ''Look at that,''
>Norris mutters, chuckling as the lady turns around.
>''She doesn't know what hit her.''
>
>[...]
>
>http://www.datafilter.com/mc/nyTimesHssInfoMar03.html
>
>******************************************************
>
>Perfect Sound from Thin Air
>New Scientist, Sept. 7, 1996.
>By Gary Eastwood
>
>A music system that apparently conjures sound out of
>thin air could replace conventional sound technology,
>say its developers.  The prototype system has no
>conventional speakers.  Instead it relies on
>ultrasonic waves to generate a "sonic hologram", or
>interference pattern, in midair.  As well as improved
>sound systems, the technology might also be modified
>for crows control applications.  The system could
>target particular individuals with powerful,
>low-frequency sound waves that temporarily disable
>them.
>
>[...]
>
>http://www.datafilter.com/mc/newScientistAcousticalHeterodyning.html
>
>******************************************************
>
>Non-lethal (or nonlethal) weapons is a term used to
>describe weapons which can incapacitate, subdue, or
>alter the behavior of people without killing them or
>resulting in permanent harm.  It is a misnomer,
>because the weapons can be lethal or crippling.  Much
>of the recent publicity involves such weapons as bean
>bag guns and giant nets, which make for good public
>relations without revealing the more secretive
>technology.  The real concern is electromagnetic and
>acoustic weapons (as well as chemical and biological
>agents), especially those that can be used covertly
>with "plausible denial."
>
>Here is the draft of a book, online, from the Naval
>Studies Board.  It is dated 2002 and titled An
>Assessment of Non-Lethal Weapons Science and
>Technology.
>
>Examples of psychological effects were identified in
>the preceding sections on specific health effects. 
>Much opportunity seems possible using systems that are
>explicitly designed to enhance communication, since
>information exchange is a principal medium of
>psychological effects.  Notable among these were the
>acoustic technologies that provide communication
>through vastly different means.
>
> The Pentagon (Marine Corps) announced in March, 2001,
>that it is working to produce a new "non-lethal" crowd
>control weapon.  The technique has been under secret
>development for ten years, according to press
>accounts.  It uses EM radiation at higher than
>microwave frequences and is claimed to produce pain
>without permanent injury.  Here is an article from the
>Air Force Times [*],which calls the weapon "perhaps
>the biggest breakthrough in weapons technology since
>the atomic bomb."  Here is a New York Times article,
>and here is an ABCNews article [*] describing what
>sounds like the same weapon. Presumably the human
>subjects mentioned in the news articles were all
>consensual, though that is not explicitly stated.
>
>The New York Times article mentions some human rights
>concerns about  whether the devices are truly safe. 
>They do not discuss any  potential problems resulting
>from the ability of a government to disrupt street
>demonstrations with a wide-field weapon.  They do not
>mention what a perfect torture implement a device
>which causes extreme pain but no direct physical
>damage would be.  Readers of these pages also know
>that, combined with surveillance feedback, a remote
>aversive stimulus generating device could be used to
>attempt to behaviorally condition a person -- even
>remotely from a distant location.
>
> Claims that such millimeter-wave weapons are safe are
>questioned in this UPI article from March 6, 2001,
>titled "Scientists dispute military 'raygun' claims."
>[*]
>
>Adey, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
>Sciences and a distinguished visiting professor of the
>Royal Society of Medicine, said Russian studies
>conducted some thirty years ago show that microwaves
>can effect white blood cells before the subject feels
>heat. "The question is whether this weapon could
>include a bundle of non-thermal effects that are not
>related to heating," he said.
>
> A Newsweek article from 1994, "Soon, 'Phasers on
>Stun'" describes the push for so-called non-lethal
>arms.
>
>...the list of exotic technologies that could be
>harnessed for nonlethal weapons is already large and
>growing. It includes lasers, microwaves, sound waves,
>strobe lights, electromagnetic pulses, microbes,
>chemicals, computer viruses -- even giant nets...
>...Sources tell Newsweek that the FBI consulted Moscow
>experts on the possible use of a Soviet technique for
>beaming subliminal messages to Koresh. The technique
>uses inaudible transmissions that could have convinced
>Koresh he was hearing the voice of God inside his
>head. The air force offered a top secret nonlethal
>system that, according to one source, "would have
>given [the FBI] the ability to make a surprise attack
>with a large number of agents." ...
>
> Here is a recent U.S. News article, by Douglas
>Pasternak, on the newest generation of weapons in
>development. It is from July 1997, and is titled "
>Wonder Weapons: The Pentagon's quest for nonlethal
>arms is amazing. But is it smart?" [*]
>
>By using very low frequency electromagnetic radiation
>-- the waves way below radio frequencies on the
>electromagnetic spectrum -- he [Eldon Byrd] found he
>could induce the brain to release behavior-regulating
>chemicals. "We could put animals into a stupor," he
>says by hitting them with these frequencies. "We got
>chick brains -- in vitro -- to dump 80 percent of the
>natural opioids in their brains,'"Byrd says. He even
>ran a small project that used magnetic fields to cause
>certain brain cells in rats to release histamine. In
>humans, this would cause instant flulike symptoms and
>produce nausea. "These fields were extremely weak.
>They were undetectable," says Byrd. "The effects were
>nonlethal and reversible. You could disable a person
>temporarily," Byrd hypothesizes. "It [would have been]
>like a stun gun."
>
>Byrd never tested any of his hardware in the field,
>and his program, scheduled for four years, apparently
>was closed down after two, he says. "The work was
>really outstanding," he grumbles. "We would have had a
>weapon in one year." Byrd says he was told his work
>would be unclassified, "unless it works." Because it
>worked, he suspects that the program "went black."
>Other scientists tell similar tales of research on
>electromagnetic radiation turning top secret once
>successful results were achieved. There are clues that
>such work is continuing. In 1995, the annual meeting
>of four-star U.S. Air Force generals -- called CORONA
>-- reviewed more than 1,000 potential projects. One
>was called "Put the Enemy to Sleep/Keep the Enemy From
>Sleeping." It called for exploring "acoustics,"
>"microwaves," and "brain-wave manipulation" to alter
>sleep patterns. It was one of only three projects
>approved for initial investigation.
>
> This is the text of a brochure giving the planned
>schedule of talks at the classified 1993 Non-Lethal
>Defense conference held at Johns Hopkins.  Among the
>speakers at the conference was Janet Reno.  Topics of
>the talks include voice synthesis, RF weapons, the use
>of ELF EM waves as nonlethal weapons, and acoustic
>technology.  Clearly, then, the FBI knows something
>about this technology.
>
> Here is a DoD Draft Non-Lethal Weapons Policy [*]
>dated July 21, 1994.  It is part of the MindNet
>collection archived at the MCF.
>
>The term "adversary" is used above in it broadest
>sense, including those who are not declared enemies
>but who are engaged in activities we wish to stop.
>This policy does not preclude legally authorized
>domestic use of non-lethal weapons by U.S. military
>forces in support of law enforcement.
>
> In February, 1998, the Joint Economic Committee of
>the U.S. Congress held hearings on Radio Frequency
>Weapons and Proliferation: Potential Impact on the
>Economy.  These hearings dealt with anti-materiel
>weapons rather than anti-personnel weapons, but the
>testimony presented to the committee contains good
>general information on portable RF generation
>technology, etc.
>
> This European Parliament Scientific and Technological
>Options Assessment Report is titled "The Physiological
>and Environmental Effects of Non-Ionising
>Electromagnetic Radiation."  It is from March, 2001,
>and discusses nonthermal electromagnetic bioeffects.
>
>...there are indications of non-thermal thresholds for
>biological effects of the order of a microwatt/cm2.
>
> This pair of articles about non-lethal weapons
>appears in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
>Sept/Oct, 1994.  The articles are "The 'Soft Kill'
>Fallacy" [*] by Steven Aftergood and "Oh yes...
>they're probably illegal" by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.
>
>HyperSonic Sound (HSS) is an acoustic system capable
>of projecting sounds to a person or object, based on
>the heterodyning of a pair of ultrasonic beams.  Here
>are excerpts from a New York Times article from Mar.
>23, 2003 describing the system.  The subjective effect
>on a person is described as being like a sound inside
>the head. The newer versions can project a sphere of
>sound, not just a beam of sound. This technology is
>real, operative, and now in the open.
>
>Acoustical techniques in nonlethal weapons are
>described in this New Scientist article from Sept. 7,
>1996, "Perfect Sound from Thin Air."  The article is
>by Gary Eastwood and describes a California company's
>plans to market a sound projection device based on
>acoustical heterodyning.  (The company is American
>Technology Corporation.)
>
>The system may also have applications in crowd
>control.  Powerful, low-frequency sound can cause
>disorientation and nausea.  In the 1960s, the US tried
>unsuccessfully to use low-frequency sound from
>helicopters to disable enemy soldiers in the
>Vietnamese jungle.  But the sound sources needed were
>so intense that they almost shook the aircraft apart,
>and most of the sound was absorbed by those nearest to
>the loudspeakers.  According to Norris, acoustical
>heterodyning could pinpoint an individual up to 200 or
>300 metres away by positioning the interference zone
>correctly.
>
> HSV technologies is developing a non-lethal weapon
>that uses a pair of ultraviolet lasers [*] to ionize a
>path through the air to a human target.  This path
>then acts as a conductor, along which electrical
>impulses are sent which mimic "the neuro-electric
>impulses that control skeletal muscles."  They claim
>the external signals are imperceptible to the target
>except that they "tetanize muscle tissue."
>
> The book Electromagnetism and Life by Robert Becker
>and Andrew Marino is online at Marino's web site.
>
> These are excerpts from "Microwaves and Behavior," by
>Don Justesen, American Psychologist, Mar. 1975:
>
>Human beings can "hear" microwave energy. The averaged
>densities of energy necessary for perception of the
>hisses, clicks, and pops that seem to occur inside the
>head are quite small, at least an order of magnitude
>below the current permissible limit in the United
>States for continuous exposure to microwaves, which is
>10 mW/cm^2....
>
>To "hear" microwave energy, it must first be modulated
>so that it impinges upon the "listener" as a pulse or
>a series of pulses of high amplitude....
>
>Sharp and Grove ... found that appropriate modulation
>of microwave energy can result in direct "wireless"
>and "receiverless" communication of speech. They
>recorded by voice on tape each of the single-syllable
>words for digits between 1 and 10. The electrical
>sine-wave analogs of each word were then processed so
>that each time a sine wave crossed zero reference in
>the negative direction, a brief pulse of microwave
>energy was triggered.  By radiating themselves with
>these "voice-modulated" microwaves, Sharp and Grover
>were readily able to hear, identify, and distinguish
>among the 9 words. The sounds heard were not unlike
>those emitted by persons with artificial larynxes.
>Note that the published date is 1975. There is little
>doubt that improved modulation and microwave
>generation techniques have been developed in the
>meantime. This is a fairly sophisticated application
>of microwave harassment techniques. The same article
>notes that basic microwave heating can cause damage
>before sensations of heating are even noticed. 
>Microwave attacks by thermal loading can inflict brain
>damage and other physical damage.
>
>For more information, here is a summary and list of
>some microwave hearing articles on the web.
>
> The Air Force Research Laboratory has some reports
>online concerning the bioeffects of RF radiation,
>including the Radiofrequency Radiation Dosimetry
>Handbook.
>
> This report, by Julianne McKinney of the Association
>of National Security Alumni, was one of the first to
>openly describe microwave anti-personnel weapons and
>their use in harassment.  Here is a copy at the Pink
>Noise site, " Microwave Harassment and Mind-Control
>Experimentation." [*]
>
> In this report presented to the World Foundation for
>Natural Sciences on October 17, 1998 -- online at the
>Leading Edge site -- Nick Begich discusses non-lethal
>weapons systems.  He considers especially the
>political aspects of such systems being used by
>governments against their own people.
>
>A weapon which could intrude into the brain of an
>individual represents a gross invasion of their
>private life. The idea that these new systems could be
>created in the next several years should be cause for
>significant discussion and public debate. On July 21,
>1994, Dr. Christopher Lamb, Director of Policy
>Planning, issued a draft Department of Defense
>directive which would establish a policy for
>non-lethal weapons in the United States. The policy
>was intended to take effect January 1, 1995, and
>formally connected the military¹s non-lethal research
>to civilian law enforcement agencies. The government's
>plan to use pulsed electromagnetic and radio frequency
>systems as a nonlethal technology for domestic Justice
>Department use rings the alarm for some observers.
>Nevertheless, the plan for integrating these systems
>is moving forward. Coupling these uses with expanded
>military missions is even more disturbing. This
>combined mission raises additional constitutional
>questions for Americans regarding the power of the
>federal government to use military systems in domestic
>police actions. In interviews with members of the
>Defense Department the development of this policy was
>confirmed. In those February, 1995, discussions, it
>was discovered that these policies were internal to
>agencies and were not subject to any public review
>process. In its draft form, the policy gives highest
>priority to development of those technologies most
>likely to get dual use, i.e. law enforcement and
>military applications. According to this document,
>non-lethal weapons are to be used on the government's
>domestic "adversaries." The definition of "adversary"
>has been significantly enlarged in the policy: "The
>term 'adversary' is used above in its broadest sense,
>including those who are not declared enemies but who
>are engaged in activities we wish to stop. This policy
>does not preclude legally authorized domestic use of
>the nonlethal weapons by United States military forces
>in support of law enforcement." This allows use of the
>military in actions against the citizens of the
>country that they are supposed to protect.
>
> This article by Tom Jaski, "Radio Waves & Life," in
>Popular Electronics, Sept. 1960, details some of the
>history of research into the biological effects of
>radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation.  It
>describes research going back to the 1920s.  Jaski
>also replicated some of these early results, as the
>following somewhat lengthy excerpt describes:
>
>This brings to mind the work of a man who started
>publishing articles on this kind of subject more than
>35 years ago. An Italian university professor named
>Cazzamalli placed human subjects in a shielded room,
>subjected them to high-frequency radio waves, and
>claimed to be able to record a "beat" which, he
>received on a simple untuned receiver consisting of a
>galena crystal, a small capacitor, antenna and
>sensitive galvanometer. Cazzamalli's equipment, as
>well as it can be determined from his early articles,
>is shown in Fig. 1.
>
>[...]
>
>http://www.datafilter.com/mc/nonlethalWeapons.html
>
>******************************************************
>
>Colonelyu wrote:
>
>> http://members.aol.com/alanyu5/index.htm
>>
>> The method of secretly sending "vioces" into a
>> target's brain without others' knowledge.
>>
>> How can human "hear" (microwave) voice with brain
>> without using ears?