High-Tech Crowd Control Weapon Too Terrifying To Use

Written by forbes.com on March 12, 2022. Posted in Current News

Information obtained by NPR shows that military police tried to secure a non-lethal ‘heat ray’ to deploy against protesters near the White House in June 2020.

The request for the Active Denial System, from the lead military police officer in the Department of Defense for the D.C. region, came to nothing, the latest of several failed attempts to use technology developed by the Pentagon almost 20 years ago.

The weapon is certainly effective; the problem is that it is too scary to use.

Active Denial technology was developed to solve the fundamental problem with crowd-control weapons: those that are effective are not safe, those that are safe are not effective.

The challenge was to build a device capable of dispersing a crowd at long range (further than a rock or a Molotov cocktail could be thrown) without harming anyone.

The solution, unveiled in 2001, was a device like a giant satellite dish firing a beam of short-wavelength microwaves six feet across. Unlike a microwave oven, these wavelengths only heat the outer surface, penetrating skin to a depth of about 1/64^th of an inch.

Crucially, this is deep enough to affect pain receptors and trigger the same reflex reaction that causes you to drop an over-hot coffee cup, but without causing burns. Extensive testing showed that nobody, however tough, can withstand the beam for more than a few seconds.

Everyone leaps away to escape it by reflex, known as the ‘repel effect.’ It has an effective range of several hundred meters and can be aimed as easily as a searchlight.

Tests showed that, although it may feel briefly like being on fire, the beam is essentially harmless. The worst injuries recorded were ‘pea sized’ blisters when the system was used at the wrong setting. Technically these are second-degree burns, unpleasant but not of lasting harm.

This is very different to having an eye destroyed by a rubber bullet, as apparently happened to journalist Linda Tirado in May.

The Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate (now the Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office) has tested Active Denial some 12,000 times in every imaginable situation.

They have tested against people with pacemakers and contact lenses, people in cars and on boats, people trying to protect themselves with wet T-shirts, tin foil and concrete blocks, even some brave volunteers under the influence of carefully-measured doses of alcohol.

One of the more imaginative exercises was practically a game-show set up, with subjects attempting to cross a series of obstacles while being zapped.

The makers, Raytheon, also built a miniature Active Denial system which they took to trade shows, so potential customers could experience the painful-but-harmless repel effect for themselves.

Technically, there is little doubt that Active Denial works as described. Operationally though, the current version has a couple of significant drawbacks: the giant Gyrotron which generates millimeter waves takes several hours to reach operating temperature before it can be used, and it is so big it is carried around on a truck.

JIFCO is working on a compact solid-state version which can be added to existing vehicles. The main problem, though, is that nobody wants to actually use it.

An Active Denial system was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 to counter civil unrest, but was shipped back without ever being fired. Raytheon marketed a version called Silent Guardian, but found no takers. A version for use in prisons, the Assault Intervention Device, was supposed to be tested at a correctional facility in California, but was never installed.

In 2018, U.S. border officials considered using Active Denial to stop migrants, but dropped the idea. And in Washington this year, although pepper balls and rubber bullets have been used on a large scale, the Active Denial system stayed far away.

The problem is one of perception. Terms like ‘heat ray’ and ‘pain beam’ quickly attract adverse attention from the media. ‘Microwave’ and ‘radiation’ are both technically correct but highly misleading to describe the beam, and make for lurid headlines.

And because it is specifically designed to cause pain rather than damage, such technology gets criticized by human rights groups as ‘torture at the touch of a button.’ It is easy to see why nobody wants to take responsibility for being the first to use it.

Having been rejected for use against Afghans, prisoners, and migrants, it is hard to see it being accepted for use against regular U.S. civilians without a real change in attitude by the authorities. It is not just the microwave beam that is too hot too touch: because it is unknown and has an alarming reputation, Active Denial technology is simply not an acceptable option.

Russia, China, and Israel are all reportedly working on their own versions of Active Denial technology, and might face less political resistance to actually using it. In the U.S., dangerous ‘less lethal’ alternatives are used on a regular basis; the Active Denial system, big, futuristic, and seemingly too scary to ever use, remains sidelined.

See more here: forbes.com

Header image: Getty Images

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