318
The Body Electric
ons Laboratory in Dahlgren, Virginia, where their use for antiper-
sonnel
and
anti-ballistic-missile
energy
beams
was
discussed.
No
information
about
their
subsequent
development
has
since
been
made
public,
and
the
difficulties
of
long-range
missile
tracking
argue that ABM beams haven't yet become feasible, but there are
no such difficulties in the way of EMR beam weapons for use
against unshielded people.
At
some
UHF
power
densities
there's
an
insidious
moth-to-the-
flame
allurement,
which
would
increase
such
a
weapon's
effec-
tiveness. As discoverer Sol Michaelson described it in 1958, each
of the dogs used in his experiments "began to struggle for release
from
the
sling,"
showing
"considerable
agitation
and
muscular
activity," yet "for some reason
the animal continues to face the
horn." Perhaps as part of the same effect, UHF beams can also
induce
muscular
weakness
and
lethargy.
In
Soviet
experiments
with rats in 1960, five minutes of exposure to 100,000 micro-
watts reduced swimming time in an endurance test from sixty
minutes to six.
Allen Frey's discovery that certain pulsed microwave beams in-
creased the permeability of the blood-brain barrier could be turned
into a supplemental weapon to enhance the effects of drugs, bacte-
ria, or poisons.
The calcium-outflow windows discovered by Ross Adey could be
used to interfere with the functioning of the entire brain.
In the early 1960s Frey found that when microwaves of 300 to
3,000 megahertz were pulsed at specific rates, humans (even deaf
people) could "hear" them. The beam caused a booming, hissing,
clicking, or buzzing, depending on the exact frequency and pulse
rate, and the sound seemed to come from just behind the head.
At
first
Frey
was
ridiculed
for
this
announcement,
just
like
many radar technicians who'd been told they were crazy for hear-
ing certain radar beams. Later work has shown that the micro-
waves are sensed somewhere in the temporal region just above and
slightly in front of the ears. The phenomenon apparently results
from pressure waves set up in brain tissue, some of which activate
the sound receptors of the inner
ear via bone conduction, while
others directly stimulate nerve cells in the auditory pathways. Ex-
periments on rats have shown that a strong signal can generate a
sound pressure of 120 decibels, or approximately the level near a
jet engine at takeoff.
Obviously such a beam could cause humans severe pain and