Maxwell's Silver Hammer 319
prevent all voice communication. That the same effect can be used
more subtly was demonstrated in 1973 by Dr. Joseph C. Sharp of
the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Sharp, serving as a
test subject himself, heard and understood spoken words delivered
to him in an echo-free isolation chamber via a pulsed-microwave
audiogram (an analog of the words' sound vibrations) beamed into
his brain. Such a device has obvious applications in covert opera-
tions designed to drive a target crazy with "voices" or deliver
undetectable instructions to a programmed assassin. There are also
indications
that
other
pulse
frequencies
cause
similar
pressure
waves in other tissues, which could disrupt various metabolic pro-
cesses. A group under R. G. Olsen and J. D. Grissett at the
Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory in Pensacola has al-
ready demonstrated such effects in simulated muscle tissue and has
a
continuing
contract
to
find
beams
effective
against
human
tissues.
In the 1960s Frey also reported that he could speed up, slow
down, or stop isolated frog hearts by synchronizing the pulse rate
of a microwave beam with the beat of the heart itself. Similar
results have been obtained using live frogs, indicating that it's
technically feasible to produce heart attacks with a ray designed to
penetrate the human chest.
In addition to the methods of damaging or killing people with EMR,
there are several ways of controlling their behavior. Ross Adey and his
colleagues have shown that microwaves modulated in various ways can
force specific electrical patterns upon parts of the brain. Working with
cats they found that brain waves appearing with conditioned responses
could be selectively enhanced by shaping the microwaves with a rhyth-
mic variation in amplitude (height) corresponding to EEG frequencies.
For example, a 3-hertz modulation decreased 10-hertz alpha waves in
one part of the animal's brain and reinforced 14-hertz beta waves in
another location.
Some radar can find a fly a kilometer away or track a human at
twenty-five miles, and several researchers have suggested that focused
EMR beams of such accuracy could bend the mind much like electrical
stimulation of the brain (ESB) through wires. We know of ESB's poten-
tial for mind control largely through the work of Jose Delgado. One
signal provoked a cat to lick its fur, then continue compulsively licking
the floor and bars of its cage. A signal designed to stimulate a portion of
a monkey's thalamus, a major midbrain center for integrating muscle
movements, triggered a complex action: The monkey walked to one side