Free Republic

Despite 50 years of research on high-power microwaves, the US military has yet to produce a usable weapon. For some Pentagon officials, the demonstration in October 2007 must have seemed like a dream come true — an opportunity to blast reporters with a beam of energy that causes searing pain. The event in Quantico, Virginia, was to be a rare public showing for the US Air Force's Active Denial System: a prototype non-lethal crowd-control weapon that emits a beam of microwaves at 95 gigahertz. Radiation at that frequency penetrates less than half a millimetre into the skin, so the beam...

Microwaving Saddam: New weapons likely to see combat Prototypes could paralyze Iraqi militarySpace-age warfare may be used in attack against Baghdad regimeEd Blanche Special to The Daily StarSaddam Hussein may be in for a shock - literally - after telling US President George W. Bush to do his worst in the looming war against Iraq. It seems possible that his command network will become the first target of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons, probably carried by cruise missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These squirt pulses of high-frequency energy that can knock out electronic and communications systems in milliseconds, scrambling computer...

Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard rescinded two controversial Biden-era assessments Thursday that concluded the condition known as Havana Syndrome was unlikely to be the result of foreign adversaries attacking US personnel. The retracted Intelligence Community Assessments selectively excluded evidence and intelligence, mischaracterized sources “to suppress alternative analyses,” omitted key information related to source quality and relied on an “ethically flawed medical study,” Gabbard’s office said in a memo to congressional leaders. The two assessments – declassified versions of which were released in March 2023 and January 2025 – both concluded that a foreign adversary was “very unlikely” to...

Stirling engines, like the one pictured, are now being used by Chinese scientists for high-power microwave (HPM) weapons in a reputed world first. Photo: CSSC It says that the weapon system, which can easily fit into a truck, boasts a significant reduction in energy consumption for generating a strong magnetic field compared with existing technologies. According to preliminary tests, China claims it consumes only one-fifth of the energy required by current methods and can operate continuously for four hours. The development of low-energy, compact, superconducting magnet systems is essential for large-scale production and use of microwave weapons. The report claims...