Army Working On Light-Paralyzing LOOKER Gun?

Goddamn, Michael Crichton is a smart cat. A contract has been awarded to PEAK Beam Systems to...

"...design and fabricate a light-based immobilisation system/deterrent device and integrate it with an unmanned aerial system. This will include any necessary medical research on frequency and amplitude modulation of high-intensity light that will cause immobilisation to all those within the beam."

The Peak Beam Systems device can apparently be pulsed with a strobe effect that has some effect on the human nervous system. The Maxa Beam shown above has quite a range, too. It can illuminate targets as far as 1.5 miles away.

The Maxa Beam is small enough to be hand-held, which is a vital factor in the US Army's selection of the device.

Can't embed it and there's a copyright warning flag across the image, but this could bring back some fond memories for Geeks of a Certain Age.

Light T&A warning. But they cut the girl's death, so no real violence warning. But it sucks because of that.

Love. That. Friggin'. Gun.

Oh, Before The Lunatic Marcotte claims I just dig on seeing women die, well, no. It's just it was a good stunt/special effect, and one of the most swiped scenes in recent Hollywood history.

Richard Donner first did it in The Omen, I think, with Lee Remick plunging to her death from a high window to crash through the roof of a parked car.

LOOKER shamelessly swiped it in its opening. It was very nearly the exact same footage.

And the Lethal Weapon pretty much did the exact same thing again, which was an insider-swipe, because Dick Donner was directing that, too, stealing from himself. His innovation there, I think, was filming it in dawn-light rather than at night.

Pretty much it always works, except for in the miserable FearDotCom, where nothing worked, and even super-honey Natasha McEllhorne looked not terribly good at all.

Vomit Gun? Supposedly, certain radio frequencies can disrupt normal signals from the ear to the brain affecting one's sense of balance and cause targets to become too dizzy to stand or even begin vomiting from disorientation. (Caution: Article has photo of guy vomiting, as if you needed to know what that might look like.)

Had that basic idea in Minority Report, though with a billy-club "Sick Stick" rather than a gun.

And yet, still no flyin' cars or jet packs.

Thanks to JackStraw.

The Blackfive guys came up with some acryonyms for the gun:

BARF - Broad Application, Radio Frequency PUKE - Personnel Usage Kinetic Energy SPEW - Systemic Personnel Energy Weapon RALPH - Radiation Application of Long Phase High energy

I guess there are too many letters in HELEN THOMAS to work.

posted by Ace at 04:29 PM

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