Imagine walking through a field on a cloudless day when you suddenly hear the 130-decibel roar of a fighter jet. But you can't spot the jet, or even tell which direction the sound is coming from. Rather, it seems to originate from the thin air in front of your face, like a shout from an angry, Old-Testament God. No, you aren't hallucinating. And you aren't Moses. You're experiencing a new type of military weapon intended not to kill but to startle an enemy into retreat. It's called the Laser-Induced Plasma Effect, or LIPE, a weapon that the U.S. military hopes to begin testing in coming months.
Related: Sonic and ultrasonic weapons (USW) development. |