U.S. Testing Pain Ray in Afghanistan

by Noah Shachtman
Wired.com
Saturday, June 19, 2010

The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there's no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they're on fire.

OK, OK. Maybe that isn't precisely the logic being employed by those segments of the American military who would like to deploy the Active Denial System [1] to Afghanistan. I'm sure they're telling themselves that the generally non-lethal microwave weapon is a better, safer crowd control alternative than an M-16. But those ray-gun advocates better think long and hard about the Taliban's propaganda bonanza when news leaks of the Americans zapping Afghans until they feel roasted alive [2].

Because, apparently, the Active Denial System is "in Afghanistan for testing [3]."

An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory are just two of the people telling Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger [4] that the vehicle-mounted "block 2″ version of the pain ray is in the warzone, but hasn't been used in combat.

[Update: "We are currently not testing the Active Denial System in Afghanistan," Kelley Hughes, spokesperson for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate [5], tells Danger Room.

So I ask her: Has it been tested previously? She hems and haws. "I'm not gonna get into operational," Hughes answers.

Hughes also disputes the assertion that Active Denial creates a burning feeling. "It's an intolerable heating sensation," she says. "Like opening up an oven door."]

For years, the military insisted that the Active Denial System - known as the "Holy Grail [6]" of crowd control - was oh-so-close to battlefield deployment. But a host of technical issues hampered the ray gun [7]: everything from overheating [7] to poor performance in the rain. Safety concerns lingered; a test subject had to be airlifted to a burn center after being zapped by the weapon [1]. (He eventually made a full recovery.) And then there were concerns about "the atmospherics" - how the locals might react [8] - when they learned that the United States had turned a people-roaster on ‘em. "Not politically tenable [9]," the Defense Science Board concluded.

I pinged Gen. Stanley McChrystal's staff about the use of Active Denial in Afghanistan. I'll let you know if I hear anything back. But a few months ago, a source told me that a representative from the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate was in Afghanistan. Did that mean Active Denial was about to be put into action? Nope, the source said. "She's just out getting some atmospherics on the use of non-lethals."



US May Unleash Microwave Weapon in Afghanistan
Sharon Weinberger
AOL News

TAMPA, Fla. (June 17) -- A controversial nonlethal weapon that uses microwave energy to create intense pain is being considered for use in Afghanistan, AOL News has learned.

An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory told AOL News at an industry conference here that the Active Denial System, which heats the top layer of skin via millimeter waves, was in Afghanistan for testing. The sources were not able to offer details on how or whether the weapon was being used in combat.

The weapon is designed to shoot an invisible beam of energy at people, creating an intense burning sensation that forces them to flee. The Air Force has called it the "goodbye effect." It has not been used before in military operations.
The Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate Active Denial System (ADS) is a counter-personnel, non-lethal, directed energy weapon.
U.S. Air Force
The Active Denial System, a nonlethal weapon being considered for use in Afghanistan, shoots at its target energy that causes a burning sensation on the skin. The heat quickly becomes intolerable and forces the target to move.

Defense Department representatives confirmed the weapon was being considered for use and did not deny it was in Afghanistan, but indicated it had not yet been used operationally.

"Consideration is under way for the appropriate employment of an Active Denial System," Kelley Hughes, a representative for the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate, wrote in an e-mail to AOL News.

In 2008, the Pentagon considered deploying the Active Denial System in Iraq, but the effort was stymied over policy concerns. Whether it will become part of the U.S. arsenal is Afghanistan remains unclear.

"It is my understanding that there are discussions under way about deploying an ADS but no decision/approval yet," Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to AOL News when asked whether the Pentagon's civilian leadership had approved the weapon's use in Afghanistan.

Lapan was unable to respond by deadline to requests for further clarification.

The technology used in the Active Denial System, which was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., has been adapted to several different configurations. Lab officials told AOL News that the weapon sent to Afghanistan is a Block 2, a more advanced version that is mounted on a military vehicle. The lab is also looking at a mounting it on an aircraft.

Michael Kleiman, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory, declined comment and referred calls to the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate. The directorate's Hughes did not respond to additional e-mails or calls seeking confirmation of whether ADS is in Afghanistan.

An automated reply to an e-mail sent to Col. Tracy J. Tafolla, head of the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate, indicated he was out of the office until June 28.

The military's history of disclosing details about the controversial weapon has been mixed. After years of secret work, the Pentagon disclosed the weapon's existence in 2001, shortly before a news article was about to be published describing the device.

Though the Air Force says years of testing have proved its safety, in 2007 an airman acting as a test subject was severely burned. The Air Force later that year released a heavily redacted report describing the accident, which required the airman to be airlifted to a burn center. A copy of the full report later provided to Wired.com revealed that the lack of proper operator training and missing safety equipment contributed to the accident.

The Air Force has since said the technical problems were related to the earlier Block 1 system, and the training problems have been resolved.

In a phone interview, John Alexander, former head of the nonlethal weapons program at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told AOL News that he was not aware of the weapon's deployment, but that he thought it would be useful in Afghanistan for point defense, such as protecting a base. The barriers to deploying the weapon have been policy concerns, not technical problems, said Alexander, who has been a longtime supporter of the Active Denial System.

"Mostly the issues are the concern about publicity," he said.