Acoustic Weapons Now in Use

[Billdo]

In his 2001 column Can a noise be loud enough to kill you?, Cecil discussed acoustic weapons, then under secret development. Cecil noted:

Supposedly, acoustic weapons will use infrasonic sound or some such to incapacitate rather than kill an enemy, turning him into a bleeding, puking mess. Or maybe they’ll kill him, using baseball-sized “acoustic bullets.” Despite persistent reports in the press and much hand-wringing about the dire import of this new technology by human-rights groups, no one has actually seen a practical demonstration of such a weapon, and very little has appeared in the scientific journals

Now it seems that Israel has put such a device into use. According to this AP Report, Israel is using “The Scream” as a non-leathal weapon against protesters.

The army employed the new device, which it dubbed “The Scream,” at a recent violent demonstration by Palestinians and Jewish sympathizers against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.

Protesters covered their ears and grabbed their heads, overcome by dizziness and nausea, after the vehicle-mounted device began sending out bursts of audible, but not loud, sound at intervals of about 10 seconds. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said that even after he covered his ears, he continued to hear the sound ringing in his head.

A military official said the device emits a special frequency that targets the inner ear. Exposure for several minutes at close range could cause auditory damage, but the noise is too intolerable for people to remain in the area for that long, he said.

Once more, Cecil is at the forefront of human technology.

[truvegi]

The Old Testament (Joshua 6) has an account of Israel’s use of sound to topple the walls of Jericho. I have seen experiments that indicated that sound could be used as a destructive force. Much of this depends on tuning to a specific frequency which causes the molecules of a substance to resonate; SPL is also a factor. I have not read C’s column yet, but it seems that limited use of sound as a weapon is feasible.