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Pirates Thwarted by Sonic Weapon
Kristian Hermansen was one of dozens to submit a story about would be pirates attempting to take control of a cruise ship of the coast of Africa, only to be twarted by some sort of
sonic weapon known as an LRAD, or Long Range Acoustic Device.
Sounds like an ad placement by the company making/selling them. No quotes, nobody identifiable. Same as that lady who microwaved her cat, or the kids who found razor blades in the halloween goodies, or that toilets flush the other way below the equator.
And even if true, next time, won't the pirates just wear earplugs?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Only to be thwarted by? From TFA, "The subsidiary of Carnival Corp. was investigating whether the weapon was successful in warding off the pirates, he said. The ship's captain also changed its course, shifted into high speed and headed out into the open sea to elude the pirates, who were in two small boats, he said. He had no further details."
I'm sure it certainly contributed, but they're not even sure it actually was the reason why the pirates weren't able to catch them.
Instead of the siren from a smoke detector, use a tape loop of my 20 month old crying becase we won't let her continue to throw things down our stair case. Or maybe some britanny spears really loud, or any boy band music at all (NYKOB for teh win).
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Some suggest arming cruise ships. But being armed on the high seas itself, sadly, can be considered an act of hostility. For example, would we want armed boats anywhere in our vicinity .. even if they technically were in international waters? Only lightly armed? .. but they have to be long range enough to deter or eliminate threats.. correct? The problem is, which boats can be armed and not considered threats? And no you can't just go by flag or registration (which can be stolen/faked). Also you can't tell what people look like from a distance cause they can put makeup/disguise.
A bit OT but fun to know...
Pirates do exist, and account for nearly $16b in losses annually. If you're interested in a career like Han Solo, piracy is an option.
Most pirates today work between Eritria and Mumbai. Seychelles is very casual about accepting boats without valid port histories. The pirate ships are often large yachts with fast ciggy boats for docking. Glocks and Kalishies are the norm. The dress is much like the old pirate look -- bandanas, beards, loose shirts, etc.
Pirate robbers make the news often, yet most pirates are smugglers (food, drugs, medicine and health equipment). Countries with US/UN embargoes pay well -- 400% over the white market rate.
Cuba was easy money until 9/11, now we have our Coast Guard pretending to fight terrorism but actually destroying the free market in smuggling.
Malaysia has a growing piracy need as the government gets more religious. Somalia and Sri Lanka both ignore the pirates like Seychelles.
Take a trip to Dubai or Seychelles. Hook up with the right crowd and you can make 6 figures easily.
Arrrrr!
Pirates are a major concern from the horn of Africa to SE Asia.
Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant problem (with estimated worldwide losses of $13 to $16 billion USD per year)
More info can be obtained form Wikipedia.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Hard to believe right? I am from the coastal city of Bosaso on the horn of Africa, and some of my relatives took pride in their high-seas piracy. I have always heard of illegal Japanese and Norwegian ships illegaly fishing in our shores, while Somalis, with not central government and coast guard, sat around in anger and frustration.
9 733&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
This piracy started as a way to defend our coast-lines from illegal international fishing. Somalia hasn't had a government since 1990, and our fish resources became the loot of international fishing conglomerates. Others have used our coast to dump their waste, even nuclear waste.
After the fall of the Somali government, our coast guard's ships and vessels were looted by tribes. Some of our ships and boats were sold to illegal fishing companies, which didn't go far but stayed to fish in our waters! While other boats stayed in the hands of tribal leaders and warlords who used them for piracy and people smuggling to the middle east, although more often as a vehicle for products and trade with Yemen, our neighbor to the North.
It's funny how companies registered in Democratic developed nations, and pay their taxes there, are the ones looting our natural resources and using our sea and land to dump their waste.
http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/somalia.htm
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=24
http://somalinet.com/news/world/Somalia/1063
I wish the international community would deploy high-tech sonic weapons to defend us against real theives, not just pirates, blinded and deafended by greed.
- Mahammad Darwish
Thank goodness they had one of these devices lying around!
Do all cruise ships have one or two of these acoustic devices, now?
In case of mutiny or pirates or rioting?
And how soon before there is a prosumer version that I can install in my car, to swap out the horn?
Because of the Coast Guard. US waters are essentially free of pirates. Now I suppose that could depend on your definition, some peopel considder smugglers that use ships to be pirates and we do have drug smugglers that come in by sea, but in terms of pirates attacking ships it's essentially zero. The Coast Guard has a very active presence and there's little that can be done about them. An attack on a Coast Guard ship is an act of war and they then can (and will) scream to any navy ships in the area for support, and they navy will come and sink your ass (also some CG ships have reasonably large deck guns).
However in many areas of the world, particularly Africa but also South America and Asia to an extent, where there's not sucha powerful sea patrol, it's more common than you'd think.
(Wikipedia notes that "Sound levels of around 200 dB can cause death to humans").
Advice: on VPS providers
Some links from my research: Hypersonic Sound: Popular Science http://www.prisonplanet.com/audios_the_next_big_th ing.html
Popular Mechanics
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/audio/1 279591.html (explains acoustic heterodyning)
Sorry - I've lost the link that said commercial ships at sea are not allowed to use heavy weapons by international treaty. It was in a story published on Sunday, March 6, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times but that factual tidbit was not from an authority anyway, and no source was provided for it.
Add a nice big parabolic dish of your own, and see how good the originator's ear protection is.
I've actually seen one of these on a US navy aircraft carrier. I was on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson when we were going through the Suez Canal, and one of the officers was showing off this device towards the forward end of the flight deck which looked like a speaker on a stand. It had a panel with a bunch of standard phrases and warnings and different languages to broadcast voice messages. It also had settings for unpleasant noises to ward the target off. He only demonstrated it with the volume turned down very low, but he basically said that with the volume turned up it's pretty painful.
I am doing acoustic beam-forming (well, the reverse process, actually) for my senior undergraduate Physics research. I am using a ~10 foot array of 64 microphones in a sort of spiral pattern. You wouldn't actually need to have a physical reflecting device, since you can just use an array of speakers to form a beam. This makes the "Minority Report"-type of directional speakers easier to aim, since you can aim them without any moving parts (besides the sound production, of course), and also you can use a single array to aim at multiple targets simultaneously and dynamically.
>Apparently some mis-guided politicians set up an international treaty that prevents
>non-military ship from carrying weapons
How do you definitely distinguish non-military and military ships if both kinds are fully armed? Well, you can't. In a war this would effectively mean all vessels in sight are fair game ==> you get Lousitania on the cube and so a lot of civilian coffins.
The treaty is very right. It is the world navies' task to patrol the high seas and hang the pirates they find from the mast. Passanger, fishing and cargo ships should hold to their own jobs. Sorrowfully this important anti-piracy mission seems abandoned by most navies of today and we should remind our governments to do their job.