Hearing Voices? Could Be the Lasers

An anonymous reader sends us to Wired for a piece about some declassified Pentagon research from 1998 that has been revealed in a freedom-of-information filing. Apparently the Pentagon has investigated lasers that put voices in your head, among other non-lethal technologies such as microwave heating. The report suggests the techniques could be useful for controlling crowds or in negotiations. There is no context for the research or any indication whether it has continued, although the microwave heating bit sounds rather like the Active Denial System we have discussed recently.

Comments

I Wouldn't Laugh ...

[eldavojohn]

Torture isn't a reliable means to obtain information. I know...I have a great idea... Lets make them crazy. Yeah, that's funny--although I would mod it insightful. Although perhaps you should read Mikhail Bulgakov's works that were satires of how the Soviet Union tortured him indirectly. From the Wikipedia entry on his most famous work:

A memorable and much-quoted line in The Master and Margarita is: "manuscripts don't burn" (Russian: ). The Master is a writer who is plagued by both his own mental problems and the oppression of Stalin's regime in 1930s Moscow. He burns his treasured manuscript in an effort to hide it from the Soviet authorities and cleanse his own mind from the troubles the work has brought him. There is an autobiographical element reflected in the Master's character here, as Bulgakov in fact burned an early copy of The Master and Margarita for much the same reasons.

Re:If torture wasn't unreliable enough

[tunabomber]

Why even try to satirize the U.S. military when they satirize themselves? They actually did this at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. It seems Metallica was the most popular torture music, but occasionally they'd crank Barney the Dinosaur when they wanted to play hardball.