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From: bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.research
Subject: RF warfare
Message-ID: <773@bu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 20:12:45 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.773
Posted: Thu Nov 21 20:12:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 10:49:44 EST
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 39

A few days ago I saw a fairly long broadcast on CNN about RF weapons that
seemed intriguing. Granted, CNN is not a primary source of this type of
info, but I was wondering what is and what people know about it (oh forget
it, 20 people lacking anything better to say will post 'I dont like CNN'
anyhow.)

Basically, the claims were:

	1. The Russians are way ahead of us in this technology
	   (that's always the claim, it's a real grabber I guess)
	2. Properly tuned RF 'weapons' can:

		a) Cause various hallucinations
		b) Distort visual functioning (blurriness etc)
		c) Provide many psychotropic effects of drugs
		   The claim was that an RF device they had was
		   a common fixture in mental hospitals in Russia.

The reporter allowed himself to be hooked up to a mild experimental form
of the device (somewhere in CA I believe) and sat in one room with a mike
while the researchers sat isolated in another room with a mike, he reported
seeing 'spikes' and other waveforms at the same time the researchers in
the other room were pointing at various CRT displays doing the same thing
(ie. the images were being induced in the reporter by RF.)

Some 'expert' (may have been one, I just don't know) got on and started
showing a polar projection map and claiming that some device that the
Russians had been beeping over the North Pole with, that we originally
thought was some sort of low-altitude radar, was in fact sending exactly
the same RF frequencies they have found to induce tranquilizing effects.

Maybe quackery, maybe not (these days it's so hard to tell, but if it is
true I think you'll agree that it's kinda disturbing.) Anyone know anything
more solid about this stuff?

	-Barry Shein, Boston University

Please, let's save the back-of-the-envelope calculations that 'prove'
it's impossible for /dev/null unless you're real sure. thanks.