Puke Ray, Courtesy of DHS

"Рвотный луч" (информация
Министерства внутренней безопасности США)

Noah Shachtman

06.08.2007

Government-funded researchers are building a flashlight that makes people puke on command.

The LED Incapacitator uses a range-finder to measure the distance to a target's eyes, Threat Level notes.  Then it unleashes continually changing, multi-color light pulses that make the target feel bad -- really bad.  The "effects, whose effectiveness depends on the person, range from disorientation to vertigo to nausea," according to Technology Review.

The trick isn't trying to figure out which light-pulse sequence will make people hurl.  "There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Robert Lieberman, who along with his partner Vladimir Rubtsov, is developing the Incapicator for the Department of Homeland Security.  “Vlad calls it the evil color.”

Intelligent Optical Systems' president Robert Lieberman

Robert Lieberman (second from the left)
and IOS chief scientist Vladimir Rubtsov (in the photo on the right)

The tough part for Lieberman and Rubstov is getting the thing down to a manageable size, a DHS newsletter notes.

At 15 inches long by 4 inches wide, the current prototype is more transportable than portable. The next-generation weapon must be as short and svelte as a D-cell Maglite, designed to fit on a duty belt. “Phase 3 will be our shrink phase,” Lieberman says.

There's also talk of making the weapon bigger, too.  "immobilizing a mob, for instance, might call for a wide-angle 'bazooka' version," the newsletter muses.  But even king-sized vomit-lights could have some pretty obvious countermeasures, Technology Review notes.  "The person being targeted could easily look away, or he or she might be wearing heavily tinted glasses."

Harder to beat would be a radio-frequency puke ray.  Lucky for us, the Navy is backing one of those, too.

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