New weapon allows a soldier to zap enemy with energy bolt

[ECH1969]

WASHINGTON - A car moves toward a checkpoint in Iraq, and U.S. troops order it to stop. It doesn't. Fearing the vehicle is a suicide bomb waiting to happen, a soldier aims his weapon.

Using an invisible ray that travels at the speed of light, the soldier zaps the driver with a bolt of energy that feels like a body-wide bee sting. The beam's punch, which leaves neither a burn nor residual pain, instantly stops the driver.

When the soldier approaches the car, he finds not an insurgent intent on attack but a confused civilian who didn't understand the order to halt. If the beam had been a bullet, an innocent Iraqi would be dead.

That is one scenario that boosters use to describe the potential utility of the revolutionary "Active Denial System," a nonlethal weapon developed at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_4416249,00.html