Nov 19, 2009: LRAD

[xoxoxoBruce]

ELRD, Long Range Acoustic Device... think, your stereo speaker on steroids & Meth.



Why that looks like a search light, or satellite dish, or something non-threatening.
That's what the Somali pirates that tried to hijack the Maersk Alabama, again, probably thought. Wrong.

Until now, it wasn't widely known that the US Defense Department was sharing the so-called Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) with commercial cruise ships. The weapon is essentially a small dish that beams hellishly loud noise that is deafening but not lethal. Weighing 20 kilograms and as big as a TV satellite dish, the device looks deceptively harmless. But once trained on its target, it blasts a tight beam of painful siren-like sound.

NY and Boston cops have them, I want one too, but $30k is a little steep.

In an attack on the cruise ship, Seaborn Spirit, last week...

It's not known how the grinning pirates 160 kilometers off the coast of the Horn of Africa reacted as they suddenly were hit by the LRAD. But they were close, and the closer one is to the sonic cannon, the worse the effect is. It's possible they received permanent hearing damage, but at the very least they experienced an excruciating headache and ear pain to the point that they could no longer see or hear. They also quickly lost the desire to board the ship. Of course, even Captain Blackbeard would have quickly set sail when confronted with 150 decibels of pure noise.

Wonder how long you'd have to keep a person in the zone, to do that?
How about the neighbors cat?

link via Neatorama

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