I could hardly believe my ears last Sunday evening during CBS TV's Sixty Minutes, when correspondent David Martin began reporting on the Air Force's "Active Denial System." Wait a minute, I thought, is the USAF re-initiating Project Blue Book, this time with a name that fits?
But sadly, no. Instead, the report concerned a new military device intended to disperse crowds with bursts of high energy, effectively causing people to momentarily feel as if scalded with boiling water. Yet -- wait a minute, just wait a minute. This futuristic non-lethal weapon was being tested at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, my old stomping grounds as an enlistee, and, much more to my amusement than amazement, involves "an electromagnetic beam made up of very high frequency radio waves."
Now, THAT's interesting. Radio waves? Technically speaking, are we referencing sound waves, microwaves or what here? A personal message, please, to Col. Kirk Hymes, head of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, which is likely far more creepy in practice than it sounds: Sir, we could have saved the Air Force millions, had your predecessors only come to me in 1971 or 1972 when I operated the Moody AFB hospital's independent-duty physical therapy section. I arrived at Moody in March of 1971, around the same time that the March-April, 1971 issue of The A.P.R.O. Bulletin published my article, "UFO Ultrasound: Key to Injuries?" Relying heavily upon my experience with Air Force clinic machinery involving such forms of energy as ultrasound and microwaves, I took a real hard look at ultrasound and suggested briefly a possible relationship between (those non-existent) UFOs and injuries to and effects upon human tissue. Maybe sound waves were involved, I conjectured (as I did in more depth for a future issue of Official UFO). Oh yes, you'd better believe I was worried about the Air Force seeing my name and military relationship in print during those days when military folks didn't dare concern themselves publicly with the UFO issue -- but all was well and no black helicopters or men in black whisked me off to a corn field for debriefing, mental adjustments or drug therapy. At least, I don't think so. Hmm, of course, I wouldn't remember, would I? Drat, now I've got me wondering.
Anyway, I just want Col. Hymes and company to know that, had the Air Force come to me when I was a staff sergeant at that very Air Force base back in 1971, I gladly would have passed on a copy of The A.P.R.O. Bulletin for the reading pleasure of futuristic military weaponry geeks -- and for far less investment of tax dollars, maybe I could have assisted officials in developing devices to "warm" the crowds. In the end, my only request would have been for a hand-held A.D.S. device to carry everywhere so I'd never have to stand in the back of a line of people again. Sweet!
So Colonel, speaking of UFOs -- and borrowing three more words from Sixty Minutes, this time via Andy Rooney -- ever wonder why. . .ever wonder why so many things the military accomplishes with forms of energy seem to mimic UFO incidents reported decades ago?
