More formally known as the Active Denial System (
ADS), the
pain ray is a weapon developed by the
U.S. military that can ? wait for it ? cause excruciating pain by emitting high-powered waves similar to those from a microwave oven. Developed by the
Pentagon, the system is composed of huge, vehicle-mounted plates. It was deployed to Afghanistan in June 2010 and pulled back just a month later without having been used.
It's unclear whether the military's plans to develop a rifle version of the system ever panned out. However, a smaller version of the pain ray called
Silent Guardian was developed by defense technology company Raytheon and is currently available for use by law enforcement agencies.
While the ADS reportedly never saw action in the battlefield, it went through 10,000 trial exposures involving real people. The test subjects reported feeling like they were on fire a few seconds after being targeted, but the agonizing pain vanished as soon as they stepped out of the beam's way. The weapon was only designed to inflict pain and not actually burn anything, but around 0.1% of the test subjects reported blisters caused by second-degree burns. Double ouc