Lightening Strike

clipped from blog.wired.com Boeing announced today the first ever test firing of a real-life ray gun that could become US special forces' way to carry out covert strikes with "plausible deniability." In tests earlier this month at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser -- a modified C-130H aircraft -- "fired its high-energy chemical laser through its beam control system. The beam control system acquired a ground target and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system." The claim that a laser strike could be carried out without attribution appears in two separate briefing documents by Air Force personnel, describing the benefits of the new directed energy weapon. Without any previous cases to go on, no pathologist could definitely say that a laser was involved. The injury might resemble a lightning strike more than anything else.