10 Alleged Secret Weapons Of The US Military

The art of war has evolved dramatically with the advent of contemporary technologies. One thing about war, however, hasn’t changed. To win a war, it’s still essential to keep the true strength of your forces and the extent of your arsenal hidden from your opponent. The most important military secrets are only disclosed to the select few who can be trusted to carry out the mission.

For this reason, the US government can’t divulge complete information about its tools and tactics for the national defense to the people it is sworn to serve. So there must be at least some instances when weapons of war have been developed and deployed without the knowledge of the American populace (or the rest of the world).

But what if the opponent of the military-industrial complex, having acquired unwarranted influence, became its own people? What fantastic secrets of kinetic, psychological, biological, and energetic warfare might then be hidden well below the surface of public knowledge?

READ MORE: 10 Bizarre World War II Weapons That Were Actually Built

At least some aspects of the existence and operational parameters of the following 10 weapons have made their way into general awareness. Yet their development begs the question: What other tools of death and destruction might be lurking in the shadows, utterly obscured from the public eye?

10 Directed Energy Weapons

The Greek mathematician Archimedes may have made history over 2,000 years ago as the first person to ever use a directed energy weapon. According to a mysterious legend, during the Roman invasion of Syracuse, Archimedes rapidly constructed a hexagonal mirror when the Roman admiral Marcellus moved his ships out of the range of bowshot.

Archimedes was apparently able to capture the energy of the Sun and reflect it onto the ships, setting them ablaze and causing them to sink within minutes.^[1] MIT students were able to recreate this effect in 2005 but noted that their mirror was only capable of effectively burning a stationary target.

Though scientific knowledge has advanced a great deal since the days of Archimedes, the underlying theoretical principles of directed energy weapon (DEW) technology remain the same. A DEW inflicts damage from a distance by firing an intensely concentrated beam of energy toward a target.

Different types of DEWs fire different types of energy, but the most popularized form of directed energy weapon in use today is the high energy laser (HEL). These DEWs are just like the lasers seen in science fiction movies. They fire a soundless beam of energy, invisible at certain frequencies, that can incinerate a target from hundreds of miles away.

HELs have been developed by contractors like Lockheed Martin for use in missile defense and space war, but some believe that these weapons might have been designed with much more sinister purposes in mind.

During the Thomas Fire that ravaged California in December 2017, many witnesses and researchers noted property damage that seemingly defied every preconceived notion of how a wildfire should behave. Though wildfires use foliage to spread, entire blocks of houses burned to the ground while the surrounding trees remained untouched.

Though no official explanation of this anomalous phenomenon is forthcoming, multiple witnesses across California recorded video of beams of light coming down from the sky as the blaze spread across the state. Given the fact that HELs are commonly mounted on the nose cones of planes, some have concluded that the mayhem wreaked by the Thomas Fire was boosted with directed energy weaponry.

9 Long Range Acoustic Devices

A new type of crowd control weapon came to the fore during the Ferguson, Missouri, protests of 2014. As an active demonstration of the newfound capabilities of an increasingly militarized American police state, countermeasures employed by the Ferguson Police Department to quell civil unrest included the use of LRAD sound cannons.

Capable of projecting voice commands over a distance of 5.5 miles (9 kilometers), a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) inflicts grievous bodily pain upon anyone within 330 feet (100 meters) of its sound path. LRAD manufacturers are careful to call their products “devices” rather than “weapons” for public relations reasons, but anyone who has endured the effects of an LRAD is well aware of the difference between the truth and the spin.

Just ask the US diplomats stationed in Cuba who recently started losing their hearing. Soon after the detente between the United States and Cuba that transpired in 2015, diplomats deployed to the newly reopened US embassy on this Caribbean island nation started reporting a sudden and permanent loss of hearing.^[2]

US investigators concluded that the diplomats had been hit with an advanced and unnamed acoustic device that doesn’t make any audible sound but causes irreparable damage to the ears and brain of anyone in its path. This incident was considered so serious that the United States expelled two Cuban diplomats from their embassy in Washington.

However, the exact nature of this LRAD-like device and the identity of the agents responsible for its use on American officials are still unknown. If a sonic weapon was indeed used on US diplomats in Cuba, this would be an unprecedented incident in the history of international relations.

8 Low-Frequency Microwave Mind Control

The apparent sonic attacks on the US embassy in Cuba rekindled decades-old fears about a different kind of secret weapon. In 1965, at the height of the Cold War, the Pentagon discovered that the Soviets were blasting the US embassy in Moscow with extremely low-frequency (ELF) microwave radiation.

While far too weak to cook anything, it was determined that the so-called Soviet Signal carried the possibility of affecting the health or altering the behavior of the embassy staff. Instead of doing anything to stop it, the Pentagon decided to study the potential effects of the signal and attempt to mimic them back home.

DARPA, then a freshly-minted branch of the Department of Defense, subsequently founded an initiative called Project Pandora and began researching the effects of ELF microwave radiation on primate subjects. Though the results were inconclusive, project leader Richard Cesaro remained convinced until Pandora’s disbanding in 1969 that ELF radiation posed a serious threat to the national security of the United States.

The Pentagon never figured out what the Soviets were up to at the American embassy and opted to solve the situation by wrapping the embassy in a building’s equivalent of a tinfoil hat: An aluminum screen was erected to surround the perimeter of the complex.

Though DARPA may have closed the case on ELF radiation in 1969, studies have since indicated that low-frequency microwave and radio waves may indeed have a deleterious effect on the human body. It’s even been demonstrated that the signals emitted and received from cell phones have an effect on the functioning of the mind that frequently shows itself in the disruption of natural sleep cycles.

Today’s world is absolutely saturated by invisible signals that keep us connected and informed. But how much do we truly know about this all-pervasive radiation and how it might be affecting our health and even our thoughts?^[3]

7 Heart Attack Guns

In the wake of the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, Democratic Senator Frank Church led a committee dedicated to getting to the bottom of any actions perpetrated by the CIA that may have violated the charter of this secretive intelligence agency. It was believed that the CIA had accrued undue unilateral power under the pretext of the Cold War, and the Church Committee was assembled to expose this nefarious plot to the American people.

Though history shows us that the attempts of the Church Committee to curb the totalitarian zeal of the CIA were all but ineffective in the long run, a few interesting findings were uncovered during the course of this 1975 investigation. One such discovery was the so-called “Heart Attack Gun,” a modified pistol that was capable of delivering a nearly undetectable but absolutely lethal dose of shellfish toxin into the body of a distant target.^[4]

The darts fired by this soundless gun would theoretically leave a pinprick no larger than a mosquito bite and dissolve almost instantly into the tissues of the body after delivering a payload so poisonous that the target would be almost guaranteed to have a heart attack within moments. It’s unknown whether or not the “Heart Attack Gun” was ever used, but for all we know, it could still actively be in use today.

6 Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munitions

In Arthur C. Clarke’s book Earthlight, the legendary science fiction author of the 20th century conceives of a futuristic weapon that uses electromagnetism to propel a jet of molten metal miles into space, spearing and destroying an attacking battleship. This type of armor-piercing weapon isn’t entirely unheard of. Since World War II, various arms manufacturers have supplied combatants with tools of war called self-forging penetrators (SFPs).

Making use of a chemical explosion and a metal liner, SFPs propel themselves at an armored vehicle and then change their shape to penetrate the target. However, conventional SFPs are inefficient and hard to use, giving rise to the demand for a more effective armor penetration weapon.

DARPA has developed a specialized projectile to fit this niche called the Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM). Using electromagnetism to form and direct a sustained jet of molten metal at an armored target, MAHEM is much more adaptable than a conventional SFP and closely resembles the fictional weapon featured in Earthlight.

Beyond these basic details, not much is known about this secretive military project. However, China’s Nanjing University of Science and Technology has apparently reverse engineered MAHEM for its own purposes.^[5]

As with many other aspects of the shadowy war for global supremacy currently being waged between the superpowers of the East and West, the full details surrounding the development and deployment of this fearsome weapon may never fully filter their way into the public awareness.

5 Biological Weaponry

Between 1949 and 1969, the United States military tested biological weapons on its own people without their knowledge or consent. One such experiment occurred in 1950 when a US Navy ship sprayed billions of tiny microbes into the atmosphere over San Francisco, causing a massive upsurge in illness and potentially killing one resident.

Another took place in the subway system under New York City in 1966 when researchers dropped light bulbs filled with bacteria onto the tracks to test how far the motion of a train would carry these potentially deadly pathogens. Still other experiments consisted of engulfing entire cities in a cloud of zinc cadmium sulfide under the pretext of providing a smoke screen to hide the population in the event of the outbreak of nuclear war.

The military tells us that all this was done to learn how to better protect us from foreign adversaries, but many wonder whether the benefits of such reckless experimentation truly outweigh the costs.

However, dangerous pathogens released into the atmosphere might be the least of the biological threats to which the American people have been exposed by their government. In 2016, DNI director James Clapper expressed his concerns that gene editing technology might become a weapon of mass destruction if it fell into the wrong hands.

The science of gene editing has proliferated throughout the modern world, seemingly with little to no thought given to the potentially disastrous ramifications of tinkering around with the genetic structure of the biosphere.

While naturally occurring pathogens are bad enough, genetic engineering has given rise to the potential existence of secretly developed biological weapons that could wipe out entire national populations practically overnight. But microbes given superpowers by mad scientists might actually pose less of a danger than other types of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that have been let loose among an unwitting populace.

In 2013, a group of around 300 scientists formally rejected the premise that there is a scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs for human consumption. This statement led numerous restaurant and grocery chains such as Chipotle and Trader Joe’s to outright ban GMOs from their kitchens and shelves.^[6]

Yet agribusiness corporations continue to alter the genetic code of vital crops like corn and soybeans under the protection of an army of scientific publications and news outlets that repeatedly assure their audiences that GMOs pose no threat to the human body or to the biosphere.

Agribusiness giants like Monsanto are heavily subsidized by the United States government. If GMOs truly are detrimental to human health, the unending spread of these unnatural organisms could be serving as a covert continuation of the government’s deadly habit of exposing its people to biological weapons.

READ MORE: 10 Brutal Historical Weapons of War

4 Subliminal Messaging

It’s been well established that subliminal messaging is used extensively in advertising. This type of marketing usually exploits the baser urges of the populace to influence them to buy a product or service. But what if the same principles used in subliminal advertising are also being used by the United States intelligence community for the purposes of espionage or even mind control?

A formerly secret CIA document titled “The Operational Potential of Subliminal Perception” describes in precise detail the prescribed methodology for gaming the principles of subliminal perception to persuade someone to do something that they usually wouldn’t do.^[7]

While the author of the document ultimately concludes that the operational effectiveness of subliminal perception is “extremely limited,” the CIA is widely known for its knack for operating within the strictures of extreme limits and still accomplishing its clandestine objectives with flying colors.

3 Flying Aircraft Carriers

In the late 1920s, the United States Navy began exploring the tactical potential of airborne aircraft carriers. Two zeppelin-style airships were constructed, the USS Akron and the USS Macon, both of which carried a crew of 60 men and were capable of deploying and recovering Sparrowhawk fighter planes in flight. However, both Navy flying aircraft carriers met unfortunate ends and their remains now rest at the bottom of the ocean.

Recently, however, rumors have surfaced of DARPA’s plans to reopen this chapter of American history and initiate another attempt to develop airborne aircraft carriers for military use. This time, these proposed sentinels of the skies would carry drones instead of manned warplanes. Called the “Gremlins” program, this audacious DARPA initiative would consist of modified C-130 air transports loaded with stealthy drones capable of penetrating enemy defenses undetected.^[8]

Given DARPA’s reputation for suddenly announcing the planning stages of already-completed projects as soon as their cover might be blown, it’s reasonable to wonder whether there might already be “Gremlins” flying over our heads. If the fanciful testimony of supposed secret space program insiders like Corey Goode is to be believed, there may even be Avengers-style Air Force “Helicarriers” patrolling the skies now, rendered undetectable by advanced cloaking technology.

2 Project Thor

Potentially overshadowing the MOAB as the most lethal non-nuclear weapon in the United States’ arsenal, Project Thor is a technology designed by Jerry Pournelle in the 1950s that would obliterate enemies with bolts from above.

Colloquially termed “rods from God,” this type of Kinetic Energy Penetrator (KEP) would theoretically consist of a pair of satellites. One serves as a targeting hub, and the other is equipped with 6-meter-long (20 ft) tungsten rods that would be dropped on a target from orbit. Capable of penetrating hundreds of feet into the Earth’s crust, these thunderbolts from Thor would produce damage equivalent to a nuclear blast without the fallout.^[9]

Though the cost of delivering such rods into orbit is seen as prohibitive, reopening the Project Thor initiative was seriously considered as recently as the George W. Bush administration. With $21 trillion supposedly appropriated without authorization by the Department of Defense and a few other agencies, it’s hard to know what potentially cost-prohibitive theoretical projects the United States government might be silently making into reality without the knowledge or consent of its people.

1 HAARP

Hugo Chavez brought international attention to the HAARP facility in Alaska when he accused the United States Air Force of using this high-frequency transmitter array to trigger the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Until this point, casting aspersions on this United States Air Force research station was a faux pas committed by only the looniest of tinfoil hatters.

Theories about the darker side of HAARP were supposedly put to rest when the Air Force announced that this ionospheric research complex would be closing its doors in 2014. But the speculation was kindled back into flame when HAARP was reopened in 2017 by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).^[10]

Admittedly, it probably wasn’t a good choice from a PR perspective on the part of UAF to pick the artificially induced manifestation of a weather phenomenon as their first experiment. When HAARP’s new custodians announced their plans to create a version of the aurora borealis that was invisible to the naked eye in the skies over Alaska, many took this as confirmation of this controversial research station’s weather-manipulating abilities.

Although the HAARP program has been repeatedly accused of manipulating the weather and broadcasting mind control signals, none of these claims have been clearly demonstrated to be either true or false so far.