Ray gun, sci-fi staple, meets reality

Ray guns have won cinematic battles for Buck Rogers, Han Solo, and Captain James T. Kirk. Now some in the Pentagon think the weapons could play a role in Iraq.

After years of work and millions of dollars, high-level military officers are considering deploying a futuristic but unproven technology meant to inflict pain without injury.

The point is to give soldiers an alternative to bullets for riot control or policing hostile areas. The device, informally known as a pain ray, is among a class called ''directed-energy weapons." The pain ray shoots an invisible beam of energy that leaves a burning sensation on the skin even through clothing. Some volunteers who have been zapped in tests describe the feeling as touching a hot light bulb, but over much of their body.

''For the first millisecond, it's almost like someone opened an oven door, and the heat comes blasting out at you," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for a research group at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. ''You just want to jump out of the way."

Raytheon Co. of Waltham makes the technology, which the Pentagon said it is considering for patrols in Iraq. The military already uses some nonlethal weapons -- including Taser stun guns -- but senior officials say they may want something more powerful.

''We want to give commanders a range of capabilities, and that's why we're looking at nonlethal technologies," said Robert Holzer, spokesman for the Defense Department's Office of Force Transformation.

Weapons that use sound or light are also being considered, Holzer said, for an urban patrol vehicle known as ''Project Sheriff."

Though no final decisions have been made on using directed-energy weapons, the Marine Corps and other services have spent at least $51 million over 11 years to develop Raytheon's pain ray technology.

Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry also promotes the directed-energy weapons in his military platform, ''for use in urban combat and stability operations so that America's forces are equipped to win the peace as well as the war," according to a campaign fact sheet.

Yet the pain ray technology worries human-rights activists. They applaud the intent to reduce casualties, but say the system and other projects called nonlethal haven't been fully tested for long-term health effects or on whether they comply with bans on torture such as the International Convention Against Torture.

''You don't want to use them in a way that only exists to cause pain, which is against international conventions," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, the New York advocacy group. He also said that having systems advertised as nonlethal might tempt troops to use force inappropriately.

The Pentagon's Holzer said officials who could address such concerns weren't available to be interviewed this week. Such issues could become more pressing since the Pentagon's director of force transformation, Arthur K. Cebrowski, mentioned in a speech last month that the Department of Homeland Security could buy the devices for US border patrols.

The Marine Corps has been leading a separate effort to create a larger vehicle-mounted version of Raytheon's pain ray technology, known as an ''active-denial system," which refers to the aim of denying people access to an area.

Captain Daniel McSweeney, a spokesman for the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Program run by the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., said the larger version has already passed health reviews overseen by a Pennsylvania State University advisory panel. It has also undergone legal and treaty reviews by Pentagon lawyers, he said, but is still being evaluated for deployment.

''We'll be very conscious that they will be used in the correct way," he said.

The Marines' pain-ray system resembles a TV satellite dish mounted on a vehicle. The system's transmitter sends waves of energy to an antenna that focuses the energy into an invisible beam. The waves are calibrated to slightly penetrate the skin, which in turn stimulates the body's pain receptors creating ''a heating sensation that within seconds becomes intolerable and forces the subject to flee," according to an official military fact sheet.

Trials of the Marine pain ray began on volunteers and goats several years ago, leading to its public disclosure under government testing rules. One volunteer, Mike Booen, vice president of Raytheon's directed-energy weapons unit in Tucson, attests to the technology's searing pain.

''Your first reaction is to drop whatever you're doing," he said. Booen said he's heard of only one volunteer who managed to withstand the beam for three seconds, the maximum exposure set by designers in one test.

Research on directed-energy weapons dates back decades and also includes the long-awaited Airborne Laser program meant to shoot down ballistic missiles.

For peacekeeping and police missions, other nonlethal programs include flash-bang grenades that disorient.

Some concepts border on slapstick, such as ''malodorants," or stink bombs.

Other devices from the nonlethal weapons program have already been sent to Iraq, including the Taser stun-guns used by American police forces and the Long-Range Acoustic Device made by American Technology Corp. of San Diego, which can project an earsplitting sound beam up to 300 yards.

Ross Kerber can be reached at kerber@globe.com.