Ray gun

Rich Garcia is proud of his two-second record.

That’s how long the test subject, a Kirtland Air Force Research Laboratory spokesman, lasted when an ultraviolet beam boiled the water molecules in the top 1/64th layer of his skin.

It’s not the top time – that’s more like three seconds – but it was a good record for withstanding the pain of a new nonlethal weapon being developed by his lab, the Department of Defense, Raytheon and Sandia National Laboratories, Garcia said.

“It’s excruciating,” Garcia said. “For a moment you feel heat; then it gets unbearably hot. I did it four times. The first time, I jumped out of the beam almost immediately, but then I thought to myself, `You wimp. It doesn’t damage the skin.’ So on the second, third and fourth time, I lasted a little longer. The fourth was my record: two seconds. Nobody made it past three.”

The weapon, cryptically called the Active Denial System, beams ultraviolet waves at a target, penetrating only the top layer of skin, which conveniently houses most of the body’s pain receptors, said Steve Scott, a Sandia engineer.

“It’s been described to me as wrapping your body around a hot light bulb,” Scott said. “The reaction is very similar to the involuntary response you have when you touch a hot object. You want to get out of the beam fast.”

It leaves no permanent skin damage, and the pain goes away almost immediately after the subject steps out of the beam, Scott said.

The Albuquerque Tribune