Scariest weapons

[Parts]

I top twenty list from Popular Science.  I like the Gay Bomb
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/gallery/2008-05/worlds-spookiest-weapons

[Pyraxis]

  The Stargate Project?

The Stargate Project

We move from spooky to kooky with an operation begun under the Army's military intelligence in the 1970s called the Stargate Project. While its aims may have had a scientific underpinning—it was an attempt to bring quantifiable measurements to clairvoyance—it was largely a last ditch effort to generate intelligence about a situation when there was no other avenue to pursue. The project used a small group of "remote viewers" who were people claiming to possess a variety of extra sensory abilities, from reading tarot cards to predicting the future, to divining the nature of covered or hidden objects in aerial photographs. While the results of any given viewing were kept highly secret so as not to damage the confidence of the clairvoyants, we can likely conclude the outcomes were not terribly accurate, as in 1995 the project was transferred to and subsequently shut down by the CIA.

* Pyraxis looks around for Peter....

[Peter]

  The Stargate Project?

The Stargate Project

We move from spooky to kooky with an operation begun under the Army's military intelligence in the 1970s called the Stargate Project. While its aims may have had a scientific underpinning—it was an attempt to bring quantifiable measurements to clairvoyance—it was largely a last ditch effort to generate intelligence about a situation when there was no other avenue to pursue. The project used a small group of "remote viewers" who were people claiming to possess a variety of extra sensory abilities, from reading tarot cards to predicting the future, to divining the nature of covered or hidden objects in aerial photographs. While the results of any given viewing were kept highly secret so as not to damage the confidence of the clairvoyants, we can likely conclude the outcomes were not terribly accurate, as in 1995 the project was transferred to and subsequently shut down by the CIA.

* Pyraxis looks around for Peter....

* Peter waves to Pyraxis's clairvoyant ephemeral essence as it finds him.

[Pyraxis]

 

I thought your clairvoyant ephemeral essence ditched you in disgust years and years ago.

[Peter]

It did, but there was a Pyraxis-shaped glowing thingy floating in the air above my desk.

[Pyraxis]

Silly me, it didn't occur to me that you might have sight that crossed the astral barrier. No wonder your essence is so lost - I believe it's missing its eyes.

[Callaway]

The Rods from God
Photo by John Macneill
This one would be the hands down winner for spookiest name if the award weren't just a consolation prize—the Rods from God will do just fine competing for the spookiest weapon, regardless of name, thank you very much. They are a kinetic energy device like the railgun, but instead of using electricity to achieve destructive velocities, they use gravity. The still-hypothetical system would be comprised of two satellites in orbit around the Earth. One would house the communications and targeting hardware, while the other would house the rods themselves, each up to a foot in diameter and twenty feet long. To fire, they would simply be released and allowed to fall back to Earth (with a bit of remote guidance). By the time they reached the surface, they'd be traveling at a speed of 36,000 feet per second and carry the destructive force of a nuclear warhead, only with none of the radioactive fallout.

 

 

[Peter]

Fifty years of DARPA:

Telepathic spies: One of the agency's most infamous blunders was its 1970s psychic spy program, inspired by reports that the Soviets were researching the area. DARPA invested millions to see if telepaths and psychokinetics – who claim to move objects using thought alone – could carry out remote espionage. They couldn't.

[Parts]

The Rods from God
Photo by John Macneill
This one would be the hands down winner for spookiest name if the award weren't just a consolation prize—the Rods from God will do just fine competing for the spookiest weapon, regardless of name, thank you very much. They are a kinetic energy device like the railgun, but instead of using electricity to achieve destructive velocities, they use gravity. The still-hypothetical system would be comprised of two satellites in orbit around the Earth. One would house the communications and targeting hardware, while the other would house the rods themselves, each up to a foot in diameter and twenty feet long. To fire, they would simply be released and allowed to fall back to Earth (with a bit of remote guidance). By the time they reached the surface, they'd be traveling at a speed of 36,000 feet per second and carry the destructive force of a nuclear warhead, only with none of the radioactive fallout.

 

 

I like that one they used in scfi a book I read a few years ago