US Army looks to seizure weapon inspired by Pokemon

Remember an episode of the cartoon Pokemon which caused seizures in over 600 Japanese children back in 1997? Well, it seems that the US Army was inspired by that particular “episode”, pardon the pun, and intend to harness the phenomenon of seizures for a new, non-lethal weapon. The kind of gun that the US Army intends to develop would be one that is capable of triggering a seizure in “100 percent of the population” across long distances – we are talking about possibly hundreds of miles here, at least that is what Wired’s Danger Room reported. According to a document that was obtained by Wired, it specifically mentioned the Pokemon seizure incident which happened on December 16th, a good 15 years ago, when flashing lights actually resulted in symptoms of epilepsy in hundreds of the Japanese viewers.

The idea of using an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to disrupt the electrochemical pathways in the human brain results in the brain being forced to fire off wildly in a pattern that is not too different from that of an epileptic seizure. The thing is, this idea is not even remotely close to being realized in its final form, but imagine the possibilities if it were to be developed. Definitely not the kind of weapon you would want the bad guys to own, would it?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Military
Tags: army