Military researchers are today working on a way to defend soldiers with ultra-quick laser pulses and mid-air plasma bursts. But similar technology may have been floating around the Defense Department for years – and could even be the source of a few UFO scares.

Some years ago, Justin Mullins at New Scientistreported rumors of an 1980’s Air Force project which created plasma balls with lasers:

Researchers working with high-power laser weapons discovered that they could create a glowing ball of fire in the sky by crossing the beams of two powerful infrared lasers…By moving the laser beams around the sky, the researchers found they could shift the plasma ball back and forth at very high speed…. At night, they demonstrated their skills, flying their glowing creations in formation high above the cold desert.

The plasma balls do not seem to have had any direct military use. But there was a suggestion that they might be adapted as a psychological warfare tool. The hissing sound produced by the plasma could be modulated to carry a blurred but understandable signal - a talking fireball. The a device was nicknamed "Voice Of God"; apparently a proposal to use it in the 1991 Gulf War was not accepted. ("It sounds like a project that didn't have the benefit of adult supervision," remarked John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org)

The technology is mentioned in a 1997 Air Force paper on space-based lasers. It notes the impossibility of projecting giant holographic images, but adds:

The ancillary concept of auditory project, however, is feasible and demonstrated, but probably would not be done from a space-based platform given the difficulty of controlling the region of air that is modulated.

Has anyone ever used such a device? There are plenty of accounts of mysterious fireballs racing around the sky, which can only be descibed as "unidentified flying objects." And some of them even talk...

The weird and wonderful Fortean Times

(“The Journal of Unexplained Phenomena”) reported a 1988 encounter between a man in Tetbury, England, and a football-shaped hovering light. The light spoke with an unnatural ‘tiny voice’ and delivered a string of cliches from sci-fi B-movies: “We are just observing your world” (drawing the reply “you’ve come to the wrong part to see anything!”), and “You are gaining knowledge so fast and getting to the very basis of the structure of matter and you could cause untold harm if you don't know what you are doing."

Probably just another ridiculous flying saucer story. But it would be interesting if it was a psyops trial to see how well the deception worked? Given a different context, a talking ball of light might take on different roles. At a church or sacred site, it could be presented as an angelic or divine presence; at a tomb or graveyard it could imitate a ghost. Given some vegetation, it could even impersonate a talking burning bush.

On the other hand, maybe the laser guys should go back to trying to make something useful.

ALSO:

* Plasma Shields for Soldier Defense

* Real-Life Laser Rifle: Army Goal

* Plasma Shield: Missile Stopper?