The Pentagon is making lasers that create voices out of thin air
Being able to use lasers to create sound opens up a weird array of new use cases, from crowd control to just plain being able to freak people out...
Key takeaways
- Watch the video below and listen carefully for what sounds like a human voice, albeit a very creepy one, during the second spin.
- The US military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, or JNLWD, is inching closer to a weapon that alters atoms to literally create words from thin air.
- Sometimes called the fourth state of matter, plasma is a field of electrified gas, highly responsive to electromagnetic effects.
Cite or link to this article
Griffin, M. (2018) 'The Pentagon is making lasers that create voices out of thin air', 311 Institute, 5 April. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/the-pentagon-is-making-lasers-that-create-voices-out-of-thin-air/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
Within three years, the US Pentagon's non-lethal weapons lab hopes to have a direct energy weapon that can produce an effect like a haunted walkie-talkie or the biblical burning bush, and they're using the same technology that was recently used to create some interesting interactive holograms to do it.
Watch the video below and listen carefully for what sounds like a human voice, albeit a very creepy one, during the second spin. That’s not an audio recording or a broadcast transmitted over radio…it’s not human at all. It’s an auditory effect that’s created by military scientists who manipulated the air with lasers — and it’s the Pentagon’s most interesting idea for stopping people charging checkpoints, or just scaring the crap out of them.
The US military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program, or JNLWD, is inching closer to a weapon that alters atoms to literally create words from thin air. It’s called the Laser-Induced Plasma Effect and, fingers crossed, they hope to be able to say intelligible words within the next three years.
Lasers that talk... weird but now a thing?
The weapon is composed of two parts: first, a femtosecond laser, which shoots a burst of focused light for 10−15 seconds, just long enough to rip the electrons from air molecules and create a ball of plasma. Sometimes called the fourth state of matter, plasma is a field of electrified gas, highly responsive to electromagnetic effects. The scientists then hit that plasma field with a second nanolaser, tuned to an extremely narrow range of wavelengths. They use that to manipulate the plasma field in a way that can produce light and noise. Get the interaction precise enough and you get something that sounds like a haunted walkie-talkie.
“We’re this close to getting it to speak to us. I need three or four more kilohertz,” says David Law, who runs JNLWD’s technology division. Ultimately, he wants a single system that can produce multiple effects — noise, light, even heat — and replace a wide variety of non-lethal weapons that the military has been testing.
FAQ
Why does this matter?
Being able to use lasers to create sound opens up a weird array of new use cases, from crowd control to just plain being able to freak people out...
About the author
Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
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Sources and further reading
- Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program jnlwp.defense.gov
Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 5 April 2018. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2018). The Pentagon is making lasers that create voices out of thin air. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/the-pentagon-is-making-lasers-that-create-voices-out-of-thin-air/
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