Documents / FOIA release
This is an undated Central Intelligence Agency review of a research proposal on non-lethal incapacitation by flash blindness. It judges the proposed flash simulation technique reasonably feasible but says the performance tasks are not described in enough detail and doubts that the predictions hold at potentially damaging intensities. The reviewers also say retinal damage thresholds must be set before flares are used operationally, and they suggest supplementary primate studies to find functional damage thresholds and measure performance decrements.
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THE EASY OUTPUT DESIRED. QUESTIONS EXIST AS TO THE ACCURACY OF THE MODEL UPON WHICH THE PREDICTIONS OF THE SIMULATION TECHNIQUE ARE BASED WHEN EMPLOYING FLASH INTENSITIES WICH ARE POTENTIALLY DAMAGING. THESE QUESTIONS MIGHT BE BEST APPROACHED IN SUPPLEMENTARY EXPERIMENTS USING ANIMALS. GENERAL REMARKS: WITH RESPECT TO THE OVERALL QUESTION OF THE EFFICACY OF FLASH LINDNESS INCAPACITATION, OUR PRELIMINARY THINKING IS THAT THE TECHNIQUE WOULD BE MOST VALUABLE AS AN ADJUNCT TO OTHER IDEAS. THERE MAY BE A NUMBER OF SITUATIONS IN WHICH A FULL SECURITY OF DISORIENTATION, CONFUSION AND IMPAIRED VISION WOULD ALLOW FRIENDLY PERSONAL TO ACCOMPLISH SOME VITAL OBJECTIVE OR PERMIT THE CAPTURE OR RESTRAIN OF UNFRIENDLY INDIVIDUALS. THE FLASH TECHNIQUE WOULD BE MOST USEFUL AT NIGHT; IT WOULD NOT BE AN INCONSPICuous TACTIC. IN CONSIDERING THE OPERATIONAL ENHYPENMENT OF ANY FLASH BLINDNESS SYSTEM, IT WOULD SEEM IMPERATIVE TO KNOW THE CONSTRAINTS ON THE USE OF THE SYSTEM. THESE CONSTRAINTS WOULD DICTATE WHEN, NO, TO UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS THE SYSTEM MIGHT BE USED. THEY WOULD AFFECT THE CHOICE OF DELIVERY SYSTEM. IF A GRENADLE OR OTHER PROJECTILE-TYPE DELIVERY SYSTEM WERE USED, A SMALL ERROR IN PLACEMENT OF THE PYROTECHNIC DEVICE COULD MEAN A HUNDREDFOLD (OR MORL) DIFFERENCE IN LIGHT INTENSITY AT THE TARGET POINT. THIS IS A STRAIGHTFORWARD EFFECT OF THE INVERSE SQUARE LAW. SPECIFICALLY, IT SEEMS AS THOUGH THE RETINAL AGE THRESHOLD FOR LIGHT FLASHES MUST BE DETERMINED BEFORE FLARES BE USED OPERATONALLY. IT WOULD SEEM, TOO, THAT GROSS ON EV. MICROS-COPIC RETINAL DAMAGE CRITERIA ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE WHERE HUMAN EXPOSURE IS CONTEMPLATED -- ESPECIALLY IF NON-SELLIGERENT INDIVIDUALS ARE INVOLVED. IF SAFE EXPOSURE CRITERIA ARE NOT EVEN AVAILABLE FOR EXPERIMENTAL TESTS OF THE FLARES, THE IT WOULD APPEAR THAT WE DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO USE THESE DEVICES OPERATING IMMEDIATELY -- EVEN IF WE CAN PREDICT THE PERFORMANCE DEFERENT EXPECTED. ## 5. ALTERNATE SUPPLEMENTARY APPLIACES: SOPHISTICATED PRIMATE STUDIES COULD PROVIDE INFORMATION AS TO THE FUNCTIONAL DAMAGE THRESHOLD. FOR EXAMPLE, IS SUCCESSFULLY USING LARSCOLT KINGS OF VARYING GAP WIDTH TO MEASURE VISUAL AGILITY IN MONKEYS; THERE ARE OTHER TECHNIQUES. EVOKED POTENTIALS ARE A GOOD MEANS OF MEASURING VISUAL INPRESHOLD -- A TECHNIQUE ALSO USED NO. AT OUR IN ADDITION TO MEASURING DAMAGE THRESHOLD, EXPERIMENTS WITH TRAINED PRINATES COULD PROVIDE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE DECREMENT FOLLOWING EXPOSURE TO THE ACTUAL FLARES TRANSULVED. MUTUAL PERFORMANCE SINGULAR CONDITIONS HAVE BEEN MAINFOLLOWED FROM THESE RESULTS. THE PERFORMANCE DECREMENT OF FOAM AND UNDER CONDITIONS OF SIMULATED FLASH ELIMINATED IS AN IMPORTANT TO KNOW. THERE APPEARS TO BE A MORE ORDER INFORMATION CAP RELATED TO THE ACCEPTIBLE INTENSITY LEVEL OF REAL FLARES FOR USE UNDER REAL FIELD CONDITIONS. THE LATTER DATA MIGHT BE DETERRED FROM CAREFULLY SIGNAL AFTER SINGLES.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.