Documents / Official release
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 11 March 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. It reviews reported injuries to people exposed at close range to anomalous aerospace vehicles and attributes them mainly to electromagnetic radiation field effects, including burns, neurological and auditory effects. It argues that clinical diagnoses can help infer the characteristics of advanced systems. The appendices hold a case catalog and ICD code tables.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/11/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys reported acute and subacute injuries allegedly associated with close exposure to anomalous field effects, attempting to draw tentative parallels between these claimed symptoms and the known physiological effects of intense radiofrequency .and microwave exposure on human tissue. By reviewing medical and biophysical literature on heating, burns, neurological effects, and sensory disturbances, the report speculates on theoretical mechanisms by which intense electromagnetic fields might account for some of the reported injury patterns, though it does not establish a direct causal link between the reported injuries and any specific source. It hypothesizes that clinical symptoms and reported exposure circumstances might allow for highly constrained, limited inferences regarding the characteristics of an unknown emitter or propulsion system. Notably, the document’s findings rely heavily on case comparisons lacking physical examinations, untestable exposure conditions, and a mix of established science and more controversial literature. These comparisons are then extended to anomalous-craft scenarios, attempting to map known electromagnetic injury mechanisms onto anomalous encounter claims that lack independent scientific validation in the report.
UNCLASSIFIED/} FOA OFFJiCJi11JL Wili O~ILY
Indeed, there is even a small amount of literature (less than a dozen good peer
reviewed studies) that incorporates these ideas. McRee, Wachtel and associates have
studied ionic gradients in nerves, and compared thermal versus non-thermal injury
patterns. They have found the effects are independent of each other, and may be due
to involvement of the Sodium-Potassium = ATP-ase pump, that subtends the
functioning of all excitable tissues [27,32].
A very recent NATO meta-analysis has defined, on the other hand, low-thermal and
non-thermal broad band effects in humans that can be induced by "Non-lethal
Weapons" [33]. The development of an active denial system (ADS) in the mm-wave
region (94 GHz) at a distance of within 100 meters will cause localized heating and
discomfort. xii These wavelengths can not penetrate beneath the superficial layers of the
skin. They do stimulate localized pain and stimulation of dermal receptors of the lateral
spino-thalamic tract...which will afford direct and specific clues in evaluating claims of
injury: the receptors for pain, tickle, itch, and prickling sensation are we believe unique
to depth and frequency. Pulsed microwave weapons based on HPM (High Power
Microwaves) represent another example of a directed energy system. Typical systems
operate at 1-3 GHz {UHF-SHF; dm wavelengths}, and can penetrate deep into the
human body, and do not generate heat. Several controversial {non-replicated and not
to be reviewed here} studies do claim, however, that these frequencies will cause
dissolution of the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) integrity, and hence can cause subacute
injury. Changes in the cytoskeleton proteins occur only after higher than realistic pulse
repetition rates for the US systems under development as weapons. xiii
Chapter Four: Applicable Subacute Injury Effects
There is additional rich and established literature that describes well the subacute level
effects of {particularly} radio frequency and microwave fields (MF) on human and
animal tissue. (Figure Two)
It should also be mentioned, that beginning in the late '80s [34,35,36] low-level RF,
clearly athermal in incident energy, of time varying magnetic fields called PEMF (pulsed
electromagnetic fields) of 1-15 HZ, 2-8 Gauss began to be researched clinically for
bone-union, pain management, depression alleviation, and dermal cell repair. These
ELF multi-kilometer wave-length RF are excluded here, as the literature has shown no
injury potential for this bandwidth. That said; numerous reports on both the anomalous
event as well as the clinical medical literature describe the occasional "effects"
experiencers or patients utilizing such therapy sometimes report.
These effects include occasional mild and localized warmth when touching an object of
unknown provenance, or under the electrode: a pleasant mild itch or tickle sensation
{non-specific stimu lation of paccianian and nociceptive skin receptors served by
peripheral un-myelinated nerves} and pleasant cognitive effects and relaxation.
Although we can hardly categorize such near-field effects as injuries, we note and
catalogue them as non-specific neurological "effects." There is no a priori reason to
xi i Unfortunately, the NATO study does not contain information on the power density, or the other technical
parameters to accomplish the ADS effect.
xiii We are, of course aware, that this series of studies is not to be limited to current technology, much less-only
" on-world" technology. A theoretical examination of these claims is thus underway, but is not in-scope for th is
review .
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13 Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 38 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.