We received the following email in July 2019. It has been slightly edited for clarity and to avoid identifying information.
I just read your article on lasers and questions people emailed to you, all were very interesting.
In reading these it appeared to me most of these questions were based on Directed Energy Weapons - DEW (Microwave) rather than the laser beams per se. (i.e., laser beam in a pilots eyes).
I strongly disagree with you on the Cuban episode. First of all, I found your answer very naive, and I'm not trying to be mean, its just that you haven't done your homework on how those hell bent on hurting others obtain these military weapons! It's called Black Market, the Mexican Cartel (Sinanola or El Chapo) drug organization buy these DEW by the truck load from (hate to say this) crooked defense companies.
In turn these military weapons are given out like Hershey bars to Stalkers (MS-13) the large white van pulls up and delivers them right in your neighborhood purchased by the Cartel. Its big business. I'm assuming the Cuban government more than likely purchased these DEW weapons to threaten and hurt the Americans working in Cuba.
I keep reminding those that don't understand this Mexican Cartel they are extremely organized and extremely rich! They can and do buy anyone and anything! Most people don't even realize they have several submarines. This theory that everyone can get sick if enough people say they're sick, and blah blah blah, is just that, a theory. We're talking about the real world here. Unfortunately, it's the dark side, the hidden side that most don't even realize is out there.
So when these Americans complained about being hit and knocked down, believe them! My advice is do some studying on this weapon, yes its covert, silent and does shoot right thru walls,, it can hurt you and even kill you. Think of yourself as a potato, and what does it do if microwaved. My suggestion is get the book The E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought. Unfortunately, you will NOT find any book in the library on this cartel, why? They're either stolen or lost.
You would not believe how many American citizens are now employed by this Mexican Cartel living right here in the good ole USA, and they ALL have this DEW weapon!
I would like to ask you if anything has been made to be able to catch a laser beam in motion and have it returned to the bad guy? I do not mean 'take' it to the bad guy (like a missile) I'm thinking perhaps a 'mirror-like' device.
[Name withheld; former employee at a defense contractor working on microwave devices]
Our response:
Thank you for your letter.
I haven't done a lot of homework on DEWs since my main interest is in visible lasers. I get calls about once every month or two from people who have experienced heat or light that I cannot explain. That's why my webpage includes links to other directed energy information sources.
I will say I'm not sure why Mexican cartels or human traffickers would target the people I hear from. They seem like normal people in residential neighborhoods. If the cartels wanted them gone, they certainly have other, much worse ways to do this.
I just downloaded the E-Bomb book in Kindle format. I will read it soon.
About your letter... I do want to bring forth other views. Would it be OK if I printed all or parts of it on the "If you are harassed by lasers" webpage at LaserPointerSafety.com? Without your name or identifying information, of course.
Finally, for visible lasers, you could use a retroreflector to return the light to the source. The beam may be degraded enough that if it could cause heat at the retroreflector, the returned beam (having gone twice as far and having bounced off possibly dirty or dusty surfaces) would be weaker and thus not able to harm anyone at the source area.
At a minimum, you would need a high-quality, industrial or research quality corner cube retroreflector like these. An inexpensive "cat's eye" bicycle retroreflector or similar would cause a bright glow to be seen at the source, but would not cause a coherent beam to be reflected back.
The original author's response:
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, it's appreciated.
Yes, you can use what I wrote if it helps the targets. To help you to understand why good people end up targets is because more than likely they have interfered with something the Cartel is doing, like selling drugs, or human trafficking, they might have alerted the police, or see something say something. It could even be someone hired stalkers to hurt you because of some vendetta, or just pure revenge!
They could/can kill you. But, in most cases they just want to provoke you or harass you while hurting you with this DEW weapon. It's called a 'slow cooker' for a reason. It's nothing but pure evil.
I would like to see this hand held DEW put out of business and the defense companies fined big time for selling it, especially to the Cartels but, I'm reading where Directed Energy is being used even more than ever by other countries within the military sector. Lasers as well. I'm not against high technology but I am against something like this getting into the wrong hands.
