For decades, the world of entertainment has inspired real-life technological advances: the flip phone, the waterbed (thank 1940s sci fi writer Robert Heinlein), and one day, we’ll undoubtedly have a Star Trek-inspired Transporter machine.
And, now comes word of a terrifying new invention based on…Pokemon? Wired got its hands on a 1998 declassified document that explains how the Army was secretly plotting to create a new seizure-inducing ray gun inspired by a Pokemon episode.
If you recall, in 1997 about 700 viewers suffered epileptic symptoms while watching an episode of the Japanese cartoon due to rapid, flashing lights (called a photic-induced seizure).
The proposed weapon, the report explained, would operate under the same principle: seizures would be induced by electric stimulus triggered through the optic nerve. And, in theory, “100% of the population” would be susceptible to the effects — from distances of “up to hundreds of meters.”
An Army spokesperson denied that any such weapon had been made (what do you expect!) and it doesn’t appear as though the plans have ever materialized. But there’s still a remote possibility we’ll see something like this in the future.
And just wait till the Jackass guys get their hands on that thing.
[Photo credit: Cartoon Network]
