When fiction meets reality: Heat-ray gun!

A Heat-Ray is the primary offensive weapon used by the Martians in the H. G. Wells's classic science fiction novel The War of the Worlds. The novel explains the origin of the Heat-Ray as an intense beam of heat generated in a chamber of absolute nonconductivity, which is then projected against a parabolic mirror towards whatever target the Martians wish to incinerate. While the Heat-Ray is photonic in nature, passages in the novel describe the beam as invisible, with the only visible element being a flash emitted from the chamber while the Heat-Ray is fired. The Heat-Ray also possesses considerable range, striking targets at distances of at least two miles.

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US military unveils heat-ray gun The US military has given the first public display of what it says is a revolutionary heat-ray weapon to repel enemies or disperse hostile crowds. The gun - called Silent Guardian - projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling, but is actually harmless. The beam can be fired as far as 500m. The waves can penetrate clothes but not walls, suddenly heating up the skin of anyone in its path to 50C. Journalists who volunteered to be zapped during the demonstration on an air base in the US state of Georgia described the sensation as similar to a blast from a very hot oven - too painful to bear and forcing them to dive for cover.