From secret drones to military-grade lasers, telepathic soldiers to "Miss Atom 2009," Danger Room's 10 most popular posts of the year make for a, shall we say, colorful collection.
Next week, we'll look at the most important stories of the year. But for now – have some fun. Oh, and check out our Top 3 photo galleries, too.
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First up comes this story from March, when Danger Room broke the news that an American fighter had jet shot down an Iranian drone as it flew over Iraq. At first, U.S. military officials wouldn't confirm or deny the strange incident. But a few days later, they 'fessed up.
U.S. Jet Shoots Down Iranian Drone Over Iraq
[Photo: USAF]
American snipers are already center-of-the-bullseye accurate – just look at those three shots in April that ended the standoff with the Somali pirates who hit the Maersk Alabama. But tomorrow's sharpshooters could be even sharper still, if a slew of Pentagon research projects work out as planned.
Pirates Beware: Next-Gen Snipers Could Get Guided Bullets, Super Scopes
[Photo: USMC]
For more than year, the Pakistani government screamed about the American drones flying overhead – despite quietly cooperating with the missions. Then the News of Pakistan found a Google Earth image of those unmanned aircraft parked on a Pakistani runway. Oops.
Google Earth Shows U.S. Drones at Pakistani Base?
[Photo: Noah Shachtman]
Since the middle of the Cold War, military scientists have been promising that real-life laser blasters were just around the corner. In 2009, the sci-fi weapons took a major step toward becoming real, when electric lasers hit battlefield strength for the first time. And that was just the start in a very productive year for ray guns. In tests, a laser gunship burnt a hole in a truck, while a ground-mounted energy weapon blasted drones out of the sky. It'll still take at least four years and $100 million to weaponize electric lasers. But a long-sought goal is starting to come into focus.
Military Laser Hits Battlefield Strength
[Photo: AFRL]
The U.S. military finally admitted in December what planespotters had suspected since 2007: the Air Force has indeed been operating a stealth drone in southern Afghanistan. The Pentagon still won't say what the mysterious craft – dubbed the "Beast of Kandahar" by Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman – is doing there. After all, the Taliban have neither the radar to spot the plane, nor the weapons to shoot it down. Perhaps Afghanistan's neighbors in Iran or Pakistan have some thoughts on the Beast's mission.
Mysteries Surround Afghanistan’s Stealth Drone
[Photo: Secret Defense]
The Pentagon's schizophrenic approach to social media continued in 2009. First, the Army ordered all its bases to stop blocking Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the like. Then, the geeks at U.S. Strategic Command talked about banning every Web 2.0 site, for network security reasons. The Marines quickly put that blockade in action. And then Pentagon started making noises about letting all troops in on the social media action. Yeah, I'm confused, too.
Marines Ban Twitter, MySpace, Facebook
[Photo: USMC]
Danger Room readers couldn't resist Alyona Kirsanova and her coterie of nuclear vixens – the stars of "Miss Atom 2009," a beauty contest open to (female) employees of Russia's nuclear industry. And just when things hit critical mass, along came the anti-nuclear activists, with a pageant of their own.
Vote for Russia's 'Miss Atom' 2009
Photo: miss2009.nuclear.ru
Scientists still aren't sure, exactly, what ball lightning is. Nor have they been able to recreate it in the lab. That's not stopping one researcher from trying to turn ball lightning into a weapon.
Scientist Looks to Weaponize Ball Lightning
The picture was almost too stunning to believe. But in July, a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet crew really did get permission for a low-level demonstration flight, as part of the opening ceremony for a speedboat race on the Detroit River.
Picture This: F-18 Buzzes Detroit Apartment
*[*Photo: AP/The Detroit News, Steve Perez]
Forget the battlefield radios or the the combat PDAs. When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they’ll read each others' minds. At least, that's the hope of Pentagon's mad-science division Darpa, which launched a program to "allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals." That's on top of the $4 million the Army handed out last year to the University of California to investigate the potential for computer-mediated telepathy.
Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push
[Photo: ONR]
The technology for actually firing a bullet has evolved relatively slowly over the years. But the accessories that can be mounted on the guns? That's a different story, as Aaron Rowe showed in this awesome gallery.
From iPhone Apps to Beer Holders, Killer Accessories for Your Guns
[Photo: Knight’s Armament Company]
Between Nathan and myself, Danger Room spent two months on the ground in Afghanistan. Here's a roundup of what I saw on my trip.
Shootouts, Pot Fields and Spy Drones: Danger Room in Afghanistan
[Photo: Noah Shachtman]
200 miles northeast of Anchorage, there's a massive military facility tucked deep in the black pine. What goes on at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (Haarp) depends on who you ask. Self-directed "researchers" say the collection of transmitters and receivers is conducting secret tests of monstrous weapons: mind control, weather manipulation, long-distance spying. The military scientists in charge of this military installation insist that Haarp has absolutely no direct military applications whatsoever. Last year, I got a rare chance to see Haarp for myself. In 2009, I finally got to report on what I found.
Gallery: Inside Alaska’s Answer to Area 51
[Photo: João Canziani]
