LONDON - Scientists are questioning the safety of a "Star Wars"-style ray gun due to be deployed in Iraq for riot control next year.

The Active Denial System weapon, classified as “less lethal” by the Pentagon, fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds.

The idea is that people caught in the beam will rapidly try to move out of it and therefore break up the crowd

But New Scientist magazine reported Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes.

95 GHz? Damn... In free space, that frequency has a wavelength of 0.31 cm. A wavelength of 23 cm (60x longer @ ~1.3GHz) would be considered to be microwave. This seems very reminiscent of the MASER, a technology which predated LASERs later invented by Bell Labs in the late 50s.