(02-08-2023, 08:49 AM)BIAD Wrote: That always puzzled me. At Roswell in 1947, it was suggested the object that came down was the result of
mobile radar-testing and as you said, in the movie too the craft were disabled by radar technology mounted
on trucks.
What is it with radar that can have such an effect?
(Fantastic movie, by the way!)
Radar is just microwaves focused into a beam by a parabolic reflector - the same principle that focuses light into a beam in a flashlight or torch, but the microwaves are invisible to human sight. So, whatever a microwave can do, a radar beam can do, too, with sufficient motivation. I once saw a radar installation with a beam that was powerful enough to flash-fry birds that flew through the beam up to a certain distance from the antenna, within about 100 or 150 yards.
Ever leave a metal fork, or a patch of tinfoil, in a microwave oven? I don't recommend it, because it can destroy the oven, but until it does, you get a really pretty show of lightning playing along the metal parts, snapping and sparking, electricity induced in the metal via the microwave energy irradiating it. Gotta wonder what that beam could do to electrical and biological systems that were close enough to the emitter to be affected...
That radiant microwave energy is why microwave ovens have a metallic mesh shield in the door - that reflects the microwave energy back into the oven to cook your food, instead of letting it out into the kitchen to bugger up any pacemakers that may happen to be roaming the kitchen.
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