As a rule of thumb, when you hear about military technology publicized in a public forum, then that means that it has already been in use by the military for at least 10 years. An example is the 2005 project of Northrop Grumman, the RQ-180 spy drone.
It’s been 18 years since the RQ-180 project began, and we’re only now just hearing about it.
A story just broke (Neurostrike weapon) about the use of directed energy weapons by China, beaming microwaves into people’s brains. Following the rule of thumb, that means that directed energy weapons have been used against world leaders and dissident citizens from at least 2013.
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Attribution: I, Tony Wills, CC BY 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons
An exploratory study in 2022 revealed that military technology was emergent (never seen before) technology from 1996 to 2008, so a more likely beginning of the use of directed energy weapons against unsuspecting people would go back to at least 2008.
Back in 2016, Havana Syndrome hit US officials in Cuba, and the list of worldwide officials suspected of being hit by these weapons keeps growing.
We need strict oversight of the use of electromagnetic beams as weapons.