Sweeping Stun Guns to Target Crowds

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

john

www.newscientist.com...

Seems like a hoax to me. Why would a defense contractor need a "free hosting" website? www.xtremeads.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What I find interesting is that one of these guns can stop vehicles.

As usual in my case, the technology is completely lost on me.

From some of the comments here, I assume this is some sort of a joke, right?
The folk at Shashdot certainly seem to think think so.

slashdot.org...

Well I'm going to call BS on this one. Who ever wrote this story needed to to check it out a bit before they sent it out to be published. First that website looks like it was made by a 6 year old. That gun looks like it came out of a custom car paint shop and got a coat of army green. But let's get down to the nitty gritty here:

Supposedly the story goes:

"The $750,000 contract to develop a family of prototypes for XADS�s �StunStrike�� system comes on the heels of an earlier $100,000 Department of Defense contract to show the feasibility of the innovative new weapon. This original SBIR contract was also matched by a $100,000 grant from the State of Indiana�s 21st Century Research and Technology Fund, bringing to $950,000 the amount XADS has been awarded in R&D funds. The State grant will be used to commercialize the StunStrike� product line by helping pay expenses beyond the parameters of the SBIR contract."

www.insideindianabusiness.com...

But where's the product? The phone business number they give used to belong to Geneva Jenratte, (765) 641-9865, 3021 Nichol Ave, Anderson, IN 46011 and now the number has a new owner. Why would a company that has been in business (as far as I can tell) since Nov. 24, 1997 not have a stable phone number. Why would a company who has almost 1 million in funding be hosted on a free website, and have a web site that is as unprofessional as it gets. None of the addresses or the company name match anything in the better business burrow's records. I would be surprised if they even have a business license. The e-mail addresses they list are free e-mail sites. Their company information on whois (that's provided they did not give false information) is as following:

Registrant:
Xtreme Ads
602 S Clinton St
Alexandria, IN 46001-2418
US

Domain Name: XTREMEADS.COM

Administrative Contact:
Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems
Pete Bitar
1508 E. 7th St.
Anderson, IN 46012
US
765-641-9865
[email protected]

Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Xtreme Ads
Pete Bitar
602 S Clinton St
Alexandria, IN 46001-2418
US
[email protected]

Domain created on 24-Nov-1997
Domain expires on 23-Nov-2004
Last updated on 05-Dec-2003

If the part of this about the funding is true I'd be willing to bet they are half way to mexico half cocked with a cool million in their pocket and all they had to do was spends 5 minutes on a website and have a big ole pvc pipe painted with a spark plug glued on the front. Well you know where my money is at on this one.



[edit on 17-6-2004 by J0HNSmith]

johnsmith,

I don't know, NewScientist is a fairly well respected British science magazine... that article doesn't seem fake to me.

Also, the companies it mentioned aren't offering this to the public... I think they mentioned police departments, only, next fall.

This has already been discussed here TODAY. www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by onlyinmydreams
johnsmith,

I don't know, NewScientist is a fairly well respected British science magazine... that article doesn't seem fake to me.

Also, the companies it mentioned aren't offering this to the public... I think they mentioned police departments, only, next fall.

Well in light of the facts I pointed out it seems like someone scammed a bunch of money for a fake weapon to be made. There isn't a way to verify anything else without going to the addresses listed. The phone number is a fake, and I'm willing to bet at least 1 of those addresses is a PO Box. The 2 addresses that they list are 11 miles apart. I think British science magazine didn't do their homework so you might want to take their reputation down a notch. Unless someone can put some more light on it.

I live in Anderson, IN, am a senior at Anderson University, and just did an internship with XADS helping to write a couple of SBIR proposals. I can confirm that it's a real company, the technology is real and nobody is running away to Mexico. I've held and fired the same CQ StunStrike shown in that picture and can confirm that it works. It looks a bit strange because it's a prototype--They've got a newer prototype now that's about half the size, and they will probably continue shrinking it as small as they can manage.

XADS' website isn't very impressive because the people they're currently dealing with--The USMC, DARPA, etc--Don't really care about the XADS website, and since the website is such a low priority and everyone in the company is overworked as it is, not to mention underexperienced in web design, they haven't had a chance to make it better. Once the company gets enough funding to really get on its feet (there are so many expenses involved here that even the VP is part-time at the moment), the website will get much better. You should be hearing a lot more about this in the next few years.

Ok KDW, what's their phone number? Offer up something that at least hints it's real. As far as the website is concerned if you have a million bucks $150 isn't a whole lot to shell out for a half way decent web site.

Have you tried the phone number you posted earlier, the one from xtremeads.com's WHOIS info? It looks correct to me. There has been a lot of moving around lately, so that might account for the new phone number. The Anderson address is right, too, I've been there. The Alexandria one might be a PO Box or it might not, I've never been to that one.

The issue with the website is not only funding, it's also time and energy. Nobody in the company has the time or inclination to put into a big website right now. The people who need to believe in the company have seen the technology with their own eyes and don't need the website to prove it to them. XADS will have a better website when it becomes a priority, but right now, there are too many other, more important things to focus on.

Also, it's hard to "scam" SBIR money. You have to submit a 20-page proposal with detailed technical information, which is then reviewed by a board of experts. If the proposal was found to be infeasible or incomplete, XADS wouldn't have gotten the contract.

well if this s true , thats some scary stuff
What if Maffia's got hold of these guns and so forth.
Scary