Psychotronic Weapons

Psychotronic Weapons are a theoretical class of electromagnetic weapons, described in Soviet science journals, designed to influence or degrade human behavior and cognition. The term emerged from the Soviet nomenclature around ESP and Psychokinesis, which was rewritten to sound technical and sever ties with the occult past of Parapsychology.¹

These weapons were described as involving "the generation of high-penetrating emission of non-biological origin." U.S. intelligence analysts were initially baffled by the concept, but later understood that these weapons were part of a broader Soviet effort to explore the psycho-physiological effects of microwave emissions, stemming from captured Ahnenerbe research.¹

In the Soviet laboratories, if ESP and long-distance telepathic communications were proven to be scientific fact, they would be classified as augmented perception and cognition in humans. Electromagnetic weapons, which are designed to degrade or destroy perception and cognition in humans, would be useful countermeasures. The Moscow Signal, a microwave beam aimed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, was suspected by the U.S. to be an early form of such a weapon.¹