Imagine! - A World of Drone Wars, Weather Weapons and Nano-Tech Spies

Imagine a world where a silent Reaper drone flies overhead in the darkness high above some foreign land. It's pilot sitting comfortably in daylight some many thousands of miles away in Hancock Air Base near Syracuse in front of his monitor, watching that foreign land drift by from high above in infrared. The target acquired a squeeze on his PlayStation trigger releases a small pod from beneath the Reaper which falls rapidly then is slowed by the deployment of a small black parachute. The pod drifts to the ground outside the target town and on hitting the dirt splits open. A swarm of tiny bio-nan insects burst out from the pod; a merging of nano-tech machine and biological Bee.

The swarm immediately appear on the pilots distant monitor and he reaches for the control that will direct them to their target deep inside the town. His monitor now displays the lead nanoBee's image of the world in addition to that from the Reaper drone, allowing him to maneuver the Bees through the dark streets of the town to a small house behind high compound walls. A group of people out walking notice the insects flying by but think nothing of it. Meanwhile packed in the nanoBees pollen sacks is a pheromone virus programmed to illicit a specific set of behaviors within what will soon be their human hosts.

The swarm splits into multiple groups and quickly finds multiple entry points into the house and via heat signatures visible from the Reaper drones surveillance cameras the remote pilot sends them into close proximity to the human targets. When within 3 feet of the target the nanoBees release their invisible payload into the air and quickly depart the scene.

The targets start to argue and quarrel among themselves. Voices are raised, guns are raised... they shoot each other!

You might think this is a nice science fiction story, or at least the beginnings of one, but its not! It's highly probable that this kind of thing is happening right now in Pakistan or Yemen or anywhere else that the CIA and US Government decide that they want to carry out their 'War on Terror'. We have all heard about the Reapers and the guided bombs, the 'targeted killings' or assassinations carried out using drones in and over supposedly sovereign nations. But they are pretty indiscriminate, lead to lots of bad press when civilians become 'collateral damage'. But the only story we would hear, if we heard one at all, would be of terrorists killing each other given the above scenario. What if the payload was something more sinister, a nano-tech virus that killed perhaps or just some plain old chemical or biological weaponry?

Scary science-fiction?, conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo? well believe me these nanoBees or 'cyborg insects' actually do exist and have already been used for surveillance, possibly a lot more. I know, I have seen them.

As far back as the 70's the CIA was developing micro-UAVs in the form of Dragonflies - see this 2007 Wired article for more info. Micro-UAVs and bio-nan Hi-MEMS have become increasingly sophisticated over the last 40 years. They are a here and now reality in 2011 and in use in the AFPAK theater among other places, including for domestic surveillance.

Well my post of yesterday must have touched a nerve as today I lost my job, out-of-the-blue! No way I can prove they were related but I'm expecting the disruptive patterns I unleashed with my first nano-tech/scalar weapons post - and no doubt this follow-up too - to get worse before they get better.

I'll keep you posted on any further developments and stay tuned for more on this fascinating and clearly sensitive subject!

In the meantime check out Killer Drones Take The Place of War on Truthout