Does the White House Have a Secret Laser Defense? (Updated)



Whitehouse There are all kinds of stories about how the White House is defended. One urban legend says Stinger anti-aircraft missiles are supposedly perched on the roof. According this 1998 report by Human Rights Watch, Pennsylvania Avenue may be protected by a laser weapon, meant to ward off 9/11-style suicide attacks.

*Lasers originally developed for dazzling and blinding *missions are being offered to law enforcement agencies and potentially for commercial sale. In one notable example, a California-based company, Light Solutions, is reportedly developing a dazzling counter-terrorism "green laser" for the Army on behalf of the U.S. Secret Service. A secret "black" program, this laser is intended to defend the White House and other government buildings in Washington from someone who might employ a light plane or helicopter in an attack.

The "green laser" described was developed in conjunction with Darpa and the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory (now part of the Air Force Research Lab). The latest version is the Compact High Power (CHP) Laser Dazzler, described as a 500 Milliwatt, 532nm Green Flashing Laser. As with the WWII dazzling strobelights, the flashing is said to increase effectiveness and produce disorientation in the target. It is effective out to a one-mile range, and has been urgently requested in Iraq as an alternative to lethal means of stopping drivers approaching checkpoints.

We do not know whether the Secret Service had such lasers to protect the White House on 9/11 – or if they have them now. Beyond the 1998
report, there's not much evidence. But we do know that in 2001 the makers were touting a bigger version of their Dazzler to the Navy. It was ten times as powerful as the handheld model, and was suitable for use on ships and other in "area defense" situations.

British had already used a similar weapon, the Laser Dazzle Sight, during the Falkands/Malvinas conflict of 1982. Mounted on Royal Navy frigates, it is reported to have had limited effectiveness against attacking Argentine A4 Skyhawk pilots. The LDS was apparently withdrawn after the 1995 Protocol banning laser blinding weapons.

How effective would it be? Even at five hundred miles an hour, a plane would take seven seconds to traverse the final mile to its target. Assuming the aircraft was picked up and targeted before then, the operator with a high-power dazzler should be able to get an effect more than a mile out. At that speed and over that time, a blind pilot would have a great deal of difficulty striking a particular building. A crashing aircraft is however going to cause a lot of damage anywhere in an urban area.

Meanwhile, the Secret Service is apparently still interested in the cutting edge of strobing dazzle weapons – at least the hand-held, anti-personnel models.

UPDATE: Since 2005, any unauthorized or unidentified aircraft approaching the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in
Washington DC has been targeted by the laser beams of the Visual Warning System.
This shines an alternating red and green laser beam, "designed to provide a clear warning." This is a Class 1 laser which will not dazzle or blind. The VWS is described as being "part of the overall layered defense of our nation’s capitol." Since any potential threat aircraft is clearly being tracked by a laser, it would only take the flick of a switch to engage the sort of protective dazzler described above. Given the minimal extra cost, it would seem crazy for VWS not to be part of a dazzling defense.

UPDATE 2: "I can’t tell a Stinger [missile] from a Bonobo monkey, but there is a missile battery-type apparatus on the roof of one of the nearby office buildings," a friend of Danger Room writes. "It’s visible from points slightly south of the WH itself. It was put up there after September 11, 2001."