The term sonic weapon refers to a category of devices that leverage intense, sometimes focused, sometimes dispersed,

sound to annoy, deter, injure, incapacitate, or kill someone.

Most sonic weapons emit a sound that can be heard, at least within a very narrow area.

But others are technically ultrasonic, in that their effect results from a sound

that is too high in pitch for the human ear to process. The consequences of such weapons,

however, can still be incredibly effective, even when the target doesn't hear the sound

that is harming them. The simplest of these weapons, as tends to be the case,

with many different sorts of weapons, are often the most brute force and powerful. They're

generally devices that blast extremely high-volume sound waves at an enemy, rupturing their

eardrums, causing them severe pain, disorientation, and in some cases, even knocking them

unconscious or killing them.

Like with guns and missiles and nukes, though, the more advanced, more recent applications

for these technologies have involved scaling the effect down to make it more tactical.

Rather than blasting someone to a pulp with sound,

newer sonic weapons are used to make people feel pain without causing physical harm,

or to make those on the business end of the weapon feel nauseous, disoriented,

dizzy, or uncomfortable in some way that they can't quite explain,

all without actually hurting the person beyond experiencing

that sensation. The use cases that have emerged from some of these scaled down weapons include

burglars deterrence that use high amplitude sounds to basically make burglars feel so uncomfortable

with increasing consistently growing pain in their ears that they go away.

We've also seen longer-range versions of these devices used on the high seas to blast pirates

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