SHOCKING: A 1997 episode of the cartoon “Pokemon” gave hundred of viewers epilepsy-type symptoms. (
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The US military explored the idea of building a seizure inducing ray gun — inspired by an infamous episode of “Pokémon.”
The existence of the secret-weapon plan was revealed in a recently declassified Army National Ground Intelligence Center analysis which describes a device that would blast the enemy with “electromagnetic pulses,” which would cause a “disruption of voluntary muscle control,” a k a seizures.
Work began on the weapon shortly after a 1997 episode of the cartoon “Pokémon” which caused about 700 viewers of the show in Japan to experience symptoms of epilepsy — primarily vomiting — because of the show’s rapid flashing lights, the report said.
The incident was widely reported and even became the basis of an episodes of “The Simpsons” in 1999 called “30 Minutes over Tokyo.”
In the episode, the Simpson family travels to Tokyo, where they see a show called “Battle Seizure Robots” on their hotel room television, which causes them to start convulsing on the floor.
The episode of “The Simpsons” garnered so much bad p.r. that it was never actually shown in Japan — which was one of the reasons the Army’s seizure-gun never went much beyond the theoretical stage.
The military researchers believed that by increasing the intensity of the pulses and aiming it directly at an enemy, the weapon could be effective “hundreds of miles away” and work on “100% of the population” it was aimed at.
According to the analysis, first reported yesterday by the tech magazine Wired, the world had changed to the point where “you don’t win [a war] unless CNN says you win,” the report said.
News of a Pokémon-inspired “seizure gun” was part of a bigger report on non-lethal weapons the military had been working on.