Freeze Kim Jong Il!

The Army is working on a paralysis beam:

The U.S. Army is working on a modified 7.5-million-candlepower strobe light in hopes of creating a paralysis beam.

Although details are sketchy, it appears that U.S. government acquisition records call for contractor Peak Systems to ...

"...design and fabricate a light-based immobilisation system/deterrent device and integrate it with an unmanned aerial system. This will include any necessary medical research on frequency and amplitude modulation of high-intensity light that will cause immobilisation to all those within the beam."

The Peak Beam Systems device can apparently be pulsed with a strobe effect that has some effect on the human nervous system. The Maxa Beam shown above has quite a range, too. It can illuminate targets as far as 1.5 miles away.

The Maxa Beam is small enough to be hand-held, which is a vital factor in the US Army's selection of the device. The ultimate goal is to mount the device on a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for crowd-control...

This device also may remind fans of classic Star Trek of a device that appeared in the 1965 episode Dagger of the Mind - the neural neutralizer.

Take this all with a grain of salt, since the author can't even get his Star Trek right.

The neural neutralizer was more of a mind eraser than a paralysis beam (and before you ask yes, I do recall that the Klingon mind sifter was more of a mind ripper than a sifter).

Oh - and Dagger of the Mind was first broadcast in 1966.

To be honest, my mind ran more to the belt devices worn by the Kelvans in 'By Any Other Name.' Although some may differ, I would almost entirely discount the simple magic wands used by Sylvia and Korob in 'Catspaw,' since I regard obvious halloween episodes as virtually out of the canon...

Still, cool device.