Recently, CBS news correspondent David Martin agreed to get zapped with the Pentagon's new ray gun during a "60 Minutes" segment.
From a half a mile away, the invisible, silent ray had Martin retreating after only a few seconds of exposure.
Pentagon officials have said the ray gun (called the Active Denial System) will be ready for field use as early as this summer, and many experts are calling for it to be deployed to Iraq.
They believe it can be an invaluable tool there - cutting down on unnecessary fatalities and giving troops a means of controlling unruly crowds.
Martin described the feeling of the ray as similar to being doused with scalding hot water.
It moves easily through thick layers of clothing, and Martin actually had to hold a mattress in front of him to dull the effects even slightly - and that was with the gun positioned nearly 900 yards away.
While referred to as a "gun", the device is actually a rectangular dish that emits a 100,000-watt beam at the speed of light.
The dish is attached to a vehicle, and an operator inside uses a controller to hone in on a target and fire.
The ray can only be seen with an infrared camera, and anyone that it hits feels a rush of extreme heat that is unbearable for more than a few seconds.
But what differentiates the device from other weapons of war is the fact that no real harm is done.
Once a person moves out of the beam's path, any pain quickly subsides.
According to the Pentagon, the beam only penetrates 1/64 of an inch of a person's skin.
Well that isn't enough to cause any permanent damage, it is enough to reach a person's nerve endings and make them want to escape the ray as quickly as possible.
Pentagon officials think the ray could be useful in determining whether individuals are a real threat to safety.
They reason that, since the ray creates such a strong impulse to get out of the way, anyone willing to withstand the pain would really mean business.
But the gun has never actually been used in a hostile situation, so officials don't know for sure how people will react - though they have done a lot of testing to get an idea.
Since they began developing the technology ten years ago, the ray gun has been tested over 11,000 times.
After tweaks and reworks, it has now been cleared for full-power use on all parts of the body.
And the most any person has been able to stand the beam in a test is five seconds (Martin was only able to bear three).
Despite the perceived advantages of having the weapon in dangerous areas like Iraq, where soldiers often can't differentiate between groups of angry civilians and those who actually intend harm, the ray gun remains controversial.
A lot of that has to do with the bad PR American soldiers have received for employing methods of torture at prisons like Abu Ghraib.
Certainly the "60 Minutes" video of the military testing the ray on fake-protesters holding anti-war signs (with messages such as "Love For All" and "Peace Not War") did little to relieve suspicion about the weapon's potential for abuse.
But the device also has faced bias from the armed forces, where non-fatal weapons haven't historically garnered much interest.
Of the annual $475 billion defense budget, only a little over $13 million was spent to develop the ray gun this year.
Regardless of the reasoning, for the time being, the future of the ray gun remains uncertain.