The Soviet Union invested large sums on microwave research. In 1952, the Soviets began directing a microwave beam at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, using embassy workers as guinea pigs for low-level EMR experiments. Discovered in 1962, the Moscow signal was investigated by the CIA, and code-named Project Pandora. There was consensus among Soviet EMR researchers that a beam such as the Moscow signal was destined to produce blurred vision and loss of mental concentration. It was reported that the American ambassador at that time later developed a leukemia-like blood disease and suffered from bleeding eyes and chronic headaches. Under Project Pandora, monkeys were brought into the embassy, exposed to the signal and were found to develop blood composition anomalies and unusual chromosome counts. The CIA used the opportunity to gather data on psychological and biological effects on American personnel. U.S. government turned the job over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) which further developed not only electromagnetic weaponry but also the Internet. It has been suggested that SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) was a cover up for research & development of electromagnetic weapons.
The public was never informed that the military had planned to develop electromagnetic weapons until 1982, when the story appeared in an American technical Air Force magazine. The article stated, "....specifically generated radio-frequency radiation (RFR) fields may pose powerful and revolutionary anti-personnel military trends." The article indicated that it would be very easy to use electromagnetic fields to disrupt the human brain because the brain itself was an electrically mediated organ. "The ability of individuals to function could be degraded to such a point that they would be combat ineffective." Laboratories supposedly worked on the development of "brain bombs", which dropped in the middle of crowds would produce microwaves, incapacitating the minds of everyone within a circumscribed area.