Use of a “sonic weapon” in the overnight capture of a country’s leader might sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but experts confirm that sort of technology exists.
U.S. military use of sound as a non-lethal weapon “is credible” and “has been demonstrated,” according to Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation who focuses on naval warfare and advanced technology.
Following the U.S. military operation in Venezuela to capture socialist leader Nicolás Maduro, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a post on X describing what an alleged Venezuelan security guard said was “a very intense sound wave” deployed by the U.S. military during the operation.
“Suddenly, I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move,” according to the account initially posted by political activist Mike Netter and reposted by Leavitt.
“We had no way to compete with their technology, with their weapons,” the security guard continued. “I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon or whatever it was.”
About three decades ago, the U.S. established the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the then-Department of Defense, which President Donald Trump renamed the Department of War in 2025. The initiative was re-designated in 2020 as the Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office.
The development and use of non-lethal weapons “enables U.S. and allied forces to deliver accurate, tailorable, and compelling effects in complex and ambiguous scenarios while preventing unintended escalation of hostilities, unnecessary loss of life, or destruction of critical infrastructure,” according to the Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office.
The original intent of the initiative was the development of non-lethal weapons for “operations such as peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance,” the government office says, adding that now there is a need for such weapons “in irregular warfare operations such as counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, stability operations, and counter-piracy.”
Retired Marine Corps Col. Mark F. Cancian says he has not heard of a weapon that matches the description of the one portrayed in the account Leavitt shared. However, the U.S. military does use a device called a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD.
The device is a bit like a megaphone that “focuses all of its audio in a very tight cone,” Cancian, who now serves as a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says.
“It sounds like the voice of God. It is very loud,” Cancian said. “And I can imagine that if you cranked up the volume, you could have effects on people … perhaps some disruption in their functions.”
The U.S. military has also used “flashbangs” for years, Cancian explained. A “flashbang grenade” is a non-lethal device that shines a very bright light and makes a loud noise.
In the roughly 15 years since Cancian worked at the Pentagon, he says it is possible new technologies similar to an LRAD or “flashbang grenade” have been developed.
The Pentagon declined to comment on reports of the use of a non-lethal sound weapon in Venezuela.
The use of lights and sounds as “non-lethal options” has “matured a lot over the years, but they haven’t really been deployed at scale,” Sadler said. “So, the fact that the special forces might have used these is interesting,” he noted of the Jan. 3 operation in Venezuela.
The use of something like a high sound frequency provides a distraction and “buys your special operators seconds to make critical decisions,” Sadler said.
Of the U.S. non-lethal sound weapons he knows, Sadler said they are intended to be “reversible” in their effect, and once the sound is turned off or a person gets away from it, “there’s no lasting impact.”
