“DEATH-RAY” MACHINE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 5 March 1935, Page 6

“DEATH-RAY” MACHINE

KILLS ALL IN ITS PATH. PAINLESS SLAUGHTER. OF SHEEP. From Our Own Correspondent. (By Air Mail). LONDON, Feb. 16. i A new “death-ray” machine is being built in Leicester by a scientist, who claims to have turned the dreams of sensational novelists into fact. The s inventor is Mr R. C. Chadfield, a lec- ; turer at Leicester College of Science. He declares that his machine when ■ completed, will he able to kill painlessly at a distance of a few hundred yards; save farmers thousands of 1 pounds a year hy exterminating pests and determines sex. * Mr Chadfield’s machine is based on his belief that the nervous impulses of all living things are of electrical origin, and they can be killed by rays of different frequencies. Some years ago he demonstrated' a small machine, showing that he could kill flies and other small insects. Now jhe is at work on a five-kilowatt ma;clfme with enormous “ray-power.” I Already Mr Chadfield fonsees the I perils of such an invention in criminal hands. “I am determined to keep proper control of my discovery and 1 to see that it is not used for evil purposes,” he says. “In the wrong hands the ( machine would be capable of incalculable mischief. “A human' being, standing in the path of the ray, would be killed and would not feel it. Ho would first be conscious of a pleasant feeling of warmth. Then he would become unconscious. “Flies and mice killed hy this means have borne no indication as to how they died. “Tho ray could ho used for slaughtering sheep by adjusting the fre- [ quency. There is a different frequency for every living thing, and when most of these have been discovered life will be very much simpler.”] By experimenting with eggs. Mr] Chadfield has discovered that the indicator needle goes to the left in the case of a male and the right in the case of female. He is now trying to adapt the machine to discover the sex of an unborn child.