INFRA-RED RAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23033, 10 May 1938, Page 14

INFRA-RED RAY

GERMAN FRONTIER USE SEARCHLIGHTS SWITCHED ON [from a special correspondent;} LONDON, April 14 To prevent fugitives from escaping across the frontiers, or from concentration camps, the Germans are experimenting with a now invention which makes use of infra-red rays. When these are broken, powerful searchlights are switched on, and those trying to escape are revealed nt once to the guards. Once tho rays are working in their secret hiding places, escape is impossible. A young German military engineer named Koeller has perfected the scheme, and he is now working on an invention that will turn machine-gun fire on to fugitives without warning. Koeller's new ray is so sensitive that as soon as any living object comes within n radius of 100 yds. it puts on tho searchlights. Experiments have been carried out on several frontier stretches in Western and Eastern Germany. Ten miles of frontier guarded by the rays have proved impenetrable. A dog and even a rat put on the searchlight's. In three concentration camps the rays are focussed on the barbed wire fences. Seven political prisoners who tried to escape from a camp near Berlin were killed by guards, after the ray had -exposed them; The cost of the apparatus and searchlights is still high—about £SOO to £JOOO feir each set of machines—but the military authorities are determined to instal scores of super sets.