Bin Laden can run, but he can't hide
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http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/international/22DETE.html

New Sensors Report, 'I Know They're in There, I Can See Them Breathing'

November 22, 2001

THE HUNT
New Sensors Report, 'I Know They're in There, I Can See Them Breathing'
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

merican forces seeking the hide- outs of Osama bin Laden are being
equipped with sophisticated new technology — an array of sensors — that
can pierce darkness, bad weather and as much as 100 feet of solid rock,
homing in on heat, magnetic fields, vibrations and other faint cues.
The devices, borne by aircraft, towed behind vehicles or carried by
soldiers, can sense slight traces of heat on a cold mountainside, the hum
of a buried generator, the magnetic signals from electrical wires.
Some of the sensors did not exist just a decade ago, while others have had
their accuracy greatly improved in recent years by the same digital
revolution that has drastically increased the power of video recorders and
computers. The devices were described by government officials and
scientists who spoke on the condition of anonymity because many aspects of
the technologies are classified.
The sophisticated surveillance equipment could be particularly valuable,
government officials say, now that the fast-moving military campaign in
Afghanistan has forced leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to shun radios
and mobile phones, which had been routinely intercepted by electronic
sensors on American spy planes.
As it happens, the heat-sensing devices will work with increasing
efficiency as cold weather tightens its grip in the region. Scientists who
helped develop the equipment say the slightest hint of warm air escaping
from a tunnel or cave will stand out like a beacon from miles away.
"As it gets colder the caves are going to stay warm," a government
scientist said. "Openings that release that air are going to be seen as a
hot spot."
Some heat-sensing devices used on American warplanes, unmanned spy planes
and scouting vehicles can discern variations in temperature as far as 30
miles away, at a resolution fine enough to reveal a parked vehicle in
total darkness.
Lightweight versions of the same kind of device sit atop the gun barrels
of rifles and heavy machine guns, allowing marksmen, in dust or darkness,
to spot a person a mile and a half away and a car four miles away.
The latest versions not only can detect infrared light emanating from a
warm object, but can also decipher details of the chemical composition of
the target from telltale wiggles in the emitted spectrum.
Because of great advances in computer power, "we can analyze the
atmospherics around something, which helps you know what you are really
seeing," said Mike Johnson, a retired rear admiral who is the new
president of Recon/Optical, a company based in Barrington, Ill., that
makes some of the world's most advanced heat-sensing equipment.
For example, the devices can identify the breath of a soldier or
pollutants in the exhaust from a tank.
Scanners developed by the government can detect extremely weak magnetic
fields generated by metal equipment stashed in a tunnel up to 100 feet
underground. Similar equipment can pick up faint fields from wiring, such
as the cables providing lighting to tunnel networks used by Al Qaeda.
Radar that can penetrate the ground and devices that spot underground

voids by detecting slight variations in the earth's gravitational field
have recently been tested by the Air Force.
This array of target-seeking devices goes far beyond the familiar
night-vision goggles, which are standard issue for Special Operations
units and the Marines and are probably in the hands of some Al Qaeda
fighters because they are widely available in overseas weapons bazaars.
Another value of these technologies is that they can help the military
monitor a broad area for hints of activity, and then zoom in for a
detailed picture of a potential target.
"The popular conception seems to be that bin Laden and his 40 thieves are
in the bottom of some deep cavern, and if we can just find the secret
cavern, then the war will be over," said John E. Pike, director of
GlobalSecurity.org, a private group whose Web site reports on advances in
military technology. "But these guys are undoubtedly scattered all over
the place — some in town, some up in the hills, some in houses, others in
tunnels."
The sensing methods have been developed as part of a shift by the Defense
Department toward locating distant targets quickly, so American forces get
the first shot. Using the element of surprise would make it less necessary
to harden the defenses for troops in the field, said Dr. A. Fenner Milton,
the director of the Army's Night Vision and Electronic Sensors
Directorate, in a presentation last year at a conference for military
contractors at Fort Belvoir, Va. The goal, he said, is to "substitute
information for armor."
For several years, the armed forces have been intensifying the search for
ever more sensitive devices. This is what led the Air Force within the
last two years to practice by detecting an underground bunker with a
gravity-measuring instrument at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
and locating old mines in upstate New York using ground- penetrating
radar.
In the meantime, the Marine Corps has been holding informal competitions
in which companies show off their latest night vision or thermal imaging
systems at its Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, Va.
Military officials choose participants by scouring conferences held by the
fast-growing industry developing surveillance and security technology.
One contestant at this year's session was Aerial Films, a company in
Sarasota, Fla., that sells helicopter- mounted camera systems that combine
conventional high-resolution video cameras, night vision devices and
infrared sensors.
Using a telescopic night vision scope and thermal imaging, company
officials consistently spotted marines doing their best to hide in the
blackness, said Ken Sanborn, a founder of the company.
"We were reading their names on their uniforms from 500 yards away," he
said. "We caught one Marine making cell calls."

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

Neat writeup.  The wonders of technology!

ITs to the point that individual soldiers will need BDU-imbedded ECM(Jammers, EMF generators/masking, & cyrogenics in suit to hide body heat).  Damn the battlefield of the future is going to be getting tougher.

Benjamin

Sounds like the same technology that doe was using on me yesterday. It's weird, those deer will sit there and stare at you for minutes all the while snorting and stomping. They know something isn't right, they just don't know what it is. Wouldn't have been so bad if the 10pt and 12pt that didn't notice me hadn't walked up.

Michael

Calm down, the folks that said anything probably got clearance to say this stuff.  On the 6pm news today, L.A.'s KCBS Channel 2 did broadcaste that NASA launched a spy satelite that can easily read the Hollywood sign from outer space.  I think the USA is saying to Bin Laden and a followers is that we are coming to GET you!  Those folks want to meet Abdullah, and now they are going to get their chance.

Chris and Janet Morris wrote it.