Did Byron Sonne Intend to Attack Aircraft With Energy Weapon?

An anonymous commenter on a Toronto Life blog post claimed that Byron Sonne was eager to complete his microwave waveguide gun or HERF Ray and joked about pointing it aircraft flying overhead to see what it would do. If such an energy weapon actually worked like Sonne imagined it would, the results of course, could have been catastrophic and deadly. The commenter lamented that he should have turned him in to the police for that statement.

Above is a photo of the microwave gun Sonne attempted to build. The photo is a screenshot of a photo from his Flickr account, captured shortly after Sonne’s arrest on charges of explosives possession in 2010. The weapon was assembled in the garage of the home where Sonne and his now ex-wife were living- a home purchased for them by Kristen Petersen’s parents. Instead of working for a living, Sonne agitated against the government and built anarchist-inspired weaponry, which is a great way to explain why Petersen divorced him while he was in jail awaiting trial.

Of course the HERF gun would not actually work, but Sonne’s comments were ominous. From the comments section of TorontoLife here:

I’ve known him indirectly for a long time and I read his blog. He was playing around with building a microwave death ray that actually looked plausible (and I am technically literate) and suggested at one point that it would be really cool if he could use it to take out the electronic controls of airplanes flying by. I almost reported him to the police at that point. I don’t find it surprising at all that that law enforcement felt that there was good reason to search his home.

November 8, 2011 at 5:13 pm | by jal

Of course Digimer, AKA Madison Kelly, quickly jumped on the blog post to cast doubts on the comments and on the author of the blog post, including threats to sue the author for defamation. You can continue reading the comments on that blog post to see my response to her.