Laser vibration analysis is a technique whereby concentrated beams of light are used to measure sound frequencies (that is, vibrations in the air). It is typically employed in industry as a way of diagnosing equipment such as may be found at a manufacturing plant, but lately it’s made a contribution to matters far removed from the usual mundane civilian application.
This unexpected use of laser vibration analysis technologies and methodologies has helped the United States intelligence community score its biggest coup of the entire ten-year Global War on Terror. In something that sounds more like it belongs within the pages of a cloak-and-dagger novel instead of on the front page of the latest morning newspapers, the most wanted man of the decade was located using just this science!
It all came down to sonics, the science of sound — as determined by a most creative application of laser vibration analysis. American officials had already concluded that a VIP (or in national security parlance “HVT” – High-Value Target) was ensconced within a mysterious compound in Pakistan. This shadowy figure never left the grounds of that property in all of five years, suggesting someone who was willing to do anything to stay hidden – an HVT indeed. But was it determined at all that this person truly never went outdoors for years and years?
That’s where the lasers come in. They were aimed at the windows of the buildings in the compound, picking up minute vibrations in the window panes caused by people talking, with specific individuals registers particular frequency ranges (remember, we’re dealing with sound waves here). Correlating this data with first-hand observations of the inhabitants who would come and go, it was a simple matter of matching up the number of voices cataloged with the number of people visually observed – and the numbers did not match up!