Laser-Induced Plasma Effect (LIPE)
The Laser-Induced Plasma Effect (LIPE) is a Pentagon Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) program, running for over a decade, that uses a two-step femtosecond-laser system to create and then heat plasma balls in air — used for crowd-control and voice-simulation effects. The U.S. Navy separately holds patents (e.g. US20200041236A1) on laser-induced plasma filaments for counter-directed-energy applications, projectable up to hundreds of meters, with tunable wavelengths and steerable 3D geometry that can mimic hypersonic, non-aerodynamic motion.
UAP Relevance
avi-loeb, writing for the uap-science-advisory-council, proposed LIPE and Navy laser-plasma-filament technology as a conventional-physics candidate explanation for a subset of reported UAP orbs, particularly Navy FLIR footage near military testing ranges — since the plasma is not a physical object, it can appear to move at supersonic speed with no sonic boom. Two key limitations: documented projection range (hundreds of meters) falls well short of the tens-of-kilometers distances reported for many UAP orbs, and the earliest Navy UAP footage (2004) predates the technology’s publicly documented maturity. Loeb concludes it cannot explain jon-kosloski’s June 2026 aaro report of an orange “mother orb” persisting for hours while launching red orblets — sustained ionization at that duration would require implausible continuous power. tim-gallaudet likewise sees no conventional explanation for that case. See the companion hypothesis, ball-lightning.