helicopters ?

[lightenmyload.livejournal.com]

anyone have an idea why there have been helicopters circling overhead for the past hour ?  i'd guestimate they're (it's ?)  flying across the whole city, not just this neighborhood.

Comments

[lightenmyload.livejournal.com]

sez the somerville police dept: it's the staties, "looking for someone".

hoookay....

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Curious.

Focus appeared to be

[mem-winterhill.livejournal.com]

a house on Main St. in Medford, quite near the Somerville line.

Lots of cops, entered a house on the north side of the street. WBZ-TV was there with the satellite truck, but no coverage that I saw on 11pm news.

Still don't know whats up.

[rifmeister.livejournal.com]

Could this be the reason? (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2007/12/08/mission-accomplished-helicopter-rides-at-harvard/)

[kpht.livejournal.com]

lol @ "nobody threw up"

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

My ex had a bunch of ROTC kids on a Chinook ride not too long ago. They ran out of airsick bags and the kiddies were still throwing up. Apparently, it was gruesome.

I laughed when I heard about it.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

WBZ is reporting they caught someone last night shining a laser at a State Police helicopter around here.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/12/09/medford_man_faces_possible_charges_after_laser_pointing/

[ron_newman]

Wow. Can someone actually hurt a pilot with one of these little toys?

[maelithil.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming it wasn't the laser pointer itself they were afraid of, but rather the possibility that it was attached to a rifle.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Irrelevant. How is the pilot to know it's not a laser gunsight? That is in fact what he should assume, and he should act accordingly. As far as I'm concerned, it should be prosecuted just the same as if he had pointed a gun.

[ron_newman]

I thought the concern here was whether the laser pointer might blind the pilot (temporarily or otherwise). Are they strong enough to do that?

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Yep. Google "Green Laser" for more info. You can buy affordable handheld versions that'll burn holes paper or skin (eventually). Wicked Lasers has a military/police version that's designed to blind the target, and the retail is only $600... and that's not their most powerful or expensive model.

You don't want to distract pilots during landing, and the laser can either light up the cockpit or actually damage the retina of the pilot or co-pilot. That's setting aside the idea that you're using it to paint the target so that you can hit it with a laser guided missile.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

This was probably not the popular red lasers you see everywhere, but a more powerful and more expensive green laser. They are sold for astronomy buffs to point out objects in the sky. The beam doesn't diverge as much as a toy laser pointer does, and the concern is that it could dazzle a pilot and cause an accident.

There's been a few such incidents in the news over the past few years. One was in NJ near Teterboro.