Iran touts ‘drug addict radar’

An Iranian scientist claimed this week that he had invented a radar system which can detect drug addicts from nearly a mile away, and measure the level of narcotics flooding their system.

According to the Iranian Mehr news agency, the system was designed to identify explosives and bodies buried under rubble, as well as alcohol and drugs.

Scientist Seyed Ali Hosseini told the news agency on Tuesday that the technology can locate drug addicts from 1,500 meters (0.9 miles away). He said the “radar tracker was designed and built to detect drugs, explosives, bodies alive and dead under the rubble, addictive drugs and alcoholic beverages.”

The system “can be applied by the police, border guards, security agents and during unexpected accidents and disasters,” he added.

The enterprising scientist offered a vague description of the mechanisms involved, saying “the transmitter part consists of radio waves and radio magnets emitting waves across the earth and stimulates elements’ molecular layer and releases their ions.” The receiver, meanwhile, “detects ions as well as the molecular layer, then transfers waves back to the target to detect their essence.” The system then projects the findings on a computer, “which includes the volume, weight and size of the traced elements,” he said.

Scientists from the Islamic Republic have in the past touted other improbable inventions. In April 2013, an Iranian businessman and scientist said he had successfully invented a time machine.

Ali Razeghi, 27, a Tehran-based scientist, businessman and serial inventor, claimed his “Aryayek Time Traveling Machine” can “predict five to eight years of the future life of any individual, with 98 percent accuracy,” according to a report in The Guardian.

Razeghi said that his device, which is about the size of a small computer, uses complex algorithms to “bring the future to you.” He said that governments can use his invention to “prepare itself for challenges that might destabilize it” but that a prototype won’t be launched currently because “the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight.”