What Effects Will an EMP Attack Have on Your Body?
Have you ever been curious about what the physical effects of an EMP would be on your body?
Sure, you’re totally familiar about the effects an EMP would have on electronics, but what about on people?
This is a very complex and scientific subject, but we’ll go over it as basically as we can:
Our universe and everything that is within it consists of energy. Cosmic rays that are completely invisible to the human eye are constantly traveling across space from distant areas.
The sun routinely has powerful explosions consisting of charged particles and electromagnetic radiation that race toward the Earth from over ninety million miles away.
We would all be killed by that radiation and charged particles if it were not for the fact that the Earth is protected by a magnetic field that deflects the solar wind and radiation.
This is why the ionosphere exists: to protect the Earth from ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
The nerves in the human body are surrounded by potassium and sodium ions. These ions interact with one another through membranes in the nerve, which cause neurons to release chemicals and the body to respond.
This movement of neurons is fully electrical and is the result of chemical interaction. The signals between neurons are chemically passed not electrically passed.
If we were exposed to solar winds and radiation from the sun, it would interfere with those neurons, negatively affect our metabolism, and kill us. Fortunately, we are not exposed to that radiation because of the ionosphere.
So, what does all of this have to do with an EMP? Well, an EMP going off would be significantly less dangerous to the human body than the radiation from the sun.
Granted, an abundance of scientific research has shown that a strong enough EMP will have a huge effect on the cognitive strength of the left side of the brain. The EMP will short circuit the logical circuity because it interferes with the neurons.
But the thing is: it’s heavily unlikely that an EMP detonated in our atmosphere would be strong enough to interfere with your brain like that, even if it’s strong enough to take out the entire power grid from coast to coast.
All in all, the human body is capable of withstanding a 100 kV/m EMP (the amount that would be given off by a small nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere) without feeling anything, so it will take a significantly higher spike in order to affect the human body.
It’s also been tested and confirmed that an EMP going off at 25 kV/m has literally no effect on the human body whatsoever.
To put this into perspective: when people are near an earthquake, they can feel sick and disoriented from the electromagnetic fields that are produced by the moving of the Earth.
Microwave radiation and radar can also literally burn human flesh, so a strong enough magnetic field can too.
This means that a short pulse EMP would pass through your body with literally no effect whatsoever, but a stronger pulse EMP higher than 100 kV/m would damage you and cause you to feel dizzy and disoriented and maybe even burn your skin.
So, just to summarize: will an EMP damage you physically? It’s entirely dependent on the strength of the EMP and your proximity to it.
If one was to be detonated two hundred and fifty miles above the atmosphere, the chances are that you wouldn’t be affected by it at all. At the very worst, you *might* feel a little physically ill or dizzy/disoriented for a temporary period of time.
The truth is that because an electromagnetic pulse will pass through you so quickly, the current cannot begin to flow through your body to inflict harm. This is why an EMP is far less dangerous to the human body than a powerful solar storm from the sun.