From the Hoax Forum: An Indiana company called Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems is developing a stun gun called the StunStrike that it boasts will be able to stun people at a distance, kind of like a taser without the wires. The company president, Pete Bitar, explains that the weapon will fire "a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep." Sounds a little sci-fi, but certainly not implausible. At least until you check out the company's website, and then the credibility meter drops way down. The website looks kind of like something a high school student would slap together for his 'intro to the internet' class, and it's hosted on a free server. So here you have a hi-tech company that evidently hasn't mastered the complexities of html. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Plus, the picture of the weapon looks phony. Posters at Slashdot have been all over this, dubbing the company a 'homeland security scam' and declaring that the weapon doesn't exist. In the company's favor, it has been awarded a small grant from the navy. Plus, they've been written about in the New Scientist. The Slashdot criticism is evidently making the company nervous, because on its website it now announces (in all capital letters) that:
CRITICISM OF THIS WEBSITE OR THE LIMITED INFORMATION UPON WHICH THE CRITICISM IS BASED IS IRRELEVANT AND WILL SOON BE PROVEN SO. PLEASE STAY TUNED.

The company promises a public demonstration of the StunStrike in the Autumn of 2004. So the question is, will the Slashdot people be proven right and the StunStrike turn out to be just smoke and mirrors... or will Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems disprove them and produce a real weapon? Poll below. We should know the answer by the end of the year.