Jammonious can either get serious here, or not. If the discussion continues in this vein, I won't participate.
What would be fun though is to compute the energy any DEW would require to do this from orbit. While we are there, we can compute how far away the "shine" from that event would set paper alight.
And we need to consider what wavelength or type of particle beam would work.
Now, forget proton, or electron beams; Even if you used a laser to open up a near vacuum ahead of them, the earth magnetic field would not allow the beam to use that path and it would be near-impossible to aim them.
Neutrons we can rule out because at that intensity nucleosynthesis would be easily detected in a very large radioactivity signature.
We can rule out neutrinos and other exotic particles for similar reasons and because it would take the energies of a small star to make them in the required quantities.
So, we are left with lasers and masers.
Now, the atmosphere absorbs many frequencies, which is why astronomers are so very keen to have orbiting telescopes. Here is a diagram of that;
So, UV is out, as are all but FAR X-rays.
We think know how to make an X-ray laser; It involves a thermonuclear detonation to pump the laser for a single shot (the device does not survive) but the one and only test was not a stunning success, and the device did not produce far X-rays.
Gamma rays? OK, maybe. How to make them in a beam like that of laser-like intensity. Plus with 15-20% of them taken up by the atmosphere, there would be a column of glowing, heated gas POINTING to the source like a finger.
The same objection, the glowing finger of air, applies to most IR wavelengths except for very near IR and one window. So, OK, if you can make an IR laser that operates in that window, maybe.
Visible light? Ruled out by our being able to just plain SEE it.
Now radio. A beamed RF pulse? Remember that all electronic devices contain diodes and all of them pick up frequencies that they were not designed for and rectify those frequencies into a pulsed DC current. We deal with that in electronics either by those effects being so small as to be subliminal or by passive filters and chokes and zener diodes to ground pulses or active filtering in one or more stages. Lightning causes a pulse like this that most nearby electronics just cannot easily deal with. Lightning protection and building entry systems in particular are nearly a black art; I worked with lightning protection guys for years at Cook Electric, where the gas tube was invented. they were always making something catch fire in their simulated lighting pulses in their lab; It was fun.
In this case, we can rule out an RF pulse by the lack of effects on electronics. We have electronic cameras, some quite close aboard, which observed both collapses, and in none of them did we see failures or ever a few messed up frames as would have been the case had an RF weapon been used.
SO, we are left with IR pulses in the two windows, very near IR and one other, that the atmosphere does not absorb significantly. The same windows ground-based IR astronomy uses.
Now, we CAN rule out the near IR; All electronic cameras are sensitive to near IR. They have optical filters to keep that light away from the sensor, but if there is ENOUGH near IR, the camera would detect it, and it did not.
Now, what about the IR windows;
We have high transmissivity windows at 1.1-14. microns, 1.5-1.8 microns, 2.0-2.4 microns, and 3.5-4.0 microns. At all other wavelengths there would be significant atmospheric absorption and heating. In fact none of these are as clear as the optical wavelengths.
We have dealt with the near IR - sensor chips will respond easily even to the 2.0-2.4 micron window if the signal is bright enough. This is where the IR acts mostly like heat, and we use that fact in heat-seeking missiles, sensors for firefighters, non-contact thermometers, and passive night vision devices. And people nearby would have felt the heat pulse on their skin!
So, we are left with the 3.5-4.0 micron window. Now, Mr skinny can chime in here; What sort of laser would that have to be? I am out of my depth there.
But we are also left with the problem that the "shine" from the event would have been immense; Paper in NJ would have flashed into flame if exposed to enough energy to have "dustified" the steel of the towers.
So, sorry, Judy, I just ruled out your fair tale...
