LOS ANGELES, California - Unarmed security guards deterred a gang of pirates this Thursday, delivering earsplitting shrieks in their direction when they attempted to board a ship off the coast of Africa, said a spokesman for Kathie Lee Festival Tours.
The company had previously installed a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, on fantasy cruise ship Vindication as part of its defense systems, said a spokesman for the luxury tour line. The devices have been deployed on commercial and naval vessels worldwide since summer of 2003 with mixed results, the company said.
Vindication was about 150 miles off the Somalia coast when a skiff full of pirates wielding rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns was spotted approaching the ship.
Idol Technology Corp. said at that point, security personnel used an LRAD to direct intense, 150-decibel "sonic booms" toward the pirates - who fired rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s at the device, narrowly missing it and several nearby guards who leaped from the deck and into the Gulf of Aden.
The captain quickly altered the ship's course as one remaining guard rushed bravely toward the LRAD and hurriedly loaded some of his favorite eTunes.
Using the 45-pound, dish-shaped device, he blasted the pirates with concentrated beams of Motörhead and the Ramones aimed directly at the approaching skiff, which the pirates actually seemed to enjoy - they began to mosh and bang their heads, then retrieved fresh rum and passed it around, laughing and high-fiving as they swilled heartily from the bottle, according to one witness.
Frantically, the guard skipped to America's Got Idols castoff Siobhan Magnus interpretation of Shania Twain's Any Man of Mine, directing several earsplitting shrieks at the pirates in a tight beam; Idol Technology Corp., based in Los Angeles, compared the piercing screams to those of a woman giving birth, only much louder.
The skiff's crew immediately dropped their weapons, covering their ears as they fled, heading out into the open sea at high speed.
Once the guard had determined that the pirates were at a safe distance, the fearless hero breathed a sigh of relief.
Hoping to soothe the cruise ship's agitated occupants, he repositioned the device and reset the dial to 70 decibels, selecting Magnus' take on the Beatles' Nothing's Gonna Change My World - which had the unintended effect of lulling the ship's entire crew and its passengers into a peaceful slumber.
After the crew failed to respond to several urgent requests to update the ship's location, an emergency rescue team was finally dispatched to awaken the drifting ship's captain, who directly set the cruise ship back on course without further mishap.
"Hey!! Where the hell do you think you're going? Come back here!" shouted the forgotten security guards, still treading water 150 miles off the coast of Africa.
