A Crane whistleblower said the U.S. Navy retaliated against her after she refused to sign off on testing that would have subjected sailors to laser pulses that could have left them blind.
Glenanne Johnson, an engineer with weapons expertise, worked as a civilian at the southern Indiana base.
Johnson said the Navy in 2012 wanted to fire a commercial laser at sailors in boats at the Lake Glendora Test Facility, about an hour’s drive northwest of Crane.
She said the Navy asked her to sign off on the test even though the agency failed to notify the sailors about the testing, failed to give them physicals or eye protection and failed to notify an ombudsman, a step the U.S. military requires for any human testing to make sure service members are aware of the risks and give their consent.
“They had done none of that, so I told them, ‘No,’” Johnson said. “They weren’t even doing basic things.”
A laser expert said in November that depending on the testing setup and wavelength of the laser the Navy wanted to use, the sailors could have been exposed to serious eye damage, ranging from blind spots that would prevent people from being able to read to blindness.
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