By Kaanita Iyer, Jim Sciutto, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump said the US used a weapon he referred to as a “discombobulator” to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro this month, but a senior US official said he’s likely conflating tools used by the US military.
“The discombobulator, I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview that published Saturday but added that it “made [enemy] equipment not work” during the capture.
The president may be conflating several capabilities into a single weapon that doesn’t exist, a senior US official told CNN. US forces did use cyber tools to disable early warning and other Venezuelan defense systems during the operation, it also utilized existing acoustic systems to disorient personnel on the ground.
The US military also for years has had a heat ray weapon, called the Active Denial System, which uses directed, pulsed energy. It’s not clear whether that was used as well.
CNN has previously reported that the ADS, according to the US military, is a nonlethal weapon that shoots an invisible beam of electromagnetic waves that can reach a little more than half a mile away. It penetrates human skin and creates a heating sensation that causes people to move away from the beam.
A few days after Maduro’s capture, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted comments purportedly from a Venezuelan security guard who claimed the US “launched something” during the operation that “was like a very intense sound wave.”
“Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside,” the security guard added. “We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”
That account hasn’t been verified by CNN.
According to CNN’s analysis of the January 3 operation, the US mission began with a series of strikes at targets across the country, which knocked out radar, communications and air defense infrastructure and cleared a path for US helicopters.
More than 150 aircraft – including bombers, fighters, intelligence and surveillance platforms – were launched from 20 bases on land and sea, according to Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
According to one expert, the US also likely used one-way attack drones for the strikes in the coastal city of Higuerote, which is the home to Venezuelan air defense systems.
Videos from when US forces landed inside the military complex of Fort Tiuna show sustained gunfire eruptions, the sound of which military experts say is consistent with Direct Action Penetrator MH-60 Black Hawks, a type of American attack helicopter, firing 30-millimeter autocannons.
The exact location within Fort Tiuna where Maduro was captured, and the details of what happened when US forces landed inside it, have not been fully revealed.
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.
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