Hair-raising DIY Tesla gun fires forks of lightning through the air (VIDEO)

A hardcore Nikola Tesla enthusiast has showcased an extremely bizarre gun inspired by his hero, displaying how the homemade shooter can zap nearby objects with forks of lightning.

The epic device was featured on US engineer Destin Sandlin’s popular YouTube channel Smarter Every Day.

The man behind the gun’s making, Cameron Prince, has a keen interest in inventor Tesla, one of the godfathers of high voltage experiments, and runs a website dedicated to the Serbian-American futurist.

In a kind of bizarre homage to the famed inventor, Prince fashioned an alarming ‘Ghostbuster’-like weapon taking inspiration from Tesla’s famed coil.

The Tesla coil was designed in the late 1800s to wirelessly transfer bolts of electricity.

Described as a Tesla Coil Gun, video of the Prince’s bizarre device reveals how he must wear safety boots to ground him against electric shock, as well as a special cooling backpack.

“This is full on Ghostbuster stuff,” Sandlin, who filmed Prince and his device on high-speed camera in his latest webisode, can be heard saying in the footage.

Sandlin then trials the ‘video game’ type weapon himself.

Amazingly, viral engineer Sandlin allowed himself to be hit by streams of electricity coming from the gun, but warned viewers not to do the same at home.

“The primary coil on a Tesla coil circuit [is] fatal, no questions asked. But on the secondary coil the output is in microamps which is generally accepted to be safe but some people still say it’s dangerous.

“Here’s the deal, do not do this,” he warned.