(CNN) -- "Death rays" sound more like a sci-fi creation than a pool-side concern, but guests soaking up the sun at the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, might want to take cover.
According to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the reflective hotel's south-facing tower can bounce rays that will melt plastic and singe hair at certain times of the day and year.
Visiting lawyer Bill Pintas from Chicago, Illinois, had a scorching encounter and said hotel pool employees told him they call it "the death ray," according to the report.
Pintas, who co-owns a Vdara condo, told the Review-Journal his hair was singed as he was reclining on the pool deck around noon on a mid-September day.
"I was effectively being cooked," Pintas said. "I started running as fast as I could without looking like a lunatic".
The rays also melted the thin plastic bag around his newspaper, Pintas said.
Hotel designers were aware of potential solar "convergence" and applied a film that reduced the problem by about 70 percent before the Vdara opened in December 2009, according to MGM Resorts spokesman Alan Feldman.
"What remains are seasonal hot spots that are most acute of course in the summertime," Feldman said. Historic high temperatures in Las Vegas this summer have intensified the problem.
CNN
