Laser Weapon Melts Test Drone in Midair

A new laser weapon that can burn up targets in just a few seconds recently melted and destroyed a test drone flying over California. Known as the Compact Laser Weapons System, the futuristic, drone-shooting weapon is a smaller, more versatile version of the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD), a system developed by Boeing to be mounted on top of U.S. Army vehicles. Both weapons forgo conventional bullets for "directed energy"— a focused beam of energy that heats up and damages a