Drone defense systems are far more developed than the average person may be aware of.
In December 2024, there were estimates of over 5,000 reports of drone sightings off the East Coast of the United States, including huge clusters in New Jersey.
‘We’re going to start to see the increasing development of … directed-energy weapons or high-powered microwave systems.’
Despite the mass confusion surrounding the mystery drones, citizens were told there existed no national security threat and even, at times, that what they saw was probably just a plane.
However, the Joe Biden administration did not seem to let Americans know at the time that the Department of Defense (now Department of War) is far more equipped to handle drone swarms than is commonly understood.
This was made apparent by Jake Adler, the biotech entrepreneur behind the clay-based hemostatic Kingsfoil. The young businessman revealed to Blaze News that drone warfare has prompted the use of direct-energy weapons that are being quickly developed to lower defense costs.
The ongoing threat has resulted in a type of “escalation tax,” Adler explained, in which the constant use of drones has necessitated the creation and deployment of cheaper defense mechanisms.
Adler referred to companies like Allen Control Systems, which have taken massive strides in developing new methods of knocking drones out of the sky. Some companies are even using microwave technology.
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A RADIS radio detection intervention system of the German armed forces. Photo by TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images
ACS’ Bullfrog system is fairly simple: an autonomous weapon targets unidentified aerial vehicles and blows them away with high-caliber rounds, all while being exceptionally portable, at just 165 pounds for some models.
Then there’s Epirus, which offers “long-pulse high-power microwave systems with AI and advanced electronics to protect and sustain civilization.”
Simply put, Epirus uses energy weapons to neutralize dozens of drones at a time and has successfully completed trials in which it took out 49 of 49 and 61 of 61 targets successfully and simultaneously.
“We’re going to start to see the increasing development of countermeasure systems coming from companies like Eperis, which are doing directed-energy weapons or high-powered microwave systems,” Adler noted. “So we’re kind of seeing the development of novel platforms that can more effectively knock down, you know, a hundred drones for five cents.”
The use of these systems tied into Adler’s broader point that the neutralizing of drone threats forces a reliance on human fighters.
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A Chinese drone used by Polish Army soldiers during a training exercise. Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Adler’s company Pilgrim has been focusing on bolstering soldier capability in the battlefield, and in addition to its medical technology, he has long looked to target another sensitive area: sleep.
‘Warfighters have really bad sleep,” Adler offered. “A great deal of them are sleep-deprived. One of the challenges is that you’re taking an 18-year-old … and putting them into a highly stressful environment where the expectation is, realistically, very limited sleep. And that’s sort of around the age where sleep patterns are still getting reinforced, right? So you’re kind of disrupting the natural evolution or really the natural growth of the brain, which can kind of create challenges around combat effectiveness [and] accuracy.”
This “laundry list” of externalities that are affected by sleep are on Adler’s to-do list, and he has looked to get away from the use of pharmaceuticals (stimulants and sedatives) in order to tackle those issues.
Through a previous project called NeuSleep (now officially on pause), Adler had soldiers use a sleeping mask equipped with brain stimulation and monitoring devices for heart rate, blood oxygenation, and sleep stages. The device would stimulate the brain to modify sleep patterns, allegedly making three-hour naps feel more like five or six hours of sleep.
“We’d be able to monitor if you were in REM or if you’re in light sleep. … We could basically shock you and improve your sleep quality. The joke that we had internally was that we were shocking people to sleep, which didn’t really get very far in terms of marketing,” he laughed.
Adler, like many others, solidified the idea that the Trump administration has placed increased emphasis on developing its network of companies that place high importance on advanced technologies for the individual and treat the soldier as the focus.
Companies like Pilgrim, Anduril, and EdgeRunner AI are moving at light speed, and the general populace is blissfully unaware. Systems that are in place to protect citizens are now under scrutiny from young entrepreneurs who have signaled that a lot of military and defense tech is slow-moving or out of date, and they want to do something about it.
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Return, Drones, Anduril, Energy weapons, China, Department of war, Microwaves, Trump, Tech
