Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., opens up about the aerial systems spotted in the Garden State on'The Story.' A U.S. Coast Guard official said one of its vessels was trailed by dozens of drones off the coast of New Jersey recently, according to Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. Smith, a guest on "The Story with Martha MacCallum" Tuesday, said he spent Monday night on the beach in Ocean County and spoke to several people, including a U.S. Coast Guard commanding officer stationed in Barnegat Light. Smith learned from the Coast Guard commander that the night before, "one of their 47-foot vessels, boats, was trailed very closely by more than a dozen of these drones." "Now, that to me, is very, very, not just suspicious, provocative, and this could be a foreign power, whether it be [Vladimir] Putin, or it could be Xi Jinping in China, or the Middle East, we can't rule any of that out," the congressman said. Photos taken in the Bay Shore section of Toms River of what appear to be large drones hovering in the area at high altitudes in New Jersey on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024.

A retired, senior Pentagon official has confirmed that UFO'mother ships' were spotted'releasing swarms of smaller craft' -- adding further mystery to the still-unexplained intrusions over multiple US military bases. His statements come amid the release of 50 pages of Air Force records related to provocative'drone' incursions, that one general calls'Close Encounters at Langley.' For at least 17 nights last December, swarms of noisy, small UFOs were seen at dusk'moving at rapid speeds' and displaying'flashing red, green, and white lights' penetrating the highly restricted airspace above Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Senior ex-Pentagon security official Chris Mellon told DailyMail.com'Two of the notable aspects,' he said, 'are the fact our drone signal-jamming devices have proven ineffective and these craft are making no effort to remain concealed.'

China has launched the world's first crewless drone carrier that uses artificial intelligence to navigate autonomously in open water. Beijing has officially described it as a maritime research tool, but some experts have said the ship has the potential to be used as a military vessel. The autonomous ship, the Zhu Hai Yun (pictured here) is around 290 feet long, 45 feet wide, and 20 feet deep and can carry dozens of air, sea, and submersible drones equipped with different observation instruments, according to the shipbuilder, CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipping Co. It describes the vessel as "epoch making" and the "world's first intelligent unmanned system mother ship." "The most immediate benefit to China is likely data collection," Matthew Funaiole, senior fellow of China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Insider.

LONDON – A lunar rover that will explore the moon on foot in 2021 was unveiled in London on Thursday. The new concept, with four legs rather than wheels, will send data back to a larger mother ship, which will transmit it back to Earth. U.K. startup Spacebit signed a contract with U.S. space robotics company Astrobotic to get the rover on board their Peregrine lander, which will carry 14 NASA instruments to the moon. Once the lander reaches the moon's surface, the rover will drop from beneath it to the surface and attempt to explore a lava tube. "It's very important to explore the lunar tubes to know the environment that we have there so potentially humans can live in those lunar tubes when they go back to the moon," SpaceBit founder and CEO Pavlo Tanasyuk said.

A robotics group involving researchers from the University of Tokyo and Kyushu Institute of Technology has developed an autonomous maritime robot that can find samples of seafloor life and collect them. Seafloor life is usually collected by manned submersibles that require large mother ships because deep-sea video images cannot be obtained in real time via current wireless communications technology. The new robot, however, is small enough to be carried on a small ship. "The time may come when scientists can use such a robot anytime at low cost," Kyushu Institute of Technology professor Tamaki Ura said Tuesday. The box-shaped robot, called Tuna-Sand 2, is 1.4 meters long, weighs 380 kg and can dive to 2,000 meters.