A frickin’ laser beam mounted on a Missile Defense Agency 747 successfully shot down a ballistic missile in a test yesterday.

Check out the video here.

UPDATE: I’ve received a few e-mails, so to deter any nascent conspiracy theories about the military-industrial complex — this video is actually of an earlier test, conducted in January, in which a missile was hit by the laser but not with sufficient force to destroy it. There is no video of the full-scale test reported yesterday.