Researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois have built a drone that rotates so fast that it is cloaked by motion blur . The new Phantom Twist drone spins at 25 times per second, which, thanks to a quirk of human vision, makes it appear like a faint smudge in the air. The video below shows it off to great effect, but I hope they can do something about the whiny noise. The first demonstration of the Phantom Twist took place as part of a Robotics: Science and Systems 2026 presentation on Thursday. “Most efforts to hide drones focus on making them look like their surroundings,” said Northwestern’s Michael Rubenstein, who led the work. “Instead, we asked whether we could design the drone itself around the way humans perceive motion. This idea of low visibility through persistent motion is something few people have explored.” The stationary photo of the Phantom Twist reveals a rather unique drone design, far removed from the now traditional quadcopter .…