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One of the main reasons that
skeptics give for not accepting the existence of
extra-terrestrial UFOs is that the distances to the stars
are too great. The speed at which an object can travel is
limited by Einstein’s relativity theory to the speed of
light. Although this is extremely fast by earth standards
(186,000 mph) it is just a snails pace when compared to
galactic distances. It would take a UFO spacecraft
several lifetimes at that rate to travel to even the closest
stars.
However, a couple of recent experiments challenge this
light speed limit. There was an interesting report in the
New York Times about these experiments. In one of the
experiments, researchers from the NEC Research Institute
located in Princeton, New Jersey sent a pulse of light
through a chamber filled with cesium gas. |
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The scientists measured this
pulse of light to be travelling at an estimated speed of
about 300 times the speed of light under normal conditions.
The beam travelled so fast that part of the light reached
its destination before it left its origin!
The official report from NEC has not yet been released
because the experiment is still under review. It is believed
that the weekly peer-reviewed Nature, a science journal, is
undertaking this task of reviewing the experiment. In the
mean time, an NEC spokesperson, Kazuko Anderson, has
confirmed that the report appeared in the New York Times is
accurate.
The other study of note was originally published in the
Physical Review of Letters. In this study done at the
Italian National Research Council of Florence, scientists
sent rays of light a distance of one meter in the direction
of a curved mirror. The mirror sent these rays back at an
instrument designed to measure their speed. The part of the
rays that came from the mirror's center were found to be 5%
to 7% faster than the normal speed of light. However, this
increase in speed was only found to occur when the light
travelled short distances.
These experiments are likely to have an eventual impact on
technology such as computer chips and communications, but in
the mean time there is no planned practical use for this
information. Particularly, there is not currently any way to
transfer knowledge about the speed of light into a means of
making objects of significant mass travel at these speeds.
In terms of UFO technology
however, it is easy to see how a more advanced civilization
could have used this principle to construct spacecraft that
are capable of travelling at speeds exceeding the speed of
light. While this does not prove that UFOs originate from
distant stars, it does answer a popular objection to their
existence. |
