On May 17, a House subcommittee of the U.S. Congress held a hearing about UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena – aka UFOs). Many questions asked to representatives of the Department of Defense were about management of the program studying these questions and about possible threats to national security. Fortunately, House representatives Adam Schiff and Jim Himes had questions specifically geared toward a better understanding of the events themselves. Extraterrestrials came up, but this was not the subject of much discussion.

A report from the Director of National Intelligence in June 2021 indicates that sightings tend to cluster around U.S. testing and training grounds, which they believe is the result of a collection bias as a result of focused attention in these areas. Also, some UAPs appear to be able to “maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion”. 

So, what would science-fiction make of that? The “unusual UAPs movement patterns” may be the result of a warping of spacetime with a propulsion system akin to the theoretical Alcubierre drive or a more recent iteration of a related system (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/star-treks-warp-drive-leads-to-new-physics/). Who would own such a system? Foreign adversaries? Unlikely that they could develop and fly these in America without anyone knowing about it. Extraterrestrials? Unlikely that they would cross the galaxy just to fly around in the sky once in a while, year after year, without ever making contact. We are left with U.S. and industry classified programs, that is new technologies being developed. Possible, but not particularly interesting for our science fiction viewpoint.

Here is a more interesting possibility. In the future, these U.S. and industry classified programs will finally develop a type of warp drive allowing them to fly objects in some sort of spacetime bubble. They will test these on and near U.S. military bases. But there is a side effect: time is also warped. Around these military bases, these prototypes will fly in the sky, but will be visible IN THE PAST!  We don’t see these UAPs landing anywhere, because when their warp drives are inactivated, they return to their time in the future. The question is: are they aware in the future that we can see these objects in the past? Perhaps they are and can collect images from the past when they fly to our time. Perhaps these devices are made specifically to explore the past (time machines!). I love science-fiction!

Now, let us try our warp drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8LD0iUYv80