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Full Version: US Military's Weird Report on Warp Drive
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http://www.businessinsider.com/warp-driv...ake-2018-5

EXCERPT: Sometime after August 2008, the US Department of Defense contracted dozens of researchers to look into some very, very out-there aerospace technologies, including never-before-seen methods of propulsion, lift, and stealth. Two researchers came back with a 34-page report for the propulsion category, titled "Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions." The document is dated April 2, 2010, though it was only recently released by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The authors suggest we may not be too far away from cracking the mysteries of higher, unseen dimensions and negative or "dark energy," a repulsive force that physicists believe is pushing the universe apart at ever-faster speeds. "Control of this higher dimensional space may bе а source of technological control оvеr the dark energy density and could ultimately play а role in the development of exotic propulsion technologies; specifically, а warp drive," the report says, adding: "Trips to the planets within our own solar system would take hours rather than years, and journeys to local star system would be measured in weeks rather than hundreds of thousands of years."

However, Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Caltech who studies and follows the topics covered by the report, had a lot of cold water to pour on the report's optimism. "It's bits and pieces of theoretical physics dressed up as if it has something to do with potentially real-world applications, which it doesn't," Carroll said. "This is not crackpot. This is not the Maharishi saying we're going to use spirit energy to fly off the ground — this is real physics. But this is not something that's going to connect with engineering anytime soon, probably anytime ever."

The nature of this study is still making its way to the public.

What is known is that it's an "acquisition threat support" reference document, which helps the US military anticipate or describe new enemy technologies — apparently including (very, very) notional ones. It was also one work in "а series of advanced technology reports" for something called the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program.

That was a larger program that included the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program — an effort to investigate reports of UFO sightings by military personnel, according to a recent story by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.

The New York Times and Politico revealed AATIP's existence in December. The outlets said Harry Reid, the former US senator from Nevada, helped organize it and secure millions in secret government funding — sometimes called "black money" — for the effort. A large share of this money reportedly went to Robert Bigelow, a real-estate mogul who's working to build private space stations through Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow, a friend of Reid's, has for years funded his own UFO research. [...] AATIP reportedly ran out of funding in 2011 or 2012.

Scientists are also skeptical of UFOs, even after viewing spooky videos obtained by AATIP, one of which shows an undated encounter with "an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed and rotating as it moves," The Times wrote. Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, previously told Business Insider that after 50 years of reported alien visits, "the really good evidence that we're being visited still has failed to surface."

[...] The larger program that looked into the feasibility of warp drives, wormholes, and stargates is meeting similar scrutiny from established experts.

MORE: http://www.businessinsider.com/warp-driv...ake-2018-5
Alien encounters aside, the technological applications for wormhole travel would be highly rewarding for humanity. But if the Caltech Physicist's skepticism serves him, then we may be looking at a number of years into the future before we understand how to implement it.