Recent Empirical Evidence of a Star Trek Style Warp Drive?

Predicted as one of the only viable means of interstellar travel centuries from now, are there recent phenomena pointing to the possibility of a naturally-occurring Star Trek style Warp Drive?


By: Ringo Bones


I think every physics and science fiction enthusiast can safely blame Prof. Miguel Alcubierre for pointing out the quirks of Einstein’s General Relativity theory that had once again further fuelled our romantic notion for faster-than-light interstellar travel. But is or are there a series of empirical evidence pointing to the possibility – make that natural phenomena – of a viable means of travelling faster-than-light without violating both of Einstein’s general and Special Relativity theories?

If one has to look for empirical evidence of the possibility of an Alcubierre Warp Drive occurring in nature, look no further than the mysterious, strange and wonderful experiences of folks brave or foolhardy enough to have ventured into the Bermuda Triangle. Back in December 5, 1945, the now notorious Flight 19 incident where a squadron of US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers mysteriously vanished after their flight path took them to the heart of the dreaded Bermuda Triangle – there were no survivors.

25 years after the Flight 19 incident, Bruce Gernon – author of The Fog – survives a mysterious occurrence in the Bermuda Triangle when the single-engine prop plane he was piloting that took off from Andros Island, Bimini to Miami International Airport. Gernon experienced first-hand what is now famously referred to as the Electronic Fog phenomena – often characterized by those who experienced it while flying inside the Bermuda Triangle region as akin to flying inside a tunnel and experiencing sudden acceleration and weightlessness.

Gernon later found out that there has been some flight time / flight duration anomalies when he and his plane managed to arrive within Miami International Airport faster than the 190-mph capability would suggest. Surprisingly, the time anomaly suggested that the single-engine prop plane he was piloting at the time with a designed top speed of around 190-mph achieved a flight time from Andros Island to Miami International Airport as if it was travelling at 2,000-mph! Gernon inexplicably managed to travel the 100-mile distance in just 3 minutes and landing with more fuel than expected. Even more curious is that during his mysterious flight into the “Electronic Fog” flight controllers at Miami International had noted that the prop plane piloted by Gernon vanished from their radar screens during that time. Does this phenomena point to the empirical evidence of an Alcubierre or a Star Trek style Warp Drive?

According to the at now famous White Paper that has catapulted Prof. Miguel Alcubierre to scientific fame back in the early 1990s – the initial energy pulse to make spacetime warp in a manner suitable enough for practical Warp Drive travel is about the energy yield of 2 trillion-trillion 50 megaton hydrogen bombs. This is probably the reason why futuristic starship designers of the 1990s suggested that Zero-Point energy could probably serve as the practical power source of the Alcubierre style Warp Drive since even in deep space, a volume of empty space the size of planet Earth contains enough potential Zero-Point energy equivalent to that of a gallon of gasoline.

Though further scientific scrutiny is needed, the strange phenomena experienced by Bruce Gernon while flying from Andros Island to Miami International Airport suggest that he may have flown into a naturally occurring Alcubierre style Warp Field. This might be so because given that Gernon’s 3-minute flight with his prop plane with a top speed of 190-mph allowed him to traverse the 100-mile distance in just 3 minutes with fuel expenditure of just a 3-minute flight. This is like manipulating the spacetime curvature to make it seem that a 190-mph prop plane appears to be travelling at 2,000-mph. Could it be that Mother Nature might allow us to circumvent the ultimate cosmological speed limit to allow us to explore and colonize the stars? Maybe our top physicists should look into the Bermuda Triangle phenomena with the scrutiny that it truly deserves.