
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; who's face is marred by dirt and sweat and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, but who knows the great enthusiasms. The great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause. Who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, fails while daring greatly. So that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." 

                               Teddy Roosevelt

           
Note Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, said on TV (Aug 5, 1996) that there is absolutely no truth to UFOs and that it is all hype created by con men whose only motive is to make money. So reader beware. I am not making any money on this and I do not say that UFOs are real. If they are real, then I can
only speculate about the physics of their propulsion. NASA has an active team, that I have been asked, by Al Holt of Houston Space Center, to join, investigating exotic propulsion possibilities.

                              Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D.


   NEW! Review of Henry Stapp's Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics

There are some clues to UFO propulsion here, e.g., The key new feature of relativistic Bohm theory is that the beable, in contrast to the pilot-wave, can move faster-than-light in finite regions of space. That is, the relativistic quantum potential Q renormalizes the bare real mass of the beable into an imaginary number. This may have a practical consequence for ultra fuel-efficient spacecraft propulsion.

                      PRESS RELEASE, July 4, 1996

                     Independence Day -- The Reality!

                     Internet Science Education Project

                 A 501(3c) Tax-Exempt California Corporation

                              Research Report #1

                             by Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D.

                           President of the Corporation

                               sarfatti@well.com

The recent spontaneous WEB-induced collaboration between myself and L Crowell, a Ph.D. student in theoretical physics at the University of New Mexico, has profound implications for the NASA exploratory "exotic propulsion" project, for Artificial-Intelligence/Nanotechnology R&D
and for the physics of the Mind/Brain problem.

It tentatively appears that the quantum potential Q found in Bohm's hidden-variable version of quantum mechanics is able to transform ordinary helium nuclei into virtual "faster-than-light" tachyons. This would permit the construction of a new type of rocket engine that would enable low-cost highly fuel-efficient practical interstellar flight for large manned spacecraft. This is because the exit-speed of the propellant could be temporarily many times the speed of light. The spacecraft itself would be limited by the Einstein barrier. However, the spacecraft could get very close to the speed of light and go to the most distant corners of the Universe in a short on-board time using very small amounts of fuel. The time-dilation would, of course, put the spacecraft and its crew very
far into the future from the cosmic time of the initial launch. Therefore, barring traversable wormholes, the crew could not return to their own time, nor could they communicate with us. However, shorter trips at lower speeds could also be done. This new quantum engine would be useful for interplanetary trips with small time-dilation using only a tiny fraction of its potential power. Constructing this engine is possible with current technology with only a low-cost investment in more theoretical work applying the Bohm pilot-wave theory.

This same Q is also most likely to be the fundamental "mind-stuff" of the Universe. Recent work by Penrose, Nanopoulos, myself and others strongly suggests that there is a fundamental "quantum friction" in the zero-point vacuum state of the Universe that is an intrinsic self-organizing force along the lines first suggested by Ilya Prigogine. This self-organizing force is also called "back-action" because it can be pictured as the direct influence of classical matter and gauge field on their attached quantum pilot-waves. Page 346 of the book, The Undivided Universe (Routledge), by
the late David Bohm and his protg Basil Hiley, shows the mathematical connection between back-action and the intrinsic quantum-friction. Ordinary quantum mechanics does not have the quantum-friction in it. So this is a new theory beyond quantum mechanics that includes it as a limiting case. All non-living organizations of matter obey ordinary quantum mechanics to a very
good approximation for small numbers of elementary particles because the back-action is covered up by a much stronger coupling to the thermal environment called "interactive decoherence". Even the low flux of cosmic black body photons from the Big Bang are able to "decohere" small dust
particles. However, my new theory suggests that when the "hot" interactive decoherence is screened out, even small numbers of interacting elementary particles like electrons and protons in hydrogen bonds universally and spontaneously acquire a living "sentience" because the back-action
is able to perform its automatic massively-parallel quantum-computing function protected from external perturbations. Stuart Hameroff has shown how this thermal screening works in the microtubules of the living cell. This is described in more detail in Roger Penrose's book, Shadows of The Mind (Oxford). When there are sufficient input and output mechanisms and a memory storage mechanism such as is provided by the DNA/protein/lipid/water system, life as we know it emerges with high probability. This "ahistorical self-organization" from the quantum level is a new factor in addition to Darwinian natural selection pressures. This idea is explained in detail in Stuart Kauffman's book, The Origins of Order, Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution (Oxford). This fundamental theory of sentience immediately suggests how to make a new kind of naturally conscious computing chip from quantum dots, wires and wells using nanotechnology by emulating the carbon-based microtubule switching network in the silicon-based solid-state. The thermally protected macroscopic quantum pilot wave attached to suitable tiny switching devices is the "Soul of The Machine".



              TRIPLE PRECOGNITIVE
                    SYNCHRONICITY!

          Pay careful attention to the words Web, "Pearl Harber", "Dec 7"

                                     .

                           Higher Intelligence Agency

      RED ALERT-CONDITION ZEBRA

                      The New Pearl Harbor?

    Are State-Sponsored Terrorists Ready to Nuke San Diego during the
                         Republican Convention?

                             PRESS RELEASE 

                    Saturday, July 27, 1996, La Jolla Shores, CA

I was shocked to see the headline of a terrorist bomb blast at the Olympics as I returned from my daily morning run on the beach at La Jolla Shores. The image of the mushroom cloud over San Diego Bay that instantly flashed in my minds eye made my heart sink. I was scared and I admit it. 

There is no doubt in my mind now about the meaning of the message. First the attacks on our military in Saudi Arabia, then TWA Flight 800, now the Olympics. What next? Its obvious that the next target of these terrorists is the Republican Convention in San Diego which is also a prime military target like Pearl Harbor. This is a temptation that men like Saddam Hussein, the current Iranian regime, and Omar Kadaffi can hardly resist now that ex-Soviet nuclear physicists, technicians and military are a dime a dozen on the dole ready to take any handout no questions asked. I got the overwhelming precognition that the attack on the San Diego Republican
Convention would be nuclear, wiping out the massive naval base with its aircraft carriers along with the leadership of the Republican Party in one blow  Saddams payback to George Bush for the attack on Baghdad? Perhaps, I dont know. The even stronger probability of biological and chemical attack is also there. I am now seriously considering driving back to my office in San Francisco during the Republican Convention though the possibility of a simultaneous massive strike there also crossed my mind. America is under attack again. It's a new kind of subliminal psychological warfare, but its material effects can be just as deadly as the old kind of war. There is
really no place to hide. Let us hope that I am dead wrong in this horrible precognition, because if I am not, I will surely be dead in a few weeks since I live only a few miles from Ground Zero. 

Therefore, I am recording this message on the World Wide Web for future historians. My hope is that this message to the nation and beyond will prod our FBI, Secret Service, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and the San Diego Police to an even higher state of alert leaving no stone unturned. Just to be sure, they should invite the Mosad in, if they are not already here. I pray to my alleged ancestor Rabbi Rashi de Troyes that the good guys and gals will nab the bastards before they fire their weapons of mass destruction on the beautiful people of this gorgeous beach city.

As many of you know I have been involved with the physics of psychic research for over twenty years as the founding director of the Physics Consciousness Research Group at Esalen in Big Sur and in San Francisco. The focus of this research has been the CIA and DOD funded work on precognitive remote-viewing of future events by Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ and the DAT work of Ed May and James Spottiswoode on "precognition". Modern  break- throughs in quantum physics, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Tolman effects, the "transactional interpretation" of John Cramer, the "influence functional" cosmology of Sir Fred Hoyle FRS, and especially the breakthrough by Israeli physicist Yakir Aharonov on "the quantum time machine", show, beyond
the shadow of a reasonable doubt that events in the future do influence events in the past. The great debate has been over whether psychics can decode these messages from the future. There is a theorem in standard quantum physics called the Eberhard-Stapp theorem that proves precognition by psychics to be impossible as a matter of principle. This would mean that the CIA and DOD funded work was wrong if standard quantum mechanics applies to consciousness. Fred Alan Wolf wrote a book on this subject called "Star Wave". His more recent books like "Parallel Universes" and "The Dreaming Universe" also discusses these ideas prior to some very recent break- throughs.

Thus, more recent work by myself and others, including, most importantly, Nobel Prize physicist, Brian Josephson of Englands prestigious and venerable Cambridge University, strongly suggests that living matter jumps beyond standard quantum mechanics to a more general theory that permits
precognition. There are two competing versions of this theory. One is by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose based upon the late Niels Bohrs version of quantum theory. The other, called the "back-action" theory that I propose, is based upon the late David Bohms version of quantum theory in which a thought-like quantum "pilot-wave" from higher dimensions beyond space and time guides the behavior of the brain.

Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D.

President 

Internet Science Education Project
A California Educational Corporation
sarfatti@well.com

   Follow up the next day! Sunday, July 28,
                                 1996 

From - Sun Jul 28 14:55:38 1996
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 14:40:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Paul D. Shocklee" 
To: Jack Sarfatti 
Cc: distribution.@phoenix.Princeton.EDU; (see end of body)
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: San Diego - The New Pearl Harbor?
On Sun, 28 Jul 1996, Jack Sarfatti wrote:

     Here is some serious documented evidence for precognitive remote viewing that is now a matter of public record on the World Wide Web. The only loop-hole, which the hard-core anti-psi ideologue will take is that either 1)I am lying about not seeing the episode of Babylon5 that portrays the terrorist nuking of San Diego, or 2) I saw it, but forgot it, or 3) Schocklee is lying about the existence of the episode. 1) and 2) are false. 

I'm not making it up; you can check out the Web page for the episode at
http://www.hyperion.com/lurk/guide/008.html . "And the Sky Full of Stars" was first aired on March 16, 1994. The nuking of San Diego was also referred to in the episode "A Spider in the Web," which first aired on December 7, 1994. (The base for the covert organization Bureau 13 was located in the ruins of San Diego.)

---- Begin Forwarded Message

From: sarfatti@ix.netcom.com (Jack Sarfatti )
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.skeptic,alt.consciousness,comp.ai.philosophy,alt.paranormal
Subject: Re: San Diego - The New Pearl Harbor?
Date: 28 Jul 1996 17:42:27 GMT
In <4teo64$99n@cnn.Princeton.EDU> shocklee@phoenix.princeton.edu 
(Paul D. Shocklee) writes:

Have you been watching Babylon 5?

     Sarfatti: No, have not seen it for months. I'm too busy to watch TV most of the time. 

What's happening there?

The station has broken off relations with Earth, and the first open conflict has taken place in the war against the Shadows. (I could say more, but it would spoil readers from the UK.)

Universe Today Headline from the episode "And the Sky Full of Stars": San Diego Still Considered Too Radioactive for Occupancy: A new study published by Earthforce Nuclear Regulatory Office declares San Diego, struck by the American States first act of nuclear terrorism over 100 years ago, still uninhabitable for the next 300 years.

     Sarfatti: Farout Dude! Cool! This is a fabulous synchronicity - a real case of precognitive remote viewing. In other words, my reading your message just now at 10:28 AM Sunday, July 28, 1996 in La Jolla was the future cause whose past effect happened about 8 am Saturday July 27 when I walked past the news stand and was startled by the headline about bomb blast at Olympics which triggered my vision of a nuclear burst over San Diego Bay etc.. I was so shook, that I wrote the PRESS RELEASE in the next hour sent it all over the world on the WEB really feeling that my time was running out. This is very unusual -- not a daily or even yearly occurrence. I am not subject to anxiety attacks like yesterday's.

     Of course, the cause for my posting the message that you read was my reading of the message that you left, which triggered my memory of the episode that I saw. :)

And, from the creator of the show himself:

96-03-09 05:15:12

     How big was the San Diego Nuke? Big enough, and dirty enough, to make the area officially uninhabitable for a long time.

     jms

     Sarfatti: Please explain this last remark of yours Schocklee. What is this? The date 96-03-09 and time etc - was that on the TV show???

It was a message left by the creator of the show, J. Michael Straczynski, to his fans on AOL. The date and time stamp were from his message.

| Paul D. Shocklee - physics grad student - Princeton University 

| | Get thee down. Be thou funky. 


Jean Burns wrote:

     Jean Burns
     jeanbur@netcom.com
     Subject: Is ESP EPR?
     Date: 28 Jul 1996 23:32:01 GMT

     Abstract: * Although detailed information can be transmitted by ESP (example of  remote viewing given), there is no way to know which ESP sessions provide such information. Paul Easton suggests that because ESP is "unreliable", that's a reason to think it transmits information via quantum nonlocality. But even an unreliable signal is a signal and a signal cannot be transmitted via nonlocality. So nonlocality described by the laws of physics, cannot explain ESP. *

An important distinction must be made. Jean's conclusion is correct for what Henry Stapp in Phys Rev A, July 15, 1994 p.18 calls "orthodox quantum mechanics". Indeed, it is a corollary to the Eberhard-Stapp theorem. The best reference is Henry Stapp's book Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics, which I am now in the process of reading.  

Henry makes the case for the Heisenberg/James model of quantum mind which is not my Bohm model. I believe that the basic questions that are hard in Henry's thoughtful theory are much easier to deal with in my Bohmian approach, but that is for another post.  

Getting back to Jean's conclusion, the whole thrust of recent developments in quantum theory as seen in the Aharonov double-vector theory, the Nanopoulos string-friction theory, the retro-PK Stapp theory, Josephson's "Utilization of Nonlocality by Biological Systems, my Bohmian back-action theory, the Valentini thesis cited by Josephson, and last, but not least :-), the Hameroff-Penrose "orch OR" theory, is to jump the next step beyond orthodox quantum mechanics to a "post-modern physics" in which the Eberhard-Stapp theorem is transcended. In Bohm's theory the reason that a faster-than-light (FTL), or, a backward-in-time (BIT) signal cannot be locally decoded to get the message is the fragility in the quantum potential Q which
corresponds to Bohr's "uncontrollable quantum randomness". This can be traced to the unitary conservation of probability current and the Born interpretation which are explicitly violated in most, but not all, of the new theories I cited above. Therefore, in accord with Josephson's grand vision of "the biological utilization of nonlocality", we will be able to explain ESP, especially precognitive remote viewing, with a generalized or post-modern extension of EPR. This is obvious in the Bohmian model I propose because the feedback-control loop between the "thought-like" pilot
wave and its attached "rock-like" beable, absent in orthodox quantum mechanics, introduces a self-organizing dissipation (as in Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures) in which probability current is no longer locally conserved in configuration space. So all bets are off as far as the
Eberhard-Stapp theorem is concerned. It is no longer relevant, because one of its main premises is conservation of probability current. The quantum potential Q is made robust, stabilized by the feedback-control loop from the combined action of the -grad Q nonlocal contextual quantum force on thought on brain, with the direct nonunitary back-action of brain on thought. Thus, the formerly uncontrollable quantum randomness of Penrose's "R" is now controlled or "orchestrated" in a very transparent way not at all easily seen in the Hameroff-Penrose way of formulating the problem. 

     The remote viewing program conducted by Hal Puthoff* and later by Ed May* had many stunning sessions in which accurate details of a site were described. For instance, Russell Targ* describes a remote viewing session for which the viewer was only given geographic coordinates. The viewer described the following: A huge crane with eight wheels rolled on tracks and could pass over a building which was underneath the crane, between the tracks. Inside the building a 60-foot metal sphere was being assembled, by welding together pieces shaped like sections of an orange peel.

     The site was a secret laboratory in the USSR, and the presence of the crane was confirmed by satellite. The project to construct the 60-foot welded sphere was later also confirmed.

     But, while many of the remote viewing sessions gave accurate information, such as above, there was never any way to know which sessions were the accurate ones.

     Paul Easton said (posting to QUANTUM-D, 7/23/96),

     Quoting from a posting he made earlier:

          5- As a nonlocal effect EPR entanglement is a prima facie candidtate to explain ESP like effects.

          5a- It is true that although these quantum effects propagate faster-than-light, neither qm theory nor experiment supports the possibility of communicating faster than light. To do so would open the door to           paradox. However, the unreliable nature of ESP might a allow it to avoid paradox. 

Easton's argument from time paradox is false, as is clearly explained by Kip Thorne in Black Holes and Time Warps in his discussion of Igor Novikov's "global consistency". There are a lot of papers on this in Physical Review D.

     And on 7/23/96:

          ... one might suppose that ESP can occur only if it cannot quite be observed, i.e. if it is inherently unreliable in an experimental context. 

No, you're correct Jean, this is simply a faint-hearted rationalization based on an incomplete grasp of the relevant really new physics just now emerging.

     But even an unreliable signal is a signal, and quantum nonlocality, as presently understood in physics, precludes sending information by a signal. Unreliability doesn't get around that problem. 

Yes, that's absolutely correct, Jean. Pretty soon we will have precognitive quantum computing chips as reliable as a modern Intel Pentium Pro. Indeed, it is precisely this reproducible "precognition" found in the DAT data ( e.g. http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/emay.html) that explains Penrose's conjecture that "strong AI" is wrong and that human understanding is "nonalgorithmic".

     * Almost the entire issue of *Journal of Scientific Exploration*, > 10(1), 1996, is devoted to the topic of remote viewing. 



         UFOS AND THE NEW PHYSICS

                             By Kim Burrafato
                             in conversation with 
                             Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D.
                             Theoretical Physicist,

                    Doctoral Degree from University of California


  NEW FEATURE ON COMING PSYCHOTRONIC TECHNOLOGY, May 1996

                           Synchronicity Storm



                             PART 1 of 2.

UFOs are a controversial and compelling enigma. We remain uncertain of what these objects are, or whether they even exist. Conventional wisdom is that most UFOs are likely erroneous observations, along with a bit of mass hysteria and some outright charlatanism. Was there really a UFO crash at Roswell in 1947? But what if we were to assume -- purely as an exercise -- that UFOs are actually products of a starfaring civilization? 

The rational mind rebels at the idea. UFOs allegedly exhibit outlandish behavior. Witnesses report incredible things like instant accelerations, right angle turns at enormous velocities, and instant stops. These objects are also reported to change their shapes and colors, and simply disappear
like phantoms instantly leaping from one universe to another. UFOs violate the laws of physics. No terrestrial spacecraft are capable of such magical feats of reality engineering. 

It's no wonder that most scientists consider the subject of UFOs patently absurd and not worthy of serious discussion. Can modern physics ever hope explain the UFO phenomenon to fit within the current world view? Or is an entirely new physics required? This article will address the question
"If UFOs are real, then how do they work?"

Clear Intent, by Larry Fawcett and Barry Greenwood, presents evidence of Air Force observations of these phenomena. Included in the book were published Department of Defense documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, that report repeated UFO penetrations of high security ICBM bases and nuclear weapons storage areas back in the 1970s. One major mission of the American intelligence community is to anticipate technology that might
disrupt our defense systems. Judging from the documents Fawcett and Greenwood published, the Department of Defense and Air Force are not on top of the situation, with regard to UFOs buzzing some of our most sensitive defense areas.

Recent newspaper and magazine articles have also reported that the Air Force is testing some new kind of "black project" aircraft, code named "Aurora." According to the news accounts, this ultra-secret, high altitude hypersonic aircraft creates powerful vertical, earthquake-like jolts, felt by
thousands of Southern California residents, as it passes high overhead at over four thousand miles per hour. 

Anything that burns a propellant in a reaction chamber, and then directs the exhaust products of that reaction out of a nozzle can be described as a rocket. Aurora's propulsion system is obviously rocket-like. It makes a lot of noise. It follows, then, that any rocket capable of the tremendous
speed and maneuvering attributed to UFOs would be impossible not to notice. 

But the majority of UFO witnesses report hearing nothing like the continuous, low frequency rumbling sounds that would normally accompany fuel combustion propulsion based rockets; nor do they report seeing the kind of exhaust products one would expect to see with rockets. If not reporting objects that seem to be entirely silent, some witnesses have reported hearing loud, but brief bang-like sounds as UFOs take off, as well as both low and high frequency humming sounds. 

We're forced to conclude, then, that UFOs don't operate on terrestrial rocket science principles. In a single stroke, we can eliminate not only all present solid and chemical fuel based rockets, but even future exotic propulsion schemes like nuclear-electric ion rockets, interstellar hydrogen fusion ramjets, and that favorite of science fiction writers and scientists alike, antimatter-matter annihilation rockets, as viable candidates for possible UFO propulsion. 

The major problem with applying conventional rocket science to interstellar travel is the Einstein barrier: the exhaust speed of the propellant relative to a rocket is limited to three hundred thousand kilometers per second, the speed of light in a vacuum. At present, this barrier prevents practical interstellar travel because a physically unreasonable quantity of conventional fuel is required to get reasonably close to the speed of light in a rocket. Any starship built on proven or even highly speculative principles of rocket propulsion, such as the very efficient anti-matter drive popularized in Star Trek, would still need to generate much more energy than is generated on Earth every year. The manufacturing costs would be many times the gross national products of America, all of Europe and Japan combined. So, we're faced with both a physical and an economic absurdity. The starship Enterprise still remains a playful notion at best.

Cheap and practical interstellar flight is possible only if Einstein's barrier can be overcome. If UFOs are indeed from other star systems, then they have obviously broken that barrier. 

Like conventional rockets and jets, UFOs seem to generate their own internal propulsion. As far as we can tell, they are not pushed along by an external energy source, like a laser or particle beam, or the solar wind. They evidently operate on distinctly "alien" propulsion principles than
those we're accustomed to. Could we ever expect to understand such principles?

Theoretical subtleties inherent within Einstein's general theory of relativity (gravity) and quantum mechanics may hold the answer. If it is possible to physically alter or deform four-dimensional space-time, then a kind of space-time tunnel, or time travel gate, can be constructed. In current physics, such theoretical tunnels are known as traversable wormholes.

Cal Tech physicists Kip Thorne and Michael Morris, along with Igor Novikov of Moscow State University and others, have published a number of papers in the prestigious Physical Review on the physics of time travel and traversable wormholes. A traversable wormhole is literally a shortcut
through both space and time.

An advanced extraterrestrial civilization , capable of cosmic-scale engineering, could conceivably fabricate traversable wormhole time travel gates, where their starships would enter a wormhole in one region of space- time, and pop out in another extremely distant region of space-time. 

According to the equations of general relativity, one of the mouths of the wormhole has to accelerate away from the other mouth to a very high speed close to that of light and then return. If you step into the mouth that accelerates and returns, you will step out the other end into the relative
past of when you entered. If you step into the unaccelerated mouth and leave through the accelerated one, you will jump into the relative future. That is, if you had an identical twin who did not go through the wormhole, your twin would be older than you. 

How do you create a traversable wormhole time machine? Theoretical physicist Jack Sarfatti, has also been working on that question. A self-described "rogue scholar," Sarfatti has had a long association with fringe science. He and Michael Murphy organized and led the first Physics of Consciousness Seminars at the Esalen Institute back in 1974, sponsored by former human
potential movement superstar turned pariah, Werner Erhard. Those Esalen seminars spawned an entirely new genre of pop science literature, known as "The New Physics" -- of which the recent best seller by Deepak Chopra, Quantum Healing, is but one example. 

Sarfatti's unorthodox theories on faster-than-light (superluminal) communication continue to raise hackles among the more conservative physics mainstream. When it comes to traversable wormhole time machines, Sarfatti speculates that so-called dark matter, which may comprise over
90% of the mass of the universe, could provide an answer. 

This elusive matter has so far remained unobservable directly by conventional methods employing photons of electromagnetic radiation. Yet, its gravitational effects on ordinary matter are observed indirectly. "If dark matter moves around in the imaginary time of quantum gravity, then it would be difficult for it to emit any photons, even if it wasn't electrically neutral. So, we wouldn't expect to see it through optical telescopes," Sarfatti explains. 

The distinction between imaginary time and real time is important to clarify here. The late Nobel laureate, physicist Richard Feynman, was attempting to unify the quantum theory with gravity -- for some time a kind of Holy Grail to physicists. His intuitive genius led him to reformulate the quantum
theory as "a sum over histories." According to Feynman, a particle doesn't just have a single history, as it would in classical Newtonian and Einsteinian physics. Instead, it is supposed to follow every possible path in spacetime.

There are two numbers that are associated with these histories, one for the size of the wave, and the other for its position, or phase, in the cycle. The probability that a particle can be found at any particular point is then found by adding up the waves associated with every possible history that
passes through that point. 

The problem is that when you actually perform this summing of all possible histories, severe technical problems arise. "To avoid the technical difficulties with Feynman's sum over histories," says physicist Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time,

     "one must use imaginary time... That is to say, for the purposes of calculation, one must measure time using imaginary numbers, rather than real ones. This has an interesting effect on spacetime: The distinction between time and space disappears completely... we may regard our use of Euclidean spacetime as merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real spacetime."

Despite the fact that imaginary time is only a calculational device, history has time and again that real physics can and does emerge from such abstract mathematical constructs of the mind. Nevertheless, all theories must still be verified by experiment for them to be meaningful. That is the nature of physics and the scientific method.

Sarfatti employs this same "trick" of imaginary time in his calculations on the possible nature of dark matter. 

     "I've been investigating a new kind of causality violating quantum field theory, which reveals that the projection of imaginary time motion into real time can be both slower and faster than light. If that's true, it means that the energy density of this hypothetical neutral dark matter would get smaller as its speed increased, which would make it the perfect stuff to construct traversable wormholes with." 

He believes it might also make a super-efficient starship fuel. Remember the exhaust speed  limitation of rocketry discussed earlier?

     "In theory, dark matter can produce a faster-than-light exhaust velocity, which means it could be used to overcome the Einstein barrier. Since its density would theoretically decrease as its exhaust velocity increased, that means a small amount of dark matter fuel could easily propel a massive payload to the stars,"  says Sarfatti. 

     "And, if dark matter is as uniformly distributed throughout the universe, as it seems to be, you'd never run out of fuel. Even though dark matter comprises 90% of the mass of the universe, its average density is still too small for us to detect directly in an easy way. But I think that situation will change in the near future."

Sarfatti admits that a number of important questions about dark matter remain unanswered. 

     "How do we find and use such matter if it only exists in imaginary time? How does curvature in imaginary time influence curvature in real time? Can it be both attractive and exotic? Can dark matter carry electric charge? Does it have a magnetic moment? If it does, then it could be electro- magnetically manipulated. And finally, is it even possible to scoop up and clump together enough dark matter with the accuracy and precision required to fabricate a traversable wormhole or power a starship?"

Combine an inexhaustible fuel with a potential faster-than-light exhaust speed, like the hypothesized dark matter, with a super-technology capable of manipulating space-time geometry, and you have all the physical requisites for a starfaring society. If UFOs are interstellar in origin, then, they could be using traversable wormholes, or, they have developed an efficient interstellar propulsion system (like Sarfatti's proposed dark matter model), which allows them to travel very close to the speed of light. Traversable wormholes are preferable, since they would enable the extraterrestrials to tunnel across vast interstellar distances, and then tunnel back to where and
when they came from. 

Since the first version of this article, Alcubierre has shown how exotic matter permits an effectively faster-than-light warp drive. The "ufo", or starship, freely floats along a gravitational shock without time dilation. We have provided an animation of the warp drive.

                                 CONTINUE

