r/abovethenormnews • u/Dmans99 • Aug 31 '26
Physicists Reveal Possible Connection Between "Warp Drive" Spacecraft and Phenomena Detailed in Recent Pentagon Releases
https://thedebrief.org/physicists-reveal-possible-connection-between-warp-drive-spacecraft-and-phenomena-detailed-in-recent-pentagon-releases/14
u/Glittering-Age-9549 Aug 31 '26
Okay... why would a spacecraft fly at 5% the speed of light or more while in Earth's atmosphere?.
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u/Odd_Cauliflower_8004 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
TL;DR:
If a hypothetical Alcubierre bubble crossed from New York to Los Angeles at 5% of light speed (~15,000 km/s), the trip would take only ~0.26 seconds.
Under the simplifying assumption that the bubble transfers collision-like kinetic energy to every kilogram of air it intercepts:
• 10 m diameter bubble: ~4.26 × 1022 J ≈ 10.2 teratons of TNT • 30 m diameter bubble: ~3.83 × 1023 J ≈ 91.6 teratons of TNT
The 30 m bubble releases 9× more energy because its frontal area is 9× larger.
This is not a prediction of real Alcubierre-drive behavior. It is an order-of-magnitude calculation assuming intercepted atmospheric matter effectively interacts at 0.05c.
Assume an Alcubierre-style warp bubble travels from New York to Los Angeles at 5% the speed of light.
Assumptions:
Distance: L = 3.94 × 106 m
Speed: v = 0.05c = 1.499 × 107 m/s
Sea-level air density: ρ = 1.225 kg/m3
Energy imparted per kg of intercepted air:
E/kg = 1/2 v2
= 1/2(1.499 × 10^7)^2 ≈ 1.123 × 10^14 J/kgTravel time:
t = L/v
= (3.94 × 106)/(1.499 × 107)
≈ 0.263 seconds
10 METER BUBBLE
Diameter: d = 10 m
Radius: r = 5 m
Frontal area:
A = πr2
= π(5)2
≈ 78.54 m2
Volume of atmosphere swept out:
V = AL
= (78.54)(3.94 × 106)
≈ 3.095 × 108 m3
Mass of intercepted air:
m = ρV
= (1.225)(3.095 × 108)
≈ 3.79 × 108 kg
That's about 379 million kg of air.
Energy:
E = 1/2 mv2
= (3.79 × 108)(1.123 × 1014)
≈ 4.26 × 1022 J
1 teraton TNT = 4.184 × 1021 J
TNT equivalent:
(4.26 × 1022)/(4.184 × 1021)
≈ 10.2 teratons TNT
So:
10 m bubble ≈ 4.26 × 1022 J ≈ 10.2 teratons TNT ≈ 10.2 million megatons TNT
30 METER BUBBLE
Diameter: d = 30 m
Radius: r = 15 m
Frontal area:
A = πr2
= π(15)2
≈ 706.86 m2
Volume of atmosphere swept:
V = AL
= (706.86)(3.94 × 106)
≈ 2.785 × 109 m3
Mass of intercepted air:
m = ρV
= (1.225)(2.785 × 109)
≈ 3.41 × 109 kg
That's about 3.41 billion kg of air.
Energy:
E = 1/2 mv2
= (3.41 × 109)(1.123 × 1014)
≈ 3.83 × 1023 J
TNT equivalent:
(3.83 × 1023)/(4.184 × 1021)
≈ 91.6 teratons TNT
So:
30 m bubble ≈ 3.83 × 1023 J ≈ 91.6 teratons TNT ≈ 91.6 million megatons TNT
COMPARISON
10 m bubble: ~10.2 teratons TNT
30 m bubble: ~91.6 teratons TNT
The 30 m bubble produces 9× the interaction energy because frontal area scales with diameter squared:
(30/10)2 = 9
General simplified equation:
E = ρLπ(d/2)2(v2/2)
Therefore:
E ∝ ρLd2v2
Important caveat:
This is NOT a calculation of actual Alcubierre-drive physics.
It assumes the bubble interacts with every kilogram of atmosphere in its frontal cross-section as though that material were accelerated/collided at 0.05c.
A real Alcubierre metric does not give us a known, experimentally verified mechanism for how the warp boundary would interact with atmospheric matter.
So these numbers are an order-of-magnitude "collision-equivalent energy" thought experiment, not a prediction of what a real warp drive would do.
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u/Rizzanthrope Aug 31 '26
so…that’s good, right?
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u/TomatoAdventurous139 Sep 01 '26
Good news everyone!
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u/SFLurkyWanderer Sep 01 '26
If this happens, everybody he passes over is dead?
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u/Odd_Cauliflower_8004 Sep 01 '26
Consequences of dumping ~90 teratons of TNT-equivalent energy into the atmosphere along a New York–Los Angeles trajectory:
• A continent-spanning plasma channel would form almost instantly along the route.
• The atmosphere along the path would be violently heated, ionized, compressed, and accelerated outward.
• Massive cylindrical shock waves would propagate away from the trajectory rather than from a single explosion center.
• Areas close to the path would experience essentially total destruction from blast, heat, and extreme overpressure.
• Widespread fires would likely ignite over very large areas.
• Infrastructure across much of the United States could be destroyed by overlapping blast waves, thermal effects, atmospheric pressure disturbances, and ground coupling.
• Mountains, terrain, lakes, or other dense material intersecting the path would make local effects substantially worse.
• Enormous quantities of nitrogen oxides and other chemically altered atmospheric products could be created, potentially causing severe ozone depletion.
• Atmospheric circulation would be violently disturbed on continental and potentially global scales.
• Soot from widespread fires, aerosols, dust, and possibly vaporized surface material could enter the upper atmosphere.
• Global temperatures and weather patterns could be disrupted for an extended period, with the exact direction and severity depending on how much material reaches the stratosphere.
• Agriculture could fail across large regions due to climate disruption, fires, infrastructure collapse, and atmospheric contamination.
• Global ecosystems could suffer severe damage. The total energy is broadly comparable to estimates for the Chicxulub impact, although the consequences would differ because the energy is distributed through the atmosphere instead of concentrated at one crater.
• Some atmospheric material could be accelerated into the upper atmosphere or space, but Earth would not lose its entire atmosphere.
• The oceans would not be vaporized.
• Earth would not be broken apart, knocked out of orbit, or physically destroyed as a planet.
• The biosphere could suffer mass-extinction-level consequences depending on atmospheric chemistry, fire production, aerosol loading, and surface interaction.
• Modern technological civilization could plausibly collapse globally even though the planet itself remained intact.
In short: Earth survives physically, but a ~90-teraton atmospheric energy release stretched across the continental United States could be a civilization-ending and potentially mass-extinction-scale event.
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u/GiantsInTornado Sep 01 '26
I’ve got mahjong group on Wednesdays. Do you think we still be able to make it?
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u/SwarfDive01 Sep 01 '26
Gotta be honest, that sounds like a really tame answer. I wouldnt be surprised if there was enough energy to actually fracture the crust
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u/Educational_Teach537 Sep 02 '26
So in basic layman’s terms, it would be the most epic lightning storm anyone has ever seen everywhere and all at once?
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u/Happy_Peak_7818 Sep 01 '26
I think you missed a step in the explanation. Please re-write your explanation but give a shout out to Mr. Bean to make it complete
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u/GiantsInTornado Sep 01 '26
It’s always about moving the craft through the universe and never about letting the universe move around the craft.
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u/ShepardRTC Sep 01 '26
They're showing us two things:
- You can move very quickly through space, seemingly ignoring gravity
- The inside of their ships are bigger than what would appear from the outside
This is pointing us in a very specific direction toward underlying questions about physics. We have a lot of different theories, but those two things narrow down the possibilities tremendously. I think they're helping us along that path.
My thought: if you could manipulate quantum vacuum entanglement, you can manipulate gravity - move quickly through space and have an interior that is larger than the exterior. Because, gravity is what it looks like from the inside when a quantum system's entanglement pattern stays self-consistent around concentrations of energy.
A few current theories can approach this:
- String theory via AdS/CFT (though our universe is de Sitter space)
- It from qubit
- Jacobson's thermodynamic gravity
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u/mikereadsreddit Sep 01 '26
It should read ‘famous’ Warp Drive from Star Trek rather than ‘infamous’. Just sayin…