Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon

by Michael P. Masters

For those of us who move linearly through four-dimensional spacetime, a time traveler who appears out of nowhere creates the impression that something has been created from nothing. Furthermore, a sudden appearance such as this would seem to violate the law of conservation of mass, which states that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, and that the mass of a system must remain constant over time. However, time travel does not actually create or destroy any matter, nor does it violate any physical laws, even at the level of quantum particles as shown previously. Rather, this is simply a rearrangement of existing matter in and around different regions of the block universe. Moving people and things through spacetime by means of a high-energy device capable of forming CTCs merely changes when things are relative to one another. So, despite the perception that something is suddenly popping into existence, this aspect of time travel is better understood as a mere relocation of existing matter, within a much larger system that extends well beyond the present. As such, this perceived paradox may also stem from our tendency to regard time as linear and the present as a closed system, as opposed to one that encompasses the entire universe and the whole of four-dimensional spacetime.