An international think-tank of physicists believes a famous UFO sighting in Chicago may hold clues about ‘faster than light’ space travel.

At about 4:14 PM on November 7, 2006, a ramp employee at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport spotted a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering in the sky.

Physicists working for the privately funded organization Applied Physics believe that the 2006 O’Hare airport UFO sighting shows telltale signs of an interstellar propulsion system called an ‘Alcubierre warp drive.’ Above, an image taken via helicopter above O’Hare on August 13, 2018

At about 4:14 PM on November 7, 2006, a ramp employee at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago spotted a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering in the sky. Pictured: An image of the UFO believed to be taken on an airport employee’s phone

A total of 12 staff confirmed the sighting, which they say was a disc-shaped craft that was ‘obviously not clouds’. Pictured: An image of the UFO taken on an airport employee’s phone

Bobrick theorized that the most energy-efficient shape would be flat.

‘Some models of warp drive spacetimes suggest that the shape of the spacecraft, and the resulting geometry of spacetime bending, could significantly reduce energy requirements,’ Bobrick told tech news site The Debrief.

‘Depending on the specific design of the warp drive,’ according to Bobrick, ‘the pᴀssenger-holding craft may benefit from a saucer or spherical shape per the laws of general relativity.’

As the Applied Physics team noted, there is no known aircraft now or back in 2007 that would capable of resting in midair and then accelerating directly upward at thousands of feet per second.

Nevertheless, because the evidence in the O’Hare UFO case is solely anecdotal, the physicists are the first to admit that their study cannot move beyond the category of merely informed speculation.

‘The only way to fully investigate sightings like this is to gather more data,’ Melcher noted, adding that ‘the level of reluctance expressed by several witnesses should be a cause for concern, which is why we must remove this dangerous stigma.’

‘Pursuing the truth should be the norm,’ he said, ‘not suppressing facts and scientific discourse.’

American Airlines planes seen as pᴀssengers wait at O’Hare International Airport in 2020