Faster than light travel. Does this make sense?

Here’s a simpler-to-explain, but harder-to-perform, example of what the last few posters have been describing:

  1. Find a flashlight (or laser, or whatever) so bright that if you aim it at the moon, you’ll see the moon light up. (I admit that this is pretty difficult.)

  2. Shine the light at the moon for only an instant. (Aiming it won’t be easy. I admit that too.)

  3. Immediately after step 2, shine the light on some nearby object.

  4. First you’ll see the nearby object get lit up, and about 3 seconds AFTER that, you’ll see the moon light up. That’s your time travel illusion. You shined the light at the moon first, but the moon got lit up last.

This happens because the moon is about 1.5 light-seconds away from Earth, and it takes about 3 seconds for the round trip until the light reaches your eyes. While the photons were still on their trip, you had enough time to shine the light on the nearby object and see it.

If there were several objects between you and the moon, you could shine the light on the moon first, and then on the other things, until you reach the really nearby one, but they will seem to have been lit up in reverse order. (You’re shining on the farthest first and then the progressively near ones, but you see the closest one get lit up first, and then the farther ones.)