Arrow Chasing the Sun

On April 29, 2018, at 10:15 a.m., an American "Combat Shadow" experimental reconnaissance aircraft took off from the airport.

Two hours later, it was discovered crashed in the eastern Indian Ocean, roughly 170 nautical miles from a military harbor. The nearest naval base dispatched a search-and-rescue team to the crash site.

Pilot Bailey parachuted to safety and was rescued unharmed.

A subsequent investigation found that while flying at high speed at an altitude of six thousand meters, the reconnaissance plane had struck a foreign object. Its wing was damaged, and because of its excessive speed, the damage continued to spread. Unable to make it back, the aircraft eventually crashed.

The military employees investigating the accident found it strange. According to the pilot's account, no flock of birds had been detected when the accident occurred.

The object that struck it was extremely small. The only reason it caused damage was that, during high-speed flight, no one had expected there to be a foreign object at such a high altitude. The integrated detector had not detected any metallic reaction either.

Fortunately, the cockpit recording captured a blurry image of the object that had struck the wing, reflected in the pilot's visor.

"It was rod-shaped. It definitely wasn't a bird."

"How could there be a stick at an altitude of six thousand meters? Did space debris fall?"

"Even if it were space debris, by the time it fell to six thousand meters above the ground, there would have been a trail of descending air currents, whether or not its surface was burning."

"But there was no such trail. In other words, when it struck, the stick was flying horizontally through the sky? Unfortunately, the recording only caught a tiny glimpse of it, so we can't determine its trajectory."

"In any case, space debris has definitely been ruled out. The reconnaissance plane didn't detect any metal products at the time. The object may have contained too little metal. Since that's the case, an object not made of heat-resistant materials couldn't possibly have fallen from space to an altitude of six thousand meters. It should have evaporated long ago."

Several investigators analyzed the matter for a long time, but they still couldn't figure out what had happened.

A foreign object at high altitude, flying through the sky, with an aircraft striking it at high speed and damaging its wing—no one even knew how to write that cause of the accident in the report, because it sounded more like an attack.

After honestly submitting the report, they quickly attracted the attention of a military weapons expert.

Dr. Robert said, "It may be made of some special stealth alloy that evaded our integrated detector."

"The object itself had propulsion. That allowed it to exert rigid force in midair without any support and smash the wing."

"This may not have been an accident!"

Someone nearby exclaimed, "You mean it could be a stealth missile? Or a miniature aircraft?"

"It's very possible that this is a new type of weapon we don't yet know about. Theoretically, the most likely source of such propulsion would be the acceleration of a falling object. But the recording proves that it wasn't a high-speed falling object, so it must possess self-propulsion. It should be an aircraft," the doctor said.

Soon, ships still in the waters around the accident site reported back. They had found no foreign object in the surrounding sea, and there were no fragments of it among the aircraft wreckage.

"It may still be in the air. Deploy more aerial search forces."

Although they were unable to detect the flying object, the search formation's aircraft still found it.

The object was traveling at supersonic speed. As long as they carefully searched a certain altitude, they could see it passing through the clouds and triggering sonic-boom shock waves.

The only problem was that it emitted no signals. If it hadn't shot down one of their aircraft and given them a rough trajectory to lock onto, they truly would have been unable to find it passing at such a great height.

"It's a supersonic stealth fighter... No, not a fighter. It's too small. It should be an unmanned aerial vehicle!"

"Our technology for supersonic stealth unmanned micro-aircraft isn't even this advanced. It's far too small. How does it solve the problem of fuel storage?"

"Is it the latest drone?"

"Pursue it!"

After discovering the fast-flying object, the military quickly determined its flight path.

A supersonic fighter was dispatched from the military harbor to pursue it.

"The target's speed is approximately five hundred meters per second. We expect to catch up in five minutes."

"It actually has such a high-performance unmanned aircraft..."

"Its target may be the airspace above the base. Can we shoot it down?"

"No. It's too fast, and the detector can't detect any signal from it..."

The American military quickly compiled a great deal of intelligence about the mysterious flying object.

Although the mysterious flying object was traveling at supersonic speed, it was still far slower than a true supersonic fighter.

Its truly frightening features were its extremely small size and its incredible radar stealth capabilities.

If it had not been flying so rigidly at an altitude of six thousand meters, making its trajectory overly obvious, and had instead climbed to eight thousand or even ten thousand meters, there would have been no way to detect it.

They had detected no electromagnetic waves, intercepted not even the slightest control signal, and found no metallic reaction. Its material was completely unknown.

"The earlier recording showed that this rod-shaped flying object broke into several pieces when it struck the aircraft. How can it still maintain such a high flight speed?" Dr. Robert asked, puzzled.

"Could it have nanoscopic repair capabilities?" the others asked in horror.

Just as they were wondering about this, five minutes passed in an instant. The pursuing aircraft reported, "I've caught up with it. Its trajectory is very straight. I can attack it. Permission to shoot it down?"

The doctor said, "It hasn't changed course? This may not be an aircraft, but a warhead?"

"Try flying parallel to it and send us the footage."

Soon, the supersonic fighter approached to within about twenty meters of the target. At that distance, it would still have time to evade if the target exploded.

As they flew parallel, the mysterious flying object's shape could finally be seen clearly.

After observing it carefully, the pilot was completely stunned. He immediately transmitted the image of the object back to the base.

"What? An arrow?"

The so-called foreign object was a pure-carbon arrow.

Because of the earlier collision, the arrow had already been shattered. Its shaft had broken into more than a dozen pieces, and the arrowhead had come loose.

Yet those fragments were still stabbing diagonally into the sky at nearly five hundred meters per second.

It was utterly inexplicable. Everyone in the base who saw the scene was dumbfounded.

They had been searching for a mysterious aircraft, but what they found was an even more mysterious flying arrow.

It was a broken arrow. It clearly emitted no exhaust and had no rocket propulsion, yet it was flying at supersonic speed.

At high speed, the arrow's body was visibly heating up, with a small amount of vapor swirling around its surface. Fortunately, pure carbon fiber was highly heat-resistant; less than twice the speed of sound was not enough to ignite it.

"It isn't burning, but vapor is following it... Could that vapor be gas evaporated when it struck the 'Combat Shadow' earlier? Why is that gas also following the broken arrow at supersonic speed?"

Dr. Robert stared at the footage in shock, feeling the absurdity of the scene.

What was propelling this arrow?

Why could it continue moving after breaking apart?

Why could the gas continue moving after some of the material had evaporated?

Where was this inexplicable flight taking it?

Countless questions left the weapons expert completely stunned.

Just as the hall had fallen into silence, a colonel said gravely, "Dr. Robert, organize the data and send it to me. Classify this matter as 3A confidential."

The doctor blanked. "Ah? Yes..."

The colonel immediately sent the organized data upward. Soon, the higher-ups ordered, "Two more supersonic fighters are already on their way to assist. Have the pursuing pilot cooperate in capturing it."

The colonel immediately relayed the order to the pilots near the flying arrow.

Before long, the other two fighters were also flying parallel to the arrow.

One of them was an unmanned aircraft. It fired a dense capture net, successfully ensnaring the scattered fragments of the flying arrow in an instant.

"Gradually reduce speed!"

The unmanned aircraft began slowing down. However, the moment it did, it lost its balance.

The point beneath the aircraft where the metal capture net was attached was pulled taut. The flying arrow was actually dragging the aircraft along while maintaining its own speed, without slowing down at all.

"Losing balance! Losing balance!"

The aircraft responsible for towing spun behind the flying arrow. Yet no matter which direction it flew, it could not stop the arrow from streaking diagonally toward the heavens.

The nearby aircraft flying parallel measured the arrow's speed. It was still five hundred meters per second.

"Cut the capture net!"

Left with no choice, the higher-ups ordered them to abandon the net. The pile of arrow fragments continued flying with the net, while the unmanned aircraft took quite some time to regain stability.

"My God, what is this?" Dr. Robert asked, staring at the screen in near collapse.

He couldn't help saying, "Is this a UFO?"

The colonel shook his head without speaking.

The superior in command also stopped responding, seemingly discussing how to handle the situation.

The three pursuing aircraft could only continue following it. Time passed second by second.

The flying arrow gradually crossed the American base in the Indian Ocean. After a while, the aircraft would no longer be able to follow. Whether because of fuel limitations or restrictions on free-flying zones, American aircraft were not permitted to follow the flying arrow around the globe.

At that moment, Dr. Robert gradually calmed down. His scholarly instincts allowed him to continue analyzing and thinking despite the absurd premise.

He seemed to have thought of something and suddenly said, "Hmm? It seems to have been chasing the time zone all along?"

"The time zone?" The colonel was startled.

Dr. Robert operated the computer and pointed out the arrow's path. "Compare them carefully. You'll see that it has always been heading toward the sun. Its speed is approximately five hundred meters per second, which at thirty-five degrees north latitude is just slightly faster than the Earth's rotation."

"The flying arrow is traveling from east to west. If it maintains this speed, it can circle the Earth once in twenty-four hours. Throughout the process, it will remain almost constantly at the same local time."

He brought up the time when the Combat Shadow was struck and said, "The collision occurred just after noon. The arrow passed over the Indian Ocean at this speed, and when it reached the west coast, it was also noon there. Continuing onward across the Indian Ocean, when it reached the peninsula, it would again be noon locally."

The colonel asked suspiciously, "What does that mean?"

Dr. Robert shook his head. "I don't know. It's as if it were an arrow chasing the sun..."

"Chasing the sun? Shouldn't an arrow chasing the sun fly straight out of the atmosphere? Why would it circle the Earth?" The colonel was confused.

Dr. Robert seemed to have thought of something. He frantically performed calculations, then suddenly stood up and said, "Actually, it isn't orbiting the Earth!"

"I know why it's moving so fast! It isn't following the Earth's rotation! That's why, from our perspective, it's traveling at supersonic speed! And it has remained in sunlight the entire time."

Robert quickly constructed a model. In it, the flying arrow remained fixed as an anomalous point while a sphere rotated beside it.

The sphere represented the Earth, and one full rotation represented a day. To the anomalous point, then, after one day it would have passed over the entire Earth once.

"No..."

Robert quickly overturned this model when he realized that the flying arrow was not stationary relative to the Earth. Even after subtracting the Earth's rotational speed, it still retained a speed of several meters per second.

That speed happened to be the speed at which the arrow was moving away from the surface.

In other words, its inexplicable propulsion did not come solely from the Earth's rotation making it appear to move. Even if the Earth did not rotate, the flying arrow would still possess a strange force propelling it away from the Earth.

It had originally been an arrow flying upward. Because the Earth was rotating, its rotational speed was clearly greater than the arrow's upward speed, causing it to appear to streak horizontally across the sky.

"Moving away from the surface... moving away from the surface... I understand! It's raising its orbit!"

Robert quickly began constructing a new model. However, he was not very skilled at this project; he was only a weapons expert.

He could only explain verbally to the colonel. "Colonel, you're right. It really is flying 'straight upward' out of the atmosphere. Its speed is simply too slow! Its outward speed is only a few meters per second."

"If an object remains under continuous propulsion without exceeding escape velocity, it will orbit the Earth while constantly raising its orbit."

Robert casually drew a spiral resembling a mosquito coil. At the end of the spiral, he drew the line straight outward, symbolizing escape from the gravitational bind.

"I can't explain this inexplicable propulsion, but if it can continue indefinitely, its altitude will gradually move away from sea level at a speed of several meters per second, eventually leaving the atmosphere."

"For some reason I can't understand, it always faces the sun. That's why it doesn't follow the Earth's rotation. Its orbital path is merely an illusion caused by the Earth's rotation."

"After escaping the Earth's gravity, it will continue moving toward the sun through the vacuum... onward... until, in the distant future, it is swallowed by the sun."

The colonel immediately reported this idea upward. Soon, the higher-ups approved the hypothesis.

An old professor appeared on the screen and said to Robert, "Your idea is correct. Although it sounds absurd, it may be the truth. This arrow... is rushing toward the sun without anything able to stop it... at an extremely slow speed."

Robert's expression was ugly. "I was only speculating, but this is too absurd. This spontaneous propulsion allowed it to overcome air resistance and the pull of the Earth's rotation."

"Existence has its reasons. We can only make inferences based on facts. Just now, the flying arrow suddenly accelerated to forty kilometers above the surface, into the outer atmosphere. Our aircraft can no longer keep up. Fortunately, we placed a detector on the capture net. It will continue reporting the arrow's position and speed to us," the old professor said.

Robert frowned. "It suddenly accelerated? That's not right. Doesn't this disprove my theory? If it can move forty kilometers per second, why didn't it simply fly out of the atmosphere?"

The old professor explained, "No, your idea is correct. This still isn't its own speed. It's the Earth's orbital speed... The arrow didn't accelerate away from us. It simply suddenly stopped following the Earth's orbit..."

"Although that's even more absurd, all we can do is form a series of hypotheses about it."

As he spoke, a more rigorous model appeared on the screen.

The old professor said, "Your theory of Arrow Chasing the Sun is one of dozens of hypotheses we've listed, and it's also the most likely one."

On the planar model, a dotted line was drawn between the sun and the flying arrow. The Earth's orbit was not a perfect circle. There were times when it was closest to the sun and times when it was farthest away.

When the Earth was orbiting closer to the sun, the flying arrow could draw on the Earth's momentum. Its own force driving it toward the sun combined with the Earth's force of approaching the sun, making it appear to follow the Earth's gravitational orbit.

This showed that the several meters per second of outward speed observed earlier was not actually its own speed. It was merely because the Earth had been slightly approaching the sun during that period. With the two directions aligned, the flying arrow had barely moved away from the surface.

However, when the Earth was moving away from the sun, even if only slightly, the flying arrow would not follow. Under those conditions, its propulsion seemed to increase by exactly the right amount. After offsetting the Earth's gravity, it could still maintain its own outward speed.

From the perspective of Earth's observers, the flying arrow would then suddenly move away at tremendous speed.

In reality, the flying arrow had not accelerated. The Earth was simply moving too fast, and the two had gone their separate ways.

"The distance between the flying arrow and the sun was not being stretched by the Earth's gravitational pull. Instead, the flying arrow had always been facing the sun and slowly reducing the distance between them... After all influences are removed through calculation, this value indicates that the flying arrow will travel through the vacuum at forty-five meters per second."

"Simply put, no matter how much force pulls on this flying arrow, nothing can reduce its speed toward the sun below forty-five meters per second. On the contrary, assistance can accelerate it."

"We can no longer investigate whether there is any way to stop this unstoppable 'constant propulsion.' It has already moved away from the Earth."

At this point, the old professor sighed wistfully.

Robert was also somewhat dazed. He had worked in engineering his entire life, yet he had never seen anything so strange.

It was practically... practically an extraterrestrial product.

After his serious contemplation based on an absurd reality ended, he once again sank into a state in which his worldview seemed to be collapsing. The physics in his mind had been thoroughly destroyed by this arrow.

No matter how sound the analysis was, it could not withstand the fact that the foundational premise itself was broken!

What the hell was this constant propulsion? Neither classical physics nor revolutionary physics could explain the bizarre phenomenon.

"God, where did this Arrow Chasing the Sun come from?"

P.S.: The original name of the new book was Blue White Society, but someone registered that name an hour before publication. It may be changed later, so for now I've just added a big character. Please support it.