To be honest!
At first, Annie thought something super fun and interesting had happened. But who could have guessed that after the robot Isaac started explaining, she'd realize it was apparently nothing more than an experimental accident?
Anyway, in that conference room, Annie heard the robot Isaac and Uncle John, the head of Engineering, present a bold theory about the newly arrived young Aunt Kelly. Put simply:
The time device they'd been researching and improving, which had originated with Dr. Anov, had obviously worked. Unfortunately, it had been struck by gravitational waves, accidentally activating it and creating a temporal field that reached some sort of peak.
As luck would have it, First Officer Kelly hadn't been able to leave in time after listening to their report. She was the closest to the time device when the gravitational waves hit the Orville, and so the "tragedy" happened.
Through a series of subtle connections, the temporal waves had somehow used First Officer Kelly as a marker and transported her—this "Kelly" from seven years ago—onto the Orville, giving her a free trip through time.
Of course, it was Kelly from seven years ago who'd traveled through time, not Kelly from the present day. As for why it had happened that way, neither man could explain.
In short!
The whole thing might sound far-fetched, and it was beyond the mainstream technological capabilities of the Planetary Union, but in the face of the ironclad facts, their theory was undeniably reasonable and close to the truth.
After that, thanks to Isaac and John's analysis and the young "Kelly's" own account, everyone more or less accepted and understood the two men's theory. They also listened to some of their other ideas, which hadn't yet been tested or proven.
Still, there were things they couldn't explain. For example,