Or, in this case, what's missing: Cerenkov radiation.
You might liken it to the sonic boom, where a physical object impinges the domain of sound, or Cerenkov radiation.
If they had set up any peripheral scanners, they'd catch the Cerenkov radiations from our plasma weapons.
"Which we can express by watching Cerenkov radiation in rundown lofts," Kirby said.
Such a shock wave, called Cerenkov radiation, could be detected from the ground as a flash of visible light.
Haus uses his formulation to explain Cerenkov radiation in which the speed of light of the surrounding medium is less than c.
The result is a form of light called Cerenkov radiation.
"But Cerenkov radiation is associated with black holes," McCoy said.
Cerenkov radiation, however, is also associated with the sudden deceleration of a superrelativistic body in atmosphere.
A form of hyperdimensional Cerenkov radiation, if you will.