With you there. Distance is a real pain.

One day distance won't be an issue, I hope it's within this lifetime.

In one way, it sounds fairly simple. Simple enough for science fiction writers to create inside their heads.

Then, there's the real world bit to think about. What a buster of a dream, that is. Think about how many powerful companies would be interested in NOT seeing that technology come about. All car makers would be reduced to a luxury market. Motorcycle and bike companies, included. Fuel companies have been long time heavy weights in governing how the world works. Airline companies would be left without customers, almost overnight. Entire cities might be at risk of losing commerce, if shoppers could just travel via folded space to a Wal-Mart the size of Chicago that's planted in the middle of India. National bourders could almost become a joke. So much of what makes the world what it is, today, would be radically altered by such a technology. And, those are just examples off the top of my head.

So, I'd have to conclude that even if some scientist were to find a way to make distance no longer an issue, the very financial structure of the world would be aggressivly out to bury it. Or, it would become a top secret tool for some government that they probably would never let be known to the rest of the world.

I believe that, one day, distance for physical matter will not be an issue for us.

After all, once upon a time, it took months or years to navigate the Earth. Now, we can fly almost anywhere in hours. How many years ago has it been that a voice could only reach as far as one could yell? Then, the telephone came around and a voice could travel at the speed of electricity. And, even today, we can send ideas and images and sound around the world in seconds. Full on matter is just a boundry to cross. Personally, my bet is on folding space.

Do keep in mind that I believe there really are space people of many races watching us. And, I believe their ships can navigate space as easily as we navigate air. It's just a matter of knowing how. And, us Humans are barely out of pre-school on things that are to be known.

Agreed. Though I don't think they are watching us... yet. Once we make ourselves known... aka a lot of space probes... we just might catch their attention.

There are a few TV specials that seem to state otherwise.

To start with, the tons and tons of home video camera stuff that film all these strange things in the day and night sky. Most are so grainy and/or pixelated that it's really a guess as to what they are. One can chalk those up with the rural abduction stories. "So, you were alone and drinking heavy alcohol when a saucer descended..."

Next, are the more detailed camera stuff that makes you wonder if it's real or a really good hoax. Some even make 'experts' disagree with each other.

There's also those Mexican air shows that have plenty of audience members...including these way off, air borne things that seem to be watching from a distance. I like to think of those as the longest distance tourists around. Still, what they are is left unanswered.

But, then...we get into the camera stuff that is not home made, but military. Talking footage that is smuggled out. Like footage from planes that is hard to doubt. Or, those new cameras that see in a totally different spectrum from the Human eye. And, what they catch in mid-air is something right out of Star Trek with those cloaking ships. We have planes that can nearly disappear from radar. But, from pure sight?

And then, there's the classic one that I read about in a book from many years ago. Nobody but a space probe can go to the rings of Saturn and catch what looks like a distant ship coming out of a concealed base and firing some kind of missile that blows up the spying probe. Try as I might, I can't find one spec of information about that, anywhere on the internet. But, it was in a factual book from my Jr. High School, complete with the last three photos the satellite sent back to Earth before going dark.