At times, when the photons passed through the cloud of gas without being absorbed, the research team discovered that the atoms were still excited for the same amount of time if they had been absorbed. In other instances, the research team observed that when the photons were able to be absorbed, the light particles would actually be re-emitted without any delay whatsoever, doing so in an instant in some cases.

While the results can point to evidence of time travel for some, the team of researchers insist that their findings don’t completely alter our previous understanding of time, it just places “more physical significance” on negative time that originally thought.