QUOTE(When Black Roses Bloom @ Aug 29 2007, 12:30 PM)

Well, we've seen this leap forward at the mid 50's when we had the semiconductors and the new micro and later nano technology in electronics. My father is an Industrial Electronics Engineer, and since 1975 repairs televisions and entertainment home apliances (VCR/DVD etc). He told me, while we were watching one of those Roswell footages, that the technological leap was enormous, in just a few years, from vacum tubes to silicon semiconductors and CPUs in general. Perhaps more sophisticated technology (like perhaps magnetic/and-or gravitic propulsion) is much more difficult to be fathomed. Latley I've read from a sience illustrated magazine about a new silicon solvent that is heat/pressure resistant. They aplyed it over a wax crayon and puted the crayon over a heat source (I think was a map-gas tube) and the crayon stayed unmelted. Perhaps some achivements could not be get in commercial production for some years.
Weeeell... not really. The theory of semiconductors was proposed before WW2. The first crude (by todays standards) transistors where produced in the early 1950's, and graducally refined. Then came the idea of putting several transistors onto a germanium (later Silicon) wafer, and the first silicon chips where produced (which where simple logic gates). As we moved from the 1970's to the 1980's improved manufacturing techniques allowed more and more transistors to be crammed into the wafer, and the simple logic chips grew into the first microprocessor chips, and more general applications such as analog amplifiers.
Moving into the 90's, and - again - improved manufacturing techniques increased the transistor density again, allowing the Large-Scale and Very-Large-Scale integration that features in the current generation of microprocessor chips. And many of the industrial improvements where NOT American, but Japanese and Korean.
It was a smooth evolution all the way, with non of the 'abrupt' or 'unexpected' leaps you would expect from a 'pillaged' advanced technology such as a UFO or whatever.
You mentioned the silicon solvent... well... there has been a big fuss recently about 'frozen smoke', which also has remarkable insulation properties. Now THAT looks like something out of a sci-fi film. However, it was first made in the 1930's !
Meow Purr