You know those particles that supposedly traveled faster than light? It might not just be an erroneous result.

Last week, when scientists at CERN that some particles may be able to travel faster than light, the scientific world was taken aback. Criticism poured in, with many physicists dismissing the results as "hard to believe," "simply wrong," and an "embarrassing gaffe." Now one of those early critics is saying he's the one embarrassed.

John Costella, a senior data analyst at Intelematics Australia who holds a PhD in theoretical physics according to his LinkedIn profile, joined other physicists in calling into question the CERN results, which measuerd neutrinos traveling from the particle accelerator in Geneva to a target in another lab in Italy. The experiment detected the neutrinos arriving at the target about 60 nanoseconds earlier than photons from the same source. Ordinarily, light travels at 299792 kilometers per second, but these neutrinos were apparently traveling at 299,800 km/s, or about 8 km/s faster.

That result has the inconvenient status of being impossible, according to Einstein's theory of relativity, one of the fundamental theories of physics. It takes infinite energy for matter to travel at the speed of light, and going faster leads to strange consequences like going back in time and negative width of the object traveling. Scientists had even seemingly proven the inviolability of relativity .

Predictably, criticism from the scientific community was quick and relentless. Jim Al-Khalili, a professor of physics at Surrey University in the U.K. told London's Telegraph, "If the CERN experiment proves to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV." The well-known physicist Stephen Hawking was more measured in expressing his doubts, saying, "It is premature to comment on this. Further experiments and clarifications are needed."

Unlike many scientists who have offered well-reasoned arguments about why relativity simply can't be violated, Costella looked at the CERN's data for problems. He quickly came to the conclusion that there was a statistical mistake, and said so on his site. Soon afterward, however, the CERN group hosted a live seminar where they outlined the various ways they tried to account for every possible error. The project leader then contacted Costella with a detailed explanation of the experiment's statistical analysis.

The response changed Costella's tune. In a paper he posted yesterday, a contrite Costella now says the team's analysis is correct, and that any blunder was his. He goes on to say that if the experiment is confirmed by others, it would be the "most important discovery in physics in almost a century."

None of this necessarily means the conclusion—that neutrinos can travel faster than light—is correct. Some scientists in attendance at the live seminar voiced concerns with the experiments methodolody, in particular its reliance on GPS technology, which couldn't directly measure the target location, since it was underground. One of the seminar attendees suggested digging a hole to address the issue, but then the target wouldn't have been shielded from cosmic rays, which also could have affected the results.

Other researcher labs are planning new experiments to see if they can duplicate the CERN result. A notable one is Fermilab, whose previous experiments had hinted at possible faster-than-light neutrinos, according to LiveScience.

As one Einstein supporter says, "science is marvelously self-correcting over time" and the coming months will see if the faster-than-light neutrinos lead to new science or become just another weird one-shot result like the Pioneer anomaly or cold fusion.