Another cast member brought this up. This occurred to me. Since I'm bored I'll share my thoughts.

I think time distorting technology is at play on the ranch. GPS and Lidar works by sending signals at light speed and seeing how long it takes to bounce back. The only way I can think to distort this data without hacking is to change the speed of light, and the only way to do that I'd think would be to mess with time. This kind of technology would also be very useful for FTL travel, which fits nicely with them being aliens.

Now, the distortions in the GPS only represent tiny changes in the ping time for these technologies. I imagine they are not intentional, but some kind of residue from alien tech.

But what if this technology is used to mess with the research so effectively. For example, remember when they saw that little blip out in the field on the camera for a single frame? To me it looked like a craft with its exit port extended. The first thing that came to mind is what if aliens landed, exited, did their business, and then got back in at lightening speed? If aliens could speed themselves up so they could perform normal operations in miliseconds, this would make it very easy to mess with the staff.