[raganwald]

Shadows and spots can appear to go faster than light. Example given in the article: We shine a laser at the moon and wave it gently. The spot of light on the moon moves across the surface faster than light would travel. However, what we call the spot of light on the moon is not an object in any real sense.

If I am standing on the Earth with my laser and I place two observers on either edge the moon, we may say colloquially that a spot has moved from one observer to the other faster than light can travel, but in actual fact what has really happened is that light has travelled from me to the first observer and then to the second observer at the speed of light, and it is just that my signal to the second observer arrived extremely soon after my signal to the first observer.