There's an explanation, but it's kinda complicated. Everyone knows that light travels as both a wave and a particle, right? The wave part allows for funky things to happen.
When two waves overlap they create an interference pattern. To help visualize an interference pattern, take two similar hair combs and overlap them (really, this will help). Note the dark and light bands caused by tines and spaces overlaping; these bands are an interference pattern. Now move one horizontally with respect to the other and watch the bands of light and dark move. You should observe that these bands move faster then either comb.
The combs have mass, and thus cannot move at speeds greater then that of light is a vacuum. The bands, however, do not. By moving the combs fast enough you could make the pattern move faster then c. You'd have hard time using them to carry a message from one end of the comb to the other, however.
Because photons travel as a wave, they have crests and troughs (much like the combs have tines and spaces between the tines), so they too create an interference pattern. This pattern (called a wave group) can also move at a different speed (called the group speed then the photons composing the light.
It is this pattern, rather then the photons themselves, that scientists have made move at speeds far greater then that of light. Certainly an impressive feat, but does not violate the known laws of physics.