At this time, something unusual was spotted in Alaska: an unidentified crystalline object of impressive size, located high in the atmosphere and moving surprisingly slowly for a cosmic body. Presumably, the object should land somewhere in South Dakota. Perhaps they were talking about a fireball - a large, slow-moving meteorite. However, this was just a guess. Details were to be determined.

The message reached the Military Information Center in Denver at 8.05 am. By 8:06 he was sent to Washington, and all aircraft in the Pacific Coast area were ordered to take off. Radar at the Oregon station spotted the same object at 8:07 a.m. The operator reported that the observed object was at an altitude of seven hundred and fifty miles, four hundred miles from the coast and was moving towards Oregon from northwest to southeast. There was not a single large city on his way. The Oregon tracking station roughly calculated the most likely point of impact - it lay somewhere in South Dakota. As soon as an unidentified flying object fell into the coverage area of the next observation station, its employees also began calculations and derived the approximate coordinates of the object’s meeting with the Earth.