During a random test of a new KH type of visual reconnaissance satellite in 2025 it is targeted on a random patch of sky… an object previously unknown is discovered and as an after thought some of the NRO staff begin running numbers…. they find there is a twenty kilometer wide extra-solar object approaching earth with an arrival date sometime in 2035. The finding is classified top secret by their minders and a special intelligence packet is assembled and sent to the president.

At the same time as this occurrence a USN P-8 is investigating a massive electromagnetic disturbance two hundred miles off the US eastern seaboard. What they discover is a half mile high shimmering perfectly flat circular object that warps light around it.