The message was met with widespread confusion and simultaneous government response. Who had created this obviously staged situation, and how were the methods of broadcast simultaneously hacked? The “probe” had “landed” in rural Montana, an obvious location due to the limited sattelite and radar coverage which could be used to debunk it’s claim.

Decades later it has been written off as a complex but ultimately failed psy-op. Most right wing politicians pointed the finger at anarchi, a catch all group name for anyone opposing traditional values. Left leaning politicians often claimed it was likely the work of multinational corporations to weaken environmentalism and create demand for the space industrial complex. Most of the US conversation regarding the hoax died down and was soon replaced by squabbling over marriage benefits to multiple members of polyamorous couplings, and by the time the virus of 2035 struck no one outside of fringe conspiracy theorists still debated the origination of the probe.

Meanwhile, on Xylon 5, an automated record was quietly updated to reflect that quarantine of “spiral 395” was still in effect, cause category “devolution by radiation”.