- At the Goldstone Radio Telescope Station 14 in California (a real place, BTW), researchers are broadcasting the five-tonal phrase heard in India and getting no response.
- Suddenly, they start receiving a jumble of pulses representing a seemingly meaningless series of numbers. Laughlin—a professional cartographer if you'll recall—recognizes them as coordinates.
- The researchers steal-borrow a globe from the supervisor's office and discover that the coordinates point to a location near Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.