2001: A Space Odyssey Part 2, Chapter 11

Anomaly

• And on to a briefing room for a meeting.
• Is your heart pumping, Shmoopers? Nothing says excitement like a meeting of bureaucrats.
• Everyone listens to Dr. Michaels speak. He babbles on, but the gist of it is that there is a magnetic anomaly in the Tycho crater on the moon.
• This was called TMA-1, or Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1.
• They excavated and found a big black slab (now where have you all seen a slab before?).
• Dr. Michaels announces—dum-da-dum—that the slab is not natural and that it's three million years old, so it was made by aliens.
• This is a big deal revelation for the folks gathered there. Less for you, Shmoopers, since you were around for the last chapter with the man-apes and already knew that there were aliens out there.