Media

During the course of the day numerous logo-bedecked vans with satellite dishes on their roofs appeared and parked near the object. These soon produced people who promptly set up cameras and lights and reporter/presenters who then began to describe the scene to their distant audiences. Technicians soon began muttering amongst themselves, complaining that the object was so big and so black that it was difficult to frame a shot that gave a decent background for the presenter.

At this point, the object's surface began to display an image, which eventually became a perfect representation of the scene on the other side of the object, effective rendering it invisible to the cameras. However, this rendition was in black and white, which had the added effect of making the cameras seem to be faulty.

Music

The object was heard to be humming to itself. Several experts were brought in to try and determine what it was humming, since it appeared to be a melody of some sort.

Opinions varied, ranging from something vaguely classical to Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix tunes. This was used, by some of the red-top newspapers, to provide proof that the object was of extra-terrestrial origin since everyone knew Hendrix had to be an alien to be able to play so well; although others simply declared it to be some kind of radio receiver.

Quake

The city was rattled by a moderate earthquake. Commuters noticed more shake than usual on the trains, traffic policemen fell off their podiums, and a glass tankard was broken at the Dog and Digitiser.

The Geological Survey announced that, strangely, the centre of the disturbance was measured to be at or very near to ground level. Sometime later, scientists noticed that the object appeared to be sitting further into the ground than before but they couldn't decide whether this was as a result of the earthquake or whether the object caused it as it settled.

Conference

A conference was called to discuss theories as to the origin, structure and purpose of the object.

Initially it was suggested that this should be hosted at a prestigious engineering college not far from the park where the object was located. However, after much discussion by telephone and email it was recognised that the main function of any conference was to allow the participants to network. So the event was held in the upstairs room of the Dog and Digitiser public house, from which the object could be seen across the river.

Proceedings of the conference were speedily published but turned out to be totally incomprehensible. Nonetheless, several of the papers were cited during the following few weeks.

Experts

Numerous experts were summoned to investigate the object. Two eminent professors attempted, independently, to determine its exact size; using a long piece of rope, some planks of wood, and a laser. Sadly they were unable to agree and called upon a statistician to calculate the probability of either of them being right.

An expert in remote sensing, fresh from working for NASA on studies of Martian rocks, used infrared radiation to work out the substance of which the object was made. Since his beams were bounced back at him completely unchanged, despite the object appearing to be unreflective, he was unable to discover anything. He also complained that, as his subjects were usually millions of miles away, he was used to brewing tea while waiting for his results and was having trouble dealing with anything instantaneous.

A young man wearing a curious hat tried to test the object by heaving half a brick at it and was chased away by police.

Appearance

A large, jet-black cube was discovered in a quiet part of the city, near the river. As far as can be ascertained, it materialised sometime between four and five in the morning in a small park and occupies most of what was previously a plain area of grass.

Before long a group of curious spectators gathered, shepherded outside a barrier of yellow tape by a couple of police officers. A reporter, canvassing for opinions amongst passers-by, asked an elderly man walking a remarkably small dog if he (the man that is) had any views as to what it might be. "It's just some big dumb object" was the response.

It shortly began to rain and some of the bystanders noticed that the cube did not get wet.