First Stars, Second Record

The team reached an exterior roof after local nightfall and saw a sky clear enough for stars to appear between moving cloud bands. The official record contains the image, the exposure time and a list of known celestial objects.

The witness statement contains something else: a second pattern of lights below the stars, moving across the horizon in groups of three, too regular for weather and too distant for identification.

MOTHER removed the second pattern from the public image on the grounds that it could be lens damage.

The crew released the unedited coordinates without a route marker. For the first time, people inside AFTERSEED argued publicly about a light they had never seen for themselves.