The Brigadier finds that he is unable to pilot the time bridge beyond the caldera, since it is tuned into the omicron radiation signature from the spacecraft. Benton thus prepares to lead a team through the bridge to find and rescue the Doctor, Liz and Yates. As the team prepares to set off, reports start to come in from UNIT's American offices of strange, spectral UFO sightings on the American west coast. Sightings are also reported of ghosts and of spectral buildings which have not existed for years. Soon reports are coming in from all over the American continent, and then from Hong Kong and Japan. As Benton and his team pass through the time bridge, a commercial jet crashes in Munich after the pilot reports that the runway has changed position. Soon the sightings reach England as well; ghostlike squadrons of marching figures, dead people and condemned buildings are spotted. The opposite occurs as well—people who still exist become harder to perceive...