First pass at the event timeline
ETMR: Extraterrestrial mining robot
T=0 ETMR entry. Unattributed first signatures: Visual, acoustic, waves. Few reports if any beyond local new story, in Spanish, from a Chilean fisherman whose cousin's boat never came back. When analyzed in retrospect, assumed to be meteor. Too big and too fast to be a plane crash.
T=1 ETMR deployment underseas. Signatures: Undersea acoustic; seabed tracks; <<Ignored>
T=1 Onset of ETMR mining activity: Disturbance of the ocean bottom; localized acoustic, thermal, beginning of neutrino flux <<Not detected at that time>>
T=2 High-level ETMR mining: Generation of a black and/or white smoker, migrating neutrino focus, microseismic activity
T=3 Unattributed identification of second signature (e.g., neutrinos)
T=4 Unattributed identification of the third signature (e.g., seismic activity under the Andes)
T=5 Unattributed identification of the fourth signature (e.g., smoker activity in the deep Pacific west of Chile)
T=6 The connections begin to be made by one or two amateurs, or by an iconoclast academic
T=7 The hunt for prior events begins
T=8 Government security involvement
T=9 Government explorations begin (deep-sea submersibles
T=10 Report commissioned
T=11 Key report writers disappear
T=12 Unofficial early copy of report leaked to friend of key writer prior to his disappearance
T=13 Hunt continues....
