At about 6 a.m., Japanese people on Hokkaido, one of Japan's main islands, woke up to the spooky sound of warning sirens billowing through the hills and warning people to take shelter.
"Missile launch. Missile launch. North Korea appears to have fired a missile. Take refuge in a solid building or underground," droned the sirens, according to Reuters.
Somewhere above, a North Korean multi-stage missile streaked overhead at many miles per second. The missile's stages could have fallen off and crashed into Japan. The warhead could have missed and crashed down. The payload may have been nuclear for all they knew on the ground.
In the video below, see the surreal way many Japanese woke up on Tuesday morning.