How to Investigate the Source of the Anomaly in Starfield

Starfield features one of the most obscure objectives and mechanics in the game when it comes to the investigate the source of the anomaly section of one of its main story quests. Though much of the title pretty much holds your hand for what to do, this is one of the rare occasions where it doesn’t. So here’s how to investigate this anomaly in “Into the Unknown.”

How to Find the Source of the Anomaly in Starfield

The investigate the source of the anomaly objective comes in the middle of the “Into the Unknown” main story quest in Starfield. When you arrive on the planet Procyon III to find the anomaly, the game lets you know you have to look for it on your own.

To find the source of the anomaly, you want to first pull up your scanner. For those players on a controller, you’ll want to press the LB button. If you are on mouse and keyboard, you’ll want to press the F key by default.

With the scanner out, the key here is the white circle that goes around most of the middle of your screen. As you might already know, this circle is there for scanning flora and fauna, with the object in question needing to be within the circle’s area.

In this case, we aren’t looking to scan something, though; we need to find the source of the anomaly. To do this, stand still and then start to circle around you while the scanner is up. When you face the direction where the anomaly is found, the scanner circle will start to shake and distort. The white lines will get squiggly and some red will appear.

It is hard to tell this if you move too fast since you can easily pass it up so take your time. Once you find the general direction the distortion is coming from, start heading in that direction. Be careful, though, as it is easy to veer off-course so keep your scanner up.

Once you get close enough to the source of the anomaly, the game will notify you and you’ll finally have an actual marker to run towards. Your goal in this case is the Starborn temple. Be sure to memorize this method since you’ll be using it a lot to find more temples down the line.

Starfield is available for the Xbox Series X and PC.