According to AP, uniformed public-affairs staff were escorting their convoy in a government minivan.

This is about as invited as a convoy can look.

Security personnel apparently took the group for possible gate crashers. AP, citing KEYT, reported that sirens sounded, barricades went up and officers pointed guns. The Examiner also reported that the group was ordered from its cars at gunpoint. Hands went up.

The reporters were made to sit on a curb. An enlisted service member and a junior officer were handcuffed and taken away in base vehicles. AP says both were assigned to the base.

The reporters remained there for more than half an hour. They missed the ceremony and were released without further incident. Neither account reports that a weapon was fired or anyone was physically injured.

The ceremony was a groundbreaking for a new facility to train missile operators. The Examiner called it a “golden shovel” ceremony.

The shovel was symbolic. The guns were not.

According to AP, a Space Launch Delta 30 Public Affairs spokesperson described the episode to Noozhawk as a breakdown in communication. The statement said Vandenberg had experienced more unauthorized entry attempts.

“Every potential unauthorized presence must be treated as a legitimate threat until proven otherwise,” it said.

The sentence begins with a possibility and ends with a threat. Proof comes later.

The statement acknowledged that the experience “may have been unsettling” but said protecting the base and its personnel was the priority.

A table can be unsettling. Drawn firearms are something more.

Noozhawk editor in chief Tom Bolton said his organization respected the military’s security needs. He also called what happened “unfortunate and unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, as firearms were drawn.”

Both things can be true. A military base needs security. A security system can create danger when its parts do not know what the other parts are doing. Adulthood occasionally permits two facts at once.

The available accounts do not identify the failed message or the person responsible. They include no security log or order. They do not establish that anyone intended to target the press.

They cannot even agree on the weekday. AP says Monday. The Examiner says Wednesday.

The communication has not entirely recovered.

That leaves a mix-up. People hear mix-up and imagine a missing hat or the wrong sandwich. This one had guns.

A system does not need a villain to become dangerous. One part says welcome. Another says hands up. Each may believe it is doing its job. The human being occupies the space between them, usually on a curb.

Security is not only readiness to use force. It is correct information arriving before the force does.

At Vandenberg, the reporters waited more than half an hour for the information to catch up. They missed the golden shovel.

An invitation is a communication. At an armed gate, it is also safety equipment. Someone has to make sure it works.