Based on a novel by Stanisław Lem, the 1960 East German/Polish film The Silent Star is set in the future of 1970, when explorations in the Gobi desert unearth an strange crystalline object containing a fragmentary message from Venus. It seems to suggest an impending invasion, and an international team of scientists is quickly dispatched to the far-off planet to investigate. The crew, composed of a Russian commander and astronauts from Africa, China, Germany, India, Japan, Poland, and the USA, land in a strange glass forest and discover evidence of an advanced civilization. Ultimately, after encountering small spider-like robots and a threatening lava-like ooze, the crew figures out that atomic weapons intended for Earth had accidentally exploded on Venus, leaving only the Hiroshima-like shadows of their makers.