ballistic missile to hawaii. that alert triggered 38 minutes of panic and confusion that i m sure felt like days before it was eventually corrected. now federal and state officials are launching their own investigations into what exactly went wrong there. joining me now from honolulu is nbc s jacob soboroff. what are you learning from this? reporter: it s fascinating. to mention the 38 minutes, that s the amount of time it would take for an intercontinental ballistic missile to get from north korea to the hawaiian islands. it was a period of sheer panic and terroror for the people here over the course of that 38-minute stretch, and it was all triggered, according to state officials, by an inadvertent push, a double-click of a button that is only supposed to be clicked in respond to a call from u.s. pacific command here in hawaii. that s not what happened at all.