In the Sonoran Desert, French scientist, speaker at the ''Montsoreau'' conference, Claude Lacombe and his American interpreter, cartographer David Laughlin, along with other government scientific researchers, discover Flight 19, a squadron of Grumman TBM Avengers that disappeared more than 30 years earlier in the Bermuda Triangle. The planes are intact and operational, but there is no sign of the pilots. An old man who witnessed the event claimed that "the sun came out at night, and sang to him". At an air traffic control center in Indianapolis, controllers listen as two airline flights narrowly avoid a mid-air collision with an unidentified flying object (UFO), which neither pilot chooses to report, even when invited to do so. In Muncie, Indiana, 3-year-old Barry Guiler is awakened in the night when his toys start operating on their own. Fascinated, he gets out of bed and discovers something or someone (off-screen) in the kitchen. He runs outside, forcing his mother, Jillian, to chase after him.