Amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) & his fiancee Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush) are star-gazing in the desert when a spaceship bursts from the sky & crashes to the ground. Just before a landslide buries the ship, a mysterious creature emerges & disappears into the darkness. Of course, when he tells his story to the sheriff (Charles Drake), John is branded a crackpot; but before long strange things happen & the tide of disbelief turns...Local citizens begin to disappear, people are behaving strangely, & there seems to be an inexplicable run on electrical equipment at the hardware store. When Ellen vanishes as well, John takes matters into his own hands. Racing against time, he must somehow prevent a fiery, tragic confrontation from erupting between the frightened, paranoid townsfolk & the temporarily-stranded aliens.