A boy finds a strange device left behind by aliens and the moment he picks it up, everything changes. He gains powerful abilities, but they’re wild and unpredictable. Now, he’s being hunted, and the powers he can’t control might destroy more than he can save.

‘SPOILER ALERT’

In 1979, a small group of lumberjacks chop down some trees and load them up. One of them, Carl Miessner, makes his way back home in his truck, with his colleagues, the Haskell brothers, just up ahead.

As they’re driving into town, some folks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, record a very strange occurrence. Before they can send out agents, Carl witnesses the Haskells’ truck floating into the air like a paper bag caught in the wind. Seconds later, it’s dropped violently.

Without hesitation, Carl rushes out to check on things, only for an unidentified flying object to appear above the woods. The folks at NASA try to hurry things up but their systems shut down in the process, leaving Carl unfortunate enough to get zapped with an unbelievable amount of energy. The energy is so intense that it sends him floating, unable to move a muscle. And thus went his alien abduction.

Present day, Isaac Cypress, a computer engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab in NASA California, rides his bike to work. He climbs the stairs to meet his co-workers Beck and Greeta, and goes straight to locating the audio file Beck had sent out using NASA satellites.

He finds it within the first minute and an unbelieving Beck comes to confirm. He then realizes that what Isaac found is a recurring signal from Canada. Killjoy that Greeta is, she has to interrupt their fun for them to return to work.

By past seven that night, Isaac receives an encrypted message of unknown origin. Confused, he pays his therapist a visit and she suggests that he tries out a video diary for at least five minutes every day. Isaac takes her suggestion seriously, and by his 46th log, he starts to talk about his dead dad and how he’d love to crack another dimension where he’s still alive.

By the 50th log, Isaac hitch hikes his way up a hill. On the top, he records himself talking about the Millennium 2 project, only to be distracted by a meteorite falling from the sky. He records it the best he can, and since everyone in Pasadena practically saw it, fighter jets and rapid response teams fill the area within minutes.

In a bid to hide from them, he slides downhill and gets away with it. A few steps forward and Isaac comes across the same UFO that Carl encountered, but doesn’t know it. He records the ship anyway and it disappears seconds later.

Silence fills the air, and the moment Isaac turns around, he’s face to face with a grey brown alien with eyes so black they could pass as lumps of coal. Slowly, he turns his camera back on, and just as slowly, the alien turns to leave. Immediately after, Isaac runs for his life, but he doesn’t run far before getting abducted.

While the news goes on about the meteorite, Mark, Isaac’s boss, comes looking for him to help them retrieve samples. For some reason, Beck and Greeta have no idea where he is.

Three days pass before Isaac finds himself back in the woods. The first thing he does is review the footage and he confirms that he was indeed abducted. A mix of excitement and confusion plague young Isaac up until he arrives at his apartment.

Staring at the tv intently, Isaac witnesses as it suddenly disappears. He gets up, still confused, and tries to feel for the TV. Instead, his hand seems to slip into spacetime. He sits back down after this, only to stare intently again. This time, the TV reappears, pushing Isaac into a silent panic.

A few minutes later, he tries the same thing with his video camera and it disappears and reappears just like the TV. Isaac can’t sleep that night, and first thing in the morning, he visits a doctor.

An x-ray reveals that his right arm had been cut clean through with so much precision that it appears as a straight line. The doctor has never seen anything like it and promises to get back to Isaac after reviewing the x-ray some more.

Shortly after, Isaac practically ambushes Beck at work, placing a cup before him and trying to make it disappear. He pulls this off, but to Beck, Isaac did nothing, seeing as the cup is still visible to him.

Having no reason to believe Isaac, Beck is forced to ask if his friend is okay. In turn, Isaac shows him footage of the alien, making him wonder if what he’s looking at is real. It’s at this moment that Isaac realizes he’s been gone for three days and he doesn’t even get to process this before Greeta steps in, talking about not having any proof of the meteorite.

Apparently, the best footage they have is from a passerby who posted it on science magazine, so Isaac tries to get Beck on board with showing her his footage. Sadly, Beck shuts him down and he abruptly exits the room.

Upon getting home, Isaac doesn’t even change his clothes before plugging his video camera to a mainframe. He goes on to export the footage of his abduction and then uploads it to science magazine. Overnight, it goes as viral as a baby cursing.

At the crack of dawn, Isaac gets a call from Kristine Schafer from KFLA, a TV station, asking if he’d be available for an interview later that day. Isaac sits up in bed upon hearing this, and later checks science magazine to find that over 800 thousand people have viewed his video.

Of course, he gives in to checking the comments, and while some are encouraging, others are very mean.

He gets on a train next, but his phone keeps blowing up with people trying to get him to come in for interviews. Upon arrival at his exit, Isaac sees graffiti art stating that aliens exist. This serves as more motivation for him to tell his story.

He gets set up at KFLA, with Christine sitting on his left side as the interview begins. They cue the footage he posted and ask him to narrate what happened. A bit bewildered, Isaac explains how he was hiking and heard a noise, and how he saw the alien staring at him and just froze.

Christine doesn’t seem to believe him, as evidenced by her bringing up his job as an engineer at NASA, and asking if it’s possible that he created the video. In turn, Isaac makes it very clear that he’s not making up his abduction. Not wanting to argue, Christine simply leaves the viewers to decide and cuts the show shortly after.

Just like that, every news outlet, media blog, and famous YouTube channel ask the question – “is Isaac Cypress a liar?”

It goes so viral that people start coming up and pretending to know Isaac, so viral that Isaac comes out of his apartment to find a bunch of journalists and extraterrestrial enthusiasts wanting a direct statement from him. He manages to escape these folks, and after being called a faker one too many times, goes on the internet to search for people with symptoms similar to his.

He comes across a forum with descriptions of arm pain and x-rays showing precise incisions. Someone with the handle “truthseeker” had put these up, so Isaac texts them directly and asks if they can meet up.

By the next day, he sits in a secluded diner awaiting truthseeker’s arrival. While he’s doing that, random small objects around him begin to float: from the coffee cups to the cutlery, and he’s only snapped out of it when the unsuspecting waitress comes to take his order.

Isaac asks for some coffee, and before it comes, truthseeker, who’s actually Sara, steps through the doors. She’s cautious as she sits opposite him, so much so that she doesn’t even order anything. The moment the waitress leaves, Isaac bursts into geek mode, explaining his experience and asking incessant questions about her.

Sara pretends like she can’t relate, that’s until Isaac shows her the footage direct from his video camera. He goes on to show her some paintings from the 15th century with UFOs in their backgrounds, stating that the aliens have been around for a long time. Not to mention Nikola Tesla, a famous scientist who received strange messages through a giant radio tower in 1899. Even Buzz Aldrin, an astronaut, saw a hovercraft just floating out in space in 1927.

Isaac gives more examples before Sara mentions the incident in 1979 Alaska, adding that the three people who witnessed Carl getting abducted all passed lie detector tests. Unfortunately, he disappeared shortly after his story came out.

Sara claims to have the story somewhere on her laptop, so Isaac gives her his number just in case. With this, they both part ways.

Meanwhile, in a cabin in the woods, Carl Meissner has set up quite the station, listening into various frequencies as he searches for a response from alien life. Well, he finds it as the oscilloscope keeps scrambling.

Later on, Isaac’s phone buzzes and he picks it up to hear Sara on the other side of the phone. She found the Carl story and wanted to tell him all about it, so she does. Isaac tries to search for him online but nothing concrete pops up. It’s at this moment that he has a crazy idea.

Isaac creates copy after copy of the alien abduction footage, tags them with his name and content title, and then searches for every possible agency capable of handling extraterrestrial cases. Later on, he packages all these copies in various envelopes and heads out to mail them.

With his hoodie drawn over his head, Isaac soon finds out how difficult it is to transport so many packages. They fall from his grasp, sprawling on the ground. Just then, a stranger, who was eating in a nearby diner, steps out to help him. In the process, he recognizes Isaac from his interview and introduces himself as a writer for a personal online blog.

He’d like to help Isaac tell his own side of the story, so he hands him a business card to reach out if he wants to.

Upon getting home, Isaac comes across some fanatic going on about how his abduction isn’t legitimate. Tired of hearing this, he picks up the stranger’s card, which reads Keith Obberman, and finds his address on the back. With this, Isaac packs a small bag and heads out in his trusty hoodie.

He arrives at quite the huge building and sees the receptionist on the ground floor. In turn, she alerts Keith about Isaac’s presence, and leads him to his office soon enough. Without wasting time, Keith gets into the case, suggesting that Isaac take a lie detector test to shut down all the claims of him being a faker. Apparently, Keith wants him to take the test immediately and a bewildered Isaac agrees.

After Keith leaves to retrieve the machine, Isaac notices a sheet of paper with weird numbers in brackets. Sadly, he doesn’t have enough time to go through them before the writer returns. He hands Isaac two straps with wires attached and has him wear them around his index and ring fingers respectively.

Keith starts him off with easy yes or no questions about his name and whether or not they’re in Los Angeles. He then ups the difficulty as he asks if Isaac ever ran away from home. All of the questions so far have had positive responses, so Keith braces himself for the last one – whether or not Isaac has had contact with any extraterrestrial life.

The moment he gives a positive response to this, Keith takes off his glasses and excuses himself. In no time, two men in black suits and dark shades show up to retrieve Isaac. He struggles his way out of their grasp, but before he can run four steps ahead, he gets shot in the back with some kind of laser and passes out.

Some time passes before Isaac starts to regain consciousness. He finds himself being transported by two androids and being referred to as a patient. Soon enough, he’s taken to room 285 in holding block C, a completely white room with nothing but a screen in its center.

Just then, he catches a glimpse of Sara being transported past his room, his attention returning to the screen when it comes alive.

It turns out that Keith Obberman is actually Agent William Graves of the international Space Research Program (ISRP). He reveals that many other humans have been in the same situation Isaac is in currently, failing to mention that one of them was his father, Ronald Graves.

The agent claims that they just want to run some tests, only for the screen to go dead after this. Via a public address system, Agent Graves instructs the androids to search for a tracker.

They scan his right arm with a small device and give the agent an affirmative response. After this, they move on to the first test which involves a scale. Graves instructs Isaac to focus on the scale while his men observe it for any changes. They do this for a few minutes, and when nothing happens, they switch the scale out for water in a metal bowl.

Isaac wants to know where Sara is, he’ll even settle for knowing their location, but Graves claims that he’ll have answers when they’re done with the tests. Nothing productive comes from the water test, and the same goes for the lightbulb test that follows.

Frustrated, Agent Graves asks about Carl Miessner but Isaac knows nothing about the man. In turn, he repeats his inquiry about where they are but Graves doesn’t respond. After he cuts communications with him, Isaac realizes that his restraints are pretty loose, so he struggles his arms free of them.

The androids are instantly alerted but Isaac is faster. He ruins the screen in the room, pulling off its stand and using it as a weapon to bash in the heads of both androids. The alarms go off soon enough, with instructions for security to make their way to block C. Isaac finds Sara’s room first, breaks her out, and together, they run from two more androids.

On their way back, he stops by his cell and retrieves a gun from the holster of one of the fallen androids. He doesn’t get to use it before reaching an emergency escape and all other attempts to open the door fail. With Sara on the lookout, Isaac relies on the power of his mind, concentrating on the door until it mysteriously opens.

Quickly, he and Sara go through it but the androids after them can’t seem to get it open afterwards. Isaac and Sara continue down a dark and narrow hallway, and in no time, burst out in a forest in Costa Rica. Meanwhile, Agent Graves mobilizes his men to follow them in hopes of finding Carl along the way.

The duo keep running until they arrive at a restaurant. Sara is the first to take a seat while Isaac tries the front desk. No one answers, so he returns to sit with Sara. Moments later, a lady comes to the front desk and Isaac asks if they have any internet. Speaking Spanish, she gives him directions to a man named Zed.

With ISRP hot on their tail, the duo try their best to move under the shade of the forest, but their pursuers have everything from bikes to helicopters. They eventually find Zed in a bistro the next town over but he’s paranoid as hell, wanting to know their names in full.

Isaac cooperates and only sits down for a minute before the ISRP androids show up. Luckily, Zed not only knows about them, he knows how to stay under their radar.  Together, the three of them make their way deeper into the woods until they come across Zed’s tree house. There, he urges Isaac to chill out, reminding him that he has gone undetected for six months.

He joins Sara on the balcony after this, and she admits to knowing about him before they met. Curious, he asks about her abduction experience and Sara reluctantly tells him.

As it turns out, she was at her aunt and uncle’s cabin in the mountains, alone and trying to take a nap. Sara heard a noise outside and saw something like an airplane through the cabin window. She ignored it and went back to sleep, only to wake up two days later. Her aunt and uncle were panicked as they revealed that a search and rescue team was looking for her, but Sara had no memory of what happened in those two days.

After bonding over their shared trauma, they join Zed who’s been trying in vain to find Carl Miessner. Apparently, he’s been under the radar for the last thirty years.

Isaac has another epiphany.

He makes Zed log into Xavier satellite at JPL, remembering the Canadian signal he and Beck have been getting. With this, they pull the coordinates for the signal and it leads them to a house 60 miles away from the nearest town. Suspicious that it’s Carl, they try for a video call, but the moment he picks up and hears his name, Carl ends the connection.

In turn, Zed forces his way into his computer, and before Carl can log out again, Isaac bursts into a stream of speech, unloading information about his abduction and how people are after him. Carl continues to listen, only speaking when he hears Isaac talking about intercepting his audio signal and getting a response. He wants the data from the response immediately, so Zed logs out, hacks into the NASA server, and downloads it.

Shortly after, Isaac continues the video call and sends Carl the downloaded data. Carl practically goes into a world of his own as he transfers the file to another laptop. He then hooks it up to his audio frequency machine and listens intently.

An eerie robotic voice begins to speak, announcing that they’re coming at 4PM on Thursday, October 21st. The voice narrates some coordinates and then the audio ends. Isaac realizes that the 21st is in five days but gets interrupted by Carl advising them to lay low and get rid of their cellphones. He cuts off the connection again and Zed can’t regain it despite his efforts.

Anyway, Isaac is certain that they have to go to Canada but Sara is against it. It turns out that she’s scared of facing her fears, so he has to convince her that they need answers. Zed just wants to come because he’s curious.

Together, they set out to the nearest access road, hitching a ride to the closest dock. From there, they sail the waters until they arrive at a forest path, and then stop by a seaplane dock where Zed calls in a favor. Soon enough, they board the plane and Jose, pilot in training, takes off.

They fly through the night, oblivious that Agent Graves is still tracking them. That night, he alerts all his northern units about their destination and mentions that Carl Miessner could be involved.

By morning, the trio arrive in British Columbia and hang around the port as Zed searches for a way to get to Carl’s cabin. The closest he can find is a train that’ll stop 30 miles from the cabin. Isaac doesn’t care, given that he just wants them to move.

On the train, he and Sara joke about their incised right arms while Zed scans the area for potential threats.

Soon enough, he catches on to the two androids on their tail and wipes the smiles off of Isaac and Sara’s faces with this information.

They can’t stop staring at the back door in anticipation, and true to Zed’s warning, two androids burst in.

The trio get on their feet instantly, running in the opposite direction until Zed makes them pause. He hands them masks and explains that it’ll confuse the cameras on the androids because they’re programmed to use facial recognition.

They then make their way into the next train car and sit still as the androids enter. One of them stops in front of Isaac, examining his face for a few seconds too many. Anxious, he yells that it doesn’t seem to be working, and he’s right. The android pulls out a gun in no time, forcing Isaac to take cover.

With this, all three race out of the car, with only Isaac and Sara climbing to the top. The android still in the car scans the area, only to witness its counterpart getting thrown off the top. In turn, it tries to chase after their targets but finds Zed waiting. Without hesitation, he kicks the heck out of the android, kicking it again when it tries to hold onto a railing.

They arrive at the train stop unharmed and continue on foot till they reach the closest gas station. From there, they hitch a ride all the way to Carl’s house in the woods. Upon arrival, they notice a bunch of cameras hidden in trees, following their every move, and within seconds, Carl pops out with a shotgun, threatening to kill them.

Isaac quickly identifies himself and the others, so Carl heads inside, pulls out a small device and runs it over their arms to deactivate their trackers. Right on cue, Agent Graves curses as he loses track of them.

Back at the cabin, Carl explains how he spent the last twenty years accumulating devices to translate signals to audio and audio to English. He plays some of it for them and then admits that Isaac’s message about the arrival of aliens is the clearest he has ever heard from them.

He goes on to narrate everything that happened in 1979 and silence reigns when he’s done. With two days left until the arrival of the aliens, the group has nothing to do. Sara notices a turntable nearby and obtains Carl’s consent to put on some music. While they’re vibing, Agent Graves returns to one of the agency’s numerous spots and sends Isaac’s last known coordinates to facility control. He instructs all forces to converge there come Thursday, adding that the warrant for Carl should be reactivated.

Zed is snooping around some devices when Carl comes through, wondering if he needs something. In turn, Zed expresses his awe of how a former lumberjack got the hang of such complicated devices. They eventually laugh over it.

Meanwhile, Isaac and Sara sit in an open field, talking about how something in their bodies changed when they got abducted. Sara wonders how Isaac managed to get through the door that helped them escape and even mentions Carl’s experience of feeling stuck in time.

Seeing as none of them have the answers, they decide to wait until the aliens come.

To blow off some steam, she and Isaac race through the woods on their way back. She enters the house first, and when Isaac follows shortly after, Carl pulls him aside. The former lumberjack would like him to prepare himself for whatever happens when the aliens arrive tomorrow, so they discuss a plan in private.

That night, Isaac can’t sleep and it’s the same with Sara. She calls out to him and they share some last minute thoughts about what’s going to happen. All in all, they’re both grateful to have met someone who understands what it’s like to be abducted. Sara then drifts off and Isaac puts out the lights.

It’s now 3:55 PM on the day of arrival, five minutes left for the aliens to show up. Isaac is lounging by the window and Sara is going through a book like it’s any other day. Soon enough, the cabin shakes for a split second, but it seems like only Isaac noticed it. He goes around asking if anyone else felt it and Carl admits that the aliens are close.

Restless, Isaac bolts out of the cabin and into the woods, leaving the others wondering what’s gotten into him. Carl is the only reason why they don’t go after him.

Meanwhile, Isaac can swear on whatever’s sacred that there’s a presence in the woods and he searches for it like people from third world countries search for greener pastures.

He twirls and twirls until the presence feels closer than ever, and just like last time, Isaac freezes in place. Slowly, he turns around, locking eyes with the grey brown creature he saw before he was abducted. Only four words escape his lips at this moment – “what do you want?”

The aliens follow Isaac back to Carl’s cabin where he sets up the audio frequency machine to translate their language into English. Isaac wastes no time asking why they took them, so the alien admits that they’ve conquered everything from science to medicine, down to technology. And now, they seek something greater, something beyond their understanding. They want the origin of the universe.

Isaac asks why he and the others were chosen, but his alien friend only gives a general response about humans having measurable amounts of a special aura within them.

It’s now the Alien’s turn to ask a question, so it retrieves the image of someone and shows it to Isaac, wanting to know the person’s identity. Like synapses shooting at full speed, images of this great man shrouded in a bright light shine through all of Isaac’s consciousness. Shortly after the sequence is done, he struggles to catch his breath, wanting to know why the aliens are searching for this man.

It turns out that he’s linked to the origin of everything and he’s also the greatest common factor in humans with the aura they’re searching for. Sara deduces that the man they seek is Jesus Christ and she reveals this almost immediately.

The aliens wonder if they have more questions and Sara asks why their arms have been hurting. Without speaking, the alien brings forth an electronic bracelet, tells Sara to relax, and then activates it. In turn, the device takes her arm apart without causing any bleeding.

Eyes widen in shock as a small tracking device exits her arm. The alien retrieves it, and then the device, only to do it all over again to Isaac.

At this point, Agent Graves and his army of operatives make their way to Carl’s cabin. They surround the building in no time, pulling out huge guns and tripping Carl’s motion detectors in the process.

Graves then announces that he’d like Carl to come out and talk about what happened to his father, Ronald Graves, but he’s met with initial silence. Carl eventually steps out though, gun in hand as he yells that he has no idea what the agent is talking about. Graves doesn’t believe him, mostly because Carl failed the lie detector test back then.

Seeing as the former lumberjack refuses to cooperate, Graves gives his operatives the go ahead to shoot him. Within seconds, Carl gets hit and is left to bleed out on the cabin front.

Worried sick, Sara rushes to his side and Isaac can’t do anything because his arm hasn’t been reattached yet. She tries to scold Graves for shooting Carl but this only gets her shot too. As she drops to the ground like bad stock options, the aliens advise a screaming Isaac to focus and use his senses.

They reattach his arm soon enough and disappear into the atmosphere, leaving Isaac to shut his eyes.

Outside, an impatient Graves instructs his men to open fire, and this is when it happens – Isaac opens his eyes and every moving thing in sight slows down except him. He bends space and time, walks up to the door, and grabs Sara.

Somehow, he transports her into a dimension of space only the aliens can see, comes back, and does the same for Carl. Bullets begin to tear through the walls at this point and Zed is still trying to pack his bag. Isaac then returns for him just before he gets shot.

Everyone from agent Graves down to Zed is confused about what happened. The agents can’t see them but the aliens appear to Isaac and the others, healing Sara and Carl with a simple touch.

While Graves is searching for his targets, they walk past him and his men, escorted by the aliens. Soon enough, Graves turns around to see a huge disk floating in the air, and in mere seconds, it disappears. He’s left disoriented to say the least.

Six months later and Isaac still doesn’t fully understand how they escaped that day. He’s just happy that he met a girl who he fell in love with, Sarah. Both of them moved far away from the agency’s radar and started new lives as the owners of a small restaurant.

As for Zed and Carl, they now work with Zuma, a secret tech intelligence agency. By a unanimous vote from the agency, William Graves gets his butt fired for going off on his own.

As much as the majority of the world didn’t believe Isaac, he let his sense of wonder lead the way. It carried him across seas and countries, and his encounter with alien life not only changed his situation, it also brought him to the girl of his dreams. I hope you haven’t lost your sense of wonder?

Proximity 2020.