On the night of July 4, 1978, Florida, 12-year-old David Freeman walks through the woods to pick up his 8-year-old younger brother, Jeff, from a friend's house when he falls into a ravine and is unconscious. When he arrives, he discovers that eight years have passed and it is now 1986, but he has not aged at all. David is reunited with his elderly parents and 16-year-old Jeff. Meanwhile, an alien spaceship crashes through the power lines and is captured by NASA. David is taken to the hospital for tests, where his brain waves reveal images of the spaceship. Then they take David to NASA, and there Dr. Faraday discovers that David's mind is full of alien technical manuals and unknown star charts.