Joe is a middle school age kid whose father is a local deputy sheriff and his mother works at a steel mill. At the beginning of the film, Joe's mother is killed while at work. It doesn't show her death, but the movie begins with the funeral wake at their home. Joe and his father don't get along well and the death of his mother further seems to alienate them.While helping his friends film a movie for a film contest, they witness a bizarre train wreck caused by their science teacher. One of the friends is Alice who Joe meets for the first time during the filming of the movie. They start to develop a friendship. Joe takes a mysterious object he finds in the wreckage home with him and strange events begin to happen. The Air Force shows up and starts blocking off the train wreck scene and Joe's father tries to find out what is going on while being stonewalled at every turn by the Air Force officer in charge.Joe's relationship with Alice grows and it turns out that Alice's alcoholic father was supposed to work the shift Joe's mother was working. He didn't show up to work that day because he was drunk and so Joe's mother died rather than Alice's father. Both Joe's father and Alice's father do not want the kids to see each other because Joe's father blames Alice's father for the death of Joe's mother.Eventually both Joe and Alice's fathers end up searching for the kids in the chaos caused by the train wreck and the developing events with an alien life form. Show less «