The story begins with a narrator explaining how extraterrestrials, jealous of humanity’s control over Earth, have plotted against them. Their intelligence and motives remain enigmatic, but their arrival marks a catastrophic shift for life on the planet.
Ray Ferrier, a divorced longshoreman and crane operator in Brooklyn, New York, is distant from his two children, teenage Robbie and 10-year-old Rachel. When Ray’s ex-wife Mary Ann, now pregnant, drops off the kids at his Bayonne, New Jersey home on her way to Boston, he reluctantly steps into the role of caretaker. Tensions between Ray and his children are evident, particularly with Robbie, whose rebellious attitude clashes with his father’s gruff demeanor.
Later, an ominous storm brews, marked by peculiar lightning strikes repeatedly hitting the same spot in the middle of a nearby intersection. The strikes create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that disables all electronic devices in the area. Curious, Ray heads to investigate, leaving the kids at home. At the strike zone, the crowd watches in disbelief as the ground shakes violently, splitting open to reveal a towering “tripod” war machine. The alien construct rises from beneath the Earth, unleashing devastating energy weapons that vaporize humans into ash. Chaos erupts as the crowd flees in panic.
Ray rushes back home, gathers Robbie and Rachel, and commandeers a working minivan repaired earlier by his mechanic friend Manny. Ray tries to convince Manny to join them, but as a tripod attacks, Manny is killed, forcing Ray to drive away with his children. Seeking refuge, the family heads to Mary Ann’s empty suburban house in New Jersey. That night, a Boeing 747 crashes into the neighborhood, wrecking homes and scattering debris. While scavenging the wreckage for supplies, Ray encounters a TV news crew who reveal the grim scope of the invasion: tripods have emerged worldwide, decimating major cities with their impenetrable force fields. The correspondent speculates that the aliens arrived on Earth through the lightning storms and activated long-buried machines.
Determined to reunite the children with their mother in Boston, Ray leads them on a perilous journey. However, their van is overwhelmed by a desperate mob, forcing them to abandon it. The family boards a ferry across the Hudson River, but the vessel is attacked by tripods, throwing the refugees into chaos. As they escape the carnage, the Ferriers witness a military counter-offensive against the tripods. Driven by hatred for the invaders, Robbie insists on joining the battle despite Ray’s protests. The military effort fails catastrophically, and Robbie disappears in the destruction, leaving Ray and Rachel to continue alone, grief-stricken.
Seeking shelter, Ray and Rachel encounter Harlan Ogilvy, a disturbed former ambulance driver, who invites them into his basement. The trio hides there for hours, evading detection by the tripods’ probing machines and a group of aliens who explore the area. During their stay, they observe the aliens cultivating a red vegetation that spreads rapidly across the landscape, an eerie sign of their terraforming efforts. Harlan, traumatized by witnessing the tripods harvesting human blood and tissue to fertilize the vegetation, descends into madness. His uncontrolled outbursts threaten to reveal their hiding place. To protect Rachel and himself, Ray makes the agonizing decision to kill Harlan.
Soon after, a tripod’s mechanical probe finds the Ferriers. Rachel flees in terror and is captured by the aliens. Desperate to save his daughter, Ray grabs a belt of grenades from an abandoned Humvee and allows himself to be abducted by the tripod. Inside the machine, Ray finds other terrified captives, all imprisoned in a horrifying alien mechanism. Rallying the abductees, he detonates the grenades, destroying the tripod from within and freeing Rachel.
Ray and Rachel finally reach Boston, where the landscape shows signs of change. The red vegetation is withering, and the once-invincible tripods are collapsing inexplicably. Spotting an active tripod, Ray notices birds landing on its surface, signaling that its protective force field is no longer functional. Acting quickly, Ray alerts nearby soldiers, who launch Javelin missiles, bringing the tripod down. As the soldiers advance, they find the hatch opening to reveal a pale, sickly alien struggling to emerge before succumbing to death.
In the aftermath, Ray and Rachel arrive at Mary Ann’s parents’ house. There, they are reunited with Mary Ann, who embraces them tearfully, and to their shock, Robbie, who somehow survived the earlier battle and made his way to safety.
The narrator concludes by explaining that the extraterrestrial invaders were ultimately defeated not by human resistance, but by Earth’s microbes—organisms humanity has evolved alongside for millennia, but to which the aliens had no immunity. Their intelligence and power proved no match for the planet’s smallest defenders, leaving humanity scarred but resilient.
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