chunk: Charles has them film a scene at a train depot at midnight. While they are rehearsing, a train approaches, and Charles has them start filming as the train passes to add 'production value'. While filming, Joe witnesses a pickup truck drive onto the tracks and ram the train, causing a massive derailment that destroys the train, the depot and the surrounding area, and the friends barely survive. The children investigate the wreck and find crates full of strange white cubes, then discover the truck's driver is Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman), their biology teacher. Woodward, barely alive, warns them at gunpoint to forget what they saw that night, or else they and their parents will be killed. The children flee the scene just as a convoy from the local U.S. Air Force base, led by Col. Nelec (Noah Emmerich), arrive at the scene. Nelec discovers an empty Super 8mm film box, and assumes the event was purposely captured on camera.