chunk: A narrator explains how humans were unaware that a race of intelligent extraterrestrials were making plans to occupy Earth. Ray Ferrier is a divorced crane operator longshoreman who works at a dock in Brooklyn and lives in Bayonne, NJ. Ray is estranged from his children. His former wife, Mary Ann, later drops off the children, ten-year-old daughter Rachel and teenage son Robbie, at Ray's house in Bayonne on her way to visit her parents in Boston. Unexplained changes in the weather occur, including lightning that strikes multiple times in the middle of an intersection and disrupts all electricity.