Four college students, while spending a week end at a remote location in Yosemite National Park, have an encounter with an extraterrestrial. They are told that some calamity is going to cause the destruction of the planet, and they can have their intelligence enhanced to deal with the problem if they are willing. They agree and are endowed with intelligence far surpassing anyone on the earth. Their superior intelligence leads them to undertake projects that make huge amounts of money, but get them no closer to solving the riddle of the earth's coming destruction. One other person has the same intelligence characteristics as they, and they discover that he had contact with an alien similar to their encounter. They join forces to figure out the riddle of the coming calamity and find the calamity is being perpetuated by one of the aliens. One is trying to help them, and the other is trying to orchestrate the cataclysmic event. They have to choose sides, with the fate of civilization hanging in the balance if they make the wrong choice.