In Mexico 's Sonoran Desert , French scientist Claude Lacombe , and his American interpreter David Laughlin , along with other government scientific researchers , discover Flight 19 , a squadron of World War II airplanes that disappeared more than 30 years earlier in the Bermuda Triangle . The planes are intact and operational , but there is no sign of the pilots . An old man who witnessed the event claimed that " the sun came out at night , and sang to him " . Meanwhile , at an air traffic control center in Indianapolis , controllers listen as two commercial airline flights narrowly avoid a mid-air collision with an unidentified flying object ( UFO ) . In Muncie , Indiana , 3-year-old Barry Guiler is awakened in the night when his toys start operating on their own . Fascinated , he gets out of bed and discovers someone or something ( off-screen ) in the kitchen . Playfully , he runs outside , forcing his mother , Jillian , to chase after him
Flight 19
Flight 19
Close Encounters of the Third Kind