The movie focuses primarily on Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), an electric line repairman who goes to work one night to fix a massive power outage and sees several low flying spacecraft.  Many others see these craft including Gillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon from A Christmas Story) whose son is later abducted by the aliens.  At the same time, a group of researchers who apparently work for the government travels around the world gathering information on various alien sightings and encounters.  All of this comes together when everyone converges on one spot to find... well, that's the question that plagues all of them.