The Signal

The Signal is a 2014 American science fiction thriller film directed by William Eubank, written by William and Carlyle Eubank and David Frigerio, and starring Brenton Thwaites and Laurence Fishburne. It premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 13, 2014. Plot Three MIT students—Jonah, Nic and Haley—are on a road trip to move Haley to California, a decision that stresses Nic's relationship with her. Nic walks with forearm crutches, and the possibility of muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis or some other degenerative disease is implied but never specified. Haley feels Nic is distancing himself from her and Nic explains he does not want his disability to hold her back. During their stay in a hotel, Nic and Jonah discover that a hacker named NOMAD, who nearly got them expelled for breaking into MIT servers, has found their location and is taunting them with strange and ominous e-mails. They decide to go after NOMAD and track him to an abandoned house in the middle of Nevada. After finding nothing in the house, Nic and Jonah hear Haley scream and run outside, only to see her pulled into the sky before disappearing into a white light themselves. Nic, now with the number 2.3.5.41 tattooed on his arm, wakes up in a strange and sterile underground research facility where he is questioned by Dr. Wallace Damon, the head of the "transition group" in charge of helping Nic to cope with his strange situation. Damon tells Nic what they encountered near the house was an EBE, an extraterrestrial biological entity. Nic remains in a state of disbelief. Damon then shows him footage from Nic's own video camera and pauses where an alien face can be seen peering from behind a tree. Nic is taken to his room where he hears Jonah talking to him through a small air vent, saying "[his] body feels weird." Nic also notices that his legs, previously weak but functional, are now completely numb. When Damon questions him again, Nic tries to get answers about Haley's condition, but Damon will tell him only that she is in a coma. Following an unexplained experiment on a cow in another part of the facility, a security alarm goes off and Nic, along with other personnel, finds large dents with scorch marks running across the walls and no sign of Jonah. Nic asks Damon where Jonah went but Damon tells him that Jonah was never recovered from the house, implying that Nic's conversations with Jonah were imagined.