The Vast of Night (2020) Plot Summary & Ending Explained

In 1950s Cayuga, New Mexico, Everett, a teenage disc jockey, plays a pivotal role as he prepares for an upcoming high school basketball game. Alongside his friend Fay (Sierra McCormick), they test a new tape recorder. Afterward, Everett escorts her to her job as a switchboard operator, before heading to the WOTW radio station for his night shift.

While tuning into Everett's radio show, Fay is startled by an ominous audio signal, which interrupts the broadcast. She starts receiving calls from concerned citizens reporting a strange wind-like phenomenon in the sky. Attempting to contact her friends, she faces abrupt disconnections, but manages to reach Everett, who promptly urges his listeners to share any information regarding the peculiar signal.

During the show, a caller named Billy (Bruce Davis) breaks into the airwaves. He shares a gripping tale about his military past and his experiences at a top-secret desert facility. He recounts being warned that revealing the clandestine project could "endanger America," and describes an enormous object housed in a hidden underground bunker. He also reveals that he heard the same mysterious signal while on a plane.

Billy, who suffers from a lung condition he believes was caused by his experiences at the site, discusses other military cover-ups involving similar signals. He suggests they may be attempts at communication, transmitted from heights beyond that of any man-made aircraft.

As their call momentarily disconnects, Billy calls back to reveal a shocking detail — all personnel involved in the project were either black or Mexican, a choice made to ensure their credibility would be questioned. He mentions that a friend managed to record the mysterious signal and sent it to him and others. Tragically, one tape was entrusted to an Air Force member in Cayuga, who is now deceased.

Realizing that Billy’s recordings ended up at the local library, Fay acts decisively and steals them. However, Billy is disconnected again, and she and Everett find the signal recording and attempt to broadcast it. Their efforts are interrupted when the radio station loses power.

Determined, they rush to the switchboard office where Fay receives a flurry of reports about an unidentified object in the sky. They meet Gerald (Mark Banik) and Bertsie (Cheyenne Barton), also seeking information about the mysterious flying object. An elderly woman named Mabel (Gail Cronauer) phones in, promising to share more insights about the unusual signal.

When Everett and Fay visit Mabel at her home, she cryptically recites messages in an unfamiliar language. During their conversation, Mabel asserts that the sighting of spaceships piloted by aliens is no coincidence — these extraterrestrials use their transmissions to hypnotize and abduct humans during the basketball game when the town is least alert. She even expresses a desire to be taken to the alien ship to reunite with her son, abducted years before.

Not fully convinced, Everett departs with Fay, who picks up her baby sister Maddie. They are soon joined by Gerald and Bertsie, and when Everett plays Mabel's alien message, he unwittingly sends them into a trance, causing a near-fatal car accident. The eerie atmosphere prompts panic, leading Everett, Fay, and Maddie to flee into the woods.

As they navigate through the trees, they discover charred branches and an ominous opening above, suggesting something has recently crashed. A realization dawns on Everett — the existence of aliens may not just be a figment of their imagination. Their journey leads them to an open clearing where they finally confront the truth.

In awe, they witness a flying saucer hovering nearby, which reunites with a massive mothership. The surrounding wind picks up, swirling violently around them. Meanwhile, the crowd at the basketball game disperses, oblivious to the disappearance of Everett, Fay, and Maddie, leaving behind only their footprints and the eerie tape recorder.

The Vast of Night builds its tension through a series of eerie revelations, culminating in a finale that confirms the extraterrestrial threat while leaving the ultimate fate of its protagonists disturbingly ambiguous. Throughout the film, the story unfolds as an episode of a fictional Paradox Theater, paying homage to 1950s sci-fi. The narrative reaches a turning point when Fay and Everett visit Mabel, a local hermit who claims her son was abducted years prior. She explains that the mysterious audio signal they have been tracking is a communication method used by aliens to target isolated towns like Cayuga. To prove her theory, she recites a strange chant that she believes puts abductees into a trance.

The danger becomes terrifyingly real during the film's climax. While driving with friends, the teenagers play a recording of Mabel’s chant, which causes their friend Gerald to fall into a hypnotic trance, nearly causing a crash. This incident validates the supernatural nature of the threat and forces Fay and Everett to flee into the woods on foot. It is there that they finally see the truth with their own eyes: a massive UFO hovering directly above them. The film then cuts to the rest of the town leaving a basketball game, completely unaware of the spectacle occurring just beyond the trees, before returning to the woods to show that Fay, Everett, and Fay’s infant sister Maddie have vanished.