A group of alien cattle rustlers, the culprits behind those mutilations going back 50 years, are still dispatching herds in southwest Kansas. But now night raids in their triangular craft are coming up short--the bovine gene pool's gotten small...offering too little reward for their labors.
Their best remaining hope: to conscript an Earth-human collaborator, to force an able someone to procure new breeds for them. If only their random choice were other than Harley Rennet, an aging sign painter. But...it's old Harley they levitate while at the wheel of his '59 Rambler. Once up, he's not so much terrified by the aliens as fascinated by how they look.
That's no surprise, really, since Harley only took to painting billboards and barns to make ends meet. He's the very model of a frustrated artist. So as the aliens coerce him on pain of "liquidation," Harley looks for a way to even the score. If he's to do this or die, he'll seek to do it his way. Gathering his pluck, he poses them one question.
When he asks "What's in it for him?" he innocently trips a cosmic lever...a key legal precept of far-distant stars. Now the aliens must oblige him in something-but in what? Harley doesn't need to think twice. If he's going to sell out Kansas ranchers, then these aliens will help him do the crop circles he's dreamt for years of making. There's your bargain!
Thus--Harley's long-suffering wife, his dog, his little Kansas town and five whole counties roundabout--are all soon held tight in the grip of High Strangeness. Like those unhappy cows, the mystery drops (with a thud) in the lap of Kansas Law Enforcement: lazy-ass Sheriff Ted, a small town P.I., and a couple of countrified tornado spotters known to a weather channel. Together they'll track the falling cows, puzzle over the circles, and call on gorgeous Nance and her boyfriend to fly their drones...all as a dragnet tightens around hapless Harley.
