A London excavation crew halts work when they discover a cluster of prehistoric skulls and skeletons. An anthropologist, his assistant, and Dr. Quatermass dig deeper and discover a strange missile that is not of this earth. The dead occupants of the missile are strange locust-like creatures, and Quatermass later believes that we may owe his intellect and latent psychic powers to the long-dead creatues. And even more unsettling, the spacecraft appears to be alive.