In the Republic of Moldova, the USA is joining the conflict known as the "Transnistria War". After a
particularly vicious attack, an American soldier gets separated from his team and should wait for
backup, but he decides to enter the next building alone. Wearing his hyperspectral imaging goggles,
he finds a series of bodies in the dark that look as if they died frozen. Deeper into the building,
the soldier is shocked to find a translucent humanoid apparition that he can't see if he
takes off his goggles. Everything he sees is being transmitted to the base, but before the soldier
can ask for information, the specter goes through him and instantly kills him. Meanwhile in the USA,
Mark, a doctor working for DARPA, is gathering pieces to finish his latest invention: a machine
capable of shattering materials with just waves. Now it's finally finished and Mark does a special
demonstration for the higher-ups, who immediately ask him to start testing it on humans for possible
uses as a weapon. Mark doesn't like the idea of using science to hurt people, but his boss reminds
him they work for the government and that's how things are. Speaking of the government, orders
came from the army asking Mark to fly to Moldova to check on some trouble they're having with the
goggles he invented. Sometime later, Mark arrives at the American base in Chișinău and meets General
Orland and CIA officer Fran. Orland shows Mark the recording of the specter that the goggles caught
before the soldier died. Mark's keen eyes notice something on the screen right before the specter
appears, and Orland explains their security cameras have been sensing these things many times
in the last three weeks. At first they thought it was interference, but then their best soldier
died, so obviously there's something else going on. When they did the autopsy, they discovered the
internal organs were frozen and yet their skin was burned and corroded. In the last few weeks they've
been finding more bodies that died in the same way, and their allied Moldovan military contact
knows nothing about it. Teenagers have been spray-painting "genocide aratare" at kill sites,
the aratare being a local myth that refers to "the ghosts of war". The CIA thinks it's some kind of
cloaking technology, but that doesn't explain the soldier's death. Mark wants a better look
at these specters before coming up with a theory and reveals he's brought a hyperspectral camera,
which is a more powerful version of the goggles and sees deeper into the spectrum of light. Orland
accepts to send Mark with a team of Delta Force operators into the field that will be looking
for another team that disappeared the day before. Mark begins working on installing the camera on
top of a military truck, prompting the soldiers to tease him for messing with their weapons. Captain
Cabrera, an old friend of Mark, immediately scolds the team and reminds them it was Mark's people
that made these trucks in the first place. Major Sessions isn't amused by the idea of
taking a civilian with them and makes Mark swear this time his machines will protect them better.
Sometime later, the group gets together to see the details of the mission: the other team disappeared
in a five-story apartment building and they lost contact with them yesterday. They'll be entering
an insurgent-held area, so they need to be ready to fight. If they come across the anomalies,
they must be neutralized, but the priority is saving the survivors and getting out. Fran tells
them that the anomalies are most likely to be soldiers in advanced electronic camouflage and
doesn't allow Mark to correct her, she's also coming to the mission. Mark's duty is to stay
in the truck and monitor the soldiers' helmet-cam feeds. The team makes it to the building without
issues, and while the first few rooms are empty, making it deeper inside allows them
to find both soldiers and insurgents, all dead from the same strange circumstances.
Cabrera detects some movement on the sensors and the soldiers approach a turned tub, moving
it aside to discover Sergeant Comstock hiding under it. Comstock explains the rest of his team
are all dead and they can find the bodies on the next floor; he's also afraid of something he saw,
swearing it's supernatural. The soldiers move to the next floor and in one of the rooms,
they find one of those specters. A soldier opens fire on it, not missing a single shot,
but the specter doesn't get hurt and walks through the man, instantly killing him. Then the specter
leaves the room and attacks the rest of the team, who also shoot at it in vain and begin
dying one by one. Mark wants them to come back, and when Fran refuses because they don't have
enough information yet, Mark points out they won't get anything at this point anyway. The soldiers
are starting to rely on grenades to attack, and Cabrera orders them to come back. The survivors
drag anyone that may be hurt and use wires to climb out of a window, but the specter follows
them there and continues to kill anyone it can reach. In the end, only a few soldiers make
it back to the truck, and the specter is still following them, so Mark gets the chance to use
the hyperspectral camera to record as much as he can. The specter seems to have a humanoid shape,
in fact, it has a full human face as well, which confuses Mark. Cabrera comes out to attack the
specter too, but his shot is also in vain and he gets killed too. At least his distraction
gives time for the last few soldiers to leave the building and enter the vehicle in order to finally
leave the area. As they drive away, Mark tries to ask Comstuck about what he saw. He explains
he hid under the tub for hours and that he did see the specter, but before he can say more,
the truck begins shaking and falls to the ground - it turns out they're accidentally entered a mined
area. Comstuck hits his head as he falls and ends up dead, so do the drivers. Mark concentrates on
recovering the hyperspectral camera, then everyone runs into an abandoned factory to be safe while
they try to contact the base, although the radios aren't working well. The team begins discussing
what happened, finally accepting that what they saw wasn't technology but supernatural. Mark
explains the specter was humanoid and the way it look at him proved it was conscious, but he still
doesn't know what it is. All of the soldiers' goggles got destroyed in the crash, but Mark
offers the hyperspectral camera to check outside the building. They discover there are a bunch of
specters trying to come after them, but they can't because a circle of iron fillings surrounds the
building and hurts them if they try to cross it. This circle seems to be acting as a barrier and
it must've been put by someone there. At that moment, they hear a noise coming from another
room. They shoot at the door to open it and scare the civilians in the process because it turns out
to be just an innocent pair of siblings. Sari and Bogdan can't speak English, but Fran speaks their
language and learns they're alone in here. In this room the soldiers also find a transmission tower,
which puts out a huge signal. Everyone within 20 miles will hear their conversation, including
the enemy, but Sessions points out this is their only chance to survive. While the soldiers try to
contact the base, Mark talks to the siblings with Fran as his interpreter. Sari explains it was her
father that put the barrier around the building, and she thinks the specters are lost souls trapped
between life and death that can't find peace. Mark wants to know where the father is to learn more,
so Sari leaves Bogdan with the soldiers while she shows Mark and Fran the location. Sari hasn't told
her brother the truth yet: their father died while putting up the barrier and Sari had to
drag his body inside, Bogdan just thinks his dad is away looking for help. Mark inspects the body
and finds a necklace with a ceramic tile and a map of Masarov, a district by the river. Sari
doesn't know how her dad knew about the iron, but she does know it was in Masarov where the
specters began appearing. Sometime later, the soldiers get a message from the base confirming
they'll send helicopters and tanks to pick them up at an open plaza about half a mile from there
at dawn. The team begins arguing if this is a good idea because they won't have cover,
but Mark quickly comes up with a plan: there are is a lot of iron fillings in the factory, so they
can use it to make bombs that will actually damage the specters. He also modifies the hyperspectral
camera to make it a large searchlight that will reveal the specters on the streets. They send the
instructions behind such modification to the base as well, that way their rescuers can also make a
few searchlights and arrive safely. While everyone works, Sari finally tells Bogdan the truth and
gives him their father's necklace. A few moments later, they hear some noises outside and use the
new searchlight to discover what's going on: the specters have climbed the neighboring building
and are jumping on the power lines to cross over the barrier without getting hurt. The
team immediately gets ready to leave and Sari shows them an alternate exit through the back,
but the specters follow them anyway. Mark aims the searchlight at them and now that they're
visible to everyone, the soldiers can shoot at the specters with their new iron-filled bullets. The
plan is a success and these bullets do damage the specters, although the impact sometimes pushes the
soldiers back too. The soldiers shoot a few extra bullets to create an iron fog that blocks the way,
momentarily leaving the specters behind as they follow Sari's directions to finally
reach the open plaza. The team hides inside an abandoned bus and Mark notices the searchlight
is running out of power. This means they're completely blind to any incoming attacks,
and they worry when they hear a noise approaching. Fortunately it's the rescue tanks coming for them,
and they've brought their own searchlights. When they activate them, they reveal all the specters
hiding in the surrounding buildings, and they immediately open fire on them. The team has
to leave the bus in a rush and hide away from the falling debris, this means they don't get
to communicate their findings to their rescuers in time. The new arrivals leave the tanks and go
after the specters with normal weapons, which of course ends up with most of them dead. The
specters don't only kill the soldiers, they attack the tanks as well, destroying the searchlights but
not being able to move through the ceramic parts, which Mark notices. The team needs to run away,
but they can't find Bogdan. The boy is looking for his dad's necklace because he accidentally
dropped it, and Sari tries to go after him, but before she can reach him, a specter goes through
Bogdan. Mark checks on the boy and confirms it's too late as Fran holds onto a grieving Sari. The
specters begin gathering in the center of the area to gather forces and for a moment the team
thinks it's all over, but luckily the helicopters land just in time. Mark notices the wind from the
helicopter's rotor is making it hard for the specters to advance, so he grabs all the iron
grenades he has and breaks them on the ground. The wind pushes the iron fillings toward the specters
and keeps them away while the team finally escapes. As soon as the helicopters take off, they
notice they aren't going back to the base. This is because the base has been compromised, so they're
going to a refugee bunker instead. When they look through the windows at the streets below,
they notice the specters are spreading everywhere and causing chaos all over the city. When they
arrive at the bunker, the guards immediately point their weapons at them, but Fran quickly speaks
their language to identify themselves and the team is allowed inside. The soldiers check every corner
of the bunker to make sure security measures are in order while Mark and Fran take Sari to see a
doctor because shrapnel got caught on her shoulder during the escape. To distract Sari from the pain,
Mark reveals he retrieved her father's necklace from Bogdan and hands it to her. He also asks her
more questions about her father and what he knew about the specters, but Sari only knows that he
made ceramic containers for Masarov, the power plant the specters come from. At that moment,
a loud thump echoes outside, but it isn't the enemy: it's Orland, who has arrived with the
few people that survived the attack on the base, bringing with them as much gear as they could.
Orland tells them all about the attack coming from invisible people and how only nineteen of
them survived. The escape was done in such a rush that they couldn't contact their superiors to ask
for help, so there's no plan other than fortifying the bunker and waiting. An argument ensues among
the soldiers since some of them want to do something but the others think it isn't worth
it. Mark suddenly interrupts them when he finally puts all the clues together and realizes what the
specters are. Comstuck hid under the tub, which is made of ceramic, and the specters couldn't
touch the ceramic parts of the tanks either. Being hurt by iron, being so cold that it'll kill you,
and being capable to go through walls but not ceramic indicates this is a case of "Bose-Einstein
condensate", a state of matter that was predicted by Nath Bose and Albert Einstein. Making such a
state needs a lot of power, which explains the fact the specters come from the Masarov power
plant. This is definitely a weapon that was let loose by the enemy. If someone made them, it also
means they can be broken down. Mark remembers the invention he finished before coming here,
which should be able to hit the specters with plasmic discharge, and proposes to build a
bunch of them using all the gear they brought from the base and any electronics they can find in the
bunker. The soldiers immediately begin looking for all the pieces that can be useful and Mark
gets down to business, putting together as many weapons as he can. Among the gear they brought
from the base they find a robot they called "a mechanical rottweiler", and they use it to install
a new searchlight. They also look at a map of the city, and with the information Fran gathers from
the locals, they make a plan to fly to the power plant through the safest route. After Orland gives
the team an inspirational speech, they leave for the power plant. With the rottweiler lighting up
the power plant's platform, the first group of soldiers tests the new weapons on some incoming
specters. Mark's invention works wonderfully and once they have confirmed the first horde
of specters is destroyed, the other two groups leave the helicopters as well. Now every platform
has been blocked, the soldiers concentrate on fighting the specters that keep coming while
the helicopter flies ahead to drop Mark, Fran, and two guards inside the plant. The group is attacked
by specters as soon as they enter, so they decide to split up: the soldiers stay to fight while Mark
and Fran look for the lab as fast as possible, since the fighters outside don't know for how long
they'll be able to hold on. The pair comes across an armored door and once Fran hacks the lock,
they finally get access to the main lab, where they discover the scientists are all dead. There
are x-rays that indicate they've been scanning humans on a molecular level, and then they would
use a special 3D-printer to replicate them in condensate form. There's a whole assembly line,
confirming this is a weapon. Looking further into the lab, Mark and Fran find dozens of specters
lock inside cells. Half of these are broken, which means some accident cause a bunch of specters to
escape and the scientists couldn't stop them. There's a machine with an emergency shutdown
procedure but it has lots of technical terms that Fran will need some moments to translate.
Meanwhile outside, the soldiers notice the latest specters are capable of putting themselves back
together, making them extra hard to fight, meaning some men are starting to die. Fran manages to
figure out that they need to unlock all the ports and then pull a bracket to release the cables,
this should kill all the specters at the same time. Mark climbs on top of the machine while Fran
shoots at the specters that escape their cells with the intention of stopping Mark. Outside,
a whirlwind of specter force is forming, pushing the soldiers back. One man tries to shoot at its
center at the same time Mark finishes pulling off the cables and the bracket, causing a shock wave
that makes Mark fall off the machine and sends the soldiers outside flying. All the specters begin to
disintegrate, and the soldiers can't help noticing the pain on their transparent faces as they
disappear. Fran goes to check on Mark, and now they're on a lower floor, they hear a noise coming
from a hidden room. Inside they're disturbed to find the brains and peripheral nervous systems of
real humans inside capsules because the scientists hadn't just been scanning people, they were using
them to make and control the specters. They aren't dead, but they aren't truly alive either,
yet Mark can tell they're in pain so he begins disconnecting them to bring them peace. Fran
wants to stop him, saying he should think about the bigger picture, but Mark points out that the
bigger picture is precisely doing this. Now that the specters are gone, the American army can send
people to rescue the team and bring them to a new base. However only a few days pass before
the soldiers are going out again because the government wants them to retrieve the machines
from the power plant to reverse engineer them and find their secrets. Mark says goodbye to Orland
and Fran, and Sari thanks him in English before he boards a plane to fly back to the States.