Lost Signs

Summer 1980. An airplane disappears from the radar screens somewhere between Paris and Marseille. Twenty years later, strange forms called Crop Circles appear in a cornfield. At the same time, Laure de Lestrade, who is about to sell her mother's house, discovers similar drawings in her school notebook. Coincidence? An assault, upsetting remarks, a stormy reunion with her family, a recent photo on the Internet of a woman with a strange resemblance to her mother, who vanished 20 years earlier -- all this intrigues her. What do these events all mean? Can her mother still be alive?

Lucas, the son of Erika and François de Lestrade, Laure's half-brother and son of General de Lestrade, is almost kidnapped. Laure, his aunt, begins to wonder if there is a connection between the mysterious vanishings of several of her relatives. In each case, the few witnesses mention a man with white hair, a mesmeric look and a black car with smoked windows! Laure is upset by her boyfriend Xavier's suspicions about her father, General Guillaume de Lestrade. As the army deciphers an enigmatic number, 120807, in a Crop Circle, Laure is drawn to a protected site with an old algorithm and caught in a halo of blue light...

Abducted by hooded individuals, Laure finds herself face to face with her father, who tells her that he is in charge of the secret military "STAR program" which is investigating the Crop Circles. At the same time, Xavier claims he's just found a daze young amnesiac - whom Laure recognizes as her old boyfriend, Christopher, who had vanished 13 years earlier. François de Lestrade has Xavier arrested on charges of kidnapping. Laure learns of the existence of a child named Manon, who is said to be able to read the Crop Circles. Meanwhile, army doctors conduct tests on Christopher in order to probe his memory. Under hypnosis, he writes down a single name: Manon.

In a matter of moments, Manon deciphers what army specialists couldn't in months:"12 August 2007" and "We are their children." That same evening, Manon is kidnapped by a man with white hair. Laure and Xavier, who has been released from prison, visit Manon's hospitalized father, Lorenzo, who has a scar on his forearm identical to one another missing person had. This scar appeared when, as a child, Lorenzo was traveling from Paris to Marseille on Flight 173 -- the same plane that had vanished from radar screen for more than 20 minutes on June 17, 1980. What happened on that flight?

Laure learns that the scars are implants and that the first scientist to have identified them seems to have been his mother's physician, Professor Roger. At Roger's home, Laure only finds an abandoned house, once the scene of a terrible tragedy: when Dr. Roger apparently murdered his own family and fled. Laure breaks in to find canvases similar to the paintings of artist Gaston Denis, which hung in her family's chateau. The painter and Dr. Roger would seem to be one and the same person. Trailing the gallery owner exhibiting Denis's work, Laure comes to a remote farmhouse where she finds the black car with smoked windows. Suddenly, a man with white hair, Dr. Roger, the man behind the vanishings, looms up behind her...

Laure is found tied, gagged and locked into the cellar of the house. Roger again is on the run. Laure and Xavier learn that Irene, Laure's mother-in-law, has a Denis painting and knew Dr. Roger. Xavier finds a sort of will left by Roger addressed to Laure: a video showing an implant extraction performed by Dr. Roger himself; and a tape of an extraterrestrial announcing he is coming to earth to "take back the children." Laure wants to see Lorenzo again. Erika, Laure's sister-in-law, admits her secret: she had an affair with Lorenzo and fears her husband might find out. Laure decides to hide him. When Erika comes to see Lorenzo with her son, Lucas immediately calls Lorenzo, "Papa." Though asleep, Lorenzo answers in a hollow, disembodied voice, as if a stranger had taken possession of his body.