DARPA researcher Dr. Mark Clyne travels to Moldova, where US troops are involved in the ongoing war, to provide expertise on his hyperspectral imaging goggles used by the soldiers. Upon arrival at a military base near Chisinau, he meets General Orland and CIA officer Fran Madison. They show him footage from the goggles depicting a strange, translucent humanoid that kills quickly. Orland seeks Clyne's assessment before reporting to higher-ups, while Madison suspects the figure is an insurgent using advanced camouflage and has orders to collect a sample. Clyne and Madison are sent with a Delta Force team to locate the missing Utah team. Clyne attaches a large hyper spectral camera to an armored vehicle for better imaging of anomalies.
Upon arrival, they discover the Utah team is dead and are ambushed by impervious apparitions, resulting in heavy casualties as the soldiers retreat. Their vehicles are disabled by landmines, forcing them to take cover in an abandoned factory where they find two barricaded children. The apparitions pursue them but are blocked by iron shavings the children's father left for protection before he died. The survivors contact an air base to arrange a rescue. Clyne modifies the camera into a searchlight to help them see the apparitions without goggles and provides the team with IEDs filled with iron shavings. Armed with these weapons, they head towards the rendezvous point half a mile from the factory. After leaving the factory, the group is pursued by apparitions, which are slowed but not eliminated by iron explosives. They receive backup and a helicopter evacuation at a large deserted plaza. However, they are ambushed by the apparitions, who destroy tanks and kill soldiers sent to assist them. In the air, Orland informs them that the Air Base has been overrun, so they are redirected to a civilian bunker managed by the Moldovan military.
Clyne speculates the apparitions are likely artificial and made of Bose-Einstein condensate, explaining their abilities to pass through walls, freeze people, and why iron shavings and ceramics can stop them. Collaborating overnight with Orland and military engineers, he develops makeshift pulse weapons to dismantle the condensate. The next morning, the remaining American soldiers are equipped with these weapons and sent to a city center power plant, which Clyne believes can generate the necessary power for creating condensate. While soldiers attack the plant's roof, Clyne and Madison find an abandoned lab. They realize that scientists from the old regime were scanning humans at a molecular level and using 3D printing to create condensate versions of them. The subjects' brains and nervous systems were connected to a machine that kept these "apparitions" alive. Before the apparitions defeat the soldiers, Clyne activates a failsafe to deactivate them. To end their suffering, he disconnects the human remains from the machine.