DARPA researcher Dr. Mark Clyne visits Moldova, where US forces are engaged in an active conflict, to offer his knowledge on hyperspectral imaging goggles utilized by soldiers. Upon his arrival at a military base near Chisinau, he encounters General Orland and CIA officer Fran Madison. They present him with footage from the goggles showing a bizarre, see-through humanoid that kills swiftly. Orland wants Clyne's evaluation before he briefs higher authorities, while Madison believes the figure is an insurgent using advanced camouflage and has been instructed to collect a sample. Clyne and Madison join a Delta Force team to find the missing Utah team. Clyne attaches a large hyperspectral camera to an armored vehicle to enhance the imaging of anomalies. When they arrive, the Utah team is found dead, and they are attacked by unstoppable spirits, resulting in significant losses as the soldiers fall back.
Their vehicles are rendered inoperable by landmines, which forces them to seek refuge in an empty factory where they find two children barricaded inside. The spirits chase after them but are halted by iron shavings left behind by the children's father for their protection before he died. The survivors manage to reach out to an air base to organize a rescue operation. Clyne adapts the camera into a searchlight to help them see the spirits without goggles and gives the team IEDs filled with iron shavings. Equipped with these tools, they head towards a meeting point located half a mile from the factory. Once they leave the factory, they are chased by the spirits, which are delayed but not destroyed by the iron explosives. They receive reinforcements and arrange for helicopter evacuation at a large, empty plaza. However, they encounter another ambush from the spirits, who take out tanks and kill soldiers sent to help them. While in the air, Orland informs them that the Air Base has been taken over, so they are redirected to a civilian bunker run by the Moldovan military. Clyne believes that the apparitions are probably artificial and composed of Bose-Einstein condensate. This explains why they can move through walls, freeze people, and why materials like iron shavings and ceramics can block them. He teams up overnight with Orland and military engineers to create makeshift pulse weapons designed to break down the condensate.
The next morning, the American soldiers receive these weapons and are dispatched to a power plant in the city center. Clyne thinks this plant can produce the power needed to create more condensate. While soldiers assault the roof of the plant, Clyne and Madison discover an abandoned lab. They realize that scientists from the previous regime were scanning humans on a molecular level and using 3D printing technology to make condensate replicas of them. These replicas had their brains and nervous systems linked to a machine that kept them functioning.