The 1970s: counterculture and experimentation with drugs, feminism and the fight for abortion rights, the closure of psychiatric institutions, and the last major social reforms, escalating strategies and increasing repression, fascist secret societies and arsenals. The pivotal year of 1978: Aldo Moro is kidnapped and murdered. The country is in a state of emergency. While all this is happening, more and more Italians are seeing flying saucers. It is a mass phenomenon, the "Great Wave".

Milena Cravero, a young anthropologist, travels to a ufology conference in Rome, which is canceled due to Moro's kidnapping. Martin Zanca, a former rebel, recounts stories of ancient astronauts in his novels. His son, Vincenzo, who seeks to overcome his addictive relationship with heroin, lives in a commune on a rural estate. Two scouts disappear in the forests of a mysterious mountain. A whirlwind of stories heads toward a dramatic conclusion.

Wu Ming masterfully blend reality and fiction, pop culture and film history. They offer a new perspective on a decisive year in Italian history, aiming to liberate it from the prison of the heavy era.