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Independence Day

On July 2, 1996, an extraterrestrial mothership, entering Earth's orbit outside the Moon, deploys its flying saucers, each 15 mi (24 km) in diameter, over major cities worldwide. U.S. Marine Captain Steven Hiller and his unit, the Black Knights fighter squadron stationed out of MCAS El Toro, are called back from Independence Day leave; his girlfriend, Jasmine Dubrow, decides to flee Los Angeles with her son, Dylan. Retired combat pilot Russell Casse, now an alcoholic single father and crop duster, sees this as vindication of the alien abduction he has been claiming for 10 years.

In New York City, technician David Levinson decodes a signal embedded within global satellite transmissions, realizing it is the aliens' countdown for a coordinated attack. Aided by his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, David and his father Julius reach the Oval Office in Washington, D.C. and alert President Thomas Whitmore.

Whitmore orders evacuations of Los Angeles, New York City, and the District of Columbia, but it is too late. Each saucer fires a beam, incinerating every targeted city, killing millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others barely escape aboard Air Force One while Jasmine, Dylan, and their dog Boomer take shelter in a tunnel's inspection alcove and escape the destruction of Los Angeles.

On July 3, Earth's military retaliations against the invaders are thwarted by the alien warships' force fields. Each saucer launches shielded fighters, devastating the human fighter squadrons and military bases, including Steven's. Steven lures one fighter into the Grand Canyon before ejecting from his plane, blinding the fighter using his parachute and causing it to crash in the Mojave Desert. He subdues the downed alien and flags down the convoy of refugees Russel joined with, transporting the alien to Area 51, where Whitmore's plane has landed.

U.S. Defense Secretary Albert Nimziki reveals that a government faction has been involved in a UFO conspiracy since 1947, when one of the invaders' fighters crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. Area 51 houses the refurbished ship and three alien corpses from the crash. Chief scientist Dr. Brackish Okun examines the alien captured by Steven, which awakens, telepathically invades Okun's mind, and psychically attacks Whitmore before the alien is killed by Secret Service agents and military personnel. Whitmore learns the invaders' plan from the psychic attack; they intend to annihilate Earth's inhabitants while harvesting its natural resources, as they have done to other civilizations.

Whitmore reluctantly authorizes a trial nuclear attack against a saucer above an evacuated Houston, but while Houston is destroyed, the saucer's force field protects it from the blast. All subsequent nuclear attacks are aborted. Jasmine and Dylan, having commandeered a highway maintenance truck and rescued several survivors, including the badly injured First Lady, Marilyn Whitmore, reunite with Steven who takes them to Area 51, where Marilyn succumbs to her injuries after reuniting with her own family.

On July 4, inspired by Julius, David devises a plan to write a computer virus on his laptop and, using the refurbished fighter to dock with it, upload the virus into the mothership's operating system to disable the alien's shields, then using a tactical nuclear weapon to destroy the mothership. Steven volunteers as the mission's pilot, and the U.S. military contacts the remaining airborne squadrons through Morse code to organize a united counterattack. Lacking pilots, Whitmore and General William Grey enlist volunteers with flight experience, including Russell, to fly the remaining jets. Steven marries Jasmine, with David and Constance present, during which the divorced pair reconciles before Steven and David leave on the mission.

Entering the mothership, they upload the virus. With the shields down, Whitmore's squadron engages a saucer targeting the Area 51 base. They exhaust their ammunition, and as the saucer readies to fire, Russell sacrifices himself by crashing into its primary weapon, destroying the saucer. Grey orders notifications to resistance groups worldwide about the saucers' critical weakness, leading to their destruction.

Steven and David launch the nuclear missile and narrowly escape the destruction of the mothership and all the aliens in it. As humanity celebrates its victory against the aliens, Steven and David are rescued after surviving the crash, and are reunited with their families.