Knowing

In 1959, young Lucinda Embry stands in her school's playground staring at the sun, hearing whispers. The school makes a time capsule to be opened fifty years later (2009). Lucinda writes a page full of seemingly random numbers. She is later found in a closet, her hands bloody from scratching the numbers into the door.

In 2009, Jonathan Koestler (Cage), a widower and professor of astrophysics at MIT, discusses life on other planets with his son Caleb. This leads to a discussion of where the boy's dead mother is. Caleb wears a hearing aid, knows sign language and often hears confusing noises.

Caleb attends the same school that Lucinda attended; when the time capsule is opened Caleb receives her page of numbers. He sees a mysterious stranger in the nearby trees and hears voices whispering. Later Jonathan sees the numbers, notices the sequence 911012996 and realizes it is a reference to the date and number of deaths from the September 11th attacks (9/11/01/2996). Jonathan finds similar information based on other numbers on Caleb's sheet. The last three dates on the page are in the immediate future. There are numbers between each of the dates that he cannot reconcile.

Jonathan learns about Lucinda, and that she recently died from a drug overdose. John's sister (Grace) encourages him to reconcile with their father. Caleb receives more visits from mysterious strangers who give him a small smooth stone, and is shown images of the world on fire.

On his way to pick up Caleb from school, Jonathan witnesses a horrific airplane crash. It is the date that the numbers predicted for the next disaster; Jonathan realises that the unexplained numbers are the locations of the events.

Jonathan finds Lucinda's daughter, Diana, and her daughter Abby, but scares them away when he reveals his interest in Lucinda. Jonathan pinpoints the next disaster to Worth Street in lower Manhattan. With news of terror-threats, Jonathan suspects the next cataclysm will be a terror attack....