Preparing to tell the story of the early 20th-century Martian invasion of Earth, an unnamed narrator reflects on how clueless and unprepared humankind had been prior to the onslaught of this vastly more advanced alien species, though he also notes that, given our own history of exploitation, we may be no better.

This narrator, a philosophical writer living in Maybury, England, recounts a series of peculiar observations made of Mars, the last of which he witnesses himself via telescope after meeting Ogilvy, a local astronomer. The two men behold jets of gas flashing from the planet, which repeat night after night for 10 nights total. The phenomena, each of which proves to be an earthbound Martian missile, slowly attain some notoriety in the press where they are characterized as Martian volcanoes. Ogilvy too considers the flashes natural in origin and doubts that Mars contains life, but the narrator is less skeptical.

As the missiles approach, the narrator and his wife enjoy an evening in blissful ignorance.

One Thursday soon thereafter, a cylindrical Martian missile falls to Earth, though witnesses mistake it for a falling star. Consumed in the writing of a moral treatise,