<P> An opening narration based on the opening of Wells' novel explains that humans were unaware that a race of extraterrestrials was making plans to occupy Earth . </P> <P> Ray Ferrier is a divorced crane operator longshoreman who works at a dock in Brooklyn, New York and lives in Bayonne, New Jersey . Ray is estranged from his children . His former wife, Mary Ann, later drops off the children, 10 - year - old daughter Rachel and teenage son Robbie, at Ray's house on her way to visit her parents in Boston . Unexplained changes in the weather occur, with lightning that strikes multiple times in the middle of an intersection and disrupts all electricity . </P> <P> Ray joins the crowd at the scene of the lightning strikes, where a massive "Tripod" war machine emerges from the ground and uses powerful weaponry to destroy the area, disintegrating most of the witnesses into a grey dust and leaving only their empty clothes behind . Ray collects his children, steals a car that had just been repaired, and drives to Mary Ann's empty home in suburban New Jersey to take refuge . The next morning, he finds that a Boeing 747 has crashed in the street . A news team scavenging for food and surveying the wreckage explain that there are multiple Tripods that have attacked major cities including New York City, Paris, Washington, D.C., and London, and have force shields to protect them from human weapons . They also explain the Tripods' pilots traveled to Earth within the lightning as a way to enter their war machines, which had been buried here millions of years prior . Ray decides to take the kids to Boston to be with their mother . The three are forced to abandon their car after a mob sees that it's working and swarms the vehicle . They later survive a Tripod attack which causes a Hudson River ferry to sink . During a desperate battle between U.S. Marines and the aliens, Ray is forced to choose between being separated from Rachel and preventing Robbie from joining the fight: he lets Robbie go with the Marines, to what appears to be certain death . While escaping, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter in the basement of a farmhouse by a man named Harlan Ogilvy . </P> <P> The three remain undetected for two days, even as a probe and a group of aliens themselves explore the basement . They discover that the aliens are cultivating a strange red - colored growth (known as "Red weed") across the landscape and it is quickly spreading, covering trees and making its way into the basement: the group deduces the aliens are modifying Earth to be more like their home planet . The next morning, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown after witnessing a Tripod harvesting human blood and tissue to fertilize the alien vegetation . Convinced that Ogilvy's mad shouting will alert the Martians to their location, Ray reluctantly kills him . The basement hideout is eventually exposed when a second probe catches the Ferriers sleeping . Rachel is abducted by a nearby Tripod and Ray allows himself to be abducted as well, after picking up a belt of grenades from an abandoned military vehicle . Ray and a number of other abductees use the grenades to destroy the Tripod from within, freeing them all . </P>

What are the aliens in war of the worlds
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