Dustin Hoffman stars as Dr. Norman Goodman, a psychologist who is suddenly summoned by the government to a spot somewhere in the middle of the pacific Ocean. Making up the other members of a cadre of specialists under the supervision of a mysterious team leader named Barnes (Peter Coyote) are Beth Halperin (Sharon Stone) a biochemist who shares a past with Goodman, and Harry Adams (Samuel L. Jackson), a skeptical mathematician. They join a hastily assembled project team on mission to explore a massive craft that seems to be alien; it's been submerged for almost 300 years untouched on the ocean floor.