A cross-country airliner, whose passengers include a nuclear physicist, a rocket expert, and a mathematical genius, is drawn beyond radar range by an unknown, unbreakable force.

A condemned criminal's acquaintances gather at a remote lodge on the eve of his execution to search for hidden money.

The professional gambler Case Silverthorn wants to quit and retire to a small ranch in Marlpine he bought recently. On the way there he saves the Sheriff's life, who got into an ambush. However another man is dead, Will Donovan, from whom he bought the ranch! Neither the Sheriff nor Donovan's children know about the sale. So Case has to switch back to his former profession, while he tries to clarify the situation. He comes across a group of cattle thieves.

Aliens, contacting scientist Adam Penner, inform him that they have been on the moon for twenty thousand years, undetected due to their invisibility, and have now decided to annihilate humanity unless all the nations of earth surrender immediately. Sequestered in an impregnable laboratory trying to find the aliens' weakness, Penner, his daughter, a no-nonsense army major and a squeamish scientist are attacked from outside by the aliens, who have occupied the bodies of the recently deceased.

A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally married.