Diana and Tom watch a black and white movie about JFK's sleepytime. Of course, they have a reason for watching this and that is because 4400 Curtis Peck made the movie. Neal, one of the actors, believes that Peck's movies reflect reality and that is why he was brought back as a 4400... to tell the truth. When interviewing Neal, Tom and Diana are shown a tape Peck made in case something happened to him. In it, the 4400 claims that Jordan Collier and the 4400 are not a threat but that 'them' are. While trying to locate Peck, our NTAC duo must try to figure out who is 'them'. Kyle brings a blindfolded Shawn to an abandoned bunker to meet up with someone.
The 4400 tells the stories of 4,400 people who disappeared over a period of fifty years and who all reappear at the exact same time without any memory of where they've been and what happened to them. Some of them have been altered and have strange abilities, both good and bad.
The series kicks off with a ball of light sailing toward Earth, but rather than the expected catastrophic event, thousands of people emerge from the ball of light. The returnees have been missing from a few years to several decades and no one has aged a day.