It is the near future. Chris Cronyn, a Californian scientist (played by Peter Graves), claims to have established contact with Mars using a hydrogen-powered radio transmitter. The scientist who originally invented the transmitter, Nazi criminal Franz Calder (Herbert Berghof), is then sprung from jail by the Russians and from a laboratory hidden in the Andes begins to spy on the American's communications. When news spreads that the aliens have confirmed their existence to Cronyn by completing the mathematical formula for pi, Mars mania breaks out across the world. When it is subsequently revealed that the Martians run a perfect economy using only atomic energy, pandemonium ensues. The West's mining and oil industries fold, banks close, and Moscow gloats over the imminent collapse of capitalism.

On the brink of chaos, the Earth learns that Mars is also a Christian-like society, ruled by a ‘Supreme Leader’ whose teachings parallel those of the Sermon on the Mount. This revelation prompts a religious revival on Earth and a new revolution in Russia, where pious peasants inspired by Voice of America broadcasts throw out the communists and crown an elderly patriarch as their new ruler.