
Visible crew/equipment: During Bud and Coffey's fight in the lab, we see a lightbulb swinging from side to side between the two men. If you look closely, you can see a hand (belonging to a third person) pushing the lightbulb. The only people in the room are Bud and Coffey. (01:44:16)
Answer: Most of it was television news coverage about the increasing tensions between the US and USSR as it was playing out earlier in the movie. Additional archival footage from previous years' wars implied that the NTIs had been on Earth for quite a long time.