Corrected entry: Just before Lacombe is introduced to the committee, they play the audio tape where they recorded the large group of men singing the five tones. But the notes they're singing on that tape are a full step lower than the original singing.
Correction: If the octave the 5 notes are in is too high for their vocal range, they'd have to pitch it lower to be able to sing it.
Corrected entry: When the scientists decode the pulses broadcast by the aliens, Mr. Lacombe puts on a set of headphones and starts to play the notes on the piano in front of him. Numbers are written on the keys, ranging from 1 - 5, so he knows in which order he must play them. (00:46:35)
Correction: Since LaCombe probably wasn't a piano player, they obviously setup the piano so anyone could play the signal tune.
Corrected entry: When Roy and Jillian are driving along the dirt track to Devil's Tower, they pass dead animals by the roadside, but we do not see any in the fields.
Correction: They had been placed there by the feds (and may have been merely unconscious) to fool people into thinking there had been a hazmat spill so that the area could be evacuated.
Corrected entry: In the final showdown, earth people are rightly amazed by their first confrontation with the alien spaceships and finally their passengers as well. But since they have (probably for years) prepared and trained a group of astronauts ready to attend the first alien/human space-voyage in history, why do they look so surprised every time a new "wave" of alien ships appear? Aren't they expecting or at least hoping that one of them would land?
Correction: They are surprised and amazed at the number and diversity of the different types of spaceships. They are also a little 'surprised' that they are actually seeing what they hoped they would find.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the couple is arguing in their home about seeing a movie, there is a boy in the crib trying to break a doll or something. That kid looks at least 4 years old. Isn't a 4 year old a little old to be in a crib? And you can easily tell that the kid would not be able to lay down completely in the crib even if he tried.
Correction: That is the little girl's crib, not the boys. He climbed into the crib by himself to be a pest. If you look after Richard Dreyfus yells at 'Toby' he stops breaking the doll and climbs out of the crib by himself.
Corrected entry: When Richard Dreyfuss throws in the plants for his sculpture of Devil's Tower, he breaks the kitchen window. After his wife and children have driven away, he closes the window, which now is not broken. (01:15:35)
Correction: The kitchen window over the sink is open the whole time. There is a plant in a vase on the windowsill that is broken when Dreyfuss starts throwing in plants.
Corrected entry: "Cosmic Kidnapping" is spelled incorrectly with a missing P in a newspaper article at the press conference where he breaks his pencil while drawing.
Correction: Kidnaping is an accepted spelling. https://www.britannica.com/topic/kidnapping.
Corrected entry: The old guy near the beginning of the film is whistling while he and others see UFOs flying down a road. The tune he is whistling is "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain." The better known title for this old dude's (Roberts Blossom) tune is "Happy And You Know It".
Correction: No, the song tunes are different.
Corrected entry: In the scene just as Roy, Gillian, and Larry take off for Devil's Tower, the army officer is on his car phone speaking to his superior. When his superior tells him if they don't get Roy and company off the mountain in one hour, to use EZ4. Lacombe, who was talking to David at the time, looks at the officer and says, "What's EZ4?". Lacombe should not have known what was said over the phone, as only the officer and we, the audience, knew what was being said. It wasn't a speaker-phone.
Correction: You don't always need a speakerphone to overhear something that is said on a phone. I've had phones where I could hear both sides of the conversation when someone stood nearby speaking on the call.
Corrected entry: When Ronnie hastily backs the car out of her driveway it smashes a Big Wheel to the opposite curb, where it comes to rest right next to the neighbor's driveway entrance. In the following shot, showing Roy getting up off the ground, the Big Wheel is a good 10-12 feet away from the driveway entrance. (01:14:25 - 01:14:55)
Correction: We never see the opposite curb when Ronnie backs out of the driveway, so there's no way to determine where the Big Wheel landed. It happens offscreen. Also, the Big Wheel is about a Big Wheel's width from the edge of the neighbor's driveway (*maybe* two feet), not 10-12 feet.
Corrected entry: The headline of the newspaper article spells Kidnapping as Kidnaping. (00:58:25)
Correction: My Unabridged Dictionary shows both spellings to be acceptable. See also http://www.dictionary.com/browse/kidnaping.
Correction: The recording was cleaned up and enhanced for clarity and it might have changed because of this.