Goofs

In the credits there is a listing for "Lt. Ken Erikson," but he's introduced to the reporter as "Lieutenant MacPhearson, " and is continually referred to throughout the film as either "Mac" or MacPhearson.

At the end, when the Thing is walking on the platform, there are tall, thin boxes along the right wall. When the 'switch' is thrown, they are replaced by 2 large square crates. Also, when he drops the 4x4 off the platform, it reappears back on it, gets nudged slightly, then is back off it at the end.

When the men arrive at the crash site and are looking it over, their shadows are always pointing away from us no matter whether we are looking at their faces or looking over their shoulders at the site.

At the end, the co-pilot throws his tool to force the thing up on the walkway, but immediately after electrocuting the monster the co-pilot is seen holding the same instrument.

The creature runs away outside where it was fighting with the dogs. You can clearly see the right arm still attached to him. Seconds later they discover the arm under one of the dead dogs.

At the beginning of the picture the base is identified as being 2,000 miles away. The aircraft is a C47 (2-engine Dakota) with an absolute maximum one-way best circumstances range of 1,600 miles. The 400-mile shortfall is roughly the air distance between Philadelphia and Montreal.

The block of ice that contains the Thing they chop out is about four (4) feet tall, three (3) feet wide and seven (7) feet long (Jim Arness, The Thing is 6ft 7 in tall) that gives it a volume of eighty-four (84) cubic feet. Ice weighs fifty-seven (57) pounds per cubic foot so the block would weigh around two and a half (2-1/2) tons, and therefore near-impossible to lift out of the ice, or have the dog sled move it easily, or lift it into the aircraft. Also, they stow it in the tail of the aircraft. That would render it too unbalanced to fly.

When Tex asks if Capt. Hendry wants him to leave the key open, that is incorrect. Leaving the key closed enables the transmitter to transmit the carrier for the plane to home in on.

Considering that a geiger counter was giving high radiation readings in a plane far above the saucer's crash site, the few minutes the recovery crew spent near the saucer should have given them serious and perhaps fatal radiation poisoning.

The Polar Expedition station shows icicles hanging all around the roof. Icicles form when the weather warms up enough for snow to begin melting and then re-freezes during the dripping phase. The North Pole doesn't thaw.

After Carrington is KO'ed by the Thing, he lays partially on the wooden walkway. He should have also been electrocuted when the juice was turned on. He is actually laying on a different section of the walkway, the one that the wiring wasn't set up underneath.

When the airplane arrives from Anchorage, the camp is bathed in sunshine when seen from the air but the crew disembark with blowing snow. If the wind is kicking up blowing snow only to a height of thirty feet or so, the view of the base from several thousand feet would be clear.

As the flying saucer explodes, the camera tilts up to follow the blast, revealing the top of the Arctic backdrop built around the set.

Charges are visible in the greenhouse door before the crew chief shoots at it.

When the crew is standing on the ice over the frozen, crashed saucer in freezing weather, they have dialog with one another, but at no time can you see anyone's breath.

The electric blanket is supposed to be melting the huge block of ice underneath it, but somehow it isn't melting the "snowflakes" on the top and side of the blanket.

(at around 23 mins) When the spaceship unexpectedly explodes, all the people lay down on the ice instinctively, but the dogs remain completely calm and have no reaction at all, revealing that no actual explosion took place.

At the alien craft crash site, standing around the airfoil/stabilizer, right after Barnes is told to "Bring some tools!", Dr. Carrington utters a line that was either cut or the audio recording skipped.

As they fly over the crash site, the road grader used to clear the trail where the saucer landed on the "ice" is briefly visible to the far right of the shot.

The location being the North Pole, there would be no day/night cycles. Further, given the date of November 2 (from Dr. Carrington's log entry), the North Pole would be over a month and a half into a 6-month period of darkness.

The captain states that he is navigating to the crash site near the north pole by steering toward "that peak ahead", and black mountains can be seen on the horizon in the scene of the crash site. There is no land closer to the north pole than Kaffeklubben island, 707 km (440 miles) from the pole.

[23:03]When the crew blows up the flying saucer with the thermite charges, they duck down to the ground. While they're down, all the dogs are standing up like nothing has happened.

When Captain Hendry and the other members of his crew arrive at the North Pole outpost, an Eskimo cook is one of those who is present when they enter the building. He subsequently flees along with the other Eskimo workers after Hendry and others return with the block of ice containing the Thing. However, no Eskimos live anywhere near the North Pole. The nearest village would have been hundreds of miles distant.

The whole premise that an alien plant from another world would feed on human blood is absolutely preposterous. There would have to be millennia of contact for this kind of relationship to evolve. In fact, it is highly unlikely the alien plant could use anything on Earth for food.

It was unnecessary to bring the block of ice in to the base and break the window to admit cold air. The reasonable thing to do is leave it outside where it would have remained frozen until help could arrive.

Two scientists have their throats cut and are then hung upside down from roof beams. The Thing is an alien plant which knows nothing about human (animal) anatomy and could not possibly know to cut throats to kill men.

At the conclusion of the scene where Cap. Hendry first meets Dr. Carrington, as they are leaving the lab, Carrington refers to Nikki as "Miss Litton" rather than "Miss Nicholson." Margaret Sheridan's face registers her awareness of the actor's mistake, but she "goes along with it" and the scene was printed "as is" rather than give a retake.

Carrington describes the "Pliocene" human-ancestors as being primeval worm-like creatures. This description would be better suited to the Cambrian or Paleozoic times. In the time of Pliocene (Greek for "beginning of the recent"), recognizable man-like creatures were already showing up. The australopithecines came around during the later part of this time.

When Scotty calls out for radio operator so he can report the story about the flying saucer at the crash site, Captain Hendry tells him that he can't. Scotty refers to Hendry as "Chapman" instead of Hendry or Pat. An obvious mistake or script rewrite as Dr. Chapman was not in the shot at the time.

Lt. Ken MacPherson "Mac" is incorrectly listed as Lt. Ken Erickson in cast names at the end of the movie.

When Barnes rambles on about the creature to Capt. Hendry and Dr. Stern is about to splash him from behind with water, Barnes closes his eyes and turns away in anticipation of being splashed.