Goofs

Just a little past 13 minutes into the movie, as "rocket eleven" is launched, the video monitor shows the rocket release cable dropping at the countdown of 8. At the countdown of 1, the video monitor shows a different rocket, with a new release cable still attached, falling off (again?) as the rocket launches.

In the first scene, Dr. Marvin is recording his report on the tape recorder when the saucer appears. As the sound of the saucer becomes audible, he says "Do you hear something? Listen." A moment later, after the saucer has "buzzed" the car, he tells his wife "Pull over." However, when they play back the recording, all that is heard is the saucer sound; the two comments are not on the tape.

In the opening scene (and one other scene later in the film) when Dr Marvin and his wife first see the flying saucer Dr Marvin gets in and out of his car, the interior color and seat stitching pattern change from white with a wide stitching pattern outside the car, to dark and close stitching pattern inside the car.

When a flying saucer destroys a B-29 Superfortress, a gunner is shown firing from an open gun port in the side of the fuselage. B-29s had remotely-controlled turrets, except for the manned tail gun that was semi-remote controlled. Open waist-gun ports were a feature of the B-17, stock footage of which was used for the climax of the scene.

In the scene when Carol goes near the missile to test TV reception, the scene is shot from ground level. According to prior scenes the TV was to be mounted in the missile.

Even if you could alter time such that a person experiences a long duration between heartbeats, the person couldn't then be speaking (and therefore breathing) at a normal rate.

It has already been noted that the missiles shown in the movie are captured German V-2s and American Viking rockets. Neither of these rockets were multi-stage, so were incapable of launching a satellite into orbit. The Viking rocket engine was eventually used in the first stage of the Navy's multi-stage Vanguard rocket, which did put a satellite into orbit in March 1958 after a disastrous failures in December 1957 and February 1958. In the meantime, the Army's Jupiter-C rocket put the United States' first satellite in orbit in January 1958.

The language translation computer shown is a differential analyzer, a special-purpose analog device. It could not be programmed for such a task.

When the saucer is engaged in combat with the bomber, that bomber is represented as a B-29. When the scene cuts to the bomber's cockpit, it is is not the very open "greenhouse" type of the B-29, but the more conventional type with specific windscreens and looks more like that of a B-17.

In the opening scenes, a military jet (F-84) is shown. During the close up scenes of the pilot, the type of canopy does not match the type of aircraft flown.

After the aliens broadcast to the entire world for 12 hours a warning of over a week of destructive climate change, the evening paper published later that day has one column on the first page devoted to the worsening weather. Other columns cover political and industrial news.

This is completely believable as evidenced by contemporary newspapers (the few that still exist).

About 19 minutes into the film, when the three soldiers behind their mortar get disintegrated by the alien ray, a "giant" house fly can be seen for one single frame right above the head of the rightmost soldier. It must have landed on the plate during composition of the effects shot.

On the satellite diagram shown at the beginning of the scene at Gen. Hanley's residence, the solar cells are called "silicone wafers" (the word should be "silicon"), and the "gama ray counter" misspells "gamma".

During the attack on Washington, a saucer fires on what looks like a bell tower with a clock on it and a pyramid-shaped top. However, when the scene shifts to a closeup of the tower exploding, it's Los Angeles City Hall (edited in from The War of the Worlds (1953)).

The guns used to fire at the alien spaceship at the military base are a twin 40mm Bofors mount. This mount requires people to load clips of four rounds, and no one is seen loading the guns; also, no shells are ejected when the gun is firing.

When the Marvins are trapped below ground after the attack on Skyhook, Dr. Marvin turns on a flashlight once the power goes out. However, whilst the light goes on, it casts no beam anywhere. Similarly, when Marvin later drives his car to his hotel in Washington, its headlights, whilst lit, cast no beams.

When rocket 12 is being readied for launch, a Redstone rocket (state-of-the-art in 1956) is seen on the launch pad. However, after the saucer-men's attack, the rocket shown burning is an old WWII era V-2.

In the opening scene, a military jet is seen flying, but the sound effect is of a propeller-driven plane.

When the four characters are in the saucer, the police officer takes his gun out and shoots it. The sound effect comes too late to cover the "click" of the actor firing the prop gun. If he had actually fired the gun, the sound of the discharge would have covered the "click" of the mechanism.

During the final clamactic battle in the skies over Washington, there are several shots of Dr. Marvin speaking into a hand-held microphone. You'll notice as his lips move that what he is saying clearly doesn't match the dialogue heard.

The aliens announce they have sunk a destroyer at latitude 30 degrees 20 minutes, longitude 45 degrees 15 minutes. They do not indicate north/south or east/west, nor plus or minus, so the destroyer was either off Madagascar or southern Brazil, in the Atlantic midway between Spain and Florida...or in the Iraqi desert.

The bank of the Chesapeake Bay is mostly flat. The shot looks like Malibu, California.

When the saucers are attacking Washington DC, you can see large mountains in some of the background of some of the shots.

When Washington DC Army anti-aircraft artillery is shooting at the saucers, there are high mountains in the background. Nothing like that exists in the DC area.

During the evacuation of Washington, in one scene George Washington Bridge is clearly seen in the background.

The military continues to question whether the Marvins really saw flying saucers despite the fact that the saucers have been flying at low altitude over several major cities in broad daylight (as the aliens show on their view-screen).

When Dr. Marvin is being interrogated by the officials, he complains that they've been there all night and that it's late. The others concur and the meeting breaks up. However, the window in the room plainly shows that it's broad daylight outside, and when Marvin subsequently drives to his hotel (and at one point states that it's now 4:30 AM) it's also clearly daytime.

Russell makes a tape recording of what he fears will be his last message. He mentions that the flying saucer sound can be found on the same tape, and says he is stopping recording because the machine's battery is running low. For no reason, he then switches the recorder to playback without rewinding. Its off-speed playback then reveals the message in the sound. This means he must have been placing his message on a part of the tape where, if the battery had not run low, it would have obliterated the sound.

As Dr. Marvin (Hugh Marlow) and Major Huglin (Donald Curtis) examine the alien that the Major just shot and killed, they comment that its body and combat suit are "light as a feather", a very interesting discovery. The alien's body disintegrates seconds after they remove the helmet from the combat suit. Perplexingly, when they leave moments later, they leave the "light as a feather" alien combat suit laying abandoned on the ground. Instead, they take only the alien's combat helmet. Oddly, with Dr. Marvin trying to develop weapons to defeat the invading extraterrestrial aliens, one would think that he would wish to examine any and all pieces of captured alien equipment. The alien combat suit would obviously reveal insights into the workings of the alien's technology, including the combat suit's primary offensive weapon, the disintegration ray. The combat suit would probably contain traces of the alien's skin, or other tissue samples. These would expose potential weaknesses in their physical form and could offer methods to injure and/or kill the aliens. Being the alien's body was "light as a feather", it's biological and physiological composition is obviously incredibly different from humans. This alone would be of immense interest to the all the scientific communities of the world. Therefore, leaving the alien's combat suit behind is incredibly negligent in uncountable ways.

At the conclusion of his first meeting with the ISC brass, Russ is told that Major Huglin has been assigned to be his liaison. Russ and Huglin go straight to the hotel, and each go to their respective rooms. When Russ enters his room, Carol is asleep. A few minutes later, after Russ is leaving to meet the aliens, Carol asks the hotel operator to connect her to Major Huglin in Room 312. Carol was not at the ISC meeting (she was sleeping)

In his taped report, Dr. Marvin states that the satellites will be placed in orbit by multi-stage rockets. However, the rockets in the launch scenes are single-stage Viking and V2 rockets.

Mercury is at perihelion every 88 days, not "twice every 3 months."

During the opening sequence, just as Marlowe is nuzzling Taylor's neck whilst she's driving, the rear-projected film behind them indicates, not only, that Taylor is driving quite fast, but that her car is also passing another on the two-lane highway. Taylor's actions and demeanor in no way indicate such a critical maneuver.

Whilst overall levels of solar activity do have an effect on climate over the long term, and a major disturbance in solar activity would affect weather, it is certainly not correct, as stated, that simple sunspot activity has "a direct effect upon our weather."

In the first scene after the introduction, in full daylight, Russell remarks to Carol that they have been "married two hours." In the next scene, later the same day, she tells her father that they got married "last night."