Character mistake: When Ronnie is cutting the article about Roy's encounter out of the newspaper, the title of the article begins with "UFO's...", the apostrophe making it possessive. It correctly should have been "UFOs...", with no apostrophe making it plural as intended.
Factual error: Roy has the TV on during the creation of the Devil's Tower model. The show Days of Our Lives is on. When it cuts away, a Budweiser commercial comes on. Beer commercials are never on during daytime weekday soap operas. Then the news comes on and it's ABC news. Days of Our Lives is on NBC and always has been.
Plot hole: The aliens provide coordinates for a place to make a rendezvous with humans but do not specify a time. It's possible they're monitoring and will arrive when they see enough humans gathering at Devil's Tower, but the humans seem to expect the aliens to come more or less exactly when they actually do, somehow.
Suggested correction: Scientists were prepared for the aliens and knew when and where they would arrive, as seen by the extensive complex built at Devil's Tower. However, as Claude Lacombe, the French scientist, speculates towards the end, hundreds of humans may have had the Devil's Tower image recently implanted in their minds, saying they were "invited" but never made the connection. Neery figured it out and was compelled to go there at that time. Neery was then allowed to join a group of trained volunteers that were already prepared to go on the ship, while the previous "abductees" were being returned to Earth.
The aliens had not given a time to meet. The scientists may be taking it on faith that the aliens will know that they've arrived at Devil's Tower and are ready, but the way the subject of timing is left unaddressed on screen feels like an oversight.
We don't know for certain if the scientists were given a specific time, but it appears they were, or at least a general window. The long-lost objects, like the ship and the military aircraft, suddenly showing up in the desert, is an indication the process has started. If humans were given the precise location where the alien ship would arrive (Devil's Tower), then, logically, the aliens would also communicate when. The scientists were communicating with the aliens using tonal sounds. Early on, the scientists received map coordinates through dish satellites as repeating pulses. They would likely receive time information the same way. As often happens in movies, this info may be something that got edited out of the film, causing an inconsistency.
This might be one of those edge cases. Under most circumstances I'd agree we could assume arrangements were made off-screen by virtue of the fact that the rendezvous occurs successfully in the first place; but in the context of this movie, in which any and all forms of contact with the aliens is treated as profound and significant, leaving it unaddressed (not even with a line of dialogue) comes off like a plot hole. I suppose we'll just have to let our fellow website readers decide.
Continuity mistake: When Roy first encounters the alien ship at the railroad crossing, when the bright light comes on, he leans out of the truck window, and the right side of his face is exposed to the light. Therefore, it is the right side of his face that should have been burned. Subsequent shots show that the left side of his face is burned. (00:21:00)
Suggested correction: Roy shields the right side of his face with the hand holding the torch so that it's not exposed. His left side is not covered so it gets burnt.
How could the left side of his face get burned, if it's not exposed to the light?.
Continuity mistake: When Roy starts throwing plants in the window, the glass gets smashed. Then they open it. When Roy closes the window after he climbs in, it is no longer smashed.
Continuity mistake: Roy's first encounter is with a ship that comes up behind, goes overhead and briefly reappears in front. When it's glimpsed passing above, it's moving towards him as if it came from ahead.
Continuity mistake: After Roy fills their kitchen with shrubs, bricks, soil, and chicken wire, Ronnie takes their three kids out of the house and into their station wagon. She tells her kids to lock the doors, but the driver's side door lock is up (unlocked). When Roy walks around the driver's side to speak with Ronnie, the driver's side door lock is now down (locked). (01:10:05)
Continuity mistake: Barry is leaving his house, going towards the trees. Jillian looks out her upstairs window and Barry as well as the immediate area surrounding him are drenched in bright direct light, as if from a spotlight mounted on the side of the house. However, from an outside angle of the scene he is not bathed in light, and neither is the area he is in.
Continuity mistake: The pattern of shaving cream on Roy's face changes during the scene in which he gets fired.
Character mistake: When Roy is heading toward Devil's Tower in his car, you can hear a radio report. The man says something about the Tetons and then mentions the town of Meteetsee. He says "Meh-test-ie." That's the incorrect pronunciation.
Suggested correction: You are incorrect. The article is actually correct. It is used as a contraction, not a possessive. http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/apostrophe.html.
It's not a contraction. A plural acronym is simply "s" added to the acronym. An apostrophe never indicates plurality.
Charles Austin Miller
Suggested correction: There is no standard on how to pluralize initialisms or acronyms and either way is acceptable, depending on a person's preference. An apostrophe does not automatically make something possessive, such as using apostrophes in contractions to replace missing letters.
Bishop73
Nope. In contractions joining two words, apostrophes only replace vowels (typically the letter "o," such as in "hasn't" or "wouldn't" or "isn't," and most obviously with "it's" replacing the letter "i" in "it is"). In this case, the acronym "UFOs" stands for "Unidentified Flying Objects," and there is no vowel to replace between the "t" and the "s" (in fact, an apostrophe wouldn't replace any letter at all). So, the contraction argument is invalid. Using an apostrophe for "UFO's" makes the acronym singular possessive (such as in "The UFO's movements were erratic").
Charles Austin Miller
It seems you missed the point of my comment. What you're stating is an opinion on how to pluralize initialisms and acronyms. While many lean towards just adding an "s", many real life publications back in the 70's did in fact use and "apostrophe s" for initialisms and acronyms. (Notice how 70's isn't possessive or a contraction. But many prefer using "70s.").
Bishop73
"Many publications" were wrong (especially in the late 1970s) and followed poor literary and journalistic standards. No, it's not a "matter of opinion"; throwing in apostrophes where they are not appropriate is a matter of poor education in the English language.
Charles Austin Miller
The question is not whether using the apostrophe is "correct" or "appropriate." It's whether it was used by publications in the '70s. It was, therefore it is not a mistake.
You should be more educated when stating opinions then, because it wasn't about being wrong. It was about no set standard. For example "The Chicago Manual of Style" would recommend UFOs while "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" would recommend UFO's. Of course, both would recommend using the apostrophe when making single letters plural "A's" or p's and q's."
Bishop73
The New York Times manual of style is predictably bogus. I'm a professor of Journalism (Southwest Texas State University 1979 to 1987). I know what is proper.
Charles Austin Miller