Factual error: Aliens are using TV satellites for their secret attack signal, making the TV picture quality poor. David shows the president how they do it by bypassing the curvature of the earth. However TV satellites don't work that way. They are "hanging" pretty much above their broadcasting area totally reflecting and spreading the signal back straight downward to earth. Turning the parabolic mirrors of the satellites to a different elevation would result in no TV signal on earth, not just a degraded one.
Goekhan
8th Jun 2020
Independence Day (1996)
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Suggested correction: Satellites do both. They both send the signals back down to earth but they also send signals to each other in order for the signal to cross the globe. And in those signals the aliens have hidden their own signal, and that distorts all satellite signals, causing TV's to receive a distorted signal.
Very few satellites directly talk to other satellites. Geosynchronous communication satellites don't. The antennas used for transmitting the TV signal are directional, but while directional antennas send most of their energy in one (or a few) direction, they still leak at least some energy to all directions, so it could still theoretically be used as described. The real mistake though is the aliens have advanced technology, so could easily have deployed a couple satellites of their own to perform this function, so why the need to use ones from Earth? Worst case just send a couple small ships up to act as relays.
It probably saves them time to use the satellites already in orbit. They are on a tight schedule and don't want to waste time and resources deploying their own satellites. Plus it's a small possibility for them that humans can take out their satellites, so hiding it in their own seems perfect.
They could be using the human satellites to disrupt communications or make communicating across the globe difficult to hinder any possible pre-emptive strike by Earth's armies acting in unison while the harvesters position themselves for the first wave of attack.
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