Factual error: Jodie Foster states that as a propulsion engineer, she knows the internal structure of the plane by heart and has worked extensively on it. The problem with that is that propulsion engineers work on the jet engines - which are all on the outside of the plane, on the wings. Sure, a propulsion engineer might have some basic knowledge of the plane's interior design and engineering, but the in-depth knowledge she claims comes from her job simply isn't right - that's the job of avionics engineers.
Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, the main characters are supposedly in Amsterdam, but everyone is speaking German, it's not just the main characters doing this.
Factual error: In the fire at the lighthouse, Stevie puts her hand on the fire extinguisher nozzle. It would have frozen her hand and made it stick to it.
Factual error: The vehicles in the movie have front and back license plates. The state of Florida does not have front plates, only back.
Factual error: As the film itself notes, the major action starts in spring 1818 and continues for several weeks if not months. However, many of the trees remain leafless and the weather is nothing like the norm in spring and summertime Tennessee.
Factual error: On Day 3, look at The Embrey Star newspaper when it zooms into the headline. Above the headline is the newspaper's web address, hardly appropriate given the paper is from 1980.
Factual error: When looking at Anna's cell phone, you can see the logo for Telus, a Canadian communication company that only offers cell phone service in Canada.
Factual error: After George and Kathy leave the Doctor's office they drive through town. When they are talking in the car there is a shot where, next to George's face, you can see the sign of the town hall where the scene was filmed, 'Village of Antioch' in Antioch, Illinois. (00:46:00)
Factual error: The Daily Astorian office where Rachel works has the Columbia River in the background, however the real Daily Astorian office is located well off the waterfront. (00:10:15)
Factual error: In the scene in which the scientists observe the emergence of the black hole out in the Lechuguilla desert, as it pokes out of the ground unexpectedly near to their base everything in the tent is shown powerfully accelerating roughly horizontally, toward the object as it whizzes skyward. But, given all the data in the movie(mass = 10^9 kg; it reaches max height of about 1,400 meters above the desert floor before coming back down; it emerges not less than 2 meters outside their tent), it ought to impart a gravitational acceleration of not more than 0.0167 m/s^2, which is only less than two thousandths the force provided by Earth. Given that the hole was also traveling away at about 117 m/s, the relative velocity would've been in excess of the hole's escape velocity(only about 0.25 m/s), so there would be no such dramatic effect. (01:04:40)
Factual error: Owen's phone is a Nokia 3300 which is one the phones which are designed to be wider rather than taller (like an N-Gage). Throughout the film when Owen speaks on the phone he holds it the wrong way around. He holds it to his right ear with the rounded edge of the phone pointing upwards to the top of his head. Holding it this way would mean he'd have the microphone to his ear and be speaking into the speaker. I noticed this because I have the same phone, obviously the actor was not sure which end was which and guessed, getting it wrong. I noticed this during the scene where he phones the girl that got stood up at her dance.
Factual error: In the scene where Caroline finds the conjure record, it is written in ink on the sleeve that it is from "New Iberia Parish". Such a parish does not exist in Louisiana. There is a town called New Iberia, but the parish for that town is Iberia Parish.