Visible crew/equipment: When the little boy is looking out the window of the farmhouse toward the sky to see the incoming spaceships (where he says "toys" rather excitedly), as the camera closes in toward him you can see the shadow of the camera/crane on the right side of the screen. The shadow changes as the camera zooms in. (00:49:55)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
1 visible crew/equipment mistake - chronological order
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Lance Henriksen, Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr
Factual error: The aliens broadcast a series of pulses which are decoded by the scientists to be a longitude and latitude. In degrees:minutes:seconds, the longitude is 104:44:30 and the latitude is 40:36:10. These numbers are what the computer display shows and are what the scientists say (except for one slip-up in the hallway early in the scene where 104:40:30 is said). The scientists grab a globe and declare these coordinates are in Wyoming. Everybody and his brother (and the aliens) then proceed to show up at Devils Tower, Wyoming. However, Devils Tower is at around longitude 104 deg 44 min and latitude *44* deg 36min, not the *40* deg 36 min pulsed out by the aliens. If everyone had gone to 40 deg 36 min, they would have ended up in Colorado, more than a couple hundred miles south of Devils Tower, Wyoming. (00:46:23)
Scientist 1: Einstein was right!
Team Leader: Einstein was probably one of them.
More trivia for Close Encounters of the Third KindMore questions & answers from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Answer: It wasn't shown on camera, but it happened the same night that Roy was also "sunburned." Jillian and other local residents had been going out after dark watching the UFOs as they were buzzing around the county.
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