Factual error: In any explosion the shock-wave will travel ahead of any debris thrown by the shock-wave. During the attack scenes there are numerous cases of debris, particularly vehicles, travelling and landing in still air ahead of the arrival of the shock-wave.
Factual error: The US Bank Tower's placement in between Citi Group and Melon Bank is inconsistent from its real life position. Citi Group should be roughly directly parallel, not off-center at an angle.
Factual error: When Air Force One is taking off, the fireball should not be that close. The heat from the fireball would keep the wings from getting any lift as hotter air is thinner. Since the fireball is hot enough to explode steel and concrete it would surely have ignited the 45,000 gallons of fuel in the wings and melted the rubber tires. Had the plane actually been able to get its tires off the ground, the 'rolling' effect of the fireball and the rapidly rising heat being below and behind the plane would have caused it to do a 'negative angle pitch-over' or forward somersault right into the runway.
Factual error: When we see the British pilots (with Iraqi pilots) responding to the news of a planned counter-offensive, the British pilot is stood in front of an F-16 with British markings on. This aircraft has never been in service with the RAF or purchased by the British government.
Factual error: Area 51 is located in southern Nevada (the movie acknowledges this), but the security gate that Steve Hiller enters through is shown to be in the Bonneville Salt Flats, which are located hundreds of miles away in northwestern Utah.
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.
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.
