Goofs

(at around 1h 14 mins) When the squadron is inside the alien ship, Jake submerges himself in water to hide, completely flattening his hair. In the next scene, he's completely dry and his hair is styled again.

It is firmly established that the alien mothership is the size of the Atlantic Ocean, yet when being attacked by fighter aircraft it's the size of an island.

(at around 30 mins) When David sits next to Jake in the Tug, Jake goes from putting on his seat belt to having his seat belt fastened and headset on within a second (after Jake says, "I haven't crashed in a couple of days").

Right after the queen is killed, LT Whitmore fires what looks like a modern day handgun at someone exiting an alien fighter. She fires two shots and the slide locks back like she emptied the magazine. In the next shot the slide is forward, ready to fire again without enough time to have loaded a new magazine and racked the slide.

One of the movie posters shows the Eiffel Tower being destroyed. However, when the aliens are leaving, the Eiffel Tower is shown to be intact.

A space ship that has enough mass to pull skyscrapers upwards and off of the planet's surface, should also cause huge disruptions in both Earth's atmosphere and plate tectonics, as well as in the Earth's very rotation. The damage implied in the movie is insignificant compared to what would actually happen (e.g. the seismic shockwave alone would measure hundreds of miles in the amplitude; the oceans would be evaporated; the crust would tear all over the planet, rotation axis and speed would dramatically change) and when the ship finally leaves the Earth, the planet looks quite unscathed by the "interaction".

(at around 1h 5 mins) Once the squadron is inside the massive mothership, and an Electro-Magnetic Pulse is triggered which takes out all the electrical systems on the fighters, their radio equipment still functions.

When alien ship is using "plasma drill" to get to the Earth core there are several mistakes/errors shown: 1. Using such a drill in the ocean would vaporize huge amounts of water, causing fog to raise and obscure the view in very large area, not to mention storms that would follow. 2. Earth inner core begins 3100-3900 miles below surface, depending on location. The treasure hunters' boat is shown having a sonar equipment for underwater search. Such equipment is totally incapable of showing drilling progress with thousands miles depths involved. Furthermore, the boat's sonar shows a reflection seismic survey backdrop, which is used in oil exploration and has a depth of investigation of a few kilometers at best. 3. How can one calculate exact moment of reaching core when depth of the core in every specific spot on earth is unknown? It is only known it is in 3100-3900 miles range, yet time to reach when drilling is calculated to the seconds, while it should have at least 25% error margin.

(at around 20 mins) Dr. Okun wakes up after having been in a coma for 20 years, jumps out of bed and runs around as though nothing happened. A person in a coma for 20 years would suffer from muscle atrophy and barely be able to speak, assuming they were capable of any movement at all.

On the Air Force fighter helmets the USA flag on the right side is shown backwards (that is the blue field and white stars are located at the top left corner). This is a common mistake made by those who have not served in the US military. As a general rule the blue field of the US flag is always to be presented in the top left corner whenever the colors are flown. The one exception to this rule is when the flag is worn this on a military uniform. The colors will always present an advancing image. Imagine the flag being flown on a staff and carried by a US Army Cavalry trooper riding into battle, the blue field would be leading the flag and the stripes would be waving behind the trooper. This is the image invoked when the flag is worn on a uniform regardless of which side of the uniform the flag is worn.

(at around 47 mins) When Julius is seen piloting his boat, he's in the cabin steering. The tidal wave from the incoming alien craft rises up behind him, slams forward, cut away. When the kids are driving by afterward, they find him strapped into the fishing chair on the upper deck, unconscious.

This is incorrect because when Julius is seen piloting the boat, there isn't a second fishing chair on the upper deck. He is still strapped into the pilot's seat which broke from its visibly empty bracket, and slid over to the side of the deck.

The Earth is larger than the alien vessel and would thus exert a greater gravitational force. The tidal surges created by the ship entering into the planet's gravitational field would be so great that would have torn the ship into pieces.

The ship could not land on the planet's surface as it would not make it intact into the Earth's upper atmosphere.

The mothership is so massive that it has gravity strong enough to destroy and lift skyscrapers. Such strong gravity would be enough to contract the ship into a rough ball; no structural material would be strong enough to resist it.

(at around 14 mins) When Jake is on the Moon, conversing with Patricia on Earth, there is no time lag in their responses; it is as if they are in the same room. However, the Moon is so far away that the wait time for a response is about 2.5 seconds. Considering the many other advances made by reverse engineering the aliens' technology, it is however possible they are not using conventional radio for communication.

During all physical activity on the lunar base, there is never any account for the fact that the moon's gravity is only 16.7% of the Earth's. Contrast this with the mass of a human body being the same, it's not taken into account. For example, if Jake were to run towards a wall in a corridor on the base, he would have a difficult time stopping before impact due to this change. However, during the president's speech at the beginning of the film it is stated that humans have reverse-engineered scientific mastery of gravity from the alien technology. The lunar gravity can therefore be whatever is desired.

Captain Hiller is wearing an Iraq Campaign Medal on his USAF uniform. The medal was awarded to U.S. soldiers who fought in the Iraq War, but that war never occurred in the movie's universe.

At one point in the final air battle there is an obviously mirrored close-up shot of an ESD fighter, shown by the backwards numbers on the fuselage.

When the President is notified of the moon base attack, she sees news footage of the burning alien ship, supposedly from a witness camera. However It's a recycled shot from the attack scene, with "broadcast" filters applied. There would not have been a camera on the backside of the ship.

Near the end, Patricia Whitmore pulls out her pistol and fires it twice at what she thought might be an alien. When she realizes it's her boyfriend she drops the gun on the ground. A trained military pilot would not disregard her weapon so easily. Especially in an area literally littered with Alien space ships on the ground.

At 1:37:58, the two fighters are shown with the identifying numbers on each of their noses (107 and 108) transposed.

Captain Hiller is wearing a Southwest Asia Service Medal on his USAF uniform, even though he was a toddler when the medal was last awarded, in 1995.

(at around 41 mins) The Singapore police are heard making announcements in Chinese instead of Singapore's official language of English. The taxis are also incorrect - Singaporean taxis are blue, and are Right-Hand Drive vehicles, since Singaporean traffic travels on the left-hand side of the road. The taxis depicted in the film are Left-Hand Drive and so would not be used in Singapore. In addition, the geographic location of the Marina Bay Sands complex in relation to Singapore's financial district is inaccurate.

(at around 42 mins) During the destruction of London, the Burj Khalifa building falls on top of the London Eye, implying that Dubai, in the Arab Emirates, was destroyed too. However, immediately after, the Petronas Towers, located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, destroy the Tower Bridge and Dr. Levinson states that the aliens "always go for the monuments". While the mothership in the movie is said to have its own gravitational pull to rip entire skyscrapers, both cities are thousands of miles away of each other and the buildings fall intact. There is no suspension of disbelief or changes on the film's reality Earth to justify these.

(at around 47 mins) When the alien mothership landing on earth, it fly from east to west. Across Asia, Europe, Atlantic Ocean, then towards east coast of US. However when it stop at north lawn of White House, it looks like the ship was fly from north toward south.

David Levinson uses a satellite phone when all satellites are down.