What is the significance of the flashing lights?
In ID4 (Independence Day), there are 3 helicopters sent up to greet the alien craft. One of the copters is fitted with a set of light panels that flash the lights in a specific pattern/sequence. What is the significance of this? Is this something made up for the movie or is the light pattern/sequence meaningful in real life?
I'm looking for an answer on why would they choose to do such a thing and not expect to be received as hostile.
Best Answer
I believe that it was a reference to the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In that film (the scene is on YouTube) humans use a board with flashing lights (similar to the lights on the helicopters) and music to communicate with Aliens.
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What is the meaning of flashing lights?
Flickering or blinking lights are usually caused by one of the following: Problem with the bulb (not in tight enough, lightbulbs are incompatible with your dimmers) Loose light plug. Faulty switch or dimmer. Appliances or HVAC units pulling large amounts of current on startup, causing a voltage drop.What does it mean when lights flicker in house?
Here are some of the most common causes of flickering lights in a house and how to identify them. Probable Cause: You have a bad bulb or the bulb is loose in its socket. It's an isolated problem, solved by switching out for a new bulb or simply screwing the bulb more tightly into its socket.What is the effect of flashing lights?
Recent studies show that flickering lights impact productivity, focus, comfort, and even our emotional well-being. Flickering lights can so as far as making fast approaching objects or vehicles appear as if they are moving slower, and are a known cause for seizures in epileptics.What does flickering lights mean in a movie?
These flashing lights are often used by directors to amplify a crisis situation, intensify excitement, increase a sense of foreboding or indicate the presence of a supernatural power.Dwele Describes How He Met Kanye West And The Making Of \
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Answer 2
In-universe explanation
This is explained in the film's official novelisation, co-authored by Dean Devlin, ID4's producer.
The flashing lights were supposed to be an attempt to communicate with the aliens and to demonstrate our desire for peaceful co-existence:
The president picked up a remote control and switched on the television. The Apache had just reached the front of the huge spaceship and turned on its light boards. The powerful lights began to flash on and off, creating a repeating sequential pattern. The staff at SETI, alter several hours of furious on-line discussion and a blizzard of foxes, had come up with a simple mathematical progression, a message written in what they hoped would be a universally comprehensible language.
The entire sequence would repeat every three minutes, followed by a display of the word “peace”’ written in ten different earthly languages. It wasn’t much, but it was a beginning.
Out-of-universe explanation
Echoing djmadscribbler's answer, the effect was presumably a riff off the lightboard depicted in Close Encounters, a film that Dean Devlin described, in this interview as being one of his favourites:
Devlin: I don't know what the future holds. My passions have been for mainstream, popcorn movies. That's what I usually go to see on a Friday night. I fell in love with the movies by watching Star Wars, or Jaws, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. One day, I hope to make a film as great as those.
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