Trivia for
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) More at IMDbPro »

• One of the buildings struck by crashing flying saucers is Union Station, Washington's main train station. This may have been inspired by a 1953 accident when a runaway passenger train smashed into the station concourse.
  
  
• One of the scenes of a Washington building exploding is actually the Los Angeles City Hall being destroyed by the Martians from The War of the Worlds (1953).
  
  
• While Dr. Marvin, his wife, the major and the policeman are being transported in a saucer, a large view screen is displaying their movement away from earth. One of the shots displayed is of earth and the moon with a haze-like fog. This shot is taken from the opening credits of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
  
  
• This science fiction movie was "suggested" by the book "Flying Saucers From Outer Space". This 1953 book was a nonfiction work by retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Donald E. Keyhoe. It was Keyhoe's conclusion that certain aerial phenomena were interplanetary in origin.
  
  
• Ray Harryhausen stated in his biography that this is his least favorite of his films.
  
  
• During the small film about operation skyhook, a short clip of meteors is shown. That clip was taken from the meteor storm in Rocketship X-M (1950).
  
  
• One of the scenes of a saucer attacking jets is actually based on footage of an air show crash.
  
  
• Some of the footage showing citizens being loaded on a bus for evacuation is stock footage from The War of the Worlds (1953).
  
  
• Columbia's publicity department created publicity stills using the cut-and-paste technique. The resulting stills of the flying saucers were vastly inferior to the special effects in the film itself. In fact, one of the more infamous stills shows Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor standing on top of the water in the middle of the Potomac River.
  
  
• This film originally played as the top half of a double bill with The Werewolf (1956), also directed by Fred F. Sears.
  
  
• The supposed satellite launches are actually stock footage of Viking rockets, high-altitude probes that were the predecessors of the Vanguard, intended to be the first satellite launcher. The later shots of rockets crashing at takeoff are really German V-2s, since none of the first 12 Vikings ever failed. Ironically, the 13th Viking, now called Vanguard, blew up on the launch pad, just like in the movie.
  
  

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