Lots of people go stretches without having contact with the outside world. I've been backpacking for a week at a time with no cell coverage or any link to anyone. How mind blowing would it be to come home and discovered these events had transpired.
shareGiven it was a global event, I wonder if the person away would not see strange things flying through the sky (the odd alien ship, etc) and strange distant rumbles during attacks. It may be enough to make them cancel their trip.
shareI was backpacking in the norther upper peninsula in Michigan, which would put me closest to Chicago as a city that would be a first wave attack. That's over 300 miles. No way you'd see or hear anything. Possible weather changes, but you'd never assume it was aliens.
shareThe Earth is pretty big.
The horizon is only 5 kilometers away, probably a little more for a flying object, but it would need to almost fly over the top of you to be seen.
In 2020, some guy who lived totally off the grid came into town for the first time in months, and was flabbergasted to find the restaurants were closed and the (sensible) people were all wearing face masks.
It happens. But in the case of the ID4 invasion, you'd think that even someone who lived off the grid in the middle of nowhere would be wondering what those strange lights in the sky were and why there was all this strange-smelling smog.
You'd never see the lights 300 miles away. Perhaps if the conditions were right, the smell could be something, but even thats a stretch. People were walking through the cities hours later, so the affects of the blasts energy were very short lived.
shareWell speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that if you set fire to something the size of a major metropolitan area, the smoke pall can cover several US states, and can make the air quality downright apocalyptic for hundreds of miles around. I know that because half my state burned down last year, and that was just wood smoke (plus ash falling like snowflakes, and including entire ash leaves from a fire 50 miles away). But if you set fire to modern buildings, especially modern commercial buildings, you don't just get wood smoke, you get chemical smoke from whatever synthetic substances went into making the flammable parts of the building.
I have no idea what alien spaceships flew over where, of course, but I really think the strange air quality would tip off a lot of off-the-grid backwoods types that something was really, really wrong. Some of them might come into town to find out what the hell was going on, but I think others would stay where they were and congratulate themselves on having a nice safe bunker to ride out the collapse of civilization in.
Half s state is very different than a city. Like I said also, this didn't burn on and on, due to their tech, and wind would play a consideration in whoever would be exposed to it. So yes, I agree that some people might have had an idea something happened, but definitely not everyone.
shareActually, I have enough experience by now with single fires the size of a major metropolitan area to say that yes, one large intense fire can change the air quality for hundreds of miles or several states around. But then, the destruction of major urban areas in the movie was shown as being almost entirely free of smoke, which isn't realistic, but there we are. And yes, wind direction makes a huge difference unless you're really close.
Anyway! Tremors or air quality might tip off someone who lived off the grid and out of contact with other humans, but I don't think many people who live off the grid are totally out of touch with other humans (although I posted a real-life example of someone who was above). I think most of them have some form of internet access, where they can keep in touch with all the latest conspiracy theories, where they can always find reasons to stay out of touch with the mainstream world.
I agree off the grid people still maintain a level of contact with the outside world. It would probably be the recreational sort that was seeking an escape for a few days, which is actually what I was doing. My hunting camp, while not that far from a small town, doesn't have any cell service whatsoever. Unless i went in town, or as you pointed out, was close enough to have some sensory event that clued me in, we wouldn't know from news or internet.
shareOf course, even without telephone or internet, you might be clued in by people fleeing into the supposed safety of the mountains, with shotguns sticking out the windows of their cars. Or biker gangs telling you to leave the fishing camp, because they've decided it was their new post-apocalyptic HQ.
Eh, it's one of these questions that can't really be answered, because there are too many case-by-case variables such as distance from the nearest town, internet access, wind direction... and that I hope nobody ever has to test in real life.
You seem determined to stick to your premise even though it has been refuted with valid observations.
shareIf you feel that way, you seem to be making an inaccurate and unfair comparison which I've refuted with personal experience and science. Also, we are talking about a completely hypothetical situation involving non existent technology that makes either of our points impossible to prove, why the need to get snarky?
shareIt wouldn't even have had to be a long stretch. This movie takes place over the course of three days. Lots of people go off somewhere for that amount of time with no Internet or cell coverage.
The number would have been even higher 25 years ago when virtually no one had Internet or cell coverage.
I didn't consider that. Yeah, very few people had a cell phone at this point. Basically, unless you called someone or watched tv, any person or group wouldn't have a clue if they were far enough outside the attacked cities. Imagine driving back to a city you lived in that had been leveled and finding out that way!
shareThere would be people(e.g. living in northern Canada) who would never know about it until the next bush pilot landed with their mail and supplies.
If they were self-sustaining and isolated(e.g. Sentinel Island) they would probably never know it happened.