A few more points and reveals (spoilers)
MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT
There are a lot of good discussions on this board, but I feel I can contribute with my view of the movie - it is different than most.
I) At first glance, a lot of things do not make sense when added together, and many posters have therefore accused the director of failure in presenting a coherent story. But the movie is much more rewarding if we assume the director is in fact smarter than we are. To me The Signal is obviously a “David Lynch movie”, in the sense that what we see is not accurate events, but more a representation of a stream of consciousness, a series of memories. I will expand on this.
II) We experience almost the entire film through the eyes and memories of the protagonist Nic, but since some elements of the film do not make sense at all (e.g. how could the guys communicate secretly through the vent? how could the aliens (Damon and his team) not know where Nic and Hailey were inside their own simulation?), there is only one logical conclusion: that is, we the viewers are not experiencing the events *with* Nic in real time, but rather we are presented with his understanding of past events, in other words his memories. The movie represents his understanding of everything that has happened up to around the time the movie ends. But boy are his memories messed up.
In fact,
a) since it appears test subjects can have their memories wiped over and over, we have no idea if this has happened to Nic. I suspect so.
b) we have no idea if his memories of Earth are his own exact memories, or memories that have been planted.
c) it is most plausible that even the events we see that Nic did apparently *not* witness, are also representations of how he imagined events unfolded. For example the bizarre gunpoint executions, which make no sense at all. They can make sense if they are imagined, they are “dream logic” in the Lynch tradition, they are Nic’s perception of an alien code of honour for example.
III) So we basically know nothing? Well, to have any enjoyment of the film at all, we must assume that what we see is in some way forming a storyline. And the core of this story is that aliens are doing experimentation - weapon grade developments - apparently on a massive space station. I will however try and deconstruct what most commenters believe is going on with the test subjects, as I will go into next.
IV) One cliche is that aliens are experimenting with “implanting alien stuff into humans”. Think again. Do we humans implant human hearts into pigs to see if we can improve the life quality of the pig species? No, we do it the other way around: we implant pig hearts in humans. Do we manipulate the skin of actual sharks to test if a shark will swim faster or slower with other types of skin? No of course not, we test shark skin molecular structure on *our* submarines to improve the speed of submarines, not sharks. Logically, the aliens are not adding alien elements to human individuals. Why would they? The aliens are *taking* some or other element from humans, in order to upgrade the alien weapon technology. Jonah says it metaphorically when we meet him in the diner - “They have taken something from me”. And Damon’s control question indicates the horrible truth: “Are you human?”. It amuses Damon that the subjects believe they are human. I don’t believe it for a second, but - much like Deckard in that other movie - Nic sees himself as human and therefore we are seeing him as human.
V) The other misconception is that what we see is that the mechanical limbs are giving Nic super powers, and are giving Jonah super powers. Again, try to imagine the logic of what the aliens are trying to accomplish with the experiments. If these mechanical structures are so super awesome in themselves, why attach them to a pathetic human? Why not simply attach such arms and legs to synth-bots like Damon and a million others like him? No, the mechanical limbs are a part of Jonah and Nic as a necessity, because this technology is the only framework strong enough to harness the forces that are potentially unleashed *by* Jonah and Nic. The super powers are - for reasons we cannot know for certain - coming from within. Jonah says it at one point in the hospital: “Something is changing inside of me”. And crazy lady tells Nic that what he has to do now is to “push from the inside out”, in what I believe is one of the key moments of the whole movie.
VI) Why do the aliens need humans? Again, they are certainly not doing this for fun. But it is revealing that Damon talks about how he admires the persistent rage displayed even in the face of annihilation. I must conclude that the human element in the hybrid technology the aliens are evolving, that which releases the extreme energy levels when combined with alien tech and/or lifeforms, is the human capacity for rage. All representations of aliens that we see in contrast appear very calm and methodical, and they are very afraid of all of the test subjects - even the old lady is approached with great caution.
VII) There are many clues in Nic’s memories from Earth. I don’t believe they are actual memories any more than Rachel’s memories in Blade Runner, they are symbolic and manipulated. In his past Nic is struggling with this problem, he is struggling with that problem, he can never cross the river, it’s all one big struggle for this man. I have not decoded what it all means. But certainly his memories of Earth and his “memories” of what goes on inside the simulation are made to fit. Take for instance the very important necklace, that symbol of love which on Earth was thrown into the abyss and lost forever. In the simulation it is magically retrieved and passed from Kailey to Nic to provoke him into going berserk when he realises his true loss. But these cannot be real events. If the necklace was lost on Earth it cannot physically exist inside the simulation, unless Nics memories from Earth are false, or the simulation is not a physical simulation. Or both!
To sum up, it is clear to me that all Nics memories and emotional struggles have been carefully crafted, to arrive at that very point at the (virtual and symbolic) bridge where he unleashes everything. It is the bridge of no return. Seen that way the storyline is identical to the story of Donnie Darko, who was manipulated by the living and the dead, guided towards the point in the storyline where he lost his newfound love, and saw no other choice than to change the unfolding of time itself.
My conclusion is that Nic is not human. We don't know exactly what he is. He could well be an artificially created human intelligence simulacrum, applied to an advanced weapon module. He is in fact the exact equivalent of artificial shark skin sprayed onto ships. If artificial shark skin possessed a consciousness and memories, this is what they would look like. The shark skin would automatically assume that it was part of a shark, just like Nic automatically assumes that he is human.
- I am like Cryptonite for men. Cryptonite dipped in cellulite.