THE ALTERNATE ENDING IS SUPERIOR!
I only ever saw the ending in which the alien ship protected those inside it despite the massive explosion of the radio-controlled plane, even back on TV in the 1980s. Yes, I remember this movie from my childhood and loved almost everything about it, and it fascinated me as my first UFO movie experience, aside from CE3K.
I like the alternate ending more, as despite Robert Vaughn's character (who is obsessed with a f-cking presidential election, just so he himself can hold onto power) losing and all those who collaborated with him in the cover-up, it also means that humanity can learn everything about the alien ship and prepare themselves for when the aliens, in fact, DO return.
I am finding this movie hard to find in any reasonable quality - as of now, I've had to watch some Spanish bootleg version (burnt DVD, dodgy inlay, sucky minimal menus) that I actually ordered from Amazon.co.uk, and am f-cking frustrated that there is a Blu-ray version out but which is only Region A, which is useless to me!!
I yearn for a proper Blu-ray release of this movie in Region 2/B.
Why are you here if you haven't seen the movie yet?