Goofs

When Riley is down in the Archives-Navy Memorial Metro stop to tap the security system, the shot that he records of the preservation room shows the Declaration already there and covered, as Ben later finds it. However, Riley has not yet set off the temperature sensors, thus the document has not been taken down to the Preservation Room yet.

The length (and even existence) of Riley's goatee varies throughout the movie.

When Sadusky and his men are arresting Ben, the back of Riley and Abigail's heads can be seen leaving the scene, and a moment later, they can be seen turning away from them, waiting for their cue over Sadusky's shoulder. However, a moment later they come around the corner and witness Ben's arrest and then turn and leave again, for the third time total.

Young Ben Gates has brown eyes while the adult Ben Gates has blue eyes.

When Ian kidnaps Abigail after the Declaration is stolen, Ian asks her, "and just who might you be?" In that shot, his hair is completely dry. In the very next shot of Ian, not more than five seconds later, his hair looks to be soaked in sweat or water with the rest of him appearing to be dry.

Abigail collects George Washington's campaign buttons. In reality, William McKinley was the first president to use buttons to advertise his campaign. Therefore, Washington would not have had them.

Lemon juice is used to create invisible ink, not expose it, and it turns brown when heated; it does not fade away again as it cools.

Ben borrows a $100 bill from a cashier to read the clock on the tower of Independence Hall on the reverse side of the bill. Ben says the time reads 2:22, but on current notes the clock reads 10:30. However, on the design on the reverse of Series 1990 $100 bills, the time on the clock is different, and does actually show 2:22.

When the characters go underground, Ben pulls a torch off of the wall and lights it, and it burns instantly and brightly. Also when the heroes find the treasure room, a 'river of fire is lit'. There is no substance the 18th century colonials would have had access to which could have both produced instant flames of that kind *and* had it's potency last for 200+ years.

The first Trinity Church burned to the ground when the British set the Great Fire of New York in 1776. The church was not rebuilt until the late 1780s.

Early on, when Ben talks about the 'Iron Pen,' he states that fifty-five men signed the Declaration of Independence, when, in fact, fifty-six men signed it. One signature was not added until 1781; the clue was written before then. The writers were going to explain this, but decided this information was unnecessary for the story, so it was left out.

The film mentions many times the Freemasons were trying to hide the treasure from the British, but Britain was where Freemasonary originally came from, and where it was still based at the time. However, prior to the American Revolution, colonial Freemasonry had begun to move away from its connections with British masonry, rejecting, for example, the need of the London Grand Lodge to approve new lodges. This trend accelerated during the Revolution as ties of Masonic brotherhood proved more fragile than temporal political allegiances.

The story unfolds, saying that Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, gave a young Gates an important clue to treasure. The narration identifies him as a Mason. Some say this is not plausible because Carroll was a Roman Catholic, and being a Mason would have gotten him excommunicated. Although the family was strong Roman Catholic, Schultz in his History of Freemasonry in Maryland states that Charles was a Freemason in a Maryland Lodge. Daniel Carroll, cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton was definitely a Mason. There are, even today, many Catholics who are also Freemasons.

When they are investigating the wreck of the Charlotte, Ben seems to call Sean Bean's character Ian "Sean", but he is actually saying "Shaw," the name of David Dayan Fisher's character.

How would Ian know that the Declaration of Independence was in the restoration room. He would more than likely have gone to steal it straight from the gallery, which would have been impossible based on the security. However, he hacked into the camera system in a previous scene, where he saw the declaration being moved.

After crawling through the "creepy, crawly" space where the coffin was removed, all characters emerged without a speck of dust, dirt or cobwebs on their clothing. The knees on their pants should have been filthy.

When what is supposed to be the original Declaration is shown the "corrected" modern day version is shown instead. In 1776 the common calligraphic way of writing the letter "s" was to make it like an elongated slanted "f", so that the word Congress printed at the top would like more like "Congreff". Because this is confusing to modern day people, reproductions usually have it printed as Congress. Pictures of the authentic document show the old style of writing.

The Charlotte is completely buried in the ice and snow, yet when it is shown about 1/3 uncovered there are no piles of ice or snow anywhere around it and the ship now appears to be simply sticking up out of the ice plain.

When Riley and Abigail were in Philly and just lost the Declaration, they were outside somewhere discussing what to do, and Abigail clearly has a wig on. Just for that one scene. Her hair is matted down and tucked behind her ear and appears to be longer.

When the drivers side van window is shot, the auto glass shatters, making a large hole but leaving most of the glass shards in place. Once shattered, the glass pieces are very delicate and would fall at the slightest movement. But the pieces remain in place during the chase and during the shock of landing when the van goes airborne.

When Ben uses the pipe stem to "print out" the message, how would he know from what point to start from, and when the message ends, and if it would fit the paper using. Realistically, he would have started somewhere in the middle, maybe printing out the bottom part of a line first, and would have to keep rolling until he reached that same spot again. Not rolling out in sequential order the entire clue in one shot.

Ben, Abigail and Riley follow a clue from the engraving of Independence Hall on the $100 bill. Noting the time on the clock in the tower and following the shadow of the tower to a spot on a wall. In reality the original tower of Independence Hall that existed in 1776 had no clock, it was built only to hold a bell (i.e. the Liberty Bell.) What's more that tower became unstable and was removed in 1781 and was replaced by a simple peaked roof. The original clock on the building was built into the side of the building facing Congress Hall. The current tower with its clock wasn't built until 1828. Benjamin Franklin who was the focus of many of the clues died in 1790 so there's no way he could have used the tower clock in setting up the clues. This information comes from "Historic Landmarks of Philadelphia" by Roger W. Moss.

Until 1883, there were no standard time zones. Almost every locality used solar time to determine the correct time (solar noon was the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky in each city, and this, of course, varied depending on the location of the city). Standard time zones were established when railroad schedules necessitated them. The only way they could have determined when 2:22PM occurred in the 1700s was to find out when the sun was at its highest point and add two hours and twenty-two minutes to that time. Additionally, "average" noon as determined by a clock running at a constant rate varies from solar noon by as much as 16 minutes over the course of a year. The specification of the date upon which to view the telltale shadow clue should be known to correct for this variation. Assuming they got the date coincidentally correct they should have waited an additional two minutes.

When Ian reads the clue from the Charlotte pipe, he concludes that "Silence" must be a proper noun, because it is capitalized. At the time (as can be seen in the Dogoode letters) any noun could be capitalized, regardless of whether they were proper nouns or not.

As the scaffolding is falling, nails are popping out. These are clearly manufactured nails and not cut nails of the type used in the colonial period. Also, the nails are of a silver color, while nails of the colonial period would have a black iron color.

When Benjamin Gates is hanging onto the plank of wood, that is slowly being drawn out of the frame there is presented a bullet head nail. These nails were not used until the 1850s in North America.

When Abigail and Riley notice two of Ian's thugs chasing them, Riley says, "Time to run", but his lips do not move.

When the FBI agents enter his father's home (finding his father tied up), the agents enter through the front door, presenting handguns. A click is heard like a safety being released on a pistol. They're carrying Glocks. There is no external safety release on a Glock.

In the tunnels below the church, Patrick Gates appears to be lit from the torch he is holding. When he turns toward the camera, a square diffused light is reflected in his glasses and is the source of the "torch" light.

When Ben visits his father after stealing the Declaration and they argue, there are reflections of video screens in his father's glasses.

After Ben, Abigail & Riley leave Patrick's house, they are seen entering Philadelphia on the Ben Franklin Bridge, which connects New Jersey to Pennsylvania. However, they were traveling from the Washington DC area, the logical route of travel would have been Rt 95 northbound, which travels through Maryland, Delaware and goes directly into PA. They would not have needed to travel through NJ at all.

When Abigail and Riley are being chased from Independence Hall, one of the bad guys radios in to say they are on "5th & Chestnut". A second later, they are running into Reading Terminal Market which is at least 10 blocks away. Then they run out of Reading Terminal Market, and right into City Hall. That's about 5 blocks. So, basically they ran about a mile in 2 minutes.

When Riley goes down into the Archives-Navy Memorial Metro stop to tap the security system, the train passing behind him is clearly a New York subway train and not a DC Metro train.

While they're driving over the bridge into the city of Philadelphia, they had been up and driving all night, yet they're clearly driving into the sun while on the bridge. That bridge crosses the Delaware River from NJ, thus, they're driving west into the setting sun, not the rising sun as the movie's timeline would have you believe. This was changed for the Blu-Ray release, by having the Philadelphia text added to the scene, instead of on the door to Patrick's home.

When Riley and Abigail are in the café talking to Ben, a bus is seen with "Crosstown" spelled out as its route. There are no buses in Manhattan that only say Crosstown. The bus would have a number before the route designation, which would show the street it travels on and its destination.

When Ben determines that the shadow cast from Independence Hall must be viewed at 2:22 PM, there is no consideration given as to the time of year. For the shadow to be cast in exactly the correct spot, the shadow would have to be viewed on the same day of the year as the clue was viewed.

On the day the heroes visit the bell tower, it was not Daylight Savings Time as Riley explained. When the young FBI agents are showing the security guards at the Franklin Institute a picture of Gates in the Archive gift shop, the date on the top of the report is "11/2/05". This would put them in Philadelphia on November 3, 2005. Daylight Savings Time ended on Sunday morning, October 30, in 2005.

On the phone, Ian says to Ben "I know about the glasses." He couldn't have known that they existed. Neither he nor his henchmen ever saw the glasses being found, used or carried by anyone.

When Ben hands Abigail the champagne flute, Riley asks if that's the hot girl. But Riley clearly knows the whole plan that he helped Ben prepare for, so he not only knows her name, but also that she was Ben's only target in going to the gala. And he has had a conversation with her, so he knows her voice.

It is said the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776, when in fact, it was only adopted on that day. It was not actually engrossed on parchment, and signed until August 2nd, 1776. The copy that was signed on July 4th was a "rough journal" as it was called, and then only signed by John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress and Charles Thomson, the Secretary.

When Ben is holding the Declaration inside of Independence Hall, he reverently states that "the last time this document was here it was being signed." That is incorrect. In 1876, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration and of the nation, President Ulysses S. Grant had the DOI transferred up to the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia where it was on display for several months in Independence Hall. In fact, Pennsylvania politicians tried to keep it permanently but they lost that bid. The only other time since then that it left Washington DC was during World War II when it was secured at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Abigail's password into the preservation room is supposed to be VALLEYFORGE, an eleven letter password. When she enters her password, she only types eight characters, one being an N and one being the space bar, neither of which are found in VALLEYFORGE. This goof was rumored to have been fixed in the DVD release, but is intact on the Blu-Ray version.

When Ben is hiding from Abigail in the gift shop, he ends up buying a Declaration replica using his credit card. Throughout this scene, Riley is known to be listening in to Ben's conversations, so he would have heard at least Ben's side of that transaction. Yet later when discussing their options in the park, Riley expresses surprise about the credit card transaction.

While telling young Ben about the Templar treasure, John Adam Gates says 'my grandfathers grandfather, Thomas Gates...' But in National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) Thomas Gates was shown to be his grandfather and his son Charles Carroll Gates was John Adams Gates son Patrick Gates grandfather.