Signs owes its imagistic sources to more than The Birds: It cribs liberally from Drums Along the Mohawk (more precisely, John Sayles précis for an early unmade Spielberg
project called «Night Skies» that reimagined Ford's film with
aliens), Night of the Living Dead, Field of Dreams, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, and, crushingly, John Irving's pulp - Christian novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany.