[Nick Zwar]

That was done back in the day of VHS quite often. Movies were shot for wide screens, like 2.20:1 or 2.39:1 ration. Depending on how the negative of the movie is, VHS movies could be shown “letterboxed” (the classic film format, on TV sets of the time then with black bars top and bottom), or “cropped” (meaning the image would be zoomed in until it filled the screen, but you’d lose the image right and/or left (“pan & scan”), or “open matte.
In case of JACOBS LADDER it was then apparently “open matte”, which means while the movie was shot for the wide screen, a larger part of the negative was used for the VHS copy (so top and/or bottom of the picture “opened”), which means that sometimes there are things visible that should not be visible (and were not visible on the film print). Directors and editor usually select what is shown in the frame, but when a copy for VHS is done, sometimes, the frame was just enlarged to fill the 4.3 screen, that’s when microphones or other stuff may enter the picture.
I’m so happy the days of this are over. 😀
I never like VHS pan & scan or open matte versions, but that’s the way movies were released back then.

Edit:
A famous example of how different frames effect the experience is Stanley Kubrick’s SHINING. Kubrick shot the movie with an eye on BOTH widescreen (for the theatrical release) and the 4:3 format, which at that time was the format TV screens had. Which is why the 4:3 version of Shining was officially approved.

Here’s an example of how Shining looks in either version (you can find these clips on YouTube):

This is matted widescreen and “open matte” TV image. Kubrick kept the microphones out of either. However, most directors who shot their films in wide screen never intended them to be shown “open matte”, which is why (as in case of Jacob’s Ladder), they did not mind microphones (or planes, or signs, or whatever) show up in a part of the frame they knew was not shown later on. Unless someone copied them to VHS “open matte”.