You are absolutely correct, for sound to "change" then either the source changes, or the surrounding envorinment changes.
That said, sound does do funny things at times. Phase cancellation is a real and predictable (in controlled environments) event, however in the field, it is often very difficult to predict what your surroundings will do, therefore close mic techniques are used. Shotgun mics are very localized, to avoid just such problems with surrounding noise. Reverberation and reflection is very much predictable, given knowledge of room type, and size and shape etc. If you want a very real and easy to produce example of its predictability? Check out the digitally created reverbs in any recording software. ANY of them.
Sound real? Of course they do. Even free software developed quickly has convincing reverbs encoded. The reverbs in Cool Edit Pro 2 have just as much convincing reality as they do in Logic 7. They may not sound the same to each other (nor should they), but they still sound "real."
To produce that effect through programming means it HAS to be predictable, and it means that if we have the layout of the area in question, the types of materials the boundries and obsstructions are made of, and the decibel levels of the originating sound along with location of origination we can predict quite accurately.
However, I am interested to hear the answer as to why that source sound is stereo, when iirc that camera has one microphone.
If it was panned out to a stereo image for production purposes, then it shows that it certainly has been tampered with.
PS. Your analysis is dead on. When I asked if anyone sees something interesting when analyzing the sound, I was wondering if anyone would notice it is stereo, and the "echoes" have no direct attack, but are spread wide.
ETA:
It strikes me that if the source recording was rolled out to a stereo image in production, and it was lifted from a DVD like is claimed, then importing the source to a low end program like Cool Edit Pro would import it to a single, stereo track. If the person doing this thought they were clever by using a reverb effect to recreate the sustained repeated explosions, their echoes created by the reverb program would be repeated in a stereo image, not as the original source was in mono, thusly making the effect we have here. Single sound with clear attack and direction, with repeated echoes without direct attack to the sound, and coming from the spread of the stereo recording. This is a very specific trick used by recording engineers with bands for vocal echoes and effect. the echoes spread out give bigger presence to the single source vocal track on the recording. Listen closely to Floyd or Tool. Echoes like this have been a mainstay of rock ever since stereo recording became standard. This tool unintentionally created the effect that shows us this recording has had production done to it.
My guess is: He imported the audio not realizing it was folded out to stereo, and used a program that imports stereo sounds into one track as a stereo image. A very novice move at best. This is downright bungled.
ETA2:
If he *wanted* to make it sound authentic, then he should have taken the first sound as a mono image in another track, and create a mono echo. Then mix the track back into the stereo image leaving it panned center. That would have sounded more convincing. But I digress, now I'm just educating the frauds on how to do convincing fakes.
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