Ukraine sniping problem...

[uke2se]

You know that IWBA and FBI specs are based on studies of handgun ammunition? The reason they're nearly identical performance wise is because they lack the penetration characteristics that are found in rifle ammunition. But yeah, lets pretend you already knew that.

I really, really do not understand why you're finding it so difficult to grasp that a doctor treating gunshot wounds is somehow able to make the observation that the wounds that they were treating in THAT particular instance were similar.

Call it magic, call it voodoo, if it helps.

Anybody else with a functional brain would chalk it down to professional expertise. But yeah, you go buddy. Keep doing what you're doing.

I really, really do not understand why, if this is so obvious, you are having such difficulty proving it even after being asked to several times.

 

[Caustic Logic]

You have misunderstood the FBI IWBA classifications you cited.

Care to reply to my other points?

Care to reply to that one? It doesn't seem you ever did.

Show your math.

that = duh.

Can't identify a rectangle without "research." I suppose my "research" into even that wouldn't suffice either, unless I could show you my PhD in basic shapes, and flew to Kiev to measure the window myself. And/or simply blamed Yanukovych, as "accepted facts" dictate.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Earlier I joked that the attitude I was getting was "If you're not a properly-trained investigator, don't touch the infos! You might break them!"

Did I just fix broken infos?

Ukraine, Feb. 20 - Sniper Video Soundtrack Fakery?

Of course some will be emphatic and self-amused in their denial that this shows anything. But some of those can't even admit they're seeing a rectangle when they are, so long as I'm the one pointing to it. Clearly any assessment of which soundtrack better explains the actions seen in a video, with complex human shapes, moving around, pixels, different random sounds and lack thereof, whoa! Not much likelihood of agreement with that many little issues in the way...

For everyone else: What I think happened here is someone cut off the moments with the final shots (into this cameraman's arm, perchance?) and cut out the audio of all the others, swapping in one different pop, maybe an air rifle (?) they recorded earlier, or whatever. And that's why it doesn't match the other source.

Of course it's possible the RT audio is fake, but how did they fake it so well to match this video, maybe to make the single-shot sniper killing sound even more violent and prolonged and intentional, knowing the opposition would be blamed and wanting them to sound worse. It seems like an odd thing to do, a lot of work that likely no one would ever even notice the significance of. (I did, but who would bet on that?)

That is quite a thing to allege, but keep an open mind, considering the complete lack of any other timeline or volume fit in the other video - all it has is these 15 or so gunshots, that must be around 4:50 +/- a few minutes, and that fit so well with this shooting - that happened at 4:52.

Only technical questions about the correlation behind this will count as meaning much towards any kind of "debunk." But secondary questions like "why?" are also fair. To that I'd say, ATM, I don't know why, except to point to the suggested motive behind any RT video alterations, and invert that. It seems like a dumb thing to do, risking getting caught, but the hypothetical risk just became 100% as I caught the hypothetical fakery.

Deny away, blobpushers.

 

[uke2se]

Care to reply to that one? It doesn't seem you ever did.

I did. The video doesn't support the poster's assertion.

that = duh.

Can't identify a rectangle without "research." I suppose my "research" into even that wouldn't suffice either, unless I could show you my PhD in basic shapes, and flew to Kiev to measure the window myself. And/or simply blamed Yanukovych, as "accepted facts" dictate.

If you were trying to prove the existence of a rectangle, I wouldn't ask. You're not though.

 

[uke2se]

Earlier I joked that the attitude I was getting was "If you're not a properly-trained investigator, don't touch the infos! You might break them!"

Did I just fix broken infos?

Ukraine, Feb. 20 - Sniper Video Soundtrack Fakery?

Of course some will be emphatic and self-amused in their denial that this shows anything. But some of those can't even admit they're seeing a rectangle when they are, so long as I'm the one pointing to it. Clearly any assessment of which soundtrack better explains the actions seen in a video, with complex human shapes, moving around, pixels, different random sounds and lack thereof, whoa! Not much likelihood of agreement with that many little issues in the way...

For everyone else: What I think happened here is someone cut off the moments with the final shots (into this cameraman's arm, perchance?) and cut out the audio of all the others, swapping in one different pop, maybe an air rifle (?) they recorded earlier, or whatever. And that's why it doesn't match the other source.

Of course it's possible the RT audio is fake, but how did they fake it so well to match this video, maybe to make the single-shot sniper killing sound even more violent and prolonged and intentional, knowing the opposition would be blamed and wanting them to sound worse. It seems like an odd thing to do, a lot of work that likely no one would ever even notice the significance of. (I did, but who would bet on that?)

That is quite a thing to allege, but keep an open mind, considering the complete lack of any other timeline or volume fit in the other video - all it has is these 15 or so gunshots, that must be around 4:50 +/- a few minutes, and that fit so well with this shooting - that happened at 4:52.

Only technical questions about the correlation behind this will count as meaning much towards any kind of "debunk." But secondary questions like "why?" are also fair. To that I'd say, ATM, I don't know why, except to point to the suggested motive behind any RT video alterations, and invert that. It seems like a dumb thing to do, risking getting caught, but the hypothetical risk just became 100% as I caught the hypothetical fakery.

Deny away, blobpushers.

Describe the video and what you fixed.

 

[carlitos]

Deny away, blobpushers.

Paraidolia?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Paraidolia?

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/L0o8vtn.gif[/qimg]

Lol, to be a smart-ass, I almost wanted to do something like that. Lessee, dark shape set in the widow section of a wall ... maybe is Octopus/Cthulu hiding on wall. Maybe is a triangle! Made of black paper with twigs taped on, someone nailed up there. Maybe is a block of squirrels in the tree huddling for warmth.

But didn't I say no games? The shape game counts. You can decide whatever you want. I'm sticking with the boring basic answer.

Describe the video and what you fixed.

I't a before and after,and as the title says, the audio. There's a description at the posting, but an open-minded watch/listen is crucial to judging how well each soundtrack explains the actions.

You won't be able. It would constitute "engaging" a "conspiracy theory" Thinking outside the box - verbotten!) The first sound will seem infinitely better to you, and the second will leave you laughing. (I really should have done a version for here with the order swapped - that could have got me some confirmations...)

The methodology is what matters most and says that must be the sound, whatever one thinks of how it fits. That's been presented here already, with a chance for involvement or debunking even, which is still open if a bit late now.

 

[Caustic Logic]

If you were trying to prove the existence of a rectangle, I wouldn't ask. You're not though.

As a carefully separated primary point, I was trying to get an isolated answer to only that specific question. You insist on getting hung up on admitting even that most basic thing. Not very "engaging," like you admitted yourself.

Whatever.

Anyone else - had a look at the before and after videos?*It's really an interesting fit, from beginning to end. Once I line it up at the right spot, actions follow sounds that weren't there before, with no time lag, as if those really are the sounds of this horrible moment of theirs.

I think some or all of the foreground sounds in the fisheye video are legit (man on phone at the beginning, not that I really checked lips vs. sounds), just filtered somehow, or just that way by lucky break. It might be just the gunfire part alone has been cut out and patched over. Because there were way more shots than the one.

I hear "sniper!" from other voices, in both videos. In the fisheye video, I hear "Ukraine," which unless Ukrainians talk like smurfs, probably refers to the main thing around there called that - the hotel. I'd like to get a Ukrainian speaker to see what they can make out from the announcer heard in the RT video, as the victim is picked up in my remix. If it says something like "a man was just injured by a sniper at October Palace" we're pretty well set.

 

[carlitos]

If it says something like "a man was just injured by a sniper at October Palace" we're pretty well set.

No, that would only mean that someone, in the fog of war, said something.

As for your rectangle, here it is at 8X magnification. Go on, outline it for me.

 

[Childlike Empress]

To your video, CL - I know how good you guys are with the sun angles so I'm convinced there is a mystery. I don't think the people who help the victim act like there are several shots while they do so, though. My immediate suspicion is that the last, single shot we hear at the end of the RT video, after you say the other video was cut, is the same single shot we hear in the beginning of the other video, the one that killed the victim. Did you compare those two?

 

[Caustic Logic]

No, that would only mean that someone, in the fog of war, said something.

You must recognize what a steep coincidence that would be if, as you probably think with no basis, this is not the right audio. How many sniper shootings were there at about 4:50 PM to get confused between?

As for your rectangle, here it is at 8X magnification. Go on, outline it for me.

Shapes game, getting dumber by the round. You have the right dark patch identified, good job. Don't know if you're pretending or really don't remember where I said the shape never comes through great in a still, only seen consistently on video. Especially at 2:22 where I already outlined it for you and everyone. So keep on messing with that still as if that means anything.

 

[Caustic Logic]

To your video, CL - I know how good you guys are with the sun angles so I'm convinced there is a mystery. I don't think the people who help the victim act like there are several shots while they do so, though. My immediate suspicion is that the last, single shot we hear at the end of the RT video, after you say the other video was cut, is the same single shot we hear in the beginning of the other video, the one that killed the victim. Did you compare those two?

Excellent, intelligent counter-thoughts I need. I did suggest that's what people would want to match, and the timeline is just wiggly enough that it would fit too. But it's actually two quick shots, and it coming out sounding like one would need explained. Also, you can see a medical team just getting headed that way (north) moments before those last shots, suggesting someone was already shot up that way, say, 1-3 minutes earlier. (see 6:26:14)

And most importantly the test - I think they do react as if to continued shots, but I'm glad a non-clown can see it different and provide a challenge. I should catalog all these somewhere to be considered - will start here.

Time-stamps:
- 2:22 two clear reactions - Mrs. M (?) runs for cover (leaving her dying husband for some suddenly compelling reason) and the guy holding (her paper coffee cup?) finally thinks "forget the coffee" and goes to help shield the people - he's got a decent heart.
- 2:27 no, just going back for a stretcher.
- After, the fear subsides as no more shots come. But still nervous about noises - 2:58.
- The whole time, only medics (marked) and militants (most w/shields) remain in the open, mainly crouching low. That could be general fear of possible shooting, or more acute fear of actual shooting.
- And finally, the way it happens to cut just moment before there would be two more quick shots. This would be consistent with a desire, for whatever reason, to remove as many shots as possible. Audio alteration for the bulk of it and a full cut for the last.

That's not as many points as I thought. Maybe I forgot one or two, but these are uncanny how they all line up when the initial reaction lines up, no chopping required.

 

[Childlike Empress]

If you listen to the other shots from the RT video, at 5:00 following in your video, they also sound like a number of "double shots". I suspect that's some kind of echo effect to do with the position inside the Hotel.

 

[Caustic Logic]

If you listen to the other shots from the RT video, at 5:00 following in your video, they also sound like a number of "double shots". I suspect that's some kind of echo effect to do with the position inside the Hotel.

First, a reminder that this being two shots is just one of a few reasons I don't think it's the fatal shot (the others being mainly the general audio-video fit and mobilization of medics prior to this point). Even if it's just one, it doesn't mean it's the same one on that video.

That said, I'm not so sure it's two shot, but it also doesn't sound like a single shot. Some of the shots in the initial burst are doubled, and all of them have echo - to me the ones that sound doubled are.

The echo as heard from that window seems to have a delay time of about 0.48 seconds.

First, one segment containing three shots - one alone, then two in sequence. Here, there's a clear pattern of echoes across the board. One main difference in dynamics: the double shot's doubled sound waves build on each other for louder echoes and a noisier overall burst with a slower trail-off.

The second shot (pink) is timed differently from the echoes, so it isn't one. But it has its own.

Considering this profile difference - the final shot(s) don't look to me like a single shot with echo. But while it has that longer, fuller dynamic, it's not clearly a double-shot either. There's an extra sound involved, and mysteries I'll need to ponder over this some more before I can make sense of it.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I have no time to dig deeper into this sound issue, so just you got some more to ponder over easter:

Time-stamps:
- 2:22 two clear reactions - Mrs. M (?) runs for cover (leaving her dying husband for some suddenly compelling reason) and the guy holding (her paper coffee cup?) finally thinks "forget the coffee" and goes to help shield the people - he's got a decent heart.

First, you have no idea if that's Mrs. M. At 2:18, a helper comes from the right. Another shot is fired. He's totally unimpressed. At 2:21, another helper follows him, another shot is fired - both remain unimpressed. After "Mrs.M" disappears, another helper from the right, a "double shot". Nobody reacts. Oh, ok, he stops and runs back, but in a "oh I forgot something" manner, not a "gotta save my life" manner. And lo and behold, a few seconds later he returns with something white he fetched.

I don't think that audio fits better, sorry. They act like it was a single, surprise shot.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I have no time to dig deeper into this sound issue, so just you got some more to ponder over easter:




First, you have no idea if that's Mrs. M. At 2:18, a helper comes from the right. Another shot is fired. He's totally unimpressed. At 2:21, another helper follows him, another shot is fired - both remain unimpressed. After "Mrs.M" disappears, another helper from the right, a "double shot". Nobody reacts. Oh, ok, he stops and runs back, but in a "oh I forgot something" manner, not a "gotta save my life" manner. And lo and behold, a few seconds later he returns with something white he fetched.

I don't think that audio fits better, sorry. They act like it was a single, surprise shot.

Well, obviously a subjective call. It won't be leading proof of anything I suppose. But ...

Helpers, medics, they take the risk, which is small on a person-by-person scale, while everyone else is taking cover. Fits both, but fits ongoing gunfire a bit better. The one middle aged woman there from the first second, with two helpers at first and then more. From 2:07-2:19, no shots, and she just stays there. Maybe it's over? 2:19, shots resume and instantly, she's up. The target's wife, not a helper, getting her - and no one else - out of the way... makes sense.

Besides, I don't see where else she'd be, as the reports say she was standing right with him, sipping coffee, when he was shot. And being the behaving differently, it's a pretty good guess that's her. As for her coffee - it's still upright. His is on the ground.

Anyway, not that it was ever a huge issue, but I did this work, so... for all this to be the final surpsie shot, the mobilizing medics were clued-in, or going to help some other serious injury that happened a minute or three before this.

And it will require that these sounds represent the same thing. I suppose it's possible.

Final burst of shot(s) and gun noise

I hear: a clear shot, with a visibly detectable echo pattern. Purple. The next sound is mechanical, possible echo pattern as well. Then, sort of a repeat of the last noise, but with a backwards-sounding effect, slapping right into what sounds like a second shot, minus the sharp crack. However, that doesn't have any clear echo pattern following. But would it? It's lacking its sharp part.

Mysterious, unclear, to me, ATM. A weapons expert maybe could make sense of this with ease.

Next, the fisheye video's single shot:

Echo time, different location, almost exactly half - 0.24, unless that's a second shot. That is was half made me have to double-check I'm in the right speed in all cases. Yes. From here, it looks like a simple, single-shot type echo roll-off.

Maybe that is the same - I'm at about my limits trying to rule it out. I don't think so, but... maybe tomorrow I'll think of something.

Of course none of this matters as much as the overall evidence that this fatal shooting was, with all reasonable certainty, from high up in the Euromaidan freedom zone of the Hotel Ukraine. That folks with a guilty conscience might have altered a video of the event seems compelling, but maybe this is just a weird set of coincidences and bad audio coincidentally connected to the last "Yanukovych sniper" victim of the day.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Well, obviously a subjective call.

Obviously. I didn't know that the Mrs. and her coffee were featured in the press. Anyway, you got my feedback, I gotta run. Happy Easter! Maybe one of the thread residents will chime in with something useful. Good luck with that - you'll need it.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Obviously. I didn't know that the Mrs. and her coffee were featured in the press. Anyway, you got my feedback, I gotta run. Happy Easter! Maybe one of the thread residents will chime in with something useful. Good luck with that - you'll need it.

I thought you'd been following the stuff I put at the Wiki and in my Dusk Sniper(s) video. But I know I don't follow everything you or Petri or the others put up.

Side-note: something I never put anywhere 'til now is an intriguing side story - an Artem Melnychuk from Kiev was at the Maidan "fighting" with his dad (unnamed) on the 20th. A young blond longhair (IT or AI) student in Kiev of the same name exists, and looks just like one Artem, film student, who says he was shot in the arm by a sniper on the Maidan, while filming something about Soviet history (October Palace?). He says he had to go to a veterinarian for some reason instead of a hospital, his camera was broken, and he was appealing for money and help in a video, seeming unnaturally sad and strange about the camera especially.

If only this cameraman gave any sign that that was his dad just shot, and/or mother running by in grief and terror, I'd be more tempted to put this all together, and say that last burst is what injured his arm and gave rebels his broken camera to break its last video. Gosh, isn't that interesting? But nonetheless, it's likely just a coincidence, at least the last part. Names are only so rare and Kiev only so big.

Back to the audio stuff - I appreciate the rain on the parade, of course. A good parade can handle it, and a bad one should be detected. But when you get back to it, or anyone else similarly doubting, I recommend this before deciding.

Realizing that the initial burst of fire is just as good a time fit as the final burst, and that it better fits the medics moving as seen in the RT video, and that something's wrong with the other video's audio track - be sure at least once to view it with an open mind, trying to see what I'm seeing; maybe it's more than just coincidence these few actions and final cut synch with these shots, that either happened 2.5 minutes earlier, or right then.

Again, it's not a crucial point, but it's mine and I want it to get a fair shake.

Happy Easter back.

 

[uke2se]

No, that would only mean that someone, in the fog of war, said something.

As for your rectangle, here it is at 8X magnification. Go on, outline it for me.

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/tsOzxmh.png[/qimg]

You didn't really expect him to oblige, did you? That would entail critical thinking.

 

[Caustic Logic]

You didn't really expect him to oblige, did you? That would entail critical thinking.

Hmm. It would entail something ... kind of like chasing my tail.

Let's move back from the sunset sniper (and assorted bored games) to the more concerted massacre of the early afternoon. I've updated my shooting directions graphic to reflect recent findings. This only focuses on lines of fire clearly, possibly, or allegedly involved in the mass shooting behind the hotel. Shooting between the conservatory or hotel and October Palace, for example, is not covered here. Also note this is just a general aid to sort out the different locations and basic direction. It's not forensically precise, just an infographic.

Notes:
Behind Directions - October Palace and Hotel Ukraine:
Previously we noticed a tree that's hit from behind, either left or right seems possible to me ATM (see first half in this video). This could be either from the Hotel or the October Palace (OP). The latter was insurgent-held as of about 12:30, just in time to be potentially relevant to the sniper massacre.

Besides the possible tree shooting, Hotel-origin fire (west side) is suggested by a man who's shot and tips over from that direction (19:20 or so in the long video). Other victims are possibly hit on that line, but nothing definitive can be ventured with what I've found so far.

Forward Directions:
The ? line is one possible angle for fire we can visually verify (in two instances of non-fatal shooting - one in the second half of the above video) that may or may not be distinct from the solid blue line to the "Ministers' Club" - the Ironic kid took a hit on about this line. So that's either one or two positions, more likely two of them.

The short, solid line to the Arcade Bank turret window, we have covered... the window's shape is in dispute and some here speculate it might be a giant hamster up there in the trees. Snipers don't usually shoot from inside giant hamsters, so this remains among the most serious challenges posed by the JREF resident skeptics. Nonetheless, I continue calling it a regular rectangular window of the exact shape usually in that exact spot.

Total: Three directions I call as evident on video, likely four, and possibly five.

Alleged Directions:
These are all implicitly dotted with uncertainty. The pattern I noted earlier holds - for the weeks right after the incident, no one mentioned snipers at the hotel. It's not as obvious as I thought but still likely that there was significant fire from there involved, but it's now acknowledged as the primary "still investigating that" alternate sniper perch, highlighted in that Monitor program, etc.

Physical Marks:
Until verified, I consider physical marks not seen happening on video (to my knowledge) in another category - possibly made later, possibly fake, but possibly relevant and so worth mentioning.

The Vorontsov study shows marks on tress that he thinks must have been from the direction of the OP's south end. I think these marks appear in videos of the day - see 21:26 in the long video, right side, for one spot. The candles in his photo apparently rest on that hump, and there's a reddish patch of torn bark just above that.

Vorontsov thinks the sniper was on the roof, but I doubt that. He'd be seen on video shot from the hotel without even trying. Much better to get under that roof, it you control the place, and shoot from a concealed position within the shadows behind a window frame. Lining up the possible trajectories, this could indicate a different building behind the OP, "higher ground near" it, or its southern end as suggested - the most likely being the smaller southern face itself, probably the eastern half/far corner of it. I'll leave this dotted for now.

(Vorontsov has other photos and angles I still need to consider in detail)

Monitor's expert Sergei has a laser trajectory through a tree injury pointing to a small area on the 10th floor or so of the Hotel, west half, inner face. Which tree this is from is unclear - it seems really splintered, but is shown too close-up (4:33). So I can't yet even try to verify this in the day's images. Stays dotted for now.

From BBC "investigation" BBC site - Youtube (orange lines in the graphic)
* 1:18 - the mark shown in this ridiculous segment is worth a look, but is not in my immediate area of interest. It shows one direction or another of gunfire traded between the a high level of the hotel (same side Gatehouse here saw that green-helmet sniper in!) and the October Palace (same area he saw that from!). Make your own call how to read that mark relative to two holes precisely placed by a "sniper" in a street-level light pole, rather than into anyone's neck. At 2:15 their methodology is explained - standing in front of and mostly blocking a bullet hole on a wall of the October Palace, the lead talker says they're standing in the sniper positions to figure out, mainly, who in the old government to blame. take this mark, line it up with... something, and it points right to Yanukovych and his deputies!

* 1:36 - clear shot, location ID - This is punched through a sign pole at the Metro station. It's a few meters south of the light pole I saw hit on video, at what seems a different angle. So this mark is not verified by that, or anything I've seen yet. The camera tries to show how looking through both holes, you see the balcony of the National Bank. I'll take Gatehouse's word on that, but it doesn't get to be solid blue based on this.
* 2:08 - light pole opposite the bank punched through on a line right towards the massacre area. Also not the one I saw getting shot, exact spot unclear ATM, but the trajectory seems to be about the same (on about the ? line).
* 2:12 - That we're looking south here (note the Arcade Bank's ornate cornice visible at right) means this tree mark evidences a shot from behind and to the right. I'll have to check the depth of view/decide which tree before I say this is clearly from the hotel.