More On The 'Second Shooter'

A number of commenters seem to place implicit faith in Chris Martenson’s video purporting to demonstrate conclusively that there was more than one shooter shooting at Trump. I’m by no stretch a forensic expert in such matters. However, based on a certain amount of experience there are aspects of Martenson’s theory that are counter intuitive to me. So I looked around and came up with a guy who does critiques the several analyses that are out there, and he concludes that Martenson’s analysis is the most flawed of the three. I wish I could do this as a thread unroll, but I can’t so please indulge me. The bottom line remains, to me, that the assassin may have been enabled—a window of opportunity may have been created by the manifest deviations from minimally sound official security practices—but there were no other persons actually shooting at Trump. For many reasons—especially the logistical difficulty of organizing a multiple shooter event—this makes sense to me.

I eliminated time stamps, photos, and so forth to save space. You’ll need to follow the links to listen to the audio and to see the technical representations of the sounds. What you’ll notice right away is that all of the shots aimed at Trump sound like they’re coming from the same rifle. The writer explains why some recordings sound different from others. The critique of Martenson is in a separate section at the end of this post:

Michael Kobs @MichaKobs

Update 4

#TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

40.857041° -79.971078°

The mysterious 9th shot

Three analyses have been published and all of them have more or less crucial errors. The best of the three is this but I don't know who made it:

In the meantime, some new findings have emerged that allow some corrections and new colclusions.

First of all, there was a second Secret Service team on the right-hand roof behind the podium.

This team had a clear view of the assassin, but was probably originally set up to control the right side of the site.

I.e., they would have been facing away from the assassin. When the shooting started they would have had to reorient in the opposite direction.

Another video was recorded close to the assassin and proves that after the initial 3 shots he fired five more shots in continuous automatic fire. (Thanks @ReneGlatt for pointing this out to me and remaining adamant).

This is incorrect. Those shots don’t come in automatic mode. They’re simply five very rapid shots. But we get the point.

With this video we have three sound sources from which we know quite well where the microphones were located. And so we know the time delay between the shots and the arrival of the sound of the shot.

The first thing we hear is the supersonic crack caused by the projectile. This is followed by reflections and the muffled sound of the shot, which is easily recognizable from the bass (green oval).

With this knowledge, we can synchronize the three audio tracks by calculating backwards from the actual sound of the shot to determine when the shot must have actually taken place.

What strikes is the reason why I counted one less shot using the podium mic and the mic in the crowd to the right of the podium. The supersonic crack of the 6th shot (3rd in automatic fire) is missing in both soundtracks, while the actual bassy shot sound is audible.

To understand the significance of this, you can imagine the projectile as a boat on the water. The so-called Mach cone, which the projectile drags behind it, deforms the wave crests, while the wave propagates perpendicular to the wave crests.

This means that if the projectile is stopped beforehand, no crack will reach the podium mic and the mic to the right of the podium. In other words, this projectile most probably hit the fireman Corey Comperatore RIP, who was sitting right under the line of fire.

The second interesting observation that can be derived from the three soundtracks is the origin of the first sniper shot. The podium was right in the middle between the two Secret Service teams. The time difference can be ignored. However, we know that the actual shot was fired about .16 - .17 seconds earlier.

However, the path difference from the two USSS teams to the other two microphones is significant. And here it can be seen that the bassy bang from the shot took the shorter path of the two options to the mic near the assassin (blue), while it took the longer path to the mic in the crowd (green). This means that the first sniper shot was apparently fired by the team whose view was obscured by the tree. Presumably this stopped the assassin and gave the other team time to aim.

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Critique of Chris Martenson

The “question tweet” contains a link that will lead you to the Martenson video:

Q: Erik Andersson @Erkperk

@MichaKobs did I understand your analysis correctly that a second shooter is not necessary to explain the audio? That would mean the guys I’m quoting here are mistaken x.com/bennyjohnson/s…

Answer:

Good question, because this [Martenson] analysis is sure to cause a lot of confusion, especially since it once again exudes authority with terms like PhD and sound expert.

Imo @chrismartenson makes two mistakes in a row, but he is welcome to defend his analysis. The crucial mistake, however, is that he refers to a cell phone microphone that not only changes position, but also direction by 180 degrees.

This movement not only changes the pattern of the echoes, but certainly also the spectral composition of the sound. It could well be that the woman had no line of sight to the shooter for the first 3 shots, but could see him for the following shots.

And high frequencies travel in a straight line, while bass frequencies creep around every corner. This could explain the different sound of the rapid firing sequence, especially since there are three other stationary microphones that recorded the entire sequence with no discernible difference, right down to the small details of the reflections. If it were a different shooter, these details would be completely different in all soundtracks. They are not.

And this is where the second error comes into play. He now compares this moving microphone sound with the podium microphone. Of course he stumbles over shot 6, because with this shot no supersonic crack reaches the microphone. Hence the conclusion that this shot hit the only victim to the left of the podium. That bullet did not pass the microphone and therefore no audible crack reached it. According to the time delay, the 9th and 10th shots came from the two sniper teams. Therefore they both sound different from all the other shots.

Notice how the pattern of the first three shots repeats itself in the pattern of the 5-shot burst - the supersonic crack at the beginning, followed by a pattern of reflections and the bass-heavy bang (the actual shot). This repetition of the pattern would not be present with a different weapon or even a different location.

However, the pattern also changes if you move the microphone.

Also notice how the first sniper shot shows a completely different pattern of 3 peaks. However, the microphone in the crowd only hears the very deep bass.

The writer highly recommends this video. It’s quite interesting. It’s in German, but it has numerous soundbites in English and interesting videos—How the Secret Service failed in the Trump assassination: