From: Ian Goddard (Ian@goddard.net)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 03:26:34 MDT
I had occasion this weekend to view the test FLIR, and the
best version of the 1993 Waco FLIR I've ever seen. It would
appear that glass shards did reflect sunlight in the test,
and some of the flashes do look like gunfire on the test
FLIR. But a terrible problem was immediately visible. In
the videotape of the test in the possession of Davidian
lawyers, the ground behind the shooters is so bright as to
be up to 100% white. So how are you supposed to see a white
flash against a white background? The answer is you can't.
The camera also wasn't as zoomed-in as in the 1993 FLIR.
The ground in the 1993 Waco FLIR is around 40 to 60% black,
but the ground behind shooters in the test FLIR is up to
100% white, totally obscuring the ability to see most shots.
However, a few shots are visible when some darker ground
happens to be behind a shooter, and video clips in the
CD-version of the VDS report do show some visible shots,
and the ground is a little darker than on the videotape.
The temperature was around 20 degrees cooler on the test-
FLIR day, and so the ground should have been darker than
seen in the 1993 FLIR. The fact that the ground is instead
measured as being hotter on a cooler day indicates that
the settings on the test FLIR were different. It's worth
noting that some shooters were as white as the bright ground
at times, disappearing into it. Some shooters were black.
In contrast to the no-contrast background behind test gunshots,
the ground upon which the debris was placed was pitch black,
and thus was much cooler than the ground behind the shooters.
This causes the sunlight reflections to stand about against
a black background, dramatically emphasizing them, the exact
opposite of the no-contrast background behind the shooters,
which effectively disappears the gunshots. The dramatic
difference of the backgrounds behind the test gunshots and
the test debris is grounds for a re-test, this time with
identical thermal backgrounds for both debris and gunshots.
What is most disturbing is that analysis of close-up photos
of the debris area before the test proves that they placed a
tarp only over the debris area, keeping it in the shade, and
they sprayed the debris area down with cool water, which is
why the debris area appeared to be pitch black, or cool, to
the FLIR. This is prima facie evidence of an intent to bias
the test results by allowing full contrast for any debris
reflections versus no contrast for the gunshots, a clear
effort to obscure the gunshots and emphasize reflections.
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Roger Williams --> http://www.Ian.Goddard.net/roger.htm
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