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In listening to the live video feed of the shooting, I noticed that the shooter's shots had a distinctive echo to them. You can clearly hear that in the first three shots. Shot, echo, shot, echo, shot, echo. All a bit less than a second apart. Then there's about a 3 second pause before a flurry of shot sounds. My working assumption is that those are additional shots by the shooter mixed with shots from the Secret Service (or other law enforcement).

So I grabbed the audio and imported it into my sound analyzer program (I'm also an amateur musician, so I have a couple of audio tools).

In looking at the wave form of the audio, you can clearly see the first three shot-echo pairs. The echoes are a consistent delay after the shot, which you would expect. (Between .21 and .22 seconds, for those who might care to try to find what the echo is echoing off of.)

Then in the next second and a half, I counted 10 shot or echo like sounds. Using the delay from above, I found three pairs that match up to the distinctive shot-echo timing of the shooter. A quick listen to them and they do sound similar to the first three shots.

That leaves four gunshot sounds that I can't match up to the shooter. My guess is that those were the law enforcement shots. There is no consistent timing between any of them, so I suspect those did not echo off of whatever was causing the shooter's echoes and they are instead four separate shots.

In all, I count 6 shots from the shooter, and 4 from law enforcement over the 6 second long event.

The last shot from the shooter and the first shot from law enforcement were just over a 1/10 of a second apart. If that first shot came from the sniper a bit behind the stage (that is visible in one widely shared video) we can start accounting for the speed of sound and figure that the shooter got his last shot off before the one from the sniper arrived. But that's getting off into assumption rather than analysis of facts available, so I'll stop there.

There's also a photo - again widely distributed - of Trump with a smear assumed to be a bullet going past him. That is likely the second shot. The first shot hit his ear, causing him to respond by raising his hand toward his ear. Before he could get his hand all the way up from the podium, the second shot goes past him and is caught in the photo, which shows his hand not yet to his ear.

It will be interesting to see if my amateur work is at all close to what comes out from the professionals.

--Peter

There's also a photo - again widely distributed - of Trump with a smear assumed to be a bullet going past him. That is likely the second shot. The first shot hit his ear, causing him to respond by raising his hand toward his ear. Before he could get his hand all the way up from the podium, the second shot goes past him and is caught in the photo, which shows his hand not yet to his ear. - ptheland

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That photo of the bullet in flight was simply an amazing photograph. Lucky, no way to plan it. I did wonder about the bullet trace though. The trace is about one foot long. The muzzle velocity of a .223 round varies by manufacture, bullet weight, ballistic co-efficient, barrel length but a chart shows 3,000 fps is a good average.

So a one foot trace would mean the camera's shutter speed was 1/3000 of a second more or less or if video, 3000 frames a second. Pretty fast unless you are doing slow motion photography in a controlled environment. Why would a reporter be using such a fast shutter speed at this sort of event.

So a one foot trace would mean the camera's shutter speed was 1/3000 of a second more or less or if video, 3000 frames a second. Pretty fast unless you are doing slow motion photography in a controlled environment. Why would a reporter be using such a fast shutter speed at this sort of event.

SNIP...Mr. Mills was using a Sony digital camera capable of capturing images at up to 30 frames per second. He took these photos with a shutter speed of 1/8,000th of a second — extremely fast by industry standards...


...“If the gunman was firing an AR-15-style rifle, the .223-caliber or 5.56-millimeter bullets they use travel at roughly 3,200 feet per second when they leave the weapon’s muzzle,’’ Mr. Harrigan said. “And with a 1/8,000th of a second shutter speed, this would allow the bullet to travel approximately four-tenths of a foot while the shutter is open.” SNIP

Four tenths is ~ 4.8 inches. Looks longer than that in the photo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/us/politics/pho...

Why would a reporter be using such a fast shutter speed at this sort of event.

Great question, but IIRC it just showed the trail of the bullet, not the round in flight. I could be wrong, though.

Why would a reporter be using such a fast shutter speed at this sort of event.o

Fast shutter speeds are used to freeze action from a distance away - like birds. But this is faster.

Snip In Mr. Harrigan’s last assignment, he led the bureau’s firearms training unit and currently works as a consultant in the firearms industry.

“Given the circumstances, if that’s not showing the bullet’s path through the air, I don’t know what else it would be,” he said.SNIP

same article

...“If the gunman was firing an AR-15-style rifle, the .223-caliber or 5.56-millimeter bullets they use travel at roughly 3,200 feet per second when they leave the weapon’s muzzle,’’ Mr. Harrigan said. “And with a 1/8,000th of a second shutter speed, this would allow the bullet to travel approximately four-tenths of a foot while the shutter is open.” SNIP

Four tenths is ~ 4.8 inches. Looks longer than that in the photo.

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curiosity satisfied. Thanks, Lapsody

Four tenths is ~ 4.8 inches. Looks longer than that in the photo [referring to the track of the bullet].

My question is why the track of the bullet is showing at all, and only for a short while. Was the trail because it was carrying moisture from Trump's ear flesh?

My question is why the track of the bullet is showing at all, and only for a short while. Was the trail because it was carrying moisture from Trump's ear flesh


From the article:

SNIP
“It absolutely could be showing the displacement of air due to a projectile,” Mr. Harrigan said in an interview on Saturday night after reviewing the high-resolution images that Mr. Mills filed from the rally. “The angle seems a bit low to have passed through his ear, but not impossible if the gunman fired multiple rounds.”SNIP

“It absolutely could be showing the displacement of air due to a projectile,” Mr. Harrigan said in an interview on Saturday night

But again, if it's just an "air displacement trail" why does it only appear for a short distance and not the entire frame?

"air displacement trail" why does it only appear for a short distance and not the entire frame?"

Like a contrail, it only creates a visible trail in the immediate vicinity of hot moist air.
Once it's back in clear air, no trail.

My question is why the track of the bullet is showing at all, and only for a short while. Was the trail because it was carrying moisture from Trump's ear flesh?

OK, I gave you the quote from the article. The rest you'll have to put together. My guess is the angle of the light coming off the air trail to the lens, plus any other additional factors that might accentuate it. We probably are not looking at the trail from the bullet that hit Trump.

why the track of the bullet is showing at all,

That's not the track of the bullet. That is THE bullet. The smeared line is how far it traveled while the "shutter" was open. The line starts when the shutter first opened and ends when the shutter closed. That is how fast moving objects look in photographs. With kids running or cars driving by, it often look more like its out of focus because the actual movement is fairly small. But it's the same effect.

--Peter

PS - I say "shutter" because many digital cameras do not have an actual shutter any more. They record the light hitting their sensor for some period of time, rather than having a physical shutter open and close to expose film for a period of time. But the function is the same: to record how much light hits the sensor/film over some (typically very small) period of time.

Like a contrail, it only creates a visible trail in the immediate vicinity of hot moist air.

Ok, I see. I guess the bullet might have passed through a rising column some Trump flatus. 😊

[ PS - I also wonder if Donald required a diaper change immediately afterward. ]

OK, I gave you the quote from the article. The rest you'll have to put together. My guess is the angle of the light coming off the air trail to the lens, plus any other additional factors that might accentuate it. We probably are not looking at the trail from the bullet that hit Trump.

Sadly, I'm not enough of a ballistics expert to deduce anything further.

Sadly, I'm not enough of a ballistics expert to deduce anything further.

I'm not either, I can only guess. :)

That's not the track of the bullet. That is THE bullet. The smeared line is how far it traveled while the "shutter" was open. The line starts when the shutter first opened and ends when the shutter closed. That is how fast moving objects look in photographs.

Ok, thanks. That almost makes sense to me but I'm having a mental block that's fogging my understanding. Need to google some more...

We probably are not looking at the trail from the bullet that hit Trump.

Let's do some math. And I'll point out that I'm only doing this because Trump was not seriously injured. I would not want to go into this detail if he were, because I believe that would be inappropriate.

Approximate distance from shooter to stage: 450 feet, 150 yards
Approx speed of AR-15 round: 3300 feet per second
Approx speed of sound: 1100 feet per second.

450 feet at 3300 feet per second means the round arrives in the area of the stage in about 0.13 seconds.
450 feet at 1100 feet per second means the sound of the shot arrives at the microphone about 0.41 seconds after the trigger is pulled.

I've gone back and watched the video multiple times (which, unfortunately, I don't have any handy tools for, so it's just slowing down the YouTube video to catch details), and I can see him flinch his right shoulder between the sound of the first shot and the echo. My guess is that is the round that hit him in the ear. He instinctively flinches to the pain before more consciously moving his hand toward his ear. His hand doesn't arrive at his ear until after the sound of the second shot is heard.

A typical reaction time for a human to an expected stimulus is about .25 seconds. That could be adjusted for age and the difference between an expected and unexpected stimulus, which are likely to be important. Children and older people have longer reaction times. And the reaction to an unexpected stimulus is slightly slower.

The flinch happens between the sound of the first shot and it's echo. Let's put some things on a time line, starting with the bullet leaving the gun. And I'm using my previous work on the time of the sounds at the microphone. From those sounds, I can use the speed of sound to go back to when the shot was fired and then up to when the bullet would have arrived at the stage.

0.00 first bullet leaves gun
0.13 first bullet arrives at stage
0.41 first sound arrives at stage
??? first reaction
0.63 echo arrives at stage
0.86 second bullet leaves gun
0.99 second bullet arrives at stage
1.27 sound of second shot arrives at stage
??? hand arrives at ear

The flinch happens between the sound and the echo of the first shot, so maybe 0.4 seconds after the bullet hit his ear. And well before the second shot was fired. That strikes me as being in line with an adjusted reaction time for Trump based on his age and that the stimulus was unexpected.

Now, going back to the photo, my belief is that is the bullet itself and not some kind of lingering visual effect from the bullet passing. His hand is already in the air moving toward his ear. As he was speaking, his hand was clearly on the podium, holding the edge of it. His hand is already in motion when the second shot arrived.

The timing is very consistent with the photo showing the second bullet. The flinch and hand motion to his ear is consistent with the first bullet hitting his ear.

--Peter

Now, going back to the photo, my belief is that is the bullet itself and not some kind of lingering visual effect from the bullet passing. His hand is already in the air moving toward his ear. As he was speaking, his hand was clearly on the podium, holding the edge of it. His hand is already in motion when the second shot arrived.

The timing is very consistent with the photo showing the second bullet. The flinch and hand motion to his ear is consistent with the first bullet hitting his ear.

--Peter

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Makes sense, nice sleuthing..

Makes sense, nice sleuthing..

Thank you. An initial step toward the relief I am talking about in a different thread.

I like it. Here's an article from a guy who tried capturing bullets in flight.

https://www.peterrussellphotography.com/nk1/nk12.h...

Here's an article from a guy who tried capturing bullets in flight.

Very interesting. And looking at the photos in the article, they look very much like the one the journalist captured using a slightly longer shutter speed and therefore resulting in a more stretched out bullet.

I feel more confident saying that is an actual bullet and not some artifact left after the bullet passed.

--Peter

I feel more confident saying that is an actual bullet and not some artifact left after the bullet passed.

He was closer and could focus on the muzzle of the gun, and even he talked about the swirl. It's a toss up at this point. :)

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