The Berg Video - The sound was NOT "out of sync"

[phrenzy]

Clearly what you hear are the people starting to 'psych' themselves up for the beheading. First you hear a male say "Allahu Akbar" and then you hear what must be a female shrieking some arabic in a very horrific and haunting way. I think she screams 'Allahu Akbur' at one point, but she is definitely either freaking out or chanting some cult like saying desperately.

At this point Berg does NOT react. He probably just thinks it's still part of their 'message' - And then he is taken by surprise as he is pushed over.

Now, once this happens, you get the whole 'static' and then switching back to the knife being put to his neck and plunging in as they all scream Allahu Akbar.

Here is where you begin to hear what I interpreted as the scream from Berg. It starts out as a standard "AaaaAAAAHHHH!!!" and quickly switches into a horrific sound that sounds like a horrible plumbing rupture.

I do not give much credence to the lack of 'arterial spray' theories, mainly because his neck is penetrated initially toward the floor which would mean any arterial dispersion would have been aimed at the floor. This is reflected in the video by the immense pool of blood that accumulates.

In terms of whether his body moves or thrashes I cannot remember and I don't wish to watch this terrible video again (I feel changed for life after watching it ONCE) - But, I DO remember that he was pinned rather firmly by the 'assistants' in the tape.

The only thing I would even begin to contemplate is that the whole tape up until the 'static' part is for real. Then they stopped what they may have told him was a 'staged' sequence (they did this with the Japanese hostages - telling the to 'look scared) - And then killed him in some way that they could stomach, and them filmed the 'slaughter' part of it after he was dead by some kind of 'humane' method (like lethal injection or something)

But, in reality, it truly appears that the video is truly how it appears. A few things I would say are the simplest explanations:

- The claims that the sound is 'out of sync' are totally mistaken
- The reason the man is wearing a mask is simply because the others are (this one is iffy)
- Bergs lack of blood spray was due to the angle of the cutting (again not certain)


The sound of his horrible gurgle (which will haunt me forever incidentally) seem realistic and in line with what I would imagine as a major trauma to the throat.

Just my opinions...

I still wish I hadn't watched it. Nothing I've ever seen ever effected me like that.

[Rationality]

1. It's no use

THere are some on this very board who will insist that this video is suspicious and will invent as many tinfoil conspiracies as possible to deny the fact that some terrorist groups out there would do anything to enrage us.

[phrenzy]

2. Unfortunately

I think you are correct.

But just as unfortunately, I also believe that the shit that happened at Abu Gharib are enough to give credence to the 'anything is possible argument' - Because, truly, anything IS possible.

I just don't happen to believe it in THIS particular case. I believe the vide is as represented.

Also, there WERE indeed multiple cameras used as a matter of course. You can see at the beginning of the tape they show Berg from different angles while simply TALKING - before the killing begins. This would indicate that they were using multiple cameras for the whole 'production'

[CWebster]

22. I bet you still defend the single bullet theory too?

Who buys that anymore?

[Rationality]

28. Riiiight. ((n/t))

[Kellanved]

3. Although I have not seen the whole video (can't do it)...

...I had the impression that there is an audience behind the camera, screaming in horror.
Is it possible that they forced other hostages to watch the murder?

[charlie]

4. I disagree

I just listened to it again. I think the horrible screaming that begins before the execution is Berg's (or if it was dubbed in, meant to be Berg's). It doesn't change character, pitch, or intensity until it's throttled by the cutting. The sound is out of sync, which is the reason Berg isn't reacting when the screams start.

[phrenzy]

5. Wrong

There is CLEARLY an audience. Anyone who has the stomach to watch this video again will be able to hear this.

It almost sounds like the 'audience' is not wanting this to happen, they are horrified. The screaming (maybe religious wailing is more accurate) is CLEARLY from a female.

Berg at this point has no idea what is going on and just kind of sits there confused, then he is pushed over. As the knife is put to his throat he realizes this is 'for real' and begins to scream. He doesn't scream much before the knife has totally plunged into his neck, presumably cutting through his voice box and you hear the - ugh- the 'pressure' from his scream escape from the hole created in his neck.

I'm sorry, I just can't believe these guys would be able to produce such a horrific sound via 'post production' - just doesn't make sense.

[charlie]

6. Nope, don't agree

I don't know if there was an audience or not, I didn't say anything about it. However, there is continuity in the single screeching voice. As far as I can tell, it's one person and it's not "clearly" a female, it's Berg (or meant to be).

[phrenzy]

9. Shit

well, I'm not going to watch (or even listen) to it again - but I remember paying close attention to this - because you could tell this screaming from the masked nut-cases was almost a method of anesthesizing themselves from what they were doing. The female was clearly the most disturbed from the whole event and thus screamed the loudest.

The scream IS female, I can tell you that. It is NOT Berg, not is it 'supposed to be' Berg.

[stickdog]

34. Why do you remind me of somebody trying to explain "Memento"

after watching it on a scrambled cable channel during the commercials of a football game?

[Devils Advocate NZ]

13. Bollocks...

There is NO audience - the screams are Berg's. Watch the video carefully and you will see the man reading the statement is still reading the statement (visually) after the screaming starts, and the other men have not moved a muscle.

Then twenty seconds later the men all react, heads shaking as they shout "Allah u Akbar", and begin pinning Berg down.

The sound is out of sync and finishes a minute before the video does. This is not unsual for low quality, highly compressed computer video files. Such problems happen all the time.

It amazes me that people can come up with such fanciful stories to try and explain something they don;t understand - an audience!

If you were to split the vdeo from the sound and move it back about twenty seconds, you would see it maches perfectly.

[elperromagico]

7. I thought I saw a distinct "jerk" on Berg's part

before his body went completely still, but it could have been the result of one of his captors moving.

Like you, I wish I hadn't watched it. And I have no intention of watching it again. I've read so much about it here that I don't know which end is up anymore.

[nonconformist]

8. Well, in the video that I saw the sound WAS out of sync

Because at the beginning, when Berg is stating his name, family names, and hometown the audio doesn't match up there either.

[phrenzy]

10. Interesting

Damn, unfortunately, I can't even bare to watch the 'introduction' to the video because it is just too fucking grotesque I want to cry when I see him. It's just too fucking painful to see any human being die that way, especially after 'introducing' themselves to you.

[kcwayne]

14. Out of sync audio is common in digital video

Digital media has compressed audio and video packets of data. During playback these packets are separated, decompressed, and rendered. The decompressed audio is sent to your the audio hardware and the video is sent to video hardware. In both cases, data must be buffered in front of the decompression at sufficient depth that the decompression can perform efficiently.

In order for the sound to be rendered in sync with the video, there are presentation timestamps in the data that tell the decompresion software when this data should be rendered relative to a virtual clock.

There are numerous places in the playback process where latency can set it and cause either the audio or the video rendering to fail in getting decompressed data to the rendering hardware at the correct time.

The quality of the decoding has dependencies on the data fetching speed (network/disk), the speed of the CPU, activity on the computers data bus, and the speed of the audio and video rendering hardware.

So the discrepency between people reporting that the video is out of sync versus those saying it is not could be due to the differences in the system they are playing the media file on, assuming everyone has the same media file.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

17. I don't think there is a difference in files...

but there is a difference in interpretation.

No-one here has said the screams start at the same time as the point in the video where he would start screaming. What they have done is come up with ridiculous "reasons" the scream started early - from a woman screaming "Allah u Akbah" to an audience horrified about what they are ABOUT to see.

Of course no mentions why the "woman" or "audience" suddenly STOPS screaming...

You are absolutely right - the computer video file is corrupted and the audio is at least twenty seconds out of sync - it even finishes early. On my machine when it gets to near the end of the file Windows Media Player actually throws an error and says the file is corrupt.

None of this has any bearing on whether or not the execution is real, or whether or not Al Qaeda carried it out or it was a black op.

[elperromagico]

16. And at the end, when the head is being held up,

there is dead silence. The audio just cuts out.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

11. You have no idea what you're talking about.

The sound IS out of sync - whether that makes it suspicious or not is irrelevant.

The sound finishes a full minute before the video does, and if you think that scream is anything but screams of pain you need your hearing checked.

You say you watched it only once? No wonder you misinterpreted what you experienced - it is shocking and anyone would be hard pressed to describe it accurately after watching it only once.

The fact is, when the screaming starts in the video, NO-ONE has moved, and no-one does move for a further 20 seconds. You can not shout the way these men are shouting without moving at least your head and chest. In fact you can still see the man reading the paper's head moving as he speaks.

Now to discuss what I see as being suspicious in the video:

1) one man is very light coloured. However, this could mean that he is a Chechen or other European Muslim, seeming to indicate Al Qaeda.

2) the orange jumpsuit. It seems strange for Al Qaeda to provide prisoner's uniform to a hostage.

Apart from that, there is nothing in the video itself to indicate that it is not a real execution. The problem is the circumstances surrounding the video.

Berg's arrest and release just in time to be captured seems awfully convenient. The fact that this comes timed perfectly to take the heat off the Bush admin, and MORE IMPORTANTLY the CIA, is even MORE convenient.

Would I say Bush had something to do with this? Maybe not. But civilian contractors fearing war crimes proceedings? Maybe...

[Misinformed01]

12. Why are so many people posting about this that have no

medical training?

There is a DU whose wife is a Neurologist, she said that the man was already dead, and that the noises made were not consistent with that type of injury.

A medical examiner in Mexico has said the same thing.

There is a nurse here on DU who said the same thing.

I was a paramedic; I agree with the Dr.'s and nurse.

Why are all these uneducated (and I do not mean that in an ugly way...I mean medically uneducated) people taking up bandwidth on DU typing, "But, I THINK..."

Why don't you read medical reports if you are so interested in this subject, and wait until medical examiners have something to say?

[BOHICA06]

24. Hmmmmm .......

How many neurologists are present at throat cuttings? Is is something they do often?

Now, do medical examiners have to finish off their "patients" before autopsies?

Is there a course called "Violent & Slow Decapitations 101" in the nursing curriculum?

Seem to me all information about this type of slaughter is anecdotal - and certain never part of a scientific (at least with humans) study.

[Misinformed01]

25. The Dr. who was quoted in Mexico

is a forensic pathologist.

I have been to several murder scenes that involved "throat cuttings."

Arterial bleeds are commonly studied in medical school, and nursing school. AND in Red Cross First Aide classes.

Next?

[BOHICA06]

26. But were they or you there for the event & the sound?.

That is what you had the Neurologist's spouse commenting on. And I doubt the study of arterial spray & bleeding is based on such low quality video. Snuff films are so rare that I doubt any decent scientific conclusions could be drawn from this one.

Your turn ....

[Misinformed01]

27. I said the video looks and sounds like a staged event

As far as your statement, "I doubt the study of arterial spray and bleeding is based on such low quality video," you would more than likely be correct.

However, I am waiting for American or European pathologists to make a statement on whether or not they thought this poor man was alive or dead in the video. You would be amazed at what decent scientific conclusions can and will be made from this video.

My original post was why are so many DUers with no medical knowledge are making these elaborate posts about how the video is "real." Until we have statements by professionals, or hear the results of the autopsy...I CHOOSE to listen to Dr.s and nurses that have watched the video tape, rather than DUers writing, "in my opinion...."

Does this sound unreasonable to you?

Stephanie

[BOHICA06]

30. I think the folks that need to

be listen to do not post much on this forum. I think the ones we need to listen to are those with practical experience .... yuk.

I have hacked my way through a few deer neck bones with a knife - it isn't easy or neat. Very few medical professionals have slaughtered a mammal the size of a man, and the number of humans that have seen or commited a throat cutting is mercifully few.

Now it is reasonable if the medical & forensic community says with a majority voice that the video is fake because of A, B, & C. But the comment on the sound - when it's not like we hear this sort of event with even sporatic regularity - needs to be discounted completely.

[Misinformed01]

31. I understand where you are coming from

And I have been deer hunting-

As far as your comments about the "sound of the event," let me say that there are noises that are consistent with stangulation vs cutting the trachea.

Sorry, no. Comments from professionals cannot be discounted completely.

Again, I understand what you are trying to say; however, you are wrong.

Please wait to hear the autopsy results, or comments of the medical community before you get attached to an uninformed opinion. That is all I am asking DUers to do.

Stephanie

[Tansy_Gold]

37. The report from the "doctor" from Mexico is posted secondhand

on rense.com and is originally from a far-right-wing hate site called Voz de Atlan. I don't remember the exact URL.

Voz de Atlan is twenty steps to the right of Michael Savage.

In my humble opinion, anyone who takes the word of this "doctor" as authoritative needs to think again.


Now, can someone explain to me why so many people on DU have, over the past six months or so, insisted that the CIA is outraged over the outing of Valerie Plame, so outraged that said CIA agents are actively seeking the downfall of boosh -- but now suddenly that SAME CIA has turned 180 degrees and is doing atrocities on American citizens with the implicit motive of HELPING boosh?

I've asked this in various threads and as far as I know, no one has responded.

[QC]

41. The site is at

http://www.aztlan.net

As you point out, it is a right wing hate site. In fact, it includes such valuable reading material at "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a piece arguing that Jews must be persecuted for killing Jesus and corrupting local cultures, and a listing of Jewish expulsions throughout history.

And, as you also point out, the hate site was linked to from rense.com, one of the most popular Bigfoot/UFO sites on the internet. That's how it ended up here.

These are not authoritative sites, and holding them up as evidence can do nothing but discredit those trying to point out the very real problems with the Berg situation.

[stickdog]

35. Dude, I'm great friends with an intern at SF General.

Of course, I never see him anymore (since he basically lives there) but we're still friends.

He works in one of the best trauma units in the country. And he says that the consensus there is nothing on the tape represents the actual initial beheading of a living human being.

But, of course, that could mean many different things in and of itself.

[BOHICA06]

43. Wow ....

How many initial beheadings of living humans has he attended? :) Med School is tougher than I thought.

[stickdog]

44. Yes, I'm sure you know better than he. (nt)

[Iceburg]

39. "the noises made were not consistent" ... neurologist actually stated

The noises were "NOT INCONSISTENT" with that type of trauma as stated in ... which is close but not the identical to stating "consistent with" as there are no established norms for this type of event (Thank god, Buddha or whom ever!)


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1592067&mesg_id=1593096&page=
That neurologist is my wife and this is what I posted in this link yesterday...

"My wife is a doc (neurologist) and she viewed the video yesterday and stated that the grainy quality and jittery camera operation make it impossible to conclude that there is/was no blood splatter.

Further, she stated one would expect severe blood loss UNLESS the victim was already dead. If we exclude the scenarios postulated about a significant time lag between Berg in his last upright position to the moment of beheading (the most likely scenario), she posed one remote possibility in which the blood loss would be greatly reduced-- that of putting extreme pressure on the carotid artery could cause the heart to cease to pump almost immediately causing instant death.

Regarding the audio -- (if we put aside that the audio is minimally 10 secs out of sync with the visual, and consider only the audio track) she stated the "gasping, gurgling sounds" which are faint but audible, are not inconsistent with that type of trauma to the trachea."

--------------------------
We have since reviewed the video several times and conclude the following

1. poor video quality prevents any firm conclusions
about blood pattern spray or other characteristics such as volume

2. The scream (elapsed time 4:30, timestamp 2:44) may be
from a 3rd party not shown in the video

3. audio "gasp/gurgle" clip (elapsed time 4:43, time stamp 13:45)
may be deemed consistent with that type of severe trauma to
trachea. This portion of the audio clip is in sync with
the video. However, based on the timestamps this is either from
a different camera, or 11 hours has elapsed.

4. poor video quality prevents any firm conclusions
about the victims body posturing/resistence/reflexes


Bottom line, if you believe the sound was not dubbed in later, and the victims movements were severely restricted by being bound and held down, then he was propably beheaded alive.

[muchacho]

15. Zapruder

Is the Berg killing video going to be the new Zapruder film? It's a bit grisly to analyze the granular details of a man's murder, but whatever rocks your boat.

I just ask, is it likely this happened and what would be the gain for staging it?

America is bogged down in Iraq and public support is plummeting. Al Quida sees a chance to further weaken that support and scare the crap out of the infidels. I've seen the footage and believe it's horribly real.

If you have a concern about it's authenticity I suggest you take a trip to Philadelphia and have a talk with his father.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. And I suggest that you read Post #12 for some real input by...

...trained medical professionals.

[muchacho]

45. uh...

did I mention I'm an emergency room physician?

[phrenzy]

18. I disagree totally

The 'shriek' is NOT Berg at the beginning of the video. I DID watch that particular part multiple times (BEFORE the knife goes in)

It goes like this.

Guy finishes reading his 'script'

somebody else realizes he is done and starts screaming 'allahu akbar'

then an UNSEEN voice starts screaming in the background. This voice is female.

There is CLEARLY an 'audience' to this which is NOT on camera. These people are frantically screaming.. and you hear EVERYBODY chanting Allahu Akbar - continuously and it is certainly more than just the guys on camera.

And, again, unless you are going in to MAJOR tinfoil territory, what the hell is to be gained by 'faking' this event ?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. What is to be gained? How about a distraction from the torture...

...conducted by the U. S. military and other operatives in Iraq?

How about an attempt to redirect the focus of Americans back to the so-called "War on Terror"?

I've got more reasons, but I don't have any more time.

[charlie]

21. You oughta stop flinging that tinfoil charge around

Your scenario posits an unseen audience, a female banshee, and all sorts of reasons for the noises they make. All of it invention. Might be true, might not be. But an out-of-sync audio is simpler and fits what we can actually see.

[Quahog]

23. I agree with your disagree, sort of, I think

I'm not going to go into the medical piece, I'm not a physician.

I'm not going to talk about compression of video and audio files, I'm not literate in that aspect of comuter technology... although I do agree that if the video and sound were in synch from the start, the whole thing would probably make sense.

I can talk about the recording of live sound, as I have done ethnomusicological field recordings in many parts of the world under all kinds of circumstances using all sorts of different equipment.

What I HEAR when I listen to the video, from the start, is that this takes place in a medium-sized room with hard walls and probably nothing much on the walls, as there is a lot of early-reflection effect and hard reverberation. The audio input source is undoubtedly the single-point, monophonic microphone built into the video camera.

Even without the benefit of a stereo image, there are things you can tell by the quality of the sound. When the leader is reading his statement, I can clearly discern the microphone picking up his voice directly, followed by delayed reflections of his voice of various lengths (this is called "room effect"). When the screaming starts, and particularly the high-pitched wail that some are insisting was produced by a woman's voice, it's also clear to me that the source is behind the camera. The sound is less defined than the voice of the man reading the statement, because it's muddied by room reflection without the benefit of unreflected sound waves reaching the mic. So, I feel confident that there was at least one other person in the room other than Berg, the five terrorists, and the person holding the camera at the time the screaming starts (the camera person could not have been the screamer, the relative volume would have been momentarily MUCH higher, after which the electronic peak level limiter built into all of these cameras would have been heard kicking in).

Without going into too much techno-babble about microphone design, video cameras have omnidirectional mics that pick up a wide sound stage, but they can't directly pick up what comes from behind the camera operator. Their directional effect is less than a stage mic, but it is present. The first time I watched the video, the very first thing that popped into my head when the high scream started was, "There's somebody behind the cameraman." Just an instinctive response to certain sonic clues that I've learned to recognize over the years.

Of course, this does nothing to enlighten us about the real questions we need answered about this event (who was Berg, who were the killers).

[StayOutTheBushes]

29. But none of what you say can explain that white chair.

That chair is going to bring bush down!

[Quahog]

32. Yeah! We all know there's only one white chair in Iraq!

How could they be so stupid as to let that chair give the game away? I'm stunned at their lack of foresight. I mean, tens of millions of those cheap white plastic chairs have been cranked out in China and sent all over the freakin globe, but how hard would it be to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that ONLY ONE ever made it into Iraq?!?

Yeah, Bush is toast.

:eyes:

[stickdog]

33. How in the hell do you think you can get away with this crap?

Are you speaking only to those who haven't watched the thing carefully for themselves?

And are you really implying that one of the murderers was a woman in drag?

You realize that these people are supposed to be Islamic fundamentalists?

Problems with the video:

1) the sound is dubbed in, poorly and out of synch

2) no spurting blood

3) one cut: three guys holding the victim down, one in a dark head covering cutting the head. Next cut: one guy in a white head covering holding up the head, nobody else in sight

4) the "leader" (until the last cut, that is) is wearing a big gold (appearing) ring. It's against fundamentalist Islamic law for men to wear gold jewelry -- and especially gold rings.

5) Berg starts out sitting in the same sort of Walmart "outdoor" chairs that we have so comfortably furnished tha Abu prison with and the walls are the same "prison yellow."

What does all this mean? Well, it could mean all sorts of things, but taken together with BushCo's history, the "fortuitous" timing of this video's release and that BushCo is now denying the FACT that Berg was held in US custody for two weeks shortly before his disappearence ...

[uncle ray]

36. i hope when you die, you go out with a masculine scream.

a little sarcasm, i wish you a painless death of course.

but, my point, is sounds to me, just like a man who was bound helpless, who thought he was a tool in a video, who suddenly realized he was facing his horrific death. i'm sure his mind was not on how masculine he seemed. he was screaming bloody fucking murder! for all we know the poor guy might have had a heart attack from the shock! i think there is something strange about this whole video thing, but that scream sounded more terrifying than anything faked could.

[CWebster]

40. That was the intent

Horror--something to offset the horror of the release of damning photos of the liberators plying their trade of gang rape and sadistic torture.

Does Berg continue to scream after his windpipe is severed?

You want blood curdling screams emanenting from a lifeless body? That is easy to produce.

[stickdog]

42. If this feature was edited at Abu Ghraib Video Productions,

I'm sure there was a wide range of intensely realistic screams to choose from.

[Qanisqineq]

46. the scream was the most chilling part of the video

and I don't understand why some insist it was a woman.

"i'm sure his mind was not on how masculine he seemed. he was screaming bloody fucking murder!"

I agree completely.

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