SYRIA: More questions about alleged nuclear site

Professor William Beeman at the University of Minnesota passed along a note today from "a colleague with a U.S. security clearance" about the mysterious Syrian site targeted in a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike.

The note raises more questions about the evidence shown last week by U.S. intelligence officials to lawmakers in the House and Senate. 

The author of the note pinpoints irregularities about the photographs. Beeman's source alleges that the CIA "enhanced" some of the images. For example he cites this image:

The lower part of the building, the annex, and the windows pointing south appear much sharper than the rest of the photo, suggesting that they were digitally improved.

The author points to more questions about the photographs of the Syrian site.

1. Satellite photos of the alleged reactor building show no air defenses or anti-aircraft batteries such as the ones found around the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran.
2. The satellite images do not show any military checkpoints on roads near the building.
3. Where are the power lines? The photos show neither electricity lines or substations.
4. Here is a link to a photo of the North Korean facility that the Syrian site was based on. Look at all the buildings surrounding it. The Syrian site was just one building.

Now compare this photograph of the site:

To this one:

The site looks like a rectangle in the first shot, but more like a square in the second shot. Huh?

Thanks to Beeman, a professor of anthropology and Middle East studies as well as a member of the blogosphere, for allowing us to share his colleague's comments.

— Borzou Daragahi in Amman, Jordan

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Comments

[sketchup]

http://www.vimeo.com/2873076

[Press Digital]

A question of after touching on the Photos is an important one, but before we jump to any conclusion maybe we should think about the fact that the NRO and CIA are known to digitally downgrade Sat imagery to protect the classified specs of the collection assets

[GeoMarko]

There seemed to be a couple of other problems with the reactor pictures that I have not seen mentioned. I investigated the first one below by changing the "exposure" and "gamma" (using Preview furnished with Mac OS 10.4). They allow expanding the range between given brightnesses to see if any pattern exists that is normally washed out by insufficient contrast.
1) Jet Black shadows: The shadows the main building casts are nearly perfectly black. Brightening them only shows a small amount of noise and no pattern. However, the smaller extension that looks too sharp shows practically no shadows at all. At least near the bottom, much of the front of the extension should be in an almost perfectly jet black shadow. Proceeding upwards, the shadow should progressively lighten as the front of the extension will be exposed to more reflected light from the surrounding area as the height increases. This is not seen either. [5th picture at moonofalabama, see below]
2) The front of the extension above appears identical to the cartoon figure of the front extension in one of the earlier pictures, except it has been rotated into the proper perspective. Any architectural software will do this change in perspective. (Cartoon figure can be see at http://www.moonofalabama.org/cia-syria-show.html [see 7th picture] and were referenced by http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8823 ) [The roof also seems to have been placed on top of the "building" by putting it into the proper perspective in picture 7; compare with the insert in picture 11. I am assuming the top of the bldg. is "real". ]

The conclusion seems hard to escape the picture of the extension is fake.
[I have no issue with enhancing a real picture or creating a CGI from a video. This picture, except for the color changes, looks more or less real.]

[George Stuart]

Is David Bosie back on the job? Did Dan Burton give his OK?

[Sean]

The first photo is from a video presentation. It is computer generated (CGI). That is why it looks different.

I could tell it was CGI from the first second I looked at it. I can't believe so many people believe it to be an altered photograph. Sure, coming from stupid politicians. But the rest of you? Wake up, people.

[Manuello Paganelli]

Totally fake images and done by the CIA.

The same CIA who along with the main culprit, Mr. Bush, said there were WMD in Iraq and that Saddam was pal with Osama?

Same CIA who said that Iraq could attack us in less than 30 mins"

Nuff said.

[Jim]

Where are the bomb craters and points of impact? Are we to believe that the Israeli jets released a single bomb that precisely impacted the roof of the building, and collapsed it? The destruction in the satellite photo of the damaged building does not appear to be caused by the kinetic energy of bomb impacts.

[CKR]

There is much more analysis of the photos in the CIA video at the WhirledView blog.

Something about those "side views:" http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2008/04/al-kibar-the-ov.html

Why the reactor is not "the same" as the Yongbyon reactor: http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2008/04/al-kibar-the-re.html

The photos of the destruction are not all oriented in the same direction: http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2008/04/al-kibar-orient.html

And there is a great deal of discussion about the reactor photos at Arms Control Wonk, particularly in this thread (http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1866/just-how-big-was-al-kibar-again) and this one (http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1869/hayden-sticks-to-al-kibar-size-estimate).

[Fascist Nation]

There is a far more important difference between the Korean reactor and the Syrian "reactor." There was a river flowing by the Korean reactor. Where was the Syrian "reactor"'s cooling? Don't tell me the Syrians have developed nuclear reactor technology well beyond even our own reactors that do not require cooling water.

And don't tell me our CIA doesn't realize this, just like they ignored the missing milling equipment in the Saddam Hussein mobile anthrax lab diagrams they got from Ahmed Chalabi.

[Jason Berry]

It's a 3D image...no question. The front of that building shouldn't even be visible if the shadow it's casting is that stark. We wouldn't be able to see the windows on the front of the building.

It's a shockingly bad fake for the CIA. Maybe they should some of these guys faking UFO videos.

[Chris collins]

Hi all,

Has anyone seen a nuclear reactor building from up above?

We cannot believe the so called intelligence because they have a not so distant dishonorable track record.

The point remains; there was no reactor inside the "reactor building". Maybe it was destined to be a tricycle factory!

[R.Ashton]

The first photograph did strike me as altered.
However, I do want to point out that, like the famous "face on Mars" at Cydonia, that turned out years later to be a big optical illusion and not an ancient sculpture, the mind and eye function together and view things a certain way, and it could be the case that the government is telling the essential truth about what it is saying and it is our perception that is wrong.
Anyone who studies visual perception knows that, because of either intent or just unintentional happenstance, things can appear different in photos than they really are. An obvious examples is that of female models who are objectively very thin, yet in the occasional photo taken a certain way look like they have huge thighs. Certain cars look beautiful in person, yet don't come across well in photographs. There are dozens of other examples. You must understand the essential fact that a photograph or a digital still image is still a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional World, and so our eyes and brain are trying to see it as the real 3 dimensional thing it is showing us, while it still remains a 2 dimensional image.
One more salient fact is that 99% of us are used to seeing things close up or from a certain distance standing or driving 99% of the time. Pilots who fly a lot over buildings and compounds and observe them closely are the exception. Most of us are judging one aerial photo based on other aerial photos we have seen.

[Nelson]

The first picture was clearly edited. Certainly it could have been enhanced for clarity. Whatever the reason, the front of the building at the bottom of the picture just looks fake. The shading is all wrong, like a badly rendered 3-d object.
Again, it may be simple digital enhancement. But since a photograph is "a picture created by projecting an image onto a photosensitive surface", this can't really be called a photograph anymore. There's been so much enhancement, it could only be called a visual representation.

[A. Magnus]

You need a cooling tower to have a viable nuclear reactor design. Try finding the cooling tower in these pictures - whoops, there isn't one! This is no better than Colin Powell shaking his little vial of powder meant to signify anthrax at the UN in February 2003. It's a load of horse manure designed to give job security to sociopaths who want to juice up their portfolios with some extra blood and guts. The people pushing war don't care who dies - middle easterners or Americans - so long as they get paid.

[Stephen Pruitt]

If you look carefully, comparing shadows, you will see that it's clearly the same building, the variation is strictly due to the difference in angles of the sunlight.

In the first image, the sun is angled sharply from the upper left corner, which emphasises the shadows to the lower right of both the main building and the secondary building in the upper left corner.

In the second image, the sun is much more directly overhead, and coming from the lower left instead. That angle makes the lower left part of the main building almost disappear, but close inspection will see that it's still there.

There is also a slight difference in the angle of the actual photograph, with the first taken from a more direct angle above and the second taken at a larger angle. When the differences of the angle of light and the angle of the image are taken into account, it's very clear that this is simply the same structure photographed at different times of day.

[bogi666]

Israel is not a signatory of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty[NPT] and Syria is a signatory of the NPT. At the behest of the USA Israel, non NPT, attacked Syria, an NPT signatory, for allegedly producing nuclear weapons at a site that didn't even have utilities or a fence. Now who are we supposed to believe,Israel. NOT. WHY IS IT THAT NON NPT signatories have veto power over NPT SIGNATORIES AND CAN ATTACK THEM WITH IMPUNITY.

[Brendt H.]

I was an imagery analyst in the US military from 1975 to 1982. Looking at the images, there are a few things that are clear.

1) Images 2 and 3 (the "Rectangle vs Square" question) are probably unaltered. In the first image, the shot is almost straight down at the building (no more than 2 degrees from vertical). In the second, the angle may be as great as 20 degrees from the vertical. The effects of perspective cause the rectangular building to appear squarer.

You can see this if you look at the lower right corner of the building. In the second image, you can see a tall pole (beam, whatever), and it is apparent that you are looking at it from further in whatever direction the bottom of the image is (south should be to the left, so let's call it east). In the first image, although you can see the shadow of the pole, the pole itself is not obvious/visible, because you are looking straight down.

2) The image of the undestroyed building does appear to have been enhanced somehow. The annex and windows pointing *west* (not south - at ~33 degrees north, the sun is to the south of the building, and the shadows should point generally north. Comparing all three images, it is apparent that south should be to the right in this image) are clearer than they should be. Looking over the entire image, there are a few other areas that appear unnaturally sharp - the mound in the upper portion of the image, the brightly reflecting truck to the right of the upper corner of the building, and the shadows on the edge of the bunker in the lower right (a triangular area bisected by a raised pipe).

I would say that enhancement was added to areas of higher contrast and shadow, so details could be identified more clearly. This would explain well the pattern of unnatural sharpness and unenhanced image. It does not intrinsically invalidate the image, although caution must be taken in interpreting the areas of sharpening, since the sharpening process can introduce artefacts into the image that are not really present on the ground.

None of these facts invalidate the images. In fact, there is no evidence that the black and white images are enhanced at all, no matter what the claims of the professor's contacts, and the enhancement on the first image is clearly for the purpose of identifying detail in shadows, not for anything nefarious.

[Phil]

Wow who dropped my cd drive in the dirt with the door partially open?

[Capt Todd]

It's more likely some sections of the photos were deliberately blurred or otherwise distorted to protect national security interests. Even commercial satellites are able to render far better resolution than what we see in these pictures. Military / NSA sats are so far beyond commercial hardware that it is virtually impossible that these photos are unaltered.

[Barry Freed]

Looks like the Bushies have been watching to many re-runs of "The Running Man."