There has been a lot of back and forth about a single image of the masked man which I'll call the
No-Backpack Image
Note that the backpack straps and gun are not visible:
View attachment 646178
So far I've seen people claim:
- "The FBI used AI to manipulate the image"
- "Media used AI to manipulate the image"
- "This is proof that the FBI actually have more videos"
- "It's a different person altogether"
I don't know if any of those are true, but what I've done to check is downloaded each of the images and videos released by Cash Patel (Director of the FBI) from
this source to compare them, and I've discovered a few interesting clues:
- The No-Backpack image is not a single frame from any of the three videos released to the public (altered or not) - The man has a completely different pose.
- There is no meta data showing the original date created (if there was, it was lost when the image was uploaded to X)
- The "Nest" logo is not shown (is it cropped?)
- The image size is tiny - resolution is 367 x 546 pixels - this is basically just a thumbnail
- No-Backpack man is not casting a shadow from the moonlight before he steps under the cover of the the porch (in the other videos, his shadow is obvious)
FIrstly, I have overlaid the No-Backpack image (367x546) over one of the FBI's other full resolution images (1536x2048) to compare the size. This makes the size / resolution disparity quite obvious:
View attachment 646173
Next I have grabbed a capture from one of the videos that shows the man, roughly in the same position, before he enters the porch (right).
No-Backpack man (left) casts no shadow. Backpack man (right) casts an obvious shadow from the Moonlight
(Note I have cropped/resized images to match each other)
View attachment 646175
For
reference Moonrise on that night was around 4:54 p.m. local time, and moonset was about 6:44 a.m. the next morning.
At around 2am the moon (almost full, 98% brightness) was in the west (to the left looking out of the porch)
The
weather in Tuscon at the time was clear. So there should have been bright moonlight all night.
So what does this tell us ?
1. No-Backpack image was taken at a different time
- Without meta data we don't know the date/time
- We can probably assume that it was before the other videos (since it looks like he eventually ripped the doorbell camera off its mount and took it with him)
- It could have been the same evening, but a random cloud was obscuring the moon at that moment
- It could be days before (a reconnaissance mission perhaps?)
2. The properties of No-Backpack image is significantly different to the other images/videos
- It's cropped (not full frame - refer to the image with the hand/glove - way more of the brick archway is visible)
- It is very low resolution - meaning it might be a thumbnail or a still image from a notification
Thumbnails are a graphic representation of one or multiple files, like when you're looking through a photo gallery with 18 images shown on your screen, each of those small images are a single, low resolution thumbnail file.
Without them, you would only see a list of filenames.
Notification images are like a snapshot of an event that might be shown in the Nest App. Again, low resolution.
With Thumbnails and Notification images, the metadata does not necessarily reflect the time that the original image was captured.
So Google/FBI may not know what time/date the No-Backpack event actually happened.
3. Was the image manipulated/altered to remove the backpack/gun?
- We can't tell for sure, but I think it's very unlikely.
4. Is No-Backpack image from another video that hasn't been released?
- Probably not. If the FBI had a full resolution video, it would not make any sense to crop and resize a single frame to release to the public in such low resolution).
That's all I have. I hope it clears things up a little, and I apologise for the essay.
