A Remote Corner: the Al-Jazeera Mystery Spot

 Ghouta Chemical Massacre(s): Firing Directions: A Remote Corner: the Al-Jazeera Mystery Spot

April 5, 2021

The Al-Jazeera video used to locate the "pool" impact also shows a second rocket, and similar analysis in a few different scenes, that correlate to one spot. The rocket smashed a concrete canopy on the eastern edge or SE corner of one building, then moving down to the south and east, broke through a ground level wall, then through a recessed-level wall or window. Finally, it came to rest in a corner, tail-up and fairly intact, in an unclear space used for storage, and with a fruit tree. 

This is the one visual rocket or impact - of nine total - that's not definitively placed. That's not happening at this post.  I've got a report to finish, and it already had the pool site added during the process; I don't need any more. But I could give it a blog post anyway.

The pool impact could have been found by a shortcut. I had follow Al-Jazeera's 307° line from the burned field (that may have hosted the "Liwa al-Islam volcano videos") and, 2km out, it brought me close to a marked impact (LCC5/HRW6). If I had been looking for a swimming pool or any of the distinctive features seen nearby, the exact location would have popped right out, but I wasn't trying for that at the time. 

The same trick might work with the other angle they reported, 290°; its  reverse110° traces from the field 2km out even more exactly to a reported impact: HRW9, not reported by LCC.  Here the app. center of their glowing orb is pinned, probably not where the impact actually was, just nearby. Note this view is turned sideways, facing east.

But even with that area narrowed down and knowing what to look for, it seems near impossible; small homes clustered with narrow spaces in shadow, and only small, generic features to match - a classic hard to identify spot. There are several areas here with similar homes (under the yellow line, to the right, ahead and to the left), at which I had a cursory look. Here are some features coded on a rough sketch "map" for anyone willing to try juggling those details.

Local north orientation is 13° CCW from true north, similar to in many other areas, but ... the rough sketch's red angle would be 108°/288° at this rotation. That was meant to be very approximate, bound to vary and perhaps a lot, depending on actual distances involved. But that 288 is almost exactly the 290° reported for what must be this impact.  It wasn't supposed to be, but sometimes I'm just that good even on accident.

With the exact spot not located, we could try using the one HRW indicated. 290 traces back to the burned field just as approximately as it led here. Seems 288 or 289 might have been better readings; coupled with the pool rocket's trajectory estimate based on Al-Jazeera's 307, their two angles did an uncanny job of identifying a "second" firing spot - just not the one they meant. And of course that first firing spot indicated by the UN-OPCW never existed - all of the volcano rockets point to just this one spot the influential people all managed to point away from.