The Illogical Douma Airdrop Clue that Might Show How it Was Faked

Douma Chemical Massacre:
The Illogical "Airdrop Clue" that Might Show How it Was Faked
Adam Larson (aka Caustic Logic)
February 2, 2020
(rough, incomplete with expansion hoped for)
last edits Feb. 11

Some parties questioned the investigation of the 2018 Douma incident carried out by the OPCW's Syria Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) from the start. But doubts only reached the level of widespread and sustained crisis last May with the leak of an engineering assessment we were never meant to see. That was written by the veteran OPCW inspector Ian Henderson, with an "engineering sub-team" and consulting several independent experts, and concluded it far more likely that the gas cylinders blamed for killing at least 43 people were manually placed rather than airdropped.

Henderson has since added to his story and recently spoke by video to an aria-formula meeting of the UN Security Council recently (my review), and he's been joined by other dissidents from within the organization speaking of others yet, and backing up their claims with repeated leaks of damning documents, all of which seem genuine to observers on both sides of the raging debate.

For starting off and adding to this problem, Mr. Henderson has been attacked and smeared by certain parties, including by the open source investigator-activists at Bellingcat, who variously spin him as:
- incompetent (flawed assumptions, disagreement with the FFM's consulted experts who won after a trustworthy filtration process),
- irrelevant (not in the part of the FFM at all, or not part it's "core team" that wound up shaping the final report), and
- via numerous deniable hints - they also suggest he might be a Russian asset or tool. (They point to his findings and phrasing being similar to that of Russian investigators, suggesting the latter copied his report, and then he appeared "on behalf of" the Russians at the UN Security Council, and they borrowed the format of an anti-Putin book to raise doubts about Henderson, whistleblower "Alex," and another article that burns down a strawman version of the false-flag theories (manual placement would qualify) that have drawn strength from the leaks).

( Notice credit and red underlines: Malinka1102 https://twitter.com/Malinka1102/status/1220444449727184898 )

To some minds, that seems beyond accident, putting Bellingcat in the act of smearing these people, facts, and notions to weaken their credibility. But they suggest it's Henderson, "Alex" who spoke in Brussels, and the rest - along with "conspiracy theorist" amplifiers like myself and other members of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media - who are helping the Russians smear the OPCW for no valid reason (so perhaps in trade for cash, or anything else one might imagine).

Most of those details become quite ironic by the end of this article.
- Bellingcat smears Henderson "on behalf of" other powers who use the contested findings for their own geopolitical goals (they benefit from the problems with the FFM),
- Among the dubious points embraced by the FFM one is so similar to one originated by Bellingcat it's quite likely the same exact idea copied from them, used as an airdrop clue and thus one against manual placement.
- Bellingcat is obviously not part of the FFM in any sense - deployed in Douma or in country X, core team or otherwise. Nor were they called on as experts. Nor were the other parties who amplified the point in question: primarily the activists at Forensic Architecture and the New York Times.
- Bellingcat is funded by US NED, UK foreign office projects, other Western state-linked sources and like-minded institutions and private donors. They are not "independent" as branded. They're still capable of independent work, depending. But odds are always high they're working "on behalf" of people with an interest in just the findings they produce.
- The idea in question made little to no physical sense, yet was heavily promoted before and after the FFM used it.
- The FFM rejected their own employee Henderson's correct view on this point.
- It might actually be another clue for the manual placement Ian Henderson and the engineering sub-team had noted as probable.

Just this point alone makes the FFM final report partly disinformation. Of course, it's far from the only point that would do this, and they all combine in shaping the false "facts" to be used by the Western powers (US, UK, France) in its ongoing harassment of the Syrian Arab Republic. Being so useful might be exactly why these "facts" are so fiercely defended; anything challenging them is loudly called-out as "disinformation" or "lies" when it comes via some channels. But when the same challenges come via the suppressed work of qualified experts employed by the OPCW after a careful analysis ... the powers and their proxies just drop deniable hints to that effect, and work on other ways to discredit the sources and limit the damage.

Does that read to you like over-the-top propaganda? The following relates one example of what you're missing, what's been hidden from you. This might open your mind about just why the OPCW is currently bleeding credibility.

The Illogical Airdrop Clue
This point, idea, or notion I've already said so much about without explaining yet ... It regards a pattern of linear marks observed on one of the chlorine gas cylinders, which the OPCW's FFM included in their final report as evidence for its falling from above before it impacted a balcony at "location 2," where some 35 corpses of children, women and men were observed. FFM final report, Annex 6, paragraph 4:

"The mangled ironwork present on the patio indicated that there would have been a metallic frame and mesh covering it at one stage, though it was not clear whether this would have been present at the time of the alleged incident or had been demolished prior to that. The visual damage on the body of the cylinder indicates that the lateral aspect of the cylinder did not slide on the mesh but it hit perpendicularly."
https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019/03/s-1731-2019%28e%29.pdf

They even show a picture to drive the point home. Better views are below, but see some parallel and crisscrossing lines on the cylinder, and a bit of that mesh visible along the bottom edge. The line spacing does seem to match. Not that they're allowed to apportion blame, but to hit straight on with force, this really suggests it was falling roughly straight down, as if from a helicopter, NOT THAT THEY EVER SAY HELICOPTER. But we know which side exclusively operates them... (FFM's mysterious mandate considered)

But this never did make physical sense. This is what would be required:

Here the cylinder first impacted the balcony/terrace upper corner (as accepted by FFM, to slow its speed from 50 m/s to 30 m/s), nose-first as you'd expect, leaving a dent there. Then before hitting the balcony floor nose-first, it flips about 90 degrees so it's briefly sideways and pressing firmly against a stationary grid (no sliding) so its pattern is somehow tattooed clearly into the side of the cylinder. The mesh breaks away and crumples up, and the cylinder resumes falling. Implausibly, it re-flips 90 degrees to be nose down and still at a decent speed. It violently punches a hole or crater in the reinforced concrete, then instantly loses all its velocity at the same moment. In that absurd scenario, naturally it would tip sideways a second time and come to rest where we'd later see it.

It's also speculated the mesh canopy had been removed earlier and was set aside in an unknown way, or perhaps "demolished" and already crumpled. This has too many possible arrangements to cover with an image, but mentally try any re-arrangement in the image above and note how a cylinder falling nose first should never move or flip sideways enough to smack cleanly against this grid.

The only place it makes sense is laid on the floor of the balcony, with the contact made at the end as the cylinder came to rest. It would have to flip over forcefully enough to mimic the effect the FFM proposes. And then someone would have to lift the cylinder up and move the mesh to where it was later seen off to the side.

And importantly, even my image there neglects a crucial detail: the complex aerial harness the FFM believes was wrapped with thick metal bands around the cylinder and wide fins at the back. This would interrupt or maybe prevent surface contact with the wires, especially at the tail end where the "grid" is most visible. The presumption is apparently that the harness was scraped off in the first impact and fell away crumpled, but this too stretches the imagination and likely defies the laws of physics.

To me this seems absurd. And I can't think, and no one has offered, a better way to make sense of this finding of the OPCW's Fact-Finding Mission. But apparently it sounds plausible to many people even without an explanation. So ...

Open call: people who get how to be sure, to apply irrefutable numbers, have a relevant PhD in physics, ballistics, etc. that would help convince those people out there who can't or won't see the absurdity here? Such people seem to be common or a majority. At least they seem to prevail in the social circles where this idea grew from a sapling.

I made this crude graphic in 2018 to explain why how it had to be sideways, never mind the flips to get there and back. Note: the lines from a rotating entry wouldn't curve, just angle. We'll come back to this.

Only later did I get to see the way it was explained by Ian Henderson in the suppressed engineering sub-team report.

Tracing the Idea's Origin
We understand the FFM rejects these findings, excluded Henderson among some half of their team in July, 2018, and consulted three engineering experts who provided or allowed for dubious findings that appear in the final report. It seems the last part of that scenario, with the sudden stop outside the crater, was approved by at least one of their three experts, and at least one endorsed the upper corner impact. But the intervening sideways mesh impact might be too stupid for a biased professional to have offered.

The FFM also used open-source evidence, as explained, in a limited sense. The final report states:

7.5 Open-source materials including, but not limited to, videos and photos were used primarily for planning activities, but also for comparative purposes with material directly collected by the FFM team during the course of the investigation. However, the conclusion of the investigation does not rely on data and information gathered from open sources.

So they would deny basing a conclusion like this on "open-source" engineering-ballistics analysis. Yet this idea is nearly identical to and likely copied from the Bellingcat investigative team, ultimately if not directly. And if they didn't rely on the "weight" put on the idea by those non-professional source, then where did they even get the idea, and whose rather poor reasoning did they rely on to include it as a valid clue? 

If this notion came from open sources, it was presumably scraped off the biggest waves it made, back in June, 2018. The New York Times would later win a news Emmy award for its video report "One Building, one bomb: how Assad gassed his own people." (links and details below). Right away I called it one really stupid attempt to demonize Assad. Perhaps the least logical point is the one in question, but it was presented "most importantly" as proof for an air drop. Of it, I said  "I've seen others claim this and ignored it in pity. I forget what idiot claimed this. But now a whole team of people at the paper of record put their names on it..."

Now that I checked and trace it back to Dutch researcher Marcel Vandenberg, a member of the general Bellingcat network, I'll re-phrase that now; this idiotic notion originated in his mind, and perhaps no others during its climb to the top. It clearly passed though a lot of minds with limited understanding, and it's possible the idea also originated independently along the fairly short way. But this is quite likely his exclusive - and idiotic -  mark on history.·

May 7, 2018 tweet: Grid marks on Douma cylinder resembling those of a fence  is another indication cylinder was dropped by helicopter

… linking to his article at FeitofFake, using that same image and calling on a few more.

"The grid marks on the side of the cylinder which hit a horizontal positioned fence is another strong indication a helicopter dropped the cylinder." He notes the side with the scratches was invisible at first, being on the underside, which is also the side that was partly coated with soot (at the nose end that was suspended above the crater, beneath which a mysterious fire had been lit). Only after the FFM's inspection in later April did subsequent images show it rolled aside so the pattern is visible.

A composite image of all sides in rotation by Michael Kobs (fellow independent researcher with WGSPM) is shown and credited to him, but the article doesn't note that the red arrows image right above it is also from Kobs, who was apparently the first to note the scratches-mesh correlation, but in a much different way, just one month after the incident. May 7 tweet: "I think the best explanation for the diagonal scratches is not some kind of corset or heli-drop but some kind of pulling it over the fence." It seems that no one had mentioned this yet - he was predicting they might and preempting it. That would prove ironically prophetic.

Both uses of the red arrows image are given as May 7, but Kobs tells me he made the image first and Vandenberg re-used it at Feit of Fake "one day later with a twisted message." Considering time zone differences, etc. that fits, and Marcel didn't refute that he copied it. They both use the unusual term "fence" to describe the grid-lattice-mesh-canopy. That could be a regional thing (Kobs: German, Vandenberg: Netherlands), or mean that Marcel copied it. He'd see the red arrows matching, "heli-drop" mentioned, and flip it so maybe the helicopter drop made it drag over/past/onto that mesh/lattice/fence/canopy, then run off excitedly to share this poorly-formed brain-fart.

As Kobs continued the above-linked tweet: "Next was Forensic Architecture ... and so on." Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research group based at University of London, that uses visual-spatial analysis "to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world." In 2011, FA was awarded funding for four years by the European Research Council. (Wikipedia) Archinect.com reports that the group is led by Eyal Weizman, a London-based Israeli architect and Professor of "Spatial and Visual Cultures" at Goldsmiths whose "work focuses on architecture as a form of political intervention and the discipline's role in modern urban warfare." (but not psychological warfare, via constructing rationales for intervention?)

By a quick review, FA make a show of criticizing Israeli occupation policies, use of White Phosphorous and other actions in Gaza, campaigning against the use of tear gas anywhere, tracking down white supremacist serial killers, and going after corporations, besides states. As far as I know, any and all of that work is fine, or might be variously biased - I can't say at all at this point. But in their investigation of this alleged crime of the Syrian state, Forensic Architecture would not just be following the prevalent bias to find the "regime" criminal. They would have to produce or endorse some new evidence to help lead the trend, and the trick - as a growing number of people understand - is there was no chemical bomb attack, so any proof you find for it will have to be fake.

They found some, and their work first appeared in this New York Times visual investigation report:
One Building, One Bomb: How Assad Gassed His Own People
By Malachy Browne, Christoph Koettl, Anjali Singkvi, Natalie Reneau, Barbara Marcolini, Yousur Al-Hlou and Drew Jordan
New York Times June 25, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/world/middleeast/syria-chemical-attack-douma.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2X84JZINcI
and again my initial review of it.

At 5:50 in the video report, narrator Malachy Browne mentions "most importantly" the grid pattern "seared" into the yellow paint, which matches "exactly" the square pattern of a section of latticework it apparently crashed through. Right after relating this, with dramatic musical intonations, is where they drop the bomb; "Our conclusion is it HAD to drop from the sky."

But in place of animating this, they use a bizarre fast montage of blurry close-ups of the cylinder and the lattice as if to say "it was all chaotic, so who knows exactly how" or perhaps "our efforts to model this were too ridiculous to show even to the readership of the New York Times."

Browne and his small team worked with Forensic Architecture on this, and also credit Bellingcat, I believe. If not, they do so indirectly; FA only published the study themselves on July 20th: their presentation with extras. A promo tweet noted "The project was a collaboration with @malachybrowne 's @nytvideo team, with support as ever from @bellingcat"

Marcel Vandenberg is a regular contributor to Bellingcat discussions and research, and so his eureka moment in May is quite likely where Bellingcat got the idea, passing it to FA, and thence to amplification in this widely-seen video report.

MicaelNo2War on Twitter: "Eyal Weizman director of Forensic Architecture, Eliot Higgins and James Harkin all Soros funded. None have chemistry qualifications, none have visited the alleged attack sites, none have even attempted to be objective about the Syrian govt & all stick to the same NATO narrative."

I'm not usually big on the who's-who level of the events I study, but Harkin at least (above, right) went to Douma, and filed a report with somewhat mixed clues and value, including some good points from an unnamed OPCW employee/inspector (I forget exactly - worth revisiting) and some utter nonsense from MIT professor Ted Postol. (included here). Harkin also hosted Postol to refute another CW narrative, but sadly his analysis was deeply flawed, he was paired with and to me seemed to lose the contest to Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins (above, middle), so the only clear winner was ongoing confusion. Otherwise, as far as I know, the vague doubts raised by MichaelNo2War are totally valid, and enforcing narratives that seem to be untrue is the gist of what they do regarding Syria. Weizman (above, left) led the most thorough spatial modeling of the supposed Assad regime attack, that curiously excluded this mesh impact, replacing it with a confusing flash of images.

On the World Stage: Silent but Potentially Deadly
Then Vandenberg's brain-fart made it to the big time - citation in a report of the OPCW's Fact-Finding Mission. If they found it, it must be a fact, right? After that was published in March, 2019, Bellingcat weighed in with a comparison to existing open-source analysis. This shows FA's modeling with the grid match-up and explains:

"The New York Times and Forensic Architecture investigation confirmed Bellingcat’s earlier analysis, adding additional key details, such as … Most notably, it identified markings on the chlorine cylinder documented at one site, which were consistent with it having hit a metal mesh structure as it fell onto the balcony... It was possible to then compare the model of the mesh to the markings on the model of the cylinder, and demonstrate they matched in size and shape."

They don't specifically claim this point, even suggesting it's among what FA added. But either way they agreed on its prime importance and were happy to see this existing notion elevated by the OPCW's fact-finders:

"The OPCW FFM report adds more weight to the argument that this was a result of the cylinder being dropped onto the balcony."

I highly doubt any decent engineering or ballistics expert would propose such an idea, although it's possible the FFM got the idea from one of those they consulted. If so, chances are good they brought it up after seeing it from the New York Times report or any other reflection before or after that, rather than from independently having the same illogical thought. So it probably is Vandenberg's notion, undergoing another of several rounds of non-verification.  The News Emmy NYT won for their logic-impaired reporting adds some weight to the weight NYT themselves added. FA already added to it, and the FFM report would add more some month on. How much weight can a brain-fart hold before it pops? Maybe the OPCW can get another Nobel peace prize based on its Douma probe and especially that grid thing. If that prize-awarding were lauded by Henry Kissinger as the bravest move in the prize's history, wow, we're at historical weights... they could surely add to it with a pat on the back at that point.

If this Donald Trump character occupying our White House found that grid extra-convincing on some random review, and he needed to counteract new impeachment effort by nuking Syria over that old case and thus triggered World War III and the effective end of civilization ... it would be partly based on (what might be) Marcel Vandenberg's un-popped brain-fart of May 7th, 2018.

Of course that's a ridiculous exaggeration, but not as ridiculous as it should be, given where this idea got to and the times we live in. And to the extent it is at this level and things are this way - clearly that's not on those guys. They just contribute somewhat to the river of sewage that pulls all of us along and has drowned so many in needless wars and interventions based on inventions. And Mr. Trump, wow. … I don't think anyone named here is a U.S. citizen, let alone one of those who voted him into office.

So not to outsize it greatly, this bad cartoon of an idea primarily is one of the "facts, full stop" to "ambassador" Cherith Norman Chalet (who replaces Nikki Haley representing the United States at the UN), in her remarks at the 20 January UN session on the subject (my review). She didn't specify this "fact" but still, it got to basically this level of Nikki Haley holding up photos of dead and dying children to shame Syria over the alleged sarin attack at Khan Sheikhoun. It seemed worth this visualization. Imagine her saying "Ladies and gentlemen, what further proof do you need? It is only the Assad regime, aided and abetted by Russia, that operates helicopters in Syria."

Do the marks actually show manual placement?

First we need to establish what the lines are. they could be:
- scratches reveling metal,
- rust darkening the paint,
- burns darkening the paint,
- maybe passive streaks of soot applied in movement, or
- other (applied pigment or dye, and I can't think of another example offhand)

Full or partial pattern? Rust or burn with stationary contact would seem to produce a full-grid pattern rather than paired lines one way. But then it seems the bars are welded so the different directions are at a different level. Near the nose end especially are possible cross lines at the middle only, which could also fit with this (if pressed, both directions will touch, but one only where it can bow a little ways in from the weld). A similar line appears in the blue box and one in the green, but both look different and likely coincidental. There are many marks running all directions here.

(an image would be good here - forthcoming)

However that wouldn't explain the gap between the paired marks at the nose end, nor the sudden appearance of lines both ways at the tail end. There seems to be definite wiggle room on this point, but I still think these are mainly just paired parallels with one or maybe two sets of the same making their own scratches on an opposite slant.

Rust appearance: it would follow liquid accumulation, have a thin rust color atop the yellow paint, might have faint parts, fuzzy edges, etc. That doesn't fit the image very well, aside from the full-grid issue.

Burns would look the same across the field, being dark to black, maybe with lighter, browned edges, maybe cracked paint from the heat, which was caused by …?? That doesn't fit the image very well, aside from the full-grid issue.

Scratches: I always thought they looked like or would be scratches, caused by the same nearby mesh/fence, but only the sharp, broken ends of two wires or bars of it - perhaps three wires in spots. Going back to Michael Kob's red arrows image, I think he meant about the same: the short but sharp segents each tiny red arrow points directly at. The rest of the grid would never touch it. This would  form parallel lines just that close, if the cylinder were moved past them in one or a few certain ways, which I'll try to explain below. The "grid" pattern would be an illusion from repeated parallels, and one area (tail end) where the same parallels cross at about 90 degrees, perhaps due to a scraping movement of the cylinder against the same two bars, but in an opposite direction.

Soot smudges has been suggested: I guess they'd be formed the same way as the scratches, but by two loose wires of the mesh that were coated in soot? That might look about like the lines at the tail end as they appear, blending with copious white powder (green box), but the pattern is still that of the mesh, which isn't soot-covered or, if the tips were, it wouldn't rub off steadily like a crayon. And most likely the mesh left all its marks in the same way, and the other marks we can see more clearly are not soot smudges.

What I see in close-up, with enhanced color saturation and contrast: in the middle (blue box) it looks like a faintly bluish gray of freshly exposed steel beneath the paint, with perhaps minute touches of rust (if chlorine was present, even fresh scratches will rust some, and the nozzle and surrounding metal fragments appears heavily rusted). In the white box it looks like something that causes extra soot to accumulate compared to the surrounding surface. That suggests the paint or even the metal there is roughed up a bit, as if scratched. In the green box (tail end) it looks kind of metal gray, perhaps, but so mixed with powder white that could be black or even extra-dark rust.

Lines over or under dust (tail end)? Not clear enough to call; there are spots were dust is clearly atop a dark line, and others where the dark line corresponds with a gap in the dust (but some gaps are wider, including adjacent paint, like perhaps a curious fingertip tracing the line and wiping off the dust). Also, by run-off and/or by optics they would likely blur together in spots as they seem to. So this area and what its lines would mean remains less clear, so let's allow the tail end to just follow the rest, as it would in flight.

Side-note: the dust may be weird. It looks quite fine and plentiful, like the apparent plaster dust that coated the scene at location 4 perhaps too thickly. If the same stuff appears here … where is the plaster? It would only hit concrete, and it's hard to imagine it busting enough of that into a fine enough powder to explain this coating. But a possible imagination shortcoming on my part doesn't prove anything, so we move on.

Lines over or under the soot: looks like under to me, and the soot gathered in the scratches during first deposition and/or during later run-off. If it happened after, we'd see soot scraped away and either yellow paint or the same bare metal look seen a ways over.

Lines made when: perhaps different times, but primarily before the fire was set.  So this could not be explained by the known movements after the incident. IF this shows manual movement, it's the movement postulated as happening instead of an aerial impact.

This 'pattern reading for dummies' went with my crude sausage graphic from 2018. Apparently it's important, as some people can't visualize this clearly.

I hope we can all see why a move lengthwise would cause scratches running the same way - if the two wires were positioned a bit one above the other (and they mainly aren't). It shouldn't be hard to see how a cylinder rolled in place with no pushing or pulling would lead to a scratch running straight around the body, if the bars were mainly side-by-side (which most are). Now if you do both of those at once, the lines would run down the length and around, and the only way a continuous line can do that is by forming a spiral. If you can't see that yet, try and reason it out slowly.

From there, if the spiraling lines aren't continuous, any segment we do see will be an angled line. The exact angle might depends on how much horizontal movement (push or pull) there is vs. rotation - the ratio of the two. If they're evenly matched and the cylinder is level, the angle will be about 45 degrees like the ones we see.

Otherwise it could result from the cylinder moving non-level, with the tail end considerably lower than the nose/valve end, and the scratches would be from its being lifted straight up relative to the wires? Lifting it straight up at an angle every 40-47 cm - and a bit higher each time - has no logical purpose, and I think it's impossible to explain all the marks that way unless they were raising the mesh along with it. So I favor moving forward or backward with some rotation, and maybe a slanted position plays in as well.

Here's my initial explanation and image copied from response to NYT report:
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/06/nyt-one-really-stupid-attempt-to.html
Now there is a similarity in line widths/grid proportions here, and I suspect that lattice is involved - or about three bars of it anyway. If you look, you'll see this grid pattern is sort of fragmentary: there are exactly two lines angling one way near the front, then 2 lines the same length angling the same way, then another 2 the same way with one bending and a third appearing now, at the back of the canister. Then crossing those, two lines about the same distance apart, running perpendicular to the third set. There only does it look like a grid. But what if that's an illusion, and we just see two sets of angled marks, from two different episodes of manual pulling and rotation, maybe separated by days? Here's what I specifically propose:

As I revive and improve this case, I don't want to specify what heaves in what direction, and the full sequence, the role of slanted orientation vs. rotation, etc. - especially for the tail end marks. This is to be considered or even modeled separately. But directions and order aside, I'm fairly sure the marks and their spacing are caused by a mix of these factors:
- lateral movement (pushing or pulling) of roughly the cylinder's full length (or more),
- rotation (lateral move vs. rotation ratio creates the slant of the lines), about 1/4 - 1/3 of a full rotation,
- steps or heaves forward or backward with some wiggling and/or arms swinging side-to-side (into then away from the scratching wires) ,in cycles of ~40-47 cm or 15-18 inches. That's a short step for most, maybe 2 shuffles for these laden guys. That's compared to a cylinder height minus neck of 140-148 cm (measures vary). The next set at the tail end comes closer, consistent with a shorter step or heave.

- a bar bent out of parallel during one cycle (base end, green box), and
- probably another lateral move plus rotation the opposite way (base end)
- the last might involve coincidentally-spaced prior marks, but otherwise odds are all consistent marks were made by contact with wires of that mesh.
- possibly a slight variance in ratio between lateral movement and rotation. This would cause a slight curve of the angled lines, and they do appear curved (see white lines). This might be due to the cylinder's curve, but they may not conform to that and require another explanation, which would be a variance in rotation ratio. And that's a better fit with people working slowly and variably than it is with a cylinder spiraling evenly during its fall.

Marcel Vandenberg noted the side touching the concrete was scratched. That also means - as he also noted - the underside, or side that was initially hidden from view and was only visible after the FFM inspectors had rolled it over. If those are scratches from its movement into position next to the crater, the guys who just scratched it would know that it was a sign of their work, which had to be denied. So the final move might be to roll it so those embarrassing marks are hidden (if that's the correct order - some review is still needed). They know they're rarely called out over such blunders, but still they probably would not think ahead to presume someone would USE those scratches to prove a helicopter crash.

Follow-Up 
(hopefully incomplete and to be expanded soon.)

I asked Marcel Vandenberg if he was happy that his idea had achieved such status without review.  He was skeptical that his idea "inspired" the FFM's conclusions.
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1222978528544575488
https://twitter.com/marcelvandenber/status/1223215190243717121
He didn't answer if he still stands by this bizarre scenario. It's a tough call; he really shouldn't, and then he really should, considering how many influential people have glommed onto it, and elevated it to this level. Do you want to admit you've already let them down, by giving them this chance to let themselves down? You might, if you cared about your reputation and remembered this is just one point in the case.

Bellingcat has been asked about this repeatedly and never answered. I may have never asked Higgins, as he seems to have me on mute; he hasn't answered me once in years.

I asked Forensic Arhitecture here: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1223589876446027776

FA founder Eyal Weizman here: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1223871621749821441
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1223872071358279680

All of them and others alerted to this article's publication, possibly spurring comments I would add:
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1224056252499550208

But as of February 11, still no responses. And why bother? It already became one of the reasonable grounds to prove this thing was falling rather than manually placed. What possible benefit could there be to re-considering or backing it up now? That could only serve to discredit the FFM's fragile process of special magic.
...

"Douma Hostage Massacre" Victim Matching

November 5, 2018
rough, incomplete

background
(to be expanded/clarified)):
It seems a lot of people don't want this story revived, but oh well. Once in 2012, Syrian Islamist terrorists were caught in perhaps their most obvious false-flag massacre of the whole war. Competition for that is fierce, so maybe not, but it's pretty damn obvious. We started a page at A Closer Look On Syria at that time for the somewhat poorly-named "Douma Hostage Massacre" (now in revision/improvement). This was one of the first incidents we covered after we formed to better explore the Houla Massacre and similar then making the news.

Here, a claim was lodged with gruesome video proof, of 16 local men in the Douma-Harasta area just northeast of Damascus slaughtered by Assad's forces. The men were bound hands behind their backs, had their shoes removed, their throats widely sliced open so they were half-decapitated, and the bodies dumped at the hospital, and documented by truth-loving peaceful activists. The Local Coordinating Committees reported for 17 August: "Assad's force committed massacre of 16 people. ... slaughtered detainees by Assads militia … Regime's force committed yet another massacre of 16 people ... found handcuffed and slaughtered with knives."
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=90441

But it turns out the victims were Assad's forces, perhaps kidnapped from home, murdered by the foreign-backed militants who call themselves "heroes." Harasta-based Capitol Shield Brigade, and specifically their Battalion of Musab bin Omar, allies with Douma-based Jaish al-Islam.

That required no work on our part but to verify it and relate the ready-made results of the talented German blogger, researcher, artist, etc. Ursula Behr aka Urs1798. She made the matches in question almost immediately after all the relevant videos came out, and alerted parties inside Syria, leading to a segment by pro-government Addounia TV making the kind of claims they often make - terrorists are were killing state servants in cold blood and selling the results as crimes of the state. This time at least, they were able to do it with more or less undeniable visual proof. (YouTube video of report now deleted, I'll try and track this story back down, maybe soon...)

Ursula Behr may not be her real name - it sort of says Bear Bear. She's AKA my Facebook friend Manuela Hochsteadt who now "lives" in Dâra, As Suwayda', Syria, with the epic paintings of Syria's defiant fighters, leaders, and regular people resisting what she saw as … well, I never spoke with her and don't have time to dig up quotes, but I presume we were on the same page until she recently passed away on or around 9 October. Terminal cancer did it, but while she was in Syria, which looked "like heaven," she said on her last wish visit with her husband, where Syrians got to see her paintings on public display. On her request, she was also buried in Syria, actually in the Latin cemetery of Damascus' al-Tabbaleh neighbourhood. https://sana.sy/en/?p=148652.

Partly in Ursula's honor, I felt compelled to make better use of this early scoop on Islamist brutality and deception in Syria than I did the first time around.

Videos
The original videos were linked and catalogued at ACLOS back when. I haven't checked all of these, but mostly they've been deleted long ago, some pulled by the authors in what seems like embarrassment. Some channels wer deleted, and some of those may have deleted their videos anyway.
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Douma_Hostage_Massacre#Video_sources

But "body video" as referred to here is one I found still online, can be checked in its original context, for the moment:

Translated title: Slaughter of detainees in the area of Al-Shifounia - Douma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKqjqmrVbQU (age-restricted, graphic, inhumane presenters)

Captives video:
This was posted by the same people somehow and a few others, but only a couple of days later … (or actually I need to review that). Most copies are now deleted. This posting works, as I just posted it from a long-ago saved copy buried on my old computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUuK5-wKxA0 (not graphic, not age-restricted: already tested by a false-listing quickly corrected)

The resolution is I think a bit worse than the original, but comparing to URS's stills, it was never much better. Note it's compressed horizontally. In most of my stills, I stretch it arbitrarily just to look better and/or give more text space. In this view at least I tried a mild color adjustment to get truer whites. You extract a little yellow. Here, per the translation Amin2511 helped with, are the 16 men as they introduce themselves, in that order.

(it's hard sometimes to say who's talking as names are heard, with the low resolution - usually the speaker's head bobs a bit. The first one was hard to decide, but logically, it's the senior man in front. Farouk Ismail is a big guy, and when he speaks, it booms. And his head bobs a bit at the same time, just after the man next to him seems to say Osama Salim. After a few goings-over the order became clear: Amin did his own review and I did my own, and we agreed.) 

Time-Frame:
Filming date not clear, but likely Aug. 17, or shortly before their execution, possibly a day or so earlier. (bodies are stiff with rigor mortis when seen, so dead less than 24 hours, but more than just a few - most likely around 10-16 hours.)

there was a battle reported on 16 August by the LCC: "Harasta: Fierce clashes between the Free Syrian Army and the regime's forces near the vehicles department, with losses among the regime's forces." This might be where the Capitol Shield Brigade might have captured, as said in the captives video, several vehicles/equipment, and also these 16 men... but they are in civilian clothes, and at least 2 of them were already held about 2-3 days earlier, but the rest might be new. 
...
(forthcoming)

Area map: from labels on Wikimapia, this is the area in question, where men were held captive by area fighters, where men who look the same were killed by someone and found by the same rebels.
Harasta is the brigade's home base. Douma/Duma is said to be where the victims were found or from or taken to. Al-Shifunia is also given, perhaps to mislead. The armored vehicle base is the likely site of that mentioned battle.

The Matches
I'm aware each of these matches is not 100% certain, and even the collective total isn't quite. But it is a very strong match taken as a group one, despite whatever triumphant nonsense the naysayers come up with. They'll say this is obviously bogus, in fact the dumbest thing they've ever seen anywhere, and type out laughter sounds. But it's not. It's hypothetically wrong, like maybe a 1-2, maybe 3% chance of being wrong.

Now … I wouldn't even try for face-by-face matches with such poor quality captives video. I'm barely even looking at noses and eyebrows here - just not enough to go in in any 2 cases - the close-ups of the 6 offer enough detail to help, IF there was anything visible on the other end to match it TO. But mostly, there's not. A few general clues do come through, but not much, and they're just cited as secondary supports.

The work here is done by the victims' varied, non-military clothing. Again, case-by-case, none of the items worn or even combinations is that clearly distinct. Well, in two cases it actually is. But 4 consistent matches are only consistent, all for build as well as clothing. The straightforward, evidence-based conclusion here is these six men probably are six of those 16 last seen in the care of the local militants.

The only explanation I've heard is that these videos show two different sets of people in some kind of coincidence that isn't even presented as bizarre. It's supposedly natural that two groups of 6+ men where each has a doppelganger in another group, held by the other side - in the Harasta area in the days right around August 17, 2012. We can be sure the ones held by rebels were set free, and the set of doppelgangers held by "Shabiha" would be ruthlessly killed like this. But as the reader can see below, the combination of matches pushes the probability of coincidence to near zero.

Six bodies are seen of a reported 16. Some, like the douma-based VDC, revise to just 12 found, which is convenient as we were (are?) comparing 16 bodies to 16 captives … So only these 6 are seen, but they do swear there are more. (there is the morgue scene I need to study, which might include others past this 6, besides at least 2-3 from this 6)

The 6 matches, numbers for introduction order above (and time given), but listed by strength of match in my reading.

#7 Hassan Ismail, military recruit, 0:41
1:43 in body video

The most evident match by clothing, one can only point out Coca-Cola made, like, thousands of those shirts. And a lot of people wear blue jeans. Quite a few in any one area might wear both together right before someone captures two of them, at a time when quite a few people were being kidnapped or detained/disappeared by one side or another or both (all disputed).... By other details, he's not as clear as he could be. Consistent but vague hair, clean-shaved chin, appears about the same young age, no features seen well enough to say either way... He should have a mustache, with two halves and nice clean middle. And he might, but all that blood makes it hard to be clear. No - he's got that. But then a lot of abducted people in such Coca-Cola sweaters and jeans combos probably do...

It's only natural 2 men that consistent in appearance happened to wear the same shirt with jeans, and would both get captive by 2 different sides in the Harasta area in the days right around August 17, 2012. Right? But what's this? It happens both guys were held along with some other curiously consistent guys, almost like some two entire groups that are parallel universe versions of each other

#6 Assaad Dakhil, military recruit, 0:40
0:12 in bodies video

Slender build, mustache, some extra hair on top, loose-fitting black undershirt, distinct white shirt w/broad collar, black decorations (pocket stripes, dark logo/shape on right), odd silver button. The tear in the back is neutral evidence, as the back is not seen for the captive, and the tear cold have happened later. I mean, he was just murdered, might have resisted, etc. And he's got consistent but vague dark pants too.

And in this case, we have a better view of the same man shown in a different lineup by the same captor (see ACLOS page for full view and original video links - no copy saved, just the still used for that image). Here's Mr. Dakhil and his consistently decorated 2-sizes too-big shirt over the same kind of 3-sizes too-big black undershirt, 3 days before he became a "Douma youth" slaughtered by "Assad's thugs." This is just about as distinctive a clothing combination as on Mr. Ismail. It stretches credulity to propose 2 different groups in such similar circumstances in the same days and area would both feature two such uniquely-dressed men.

But hey, maybe. And if so, the rest of this compound coincidence probably wouldn't change your mind, and you're mind isn't aligned well with 3-D reality.

#3 Nimr Dawood, warrant off. 1st class, 0:33
2:00 in body video 2

The most distinctive thing about this guy is his build and short stature, besides that somewhat unique neon sky blue t-shirt. Seen by himself on the ground, the likely matching victim is hard to gauge for height. His face has a consistent sort of rectangular shape. And his hair seems consistently buzz-cut short. And he wears that color a t-shirt, consistent pants, and does that all alongside those other guys, and alongside these next few as well...

#5 Farouk Ismail, policeman, 0:38  
0:50 in bodies video 

clothing less clear: collared shirt appear almost salmon color (pale orange-pink), compared to white (w/pink, and blue highlights?) out in natural sunlight, but that's easily explained by the lighting difference (video has a slight yellow tint), and maybe partly reflective material. Here the tall face, low hairline with gray, and perhaps dark/deep-set eyes and stubbly cheeks combine with the shirt, and grouping with the others, to suggest this the same man.

#4 Osama Hassan, warrant officer first class, 0:35
0:02 in bodies video

If he were just seen alone, there wouldn't be very much to go on. Short hair, a bit of a lean build … he almost seems to lack the matching mustache, but that's not clear enough to call a mismatch. Both wear a long, horizontally striped shirt with a narrow collar. Poor video quality makes stripes appear arguably different, lighter or differently-spaced, or a different base color. As noted, the video light is tinted a bit yellow-orange as well, so it's more white than it appears there. Different spacing: hard to tell real stripes from digital artifacting at this point. All we can say is some kind of fairly narrow horizontal striping is there. That plus darker pants and grouping with the others combine to suggest this the same man. 

#15 Ali Jomaa
or maybe #16 Yusuf
or someone else...
0:56 in bodies video

A dark or black shirt, young clean-shaven face with unclear hair is a vague description fitting prisoners 15 and 16. Apparent white circle logo on the shirt, app. left of center, points better to #15, but #16 has a light spot too, if fainter. 3 white stripes on the sleeve are distinct, but the detainees both have arms behind their backs, making that invisible. Not a clear match at all, but that's the weakest of six, for all six possibly placed in that group of 16.

The shirt is a much better fit for Gomaa; a faint blue hue perhaps vs. definitely back in the captives video, dark blue on the dead guy, plus it seems a tighter collar and clearer white emblem than #16 has. Seemingly lighter-colored pants help.

An interesting thing with this one - what could be an extra, less-clear apparent wound across the back of the neck suggests they tried a full beheading with this man, but found the spine too tough to hack through. So they just cut open the easier front half, as they did for the rest. But then maybe it's just blood in a crease.

Update, Nov. 11
the order of strength listing was set as I started, and with some review, would now change. I'll leave the list as is, but just note FWIW I now consider them in this order:
Asaad Dakhil (even more unique clothing matches - what a shirt)
Hasan Ismael (top two remain nearly tied, barely swap places)
Nimr Dawoud (good match, same assessment as before - if the body could be shown to be an extra short man, we could have almost a 3-way tie)
Farouq Ismael (build-face-hair clues are as good as clothing here, a decent match, promoted)
Ali Jomaa (not as unclear as I thought, not Yusuf, promoted)
Osama Hasan (shirt unclear, other points unclear, demoted - see below)


Counter-Points

Add Nov. 11 from a post in the works, one argument raise against a match:

...the apparent difference in stripes on the shirt worn by Osama Hassan vs. the man he might be. Rami thinks it's a spacing issue, but to me the spacing looks right, just the dark stripes have fuzzed to almost nothing in the poor view, and the color appears arguably more different than it should considering light differences). That's probably a simple lo-res video-compression and optics issue, but it might be more significant.

Still, the shirt issues and the lack of any other obviously matching features, with even a mustache match or mismatch unclear, would raise a serious questions about that ID if his was a lone case. I sure as hell wouldn't match those 2 bodies as one based just on their own visuals, nor rule it out. However, he's one of the 4 quite-possible matches in the same group with the Asaad Dakhil and Hassan Ismail doppelgangers, again with both groups being prisoners of someone, one to each side, in the Harasta area on or around 17 August of 2012.

Even if that IS in fact a different man (seems fairly possible), at least those clearest two simply have to be the same men in both videos. There's no reasonable way around that. You don't get to say if one body is coincidence they all are. Rather, if even one body is one of those prisoners of the local militants, the presumption is all of them were, even if the rest have no matches in that video of 16. At one match, the conclusion wouldn't be very strong. But here we have 2 that clear and undeniable, and 4 others of varying strength. We can be quite sure these are all detainees of that militia, and probably all from the same batch they showed.

Summary

So … is this 6 guys held by gov. forces in that time and area, and just coincidentally so similar to 6 of the 16 guys held by the opposition side in that same and area?  No, that's not very likely.

I'll probably have more to say here …

The Mysterious Washing of Faces and Hair

Douma Chemical Massacre, April 7, 2018
Vitcim Analysis
The Mysterious Washing of Faces and Hair
May 13, 2018
adds May 16...

Why the Douma victims had such clean faces and wet hair may not seem like an important question. But it is.

Alleged survivor Naser Amer Hanan told Swedish TV4 (ACLOS translation) his brother Hamza appears in this video, indicating the man below.  Naser says he stood and watched as Hamza washed himself at the sink to remove surface contamination, but dropped dead anyway from breathing the gas, oozing foam on a girl's belly. Naser then fled and lived, he says. He gives less detail about how and where his wife and mother died in the same building. So in this case, with that unlikely story, it may not be surprising that this alleged Hamza has a nice clean face, and also recently wet hair, all the way to the top (now mostly dry). Yet he collapsed dead a few steps from the sink, among a bunch of other people who tried the same trick somewhere and failed ... 

Did they all think the best solution was to remain breathing the gas, so they could wash their faces and hair before trying to flee? It seems like a strange response, but many - and perhaps all victims here - seem to have done this.

Here's a boy seen next to the same sink on the second floor (he and Hamza are the only males out of 12 bodies on this floor). His face isn't totally clean now, but his hair was recently very wet, in the front but not the back. Since then, he's emitted thick white foam, here tinged pink with blood, and it seems ha had some brown liquid dribbled on his cheek - or perhaps this is a dark stain, to go with the lighter ones across his cheek and round his eye... or this is all from after washing ... hold that question as we look at other cases.

Timeline issue: images of these victims first appeared around 11pm . This is hours after the alleged gas attack at 7:30 pm by most accounts, or maybe sooner after an attack at 9:00, or 10:22 PM, as others claim. This matters when we see so many wet heads around 11, and so many saying the gas was released at 7:30.

This boy has a face that looks dirty (especially in other/later views), but I've established this is some kind of stain and/or burn that remains after a later washing. The color similarity suggests the yellow-brown fluid coming from his mouth caused this, rolling up his face and around his eyes (but not right in them), as his head was angled that way. This would be protective mucous perhaps, and/or the poison that triggered it - either directly caustic, or reacting with chlorine gas to irritate the skin. It would get across his forehead too, but would roll across quickly. Then, it would drip from there, or pool in his hair before dripping down, depending. But now, all that's left of that is the stain and skin irritation that fluid caused. And as this early view shows, his hair was recently wet, still sticking in clusters to his forehead.

Several other share these same signs, a mask pattern on the upper face except the eyes, consistent with being bound upside-down, coughing caustic yellow fluid up their faces, but with eyes usually protected by goggles. (see Douma's Mask of Death) This sounds bizarre, and it is. But it would explain the weird patterns left, and could also be the reason for the washing mystery: faces, foreheads, and hair at least in the front,  are all places that fluid would go. It would look strange, perhaps too obvious a clue of how the people really died. By the time they show us the bodies, the fluid isn't seen, just stains and other signs. And those areas have been washed, as if to remove that evidence.

Here, we can see the boy's yellow staining of his cheeks apparently survived two washings; as found in the house, he has recently-wet hair sticking to his forehead, and new fluid leaking out, besides the thick white foam. 

This boy seems to have the strange story, as do several others, perhaps over half the victims we see.

The dirty or sooty hands are NOT a clue. Apparently everybody in Douma, of all classes, has black-gray-stained hands that never come clean. So this cannot be a clue to any conditions specific to their story. But A majority of the victims (both of those above) have filthy pants, as if worn for weeks straight without washing. Some have shirts to match, but many have fresher, cleaner shirts they changed into perhaps days before. The women's universal long coats and hair coverings tend to be clean, even immaculate, maybe kept in storage until the end. But the clothes we can see underneath tend to be as filthy as any, even on the pregnant woman.

Shirts but not pants can be washed or changed? And that face and even hair washing was a priority at the moment of death? 

For the women, maybe the hair washing was skipped. This woman with the clearest brown mask pattern apparently had the original mucous stuff washed off. As with the boy above, this left just the stains behind. As with all head-covered women, we can't say if her hair is wet too. Perhaps she was covered during the gassing, but not likely with this same fabric, which doesn't seem stained. The white foam came after this, and that has gotten on her hijab a bit. Perhaps her hair is full of caustic yellow mucous, just covered up to save on washing time.

Six more examples: out of several more: victims with wet hair when found supposedly right where they fell, hours after the alleged attack by most accounts.

Some short-haired male victims, and babies with fine, easy-drying hair are less clear. And as noted the women all wear hijabs or hair coverings. Considering all that, it seems possible that everyone fits the pattern. Of the 35 victims seen on video (of a reported 35 total found), I see 13 clear cases of wet hair - more than 1/3 of all victims. 9 women/girls with hair covering making it unclear, and 13 others aren't clear at the moment for different reasons. 

Did they wash up before they laid down to die? Or I suppose it's more logical to presume this happened in bulk sometime after death. Did some other rescuers come through some time before the first camera crews, and - rather than rescue them - just wash everyone's faces? That alone would be a rather strange thing to do, and no one has suggested it.

Instead, Naser Hanan's story has at least one victim washing himself off. And as some have noted, the largest number of bodies is piled up in front of the shower on the first floor, as if rushing to wash themselves rather than trying to escape. 

<add 5-16> Thanks, Andrew for the tip: A bizarre article in the Times of London (April 10) heard from "Abdullah Abu Homam, a local volunteer" that this batch of people is a discrete family unit who died just that way.
"The entire Bakrieh family in Douma were found in a heap on the bathroom floor. After a gas bomb tore through their building, the parents had tried to scrub the chemicals off their children’s skin. But the toxic cloud overwhelmed the family of 11 before they could protect them."
As Abu Homam is quoted: “When I entered the flat they were all in the bathroom, their clothes were still wet so we believe they tried to rinse themselves in vain. Eventually they must have realised it was over so they drew closer together and died." Why they never tried getting away from the toxic fumes is unexplained. It's stay in and wash it away, or hug each other in a big pile and call it a life. That's plain stupid.

Videos and photos show 12 bodies in the bathroom at the first views. One woman here, being pregnant, is probably the one claimed for another family (allegedly married to Khaled Nuseir). Excluding her, we would have 11. Records list exactly 11 people named Bakriyeh, but with infants, there must be wives, and most women here keep father's names, and won't be in that list of 11. The exceptions are exceptionally "modern" and Western-oriented people, and mainly Christians. Or was this such a family? 4 males, 5 females, 2 unclear infants are seen, compared to the VDC's 5 male, 6 female. Is this a whole family of 11, all named Bakriyeh? Did they really pile themselves here, or were they just dumped and arranged together?
Anyway...As for the other 7 people just steps away, who also tend to have wet hair. Are these members of a neighbor families who went first, in a one-family-at-a-time bathroom scrubbing system? 

Citing wrong location, the Times article decided the cylinder "landed on a bed in a top-floor" of this building. They heard this happened at 7 pm (rounded down from the standard 7:30). Most videos and photos only appear around 11 pm, perhaps filmed earlier, and he may have visited earlier than any images. His description of three females in the stairwell is different than what we see (he saw
a woman hugging her two daughters way up on the 4th floor. Later, we see 3 people in the stairwell,
two girls just above the 2nd floor, and an older woman (more like their grandmother) on the ground floor. At the time, Abu Homam said that all of them had damp clothes. In the images I see, some clothing is faintly moist (some damp crotches of jeans), but most is not. Maybe they were given a full body wash before this guy saw them. But later on, that's mostly dried up and the victims' hair is the wettest thing, a most-recent concern, maybe not even after Abu Homam left. Or for all we know, he was the guy who washed their faces and hair, taking care to mention self-washing as the explanation for that. But his account may help us see that it happened in at least two phases, and probably all done to the victims, not by them. 
<end 5-16>

Most have wet hair, as if they got there and washed off, but they all died a few steps away or less, piling on each other as soon as the washing was done, on top of a dirty rug someone had dragged at an odd angle. It does appear the rug is wet here, closest to the shower. Inside the shower, a long hose and some kind of yellow plastic (funnel?) was perhaps used. A sort of respirator mask in green and yellow is not currently in use but near at hand ... among the non-dusty things recently used is the trash bin, likely full of other, uglier rags ... some dirty rags left out, mostly soot gray ... soot-coated water in one of the washbasins but no smoke stains on anyone's faces... (sorry, it's pretty clear no faces were ever smoky, and these folks were not exposed to smoke for any reason - but faces possibly had this yellow caustic stuff) ... widespread yellow-brown stains on the floor...

Here and everywhere there's little if any sign of such rinsing to their hands, bodies, or clothes, which appear dry. It's just the face and hair someone had to clean up. Why? How does that make this girl safe to handle with bare hands after a chlorine-nerve agent attack? It doesn't. Note, White Helmets guy, not rescuing here: he moved her from another spot, photo op with her body in front of the shower, then sets her at his feet and leaves. She's removed with the rest in the morning. 

Her hair I classed unclear - likely washed, but not one of the 13 I counted. She also displays the mask pattern, in rash red, over the area that looks clean, so she adds to the point. One earlobe at least was stained deep yellow, with only light stains on her face itself... they wiped her clean earlier than most. She was destined for photos, after all...

The absence of the staining fluids on stained parts of the face had alone suggested face-washing. Also, it seemed some had wet hair. Now I see most have those signs and so, again who washed the victims' faces and hair so widely, presumably after death? And why? 

I propose it was the killers and stagers, who brought the victims to this abandoned home from another, nearby location where they were gassed, largely upside down. I doubt it was the basement here, as that's shown and is not full of yellow goo and blood stains, and there seem to be no hooks in the ceiling nor rafters to hang people from (I don't suppose those things are truly necessary to explain the case, but I suspect they were fully dangling like that).

Either at the gassing facility or at the home they were dumped in, it hardly matters, the ugly, telltale residue was rinsed off their upper faces and hair. It seems likely this was done at the staging site, as a last-minute decision, just shortly before the first images were taken. That proximity of events suggests the reason for the washing was not to help or save anyone, but to make the propaganda images somehow look better, more marketable.. Maybe they were trying to wash away the signs of the truth - a false-flag gas chamber massacre of captive civilians, including babies.

As always, accepting questions and ideas...