The magic bullet

The purported rally bullet photo is a fraud

Doug Mills of the New York Times was photographing Donald Trump at the rally “when the gunshots rang out”. Details of the method used in obtaining the photograph have been disclosed. This includes the use a Sony a1 camera with an exposure time setting of 1/8000 seconds

Upon submission of photographs of the rally to his editor, she noticed what appeared to be a bullet in one of the photographs. Subsequently “FBI forensic … somebody who they hired …” found that “this is definitely the bullet.”

For the following reason, Mills’ statements are not credible:

The length of the streak made by the bullet is inconsistent with the exposure time and firearm reportedly used to fire the bullet. Photography of bullets in flight has recently been reported by Peter Russell. He shared an unpublished photograph with an exposure time of 1/8000 seconds from a firearm with a muzzle velocity from 851 m/s and 993 m/s, similar to that of the weapon reportedly used at the rally. The photograph is shown below. In this photo, the streak is clearly shorter than in the purported rally bullet photograph.

In sum, the purported rally bullet photograph is surely a fraud.¹

UPDATE:

Regarding differences between the cameras used to obtain the two photographs. The Mills’ photograph was obtained with Sony a1 while the Russell photograph was obtained with the Nikon Z9. Notably, the image sensors in both cameras are likely to be comparable, if not identical, since Sony is the manufacturer of both sensors.

UPDATE:

Various esoteric - but unsubstantiated - explanations have emerged for the appearance of the bullet - such as here. They do not explain why the bullet does not simply have the appearance of a bullet that is blurred.

UPDATE (7/23)

In the interest of full disclosure - I am publishing the full set of images shared by Russell - wider range of exposure times - see here.

Update (7/25)

FYI - here is a reddit discussion I initiated in the r/guns subreddit (my comments appear under username Mundane-Drama-6335) Many destructive/distraction type comments but some relevant issues raised - before I received a lifetime ban - for an unspecified reason

Update (8/26)

A premise of the analysis is that the bullet shown in the photograph was the bullet that hit the candidate’s ear. However, it is possible that a second bullet followed a nearly identical path, from the perspective of the camera, but whose path was closer to the camera. In that case the length of the streak formed by the bullet in the photograph is possible.

Update: (8/27)

The photography of Peter Russel (above) is fraudulent. No motion blur is seen in the image of the bullet - very sharp boundaries and regular shape.

Bullet In Assassination Attempt Photo Differs From Similar Photograph From Target Range

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Dear Peter,

Many thanks for your email concerning the feasibility of catch bullets in flight. I don’t know if you got my details from my web site, but if not this is the method that I employ: https://www.peterrussellphotography.com/nk1/nk12.html

I’ve seen the YouTube interview with Doug Mills, the photographer who captured the ’Trump Bullet’, and the metadata settings embedded in his file, and 1/8000th of a sec exposure is entirely consistent with the length of the 5.56mm bullet streak seen in the photo, based on my experiments.

Is you will note from my ‘How to Do It’, even when you can see the shooter’s trigger finger the odds of actually capturing a bullet travelling at +/- 950ms are still heavily stacked against the photographer, so for him to catch the bullet - which I assume cannot have been the first in the burst as some warning must have initiated his shooting sequence - was incredibly lucky. What’s more if I was taking photos in the same scenario, 1/8000th sec at 120 frames per second are not the settings that I would have chosen - unless I expected something untoward might happen! Perhaps he was alerted by the shouts from the crowd that someone with a rifle had been spotted.

So in conclusion, yes the image of the ’Trump Bullet’ shows every indication of being genuine. The photographer was vastly experienced and was there, ready and primed and more importantly just started taking pictures when everyone else was ducking into cover - the mark of a professional. Catching THE bullet was the 1:1,000,000 chance and it paid off handsomely!

I’ve never see this before, because until the Nikon Z9 and then the Sony that he was using appeared there wasn’t the technology available outside a lab to allow this to be done!

I hope this has helped you form your own conclusions.

Best wishes,

Peter Russell