18 Comments

Not really a debunking. A fair description is that you've failed to confirm some elements of Hersh's story using open sources.

The times at which public satellites pass over an area are known. If you were trying to spoof AIS covertly, it would be pretty dumb to be in a location discordant with AIS at one of the 6 times in 7 days it would be captured on public satellite images.

Maybe you'll be able to dig up a few more images, but given that you write that the distance between the island and the pipeline location could be covered in approx. 62 minutes (and presumably a trip to NS1 would be even shorter), you'd need a lot more (5x? 10x?) timepoints to convincingly disprove the possibility of spoofing. I think it's pretty dishonest to claim that six instances of concordance in a time period of 168 hours proves 100% concordance, but you write the rest of your articles assuming 100% concordance.

You also don't show us the AIS data for the Hinnoy before June 8th and after June 15th, unlike the other ships where you supposedly show their entire paths for the month, would love to see that data too.

Do you have AIS tracking data for the Karmoy? You mention it's with the Alta by June 29th, but what about earlier in the month?

It's also not clearly stated in your articles whether the non-Hinnoy vessels had AIS switched on at all times during the exercises, would love for that to be cleared up. If they did and were verified by satellite ~daily, we could probably rule out the non-Hinnoy/Karmoy vessels as Bergen is too far away. All bets are off if there are periods of >2 days without satellite confirmation, though.

I've seen your response that "the entire story Hersh is trying to build is that BALTOPS22 was a cover for the divers[, which] would be pointless if they [switched off/spoofed AIS]":

Hersh claims that most of the nations nearby were in on the plan in one form or another (Sweden, Denmark, Norway), and we don't know how others (Germany, Poland, NATO exercise participants) would react to some ship involved in exercises having discrepancies between radar and AIS. You don't establish in any of your articles thus far whether a discrepancy between radar and AIS for some ship would be detected/noticed by nearby ships or nations, let alone that it would set off alarms, let alone alarms to the extent that the ship would be investigated, let alone that Norway/USA/Sweden/Denmark couldn't come up with some satisfying-enough justification.

Same goes for the idea that the NATO ships in formation "would have noticed if the KMN Hinnøy had shut off AIS and then left the formation at full speed towards the location [of] the Nord Stream 1 leaks". Would they? What if it was said to be part of the exercise? You can't just assert things.

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Another minor point where clarity would be appreciated: you claim that "the KMN Hinnøy spent the entire time in close proximity to the other vessels that were part of the exercise". This is clearly visible in the images you publish for June 8th and June 15th, where other vessels are clearly <1km away from the Hinnoy. In the other images (this is confused somewhat by the use of different scales), it appears that there are no other vessels within a 1km radius (at least).

Again, "close proximity" is undeniable for June 8th and June 15th, but seems to be an oversell for the other timepoints. If you have information confirming "close proximity" of other vessels, please present it (i.e. less magnified images showing the nearest vessel). It would also be nice if you could specifically identify the Hinnoy and other vessels in satellite images (i.e. which vessel is which).

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The problem is nothing in Hersh's story seems to be accurate or confirmable at all.

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By the time you are done, the only thing in the Hersh article that may survive is the mention of undersea explosions.

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founding

Great work, Oliver, have been tracking your progress on Twitter. Good use of multiple sources to debunk the other flawed analysis!

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Here is a good exploration of Putin’s motives to blow up the pipeline:

https://genefrenkle.substack.com/p/putin-obviously-blew-up-nord-stream

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rip account

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He had a post pointing out Taibbi’s and Substack’s hypocrisy with censorship and so maybe they banned him?? I think Taibbi and the other Substackers promoting Russian propaganda have a lot of paid subscribers and bring in a lot of money.

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Thank you Mr Alexander

You may be interested in the evidence provided by John Mark Dougan, a pro-russian american living in Donbass [so probably legit].

Dougan received testimony from a NATO naval diving administrator who saw unusual things at BALTOPS 2022.

Dougan posted 2 videos:

1. 'I Received a Whistleblower Letter about Military Exercises near Nordstream... It said this!' by John Mark Dougan, posted 4 Oct 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c0jvJWqf10

2. 'Nordstream. I Was Right- My Whistleblower Told Me 4 MONTHS AGO' by John Mark Dougan, posted 9 Feb 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd908X8cuzg&t=4336s

You are obviously an excellent researcher. I'm curious what you make of the Dougan evidence.

Success.:))P

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"a pro-russian american living in Donbass [so probably legit]"

Yea, some guy told me vs. telemetry data.

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About John Mark Dougan: He is a U.S. fugitive and conspiracy theorist. So he might be not the best source :-)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-fugitive-john-mark-dougan-heads-into-ukraine-war-zone-to-prove-bioweapons-conspiracy

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So was he able to prove the bioweapons? xD

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Feb 20, 2023·edited Feb 20, 2023

I just watched the video of this Dougan guy.

Here is the transcript of the part where the supposed navy guy claims to have seen something weird (I am too lazy to correct all of Google's auto transcript errors and I also wont look for putting in the dots, I will just remove the time stamps and (uhs) and thats it).

If you prefer to watch it, the time stamp is from about 5:40-12:00.

I had a lead Administration role in the June ball tops 22 military exercises near born home Island Denmark I can't give you my exact title because it will allow my identity to be revealed there were some unusual details involving a group of U.S Navy sailors from Naval Strike and support forces NATO or strike for NATO who had arrived from Stockholm while at Street same strange at the time in retrospect now things look outright nefarious let me explain forgive me in advance if I get any of the terminology wrong the military of my country may use different words I can't be specific in my job but I work coordination a work coordination for dive teams [Dougan: the English isn't perfect so excuse me] I work coordination for dive teams

for underwater missions with various militaries in the NATO alliance on June 15th the day of one particular exercise I was working coordinating certain aspects of the exercise I must be vague in this a U.S military helicopter arrived carrying a group of men who were supposed to be U.S Navy anti-mine personnel they exited unloaded their gear and met with both the U.S Navy vice admiral and a group of American men in plain clothes that had arrived a few hours earlier we all suspected them to be some sort of Intelligence Officers after a short conversation that I could not hear because of the sound of the helicopters they approached their briefing uh um I found it rather strange that they were from the U.S Navy my first thought was that they looked like a group of terrorists not anyone from the U.S Navy the other groups we had from many of from many of the military branches had some sort of Standards haircuts for example not only did these men have wild hair that that would have breached any

civilized Nations code of military standards but they had facial hair as well as I said they look more like Middle Eastern terrorists none of these men were identification tags around their necks the other thing I found odd was that they claimed uh to be there to search for underwater mines however they lack the equipment for such exercise the equipment consisted of the latest Navy issue deep diving underwater rebreathers and some small hard case boxes we call them Pelicans their job was to take a rubber boat to a predetermined location search for anti-ship mines and return to shore with their findings usually in such an Endeavor uh they have a long metal they have they have long metal detection equipment but that was absent from their collection of gear a detail I thought to be very strange here was that while the other mine EOD teams wore traditional scuba gear with tanks and such this group was wearing state-of-the-art helium rebreather helmets in dive suits though I have never seen one up close I'm quite certain these were the mk-29 systems made for deep Dives and to this day remain classified my country's military wouldn't even be able to afford the helium for these let alone the suits themselves the suit certainly would not be required for locating mines that sit in just a few meters below the surface they took their boats offshore not to the area where the simulated mines were placed but to an entirely different location my colleague who is monitoring different team locations made an offhand joke about how the U.S Navy had gotten lost and was 2 000 meters from their uh Target location they exited their boat wearing their rebreathers and they disappeared under the water for over six hours there is no self-contained underwater gear that I know of that can keep a diver under for six hours with the new military systems with the newest military systems three or four Max is possible if the diver isn't exerting themselves after a few hours we began to get concerned and we contacted the coordinator for the U.S sixth Fleet which assured us that everything was fine they were in contact to ignore it and not to make any reports about it after the exercise was over and they returned almost all of their Pelicans were missing they did not stay for any pleasantries they had a short conversation with the civilian people from the U.S got on a waiting helicopter and left the civilians they were talking to was who left but on a different helicopter their mission was later marked as completed successfully and known even though they were never near the intended target location [Dougan: all right so this is strange right so this individual goes on to say] in retrospect here are my suspicions the diver met with a small waiting submersible that shuttled them to the area of the pipeline the explosives required for such an act wouldn't have fit in their gear so I suspect they were carrying survey and locating equipment that would be used to Mark where the explosives needed to be placed once they examined the pipeline marked the proper coordinates they would have time to examine the data with explosive Engineers return to the site at a later time and place required charges to be detonated on a timer or remotely

So here is my problem with all of this, what anon wrote and what Hersh wrote:

1st we dont know who this is. If he isnt US navy, but EU navy, then what is he so afraid of? Our govs and militaries arent as sus as US govs and militaries.

2nd we dont know which ship he was on, was it a Norwegian ship or US ship? Or some other?

3rd at least what the writer said does not coincide with Hersh's version. Since according to the writer, the divers didnt plant explosives, but markers so the explosives could be placed later? But Hersh said they planted the explosives under the cover of BALTOPS

4th the divers looked like "middle eastern terrorists" not like white skinned elite deep sea divers from the USA

5th this incidence supposedly took place on the 15th, BALTOPS ended on the 17th. So when were the charges planted according to the anon source? And by whom? And how?

6th Anon also said they stayed under water for over 6 hours and he knows of no diving gear which can supply you for such a long time under water with breathable air.

7th My own problem with Hersh's article is that it says "but the waters off Bornholm had another advantage: there were no major tidal currents,..."

So then how did the sonobuoy get from NS2 (the first blast site) to NS1a & b (the second and third blast sites)? There is an 80km distance between them. In fact how did the divers get from the NS2 blast site to the NS1 blast sites?

8th maybe we can find out where the ships were at that time? And if there were any other ships in this vicinity some time later, either on the 2 last days of BALTOPS or maybe even after that?

9th maybe we can find out any flight data of any helicopters around that time?

If I remember Hersh's article correctly I would conclude the NS sabotage should have 2 phases.

Phase 1: plant explosives during BALTOPS.

Phase 2: drop sonobuoy to activate the explosives some 3 months later

But if I take the words from the anon writer at face value it sounds like this had 4 phases.

Phase 1: prepare a submersible on site.

Phase 2: send in middle eastern looking terrorists to use the prepared submersible to get to the blast sites during BALTOPS.

Phase 2: some unkown time later plant the explosives.

Phase 3: drop sonobuoy to activate the explosives

Either Hersh did a terrible investigation work for missing out on what anon wrote, or anon is not real. Or both versions are fake....

Either way, this anon source does not help validate Hersh's claims made in his article

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According to the email, on June 15, a helicopter delivered a group of conspicuous-looking American divers in civilian clothes to the exercise area. “My first thought was that they looked like a group of terrorists,” the source wrote, pointing to the individuals’ odd haircuts, mustaches and beards, and the absence of any military ID markers.

The divers were said to have been greeted by a vice admiral of the US Sixth Fleet and a group of individuals in plain clothes. The source couldn’t hear the details of their conversation due to the noise generated by the helicopter’s propeller blades. The commander of the Sixth Fleet during the BALTOPS 22 drills was Vice Admiral Eugene Black. Black was succeeded by Vice Admiral Thomas Ishee in September. The source did not clarify whether Black was the vice admiral the men spoke to.

The source in the email took note of the men’s MK29 military-issue rebreather systems, which use an oxygen-helium mixture for deep-sea diving. He also noticed that the men had other high-grade, expensive equipment not in use by ordinary Navy units, and that they brought small boxes with them, contents unknown.

The men identified themselves as participants in "de-mining exercises," which were to involve the sailing of a small rubber dinghy to a specified destination, find, and defuse anti-ship mines. However, the divers didn’t seem equipped for this, the source indicated.

After their conversation with the US commander, the men did not go to the exercise area, but instead “left their dinghy in their rebreathers and disappeared under the water for over six hours. There is no equipment that allows divers to stay underwater for six hours. The latest military equipment [allows] three or four hours maximum,” the source noted in the email.

Upon their return, the divers were no longer carrying their mystery boxes. They were picked up by a helicopter and flown out of the area, according to the source.

Gas leak at Nord Stream 2 as seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark September 27, 2022

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I is easy for a major country to fake AIS signal.

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The statement of "including dive time", this is an assumption that divers planted charges yet no evidence provided by any pundit to support the scenario. Any ship or submarine with a torpedo launch capability could have done that job far more effectively, with less risk, full deniability and if anything that is how the job got done. It is bordering on ridiculous to think a ship and divers were used for a task that required deniability in every sense. But lets consider this, maybe it was a coincidence and the pipe was not maintained properly or had a faulty joint or the protective coating round it had become compromised and rot had set in that was not known about and it blew out. Divers indeed.

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You've stopped allowing public comments on your recent posts, so I'll address the new argument here. Still eager to hear back about the Karmoy, confirmation of 24/7 AIS tracking for all Alta/Oksoy vessels through June, and AIS tracking for the Hinnoy during all of June.

Please explain why "the West and NATO are happy continuing to state that all of the Nord Stream leaks are the result of direct sabotage". Assuming your theory is correct, what's the drawback to going public? You discredit Russia's pipeline infrastructure, and prove that they engaged in international terrorism (and that you didn't).

You quote the seismology numbers from Sweden and Denmark, then run some calculations. Which equation did you use? You mention that there is a range of possibilities for seismic->explosion, but assign a single value with no uncertainty (magnitude 1.8->7.6kg TNT). Then you say magnitude 1.8 can be estimated from 20-3000kg TNT. Huh? Also, where did 1.8 even come from? Sweden reports 1.9 magnitude, described by you in the previous paragraph. Not very diligent work...

Correlations of underwater explosion magnitude with seismic readings are beyond my expertise, and I suspect yours as well. How reliable are they? Are they more likely to underestimate or overestimate explosion size? Why not get a statement from actual experts on the topic? Friendly tip: Call up Bittner et al, scientists love to discuss their work.

You say an accidental pipe rupture would produce some amount of energy too, fine. Surely this has happened before? You've gone through the trouble of finding literature on seismic readings->explosive energy. Where's the equivalent evidence on accidental pipeline bursting? Do violent pipeline ruptures occur? Would we expect accidental ruptures to show similar seismic patterns to explosions? Have any other accidental ruptures led to seismic readings consistent with explosions (recall: Swedish and Danish seismologists say the readings were consistent with explosions)? Can you present your full methodology, including calculations?

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Do they have subs?

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