After the MH17 flight was shot down in the skies of eastern Ukraine, I spent an insane amount of time poring over various bits and pieces of evidence that pointed to how it happened and who was responsible. Soon after the crash evidence started appearing that on that day a Russian-made BUK missile launcher was driven through nearby towns controlled by the separatists, and the SBU, the Ukrainian counterpart of the FBI, published intercepts of phone conversations between rebels that indicate the missile launcher was brought across the border from Russia the night before and sent by one of the rebel commanders to the exact location where the launch was suspected to have come from. However, much of this evidence was scattered, inconclusive, or quickly claimed to have been faked by the SBU, and at the same time other versions of what may have happened appeared and multiplied.
I found bits and pieces of local evidence from July 17th before the crash (e.g. locals tweeting they saw a BUK driving through their town or talking about hearing the launch), located and double-checked detective work already done by others (e.g. geolocation of key photographs/videos showing the BUK launcher), and noticed that several people working independently from different bits of evidence converged, without knowing of each other, on a particular location southeast of the town of Torez as the launch site. I compiled it all together into a long compelling blog post (in Russian) filled with evidence and careful examination of each piece of evidence, how it could or could not have been faked, and how this all ties together into an overwhelmingly likely version. The post and its followups saw >3000 comments from people debating various pieces of evidence and debunking alternative stories, with subthreads going into expert discussions on weather conditions, correctness of geolocation efforts, JPEG compression artefacts, debunking of conspiracy theories based on an unlikely Youtube date-tagging bug, and much else. Journalists travelled to the suspected launch site and found burned ground and suspicious-looking plastic pieces (but no smoking gun). An independent Russian TV channel invited me to appear on a panel (I did so by Skype) to communicate the evidence.
After the MH17 flight was shot down in the skies of eastern Ukraine, I spent an insane amount of time poring over various bits and pieces of evidence that pointed to how it happened and who was responsible. Soon after the crash evidence started appearing that on that day a Russian-made BUK missile launcher was driven through nearby towns controlled by the separatists, and the SBU, the Ukrainian counterpart of the FBI, published intercepts of phone conversations between rebels that indicate the missile launcher was brought across the border from Russia the night before and sent by one of the rebel commanders to the exact location where the launch was suspected to have come from. However, much of this evidence was scattered, inconclusive, or quickly claimed to have been faked by the SBU, and at the same time other versions of what may have happened appeared and multiplied.
I found bits and pieces of local evidence from July 17th before the crash (e.g. locals tweeting they saw a BUK driving through their town or talking about hearing the launch), located and double-checked detective work already done by others (e.g. geolocation of key photographs/videos showing the BUK launcher), and noticed that several people working independently from different bits of evidence converged, without knowing of each other, on a particular location southeast of the town of Torez as the launch site. I compiled it all together into a long compelling blog post (in Russian) filled with evidence and careful examination of each piece of evidence, how it could or could not have been faked, and how this all ties together into an overwhelmingly likely version. The post and its followups saw >3000 comments from people debating various pieces of evidence and debunking alternative stories, with subthreads going into expert discussions on weather conditions, correctness of geolocation efforts, JPEG compression artefacts, debunking of conspiracy theories based on an unlikely Youtube date-tagging bug, and much else. Journalists travelled to the suspected launch site and found burned ground and suspicious-looking plastic pieces (but no smoking gun). An independent Russian TV channel invited me to appear on a panel (I did so by Skype) to communicate the evidence.
Great job! I just doubt that anyone who didn’t already agree with your conclusion will change their mind.