The Elevator Video: What's your take?

[Peace777]

Hello All, this is my first post. Glad to see that there are still some fresh posts to date; sorry that I wasn't here earlier.

I've exhausted almost all there is online regarding this mystery. I've read much at this website. I think I have the evidence to explain why the behavior of the elavator woman is so inexplicable, but I don't want to get into that right now. It's not happy.

Has anyone been able to decipher the pixels in the timestamp? I have. I have yet to find anyone online discussing it. Is it common knowledge at this thread, or related ones, that the time of 24:00 in the timestamp is actually 21:00? Is anyone familiar with this?

When the timestamp trips from 23:59 to 24:00 minutes, it goes to 21:00, 21:01, 21:02, 21:04, and than flips to 25:00 immediately after 21:04. Are you aware of this?

So the missing seconds are some kind of code U mean? Can you tell us your theory or interpretations? Thanks

 

[noodled1]

Hello All, this is my first post. Glad to see that there are still some fresh posts to date; sorry that I wasn't here earlier.

I've exhausted almost all there is online regarding this mystery. I've read much at this website. I think I have the evidence to explain why the behavior of the elavator woman is so inexplicable, but I don't want to get into that right now. It's not happy.

Has anyone been able to decipher the pixels in the timestamp? I have. I have yet to find anyone online discussing it. Is it common knowledge at this thread, or related ones, that the time of 24:00 in the timestamp is actually 21:00? Is anyone familiar with this?

When the timestamp trips from 23:59 to 24:00 minutes, it goes to 21:00, 21:01, 21:02, 21:04, and than flips to 25:00 immediately after 21:04. Are you aware of this?

Interesting, what program did you use to decipher the time stamp.

I'd love to see some screen prints of the time stamp cleaned up to the point where it's become legible.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Contrary to the view that the timestamp is blurred, it's not. It's just in code. But what's suspicious is that the minutes and seconds are easy to decipher, begging the question of why anyone would use this code at all rather than using plain numbers.

The timestamp's peculiarities are a major mystery in themselves. You may agree that, in order to solve this crime, it's necessary to discover who it was that created the timestamp, whether 1) the police, 2) the hotel staff / manager / owner, or 3) a production team that used Elisa as an actress. That third option is included because evidence (that I'll share later if anyone is interested) from an Arkadiy at godlikeproductions suggests that neither the police nor the hotel people would have made the timestamp as it is.

When you load the 4-minute version of the video; watch (with a magnifying glass if necessary) the timer as it flips from 22:59 to 23:00 at about 1:25 youtube time. You can't make out the '3' as such because it looks more like a capital L. But if you wait three seconds, to 23:03, you can compare the two 3s to see that they are identical. If you wait for 23:11. you will see that the two 1s are identical, both having a bright white square/pixel at the top. In the same way, if you wait for 23:44, the two 4s are identical, with what looks like a white cross in the center. And so on, just like that, you can identify all the digits from 0 to 9, though it's a little trickier than that because the 3, 8 and 0 are at times identical or nearly identical. I can explain this later.

Having done the above, wait for the minutes to trip from 23:59 to 24:00 (at about 2:42 youtube time), and see that 21:00 pops up instead of 24:00. This needs to be explained. Please call your best detectives to this mystery. What do you think it means? Who put the 21:00 there, and why?

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Here's some aditional information that should arouse some curiosity. If anyone has the capability, could you please check to see whether Arkadiy is correct in saying that frames 224-225 are spliced in? He says they are 100% spliced.

These two frames occur at the end of the 14th second of youtube time, at the very end of the slight door close and door open between 12 and 14 seconds. I watched the video several times and missed this important find; as you can see, the door starts to close an inch, but Elisa happens to press the door-hold button just at that time to make the door open again. It becomes obvious that she never intended to go down the elevator at that time, but my concern is the possible reasons for the tampering of this video. I'd like to hear some of your opinions. I can tell you my conclusions thus far, that a hotel staff / owner is guilty, in the least, of collusion with the murderer.

 

[Conductor71]

It becomes obvious that she never intended to go down the elevator at that time, but my concern is the possible reasons for the tampering of this video. I'd like to hear some of your opinions. I can tell you my conclusions thus far, that a hotel staff / owner is guilty, in the least, of collusion with the murderer.

Hi,

Nice work! I am really inept when it comes to this stuff so glad there are people who will take the time to do tweak and share - thanks

You may already be aware of this but there is another analog master out there that has set the speed of the video to real time and also seems to have cracked the time code. He found 54 seconds missing. This guy thinks there is a conspiracy; I don't necessarily agree but will say that it is curious LAPD released such a raw copy.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YO4QbaNDjI"]Elisa Lam Time Stamp Conspiracy MUST SEE! - YouTube[/ame]

I have thought for some time that the door hold button was pressed with intention. I think she expected to join her on the elevator and the longer she waited the more wary she became.

What is your theory?

 

[Nickfalzone]

I am not sure of the specific moment(s) of where the alleged "splicing" occurred, but I have a background in video production & security work - what I see is that in several instances the camera "jump cuts" simply because it works off a motion sensor and in those timeframes it does not "detect" motion, so it simply shuts off. This would naturally cause a jump in time on the counter, as well as a "jump" in the video. I doubt this video was doctored, beyond the timestamp. If someone in the know had access to the video, it would be easier to erase Elisa from the tape entirely, through the same types of video tools used to doctor things like the timestamp.

 

[noodled1]

I am not sure of the specific moment(s) of where the alleged "splicing" occurred, but I have a background in video production & security work - what I see is that in several instances the camera "jump cuts" simply because it works off a motion sensor and in those timeframes it does not "detect" motion, so it simply shuts off. This would naturally cause a jump in time on the counter, as well as a "jump" in the video. I doubt this video was doctored, beyond the timestamp. If someone in the know had access to the video, it would be easier to erase Elisa from the tape entirely, through the same types of video tools used to doctor things like the timestamp.

Thanks... Nice thoughts on the motion detector. Security cameras also are self adjusting for light aren't they? Which explains the shifting of the darker/lighter areas of the video

Actually to me there's no reason for anyone to doctor it because it was released when she was a missing person so the public had the most recent image available.

 

[Nickfalzone]

Thanks... Nice thoughts on the motion detector. Security cameras also are self adjusting for light aren't they? Which explains the shifting of the darker/lighter areas of the video

Actually to me there's no reason for anyone to doctor it because it was released when she was a missing person so the public had the most recent image available.

Sec cams can be set to autofocus, auto exposure, auto whitebalance, but my guess is that auto exposure is the only thing this camera was set to do. IMO much of the artifacting, light/color shifts, etc. are due to the poor quality tape-to-digital/youtube transfer that was done. My guess is that if you watched the original video on a regular CRT/CCTV style television with interlacing, you would see a ton more details than we see here, such as reflections off the elevator door, etc. Unfortunately the quality of this video is just poor enough to prevent the kind of close detail that I'd like to see regarding light/color/shadow/reflection changes that would be indicative of another person or 2 in the hallway.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Hello Conductor 71. We've really got to choo-choo this over, don't we? Okay, so you want to know my basic view. At first, I was sure she was trying to get away from a persuer, the one who killed her. When I first read from others that she was only playing, I totally rejected the idea. However, when I became convinced that she pressed the door-hold button, I took on another view, that she was, yes to my great surprise, PLAYING with her lover, who went into some room down the hall to plan the rape and/or murder with others. I thought that her job (perhaps at his request) was to hold the elevator for him, which explained why she didn't even attempt pressing the door-close button...because she knew it would override the door-hold button which she pressed. She didn't want the elevator to go anywhere.

Later still, after more facts came in, I rejected the idea that she was playing with her lover. If we come to an understanding of what the timestamp reveals, there could be a breakthrough in properly interpreting this video, and the motives of ones behind it.

I've seen the sped-up version, but couldn't decide which speed was the one true-to-life because, by that point, I realized that a pasted timestamp was in effect. This is one of the things I'd like to get opinions on: why is the timestamp pasted into the video, not being the original timestamp? The 21:00 versus the 24:00 can prove that it's not the original timestamp, and besides, the pixels themselves tends to prove that we're seeing a pasted timestamp. In that case, maybe it was the timestamp alone that was slowed down, not the video. I did the math indicating that it was slowed exactly to 75% real time.

The apparent reason for slowing the timestamp or the video was due to the 24th minute gone missing, so they tried to make a 3-minute video look like it lasted exactly the 4-minutes of youtube time. But the hotel wouldn't try to fool the police like that, and the police wouldn't try to fool the public like that. It's an important point suggesting a third, mysterious party responsible for the video. I have a good idea as to who was involved, but it's not time yet to get into that.

At 3:59 youtube time, it's exactly 3:59 minutes into the timestamp. Someone planned it exactly like that. Yes, the timestamp starts at exactly 22:00 and ends at 25:59. I don't know why they removed the 24th minute, but would like to have ideas from others that can nail down the reason: either 1) something got on camera what we are not supposed to see, or, 2) the camera stopped taping. Can we find even one clue that eliminate the second possibility?

Sorry for being so long.

 

[Nickfalzone]

One thing I take away from the sped-up video (which looks to me "closer" to realtime speed, but actually sped up a tiny bit too much) is that her movements are more natural and less drunk/doped-up. Her agility is fairly good. I don't think she was drunk, and oddball movements are likely d/t either medication she regularly took (ssris, benzos, &/or stims can alter balance). But generally I take away that she's not really f'ed up in the body, just her head is spinning out of control because of what I believe is paranoia/fear. Under significant fear, decisionmaking can be far away from what would be considered "normal" behavior. Essentially her consciousness went into "animal/reptile" brain mode, which typically lacks intelligence, is easier to manipulate by a 3rd party, and your way of thinking such as hitting all the buttons including door close suggests someone that was doing things out of a normal consciousness and/or was being "told" to act a certain way by someone in the hall, which made her appear crazy.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

I am not sure of the specific moment(s) of where the alleged "splicing" occurred, but I have a background in video production & security work - what I see is that in several instances the camera "jump cuts" simply because it works off a motion sensor and in those timeframes it does not "detect" motion, so it simply shuts off. .

Hello Nickfalzone, great to have a video expert. Correct me if I'm wrong. I imagine that the hotel needed to program how long a security camera should run after it no longer sees motion. One theory is that it was programmed to run for 15 seconds after Elisa's foot disappears at 23:51 timestamp time, and therefore the camera stopped at 24:04, which is exactly the end of the run from 21:00 to 21:04, and where 25:00 begins.

The problem I have is trying to figure out why someone used 21:00 - 21:04 instead of just letting the camera roll through 24:00 - 24:04. This is the mystery that needs solving, because it might just tell us something, like when Colombo gets his little-huge clue that solves the case.

Having said that, there is some proof at the start of the video that the camera had no motion-activation capability, because the door opens without a missed split-second.

By the way, I'm not saying that the video was spliced at the 21:00 point. I'm saying that someone pasted the timer in at that point. One can prove that the video ran continuous at that time because all four floor buttons were lit through the time from 23:59 to beyond 21:04. Therefore, 21:00 to 21:04 was not a spliced-in piece of video. Why do you think they (and who is the prime suspect?) pasted 21:00 instead of letting it roll naturally to 24:00?

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

According to Arkadiy, nine "fake" frames appear between the youtube times of 2:54:553 (frame 2620) and 2:55.219 (frame 2629). He appears to have quite the capability if it can number frame 2620. I doubt he counted them manually. This is why I take him seriously. It just so happens that the place where these frames were found is right when the timestamp jumps from 25:04 to 25:07, missing two to three seconds...because someone snipped them out. Ask: why did someone splice in extra frames at the place where the snip occurs? What comes to mind? If the police did the snipping to keep the public from seeing something, surely the police did not also do the splicing. What was going on?

There are about 15 frames per second so that nine frames is over a half second.

Arkadiy then claims that there were 11 "fake" frames soon after. By "fake," he (a Russian with not-perfect English) clarifies with "duplicated," i.e. taken from elsewhere in the video. These 11 frames are spliced in between youtube time 2:55.886 (frame 2639) and 2:56.686 (frame 2651). This area is located where the timestamp jumps from 25:07 to 25:10, with at least two missing seconds snipped out.

The third set of frames number 13 or 14, almost a second long. These are found between 2:57.019 (frame 2656) and 2:57.952 (frame 2670), located where the timestamd jumps and misses two seconds from 25:11 to 25:14, which is the third snip. The elevator door starts to close at the end of 25:14. How strange. I wish someone would help me here to interpret what it can mean.

Arkadiy was unaware of how to decipher the timestamp, so he did not know that a couple of seconds were snipped at each instance of the duplicated frames. He therefore assumed that three people, one after the other, were practically running past the elevator in less than one second each. He viewed the spliced-in frames as an attempt by someone to cover over the appearance of those three people. I don't want to make that assumption. I want to know the truth. It depends on who did the splicing, and who did the snipping. How else can we be sure of the truth?

I am unable to contact him to share my discovery of timestamp code, and he has stopped responding at the godlikeproduction blog where I found him. He probably stopped responding due to the foul mouths of Anonymous Coward and his ilk.

If you would like to see how to decipher the timestamp pixels, see my posts at the 15th page of the thread in this website called, "Elisa Lam - What Happened?"

 

[Nickfalzone]

I was nonplussed at the idea of video-doctoring, but after watching thru the video again & specifically at the spot you mentioned, I definitely see some weirdness. I attribute this weirdness simply to the camera/motion detection settings, but now I'm not 100% that's what happened.. The clearest way to notice possible "doctoring" points is where the timecode freezes. The timecode is running perfectly smoothly through the video, but at those 2:55ish spots it randomly freezes. That the camera turns on "after" the door has closed a bit suggests to me that either the motion detector is a bit slow, or someone went in and pasted freeze frames from elsewhere in the video. As a video editor, I would be able to to that kind of edit within a few seconds in FCP or Avid. Actually, it wouldn't even be hard to leave the bottom/timecode part of the screen on the lower half alone, and simply place and overlay of the frozen "door" open frames on the upper half, thereby giving little clue that something was manipulated. Still, motion detector is a possibility, which I put at 80% vs the unlikely 20% of video manipulation.

 

[Nickfalzone]

Another motive/theory on the "conversation" Elisa possibly had with perp(s) outside the elevator - what if she went to 14 either upon invitation, curiousity, or bathroom usage, but someone either in charge, or faking in-charge, started reprimanding her outside the elevator for being on a floor (with residents) that she technically should not have been on. The weird hand movements suggest her explaining a.) why the elevator hasn't taken her down yet, (waving hand into door sensor area) b.) why she was on 14 in the first place (gesturing like she's squeezing out water from towels, as in her room or bathroom flooded). She felt a little guilty and scared because she knew that she wasn't supposed to be on that floor, and someone took advantage of that big time.

 

[BlueShoe]

I like Nickfalzone's interpretation. If there is a person, or persons, out in the hallway, I like the idea of someone official or pretending to be so. This could explain the sense of slight nervousness that I think is there throughout the video. Especially when she comes back in to push the buttons the second time. She has a look on her face that says to me: "That was strange!" Yet she does not seem very panicked, just wanting to get out of there.

My theory now is that maybe with her poor eyesight (I still see lots of evidence for that), she misread the bottom elevator button (leaning her body in that way blocks some of the elevator light) as "Door Close" instead of "Door Hold." That would explain why she seems to be pushing that button lots of times. And also why, when the door does not close, she leaves the elevator without waiting around much more.

 

[nerdy]

Another motive/theory on the "conversation" Elisa possibly had with perp(s) outside the elevator - what if she went to 14 either upon invitation, curiousity, or bathroom usage, but someone either in charge, or faking in-charge, started reprimanding her outside the elevator for being on a floor (with residents) that she technically should not have been on. The weird hand movements suggest her explaining a.) why the elevator hasn't taken her down yet, (waving hand into door sensor area) b.) why she was on 14 in the first place (gesturing like she's squeezing out water from towels, as in her room or bathroom flooded). She felt a little guilty and scared because she knew that she wasn't supposed to be on that floor, and someone took advantage of that big time.

Apologies if this was already discussed, I didn't read back every page - but any chance she was on the 14th floor due to the Ramirez connection? Maybe she or someone she was hanging out with was into true crime? Completely speculation, but I can see some wild hand gestures going along with a narrative like "and he must have used this elevator! omg I'm so creeped out right now!" sort of conversation.

There's a big serial killer fan following on Tumblr, but I'm not aware if Elisa was into it or even aware of it.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

I was nonplussed at the idea of video-doctoring, but after watching thru the video again & specifically at the spot you mentioned, I definitely see some weirdness. I attribute this weirdness simply to the camera/motion detection settings, but now I'm not 100% that's what happened.. The clearest way to notice possible "doctoring" points is where the timecode freezes. The timecode is running perfectly smoothly through the video, but at those 2:55ish spots it randomly freezes. That the camera turns on "after" the door has closed a bit suggests to me that either the motion detector is a bit slow, or someone went in and pasted freeze frames from elsewhere in the video. As a video editor, I would be able to to that kind of edit within a few seconds in FCP or Avid. Actually, it wouldn't even be hard to leave the bottom/timecode part of the screen on the lower half alone, and simply place and overlay of the frozen "door" open frames on the upper half, thereby giving little clue that something was manipulated. Still, motion detector is a possibility, which I put at 80% vs the unlikely 20% of video manipulation.

Excellent, we have a conversation! I don't know what you mean by "freeze" as the timestamp doesn't indicate a freeze to me. A freeze in my mind is when a second is delayed longer than a second in length. Is that what you mean? Instead, the timestmap has no such thing, but runs normally until there is a snip, at which point there may be a fractional second, meaning a second that is partially snipped out. For example, the second at 25:11 is very short, and it then jumps to 25:14. To really be able to have this conversation, you need to know how to read the timestamp pixels. Have you learned that yet?

You also need to consider the evidence that the timestamp was pasted in so that the video and the timestamp are like two separate videos, one superimposed on the other.

Here's another point maybe not mentioned yet. The elevator door is suddenly shut by about eight inches near the end of the 25:14th second, and yet virtually the entire 25:14 second exists, no significant snip of that second whatsover is evident. But if this were a normal situation with the video's original timestamp, the 25:14th second would be severely non-existant.

Let me put it another way under the scenario that the camera is motion-activated. As one can see, it takes about a full second for the elavator door to move eight inches, because it takes four seconds (of timestamp time) for the door to go from fully-open to fully-closed. As the door is INSTANTLY closed by eight inches (we don't get to see the gradual opening of that distance) at the near-END of the 25:14th second (I'm seeing it happening at about 25:14.9), it means that the camera did not record the first second of its closing, meaning that most of the 25:14th second should not be on the timestamp, and yet that second is fully there. So, under this camera-stopping-taping scenario, someone goofed up and left this clue, indicating that the timestamp is not the original.

The alternative is that the camera did not cease to tape, but that someone spliced in frames of a fully-open door throughout the eight inches of actual door closure. Why would anyone do that? Arkadiy reports that frames were spliced in between 2:57.019 and 2:57.952 you-tube time, which, according to my video sample, is just a second or less before the door is found instantly closed by eight inches. But then his version of the video may be set a second off from mine.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

I like Nickfalzone's interpretation. If there is a person, or persons, out in the hallway, I like the idea of someone official or pretending to be so. This could explain the sense of slight nervousness that I think is there throughout the video. Especially when she comes back in to push the buttons the second time. She has a look on her face that says to me: "That was strange!" Yet she does not seem very panicked, just wanting to get out of there.

My theory now is that maybe with her poor eyesight (I still see lots of evidence for that), she misread the bottom elevator button (leaning her body in that way blocks some of the elevator light) as "Door Close" instead of "Door Hold." That would explain why she seems to be pushing that button lots of times. And also why, when the door does not close, she leaves the elevator without waiting around much more.

Blueshoe, the way you are viewing this video is much how she wanted you to view it, much the way I viewed it at first. There was no one who could convince me otherwise, as I read their posts, because I KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that she was scared and wondering how to get out of her unfortunate, threatening situation. And the fact that the elevator was working for her only made her deathly afraid so that her actions were on the frantic side, not normal. I thought people were out of their minds to think she was just horsing around.

Finally, I started to see and learn the facts, the smiles on her face, the door-hold button, and her conveying messages to the camera, for example, her hitting the 14th floor without that button lighting up. The INTENTION was to inform the viewers that she was on the scary, murderous floor, at midnight even, by her lonesome with someone chasing her throught the halls. I get it, it was a mini horror flick in the makings.

I'll challenge your post above with this: If she really was half-blind and accidentally hit the wrong button to get the door closed, why didn't she try again to hit the door-close button when first seeing that the door wouldn't close? She did not at all try to get that door closed, period. That is the overwhelming evidence that I did not know until I saw the button panel up close. And to prove it utterly, she came back to the panel with a throttle of punches like Mohammad Ali in his world-champion bout, and she missed the door-close button again and again, not because she couldn't see, but because her purpose was to hold the door. Why is that not a possibilty in your mind? Maybe you haven't seen her smile yet. Here's one of the two smiles; it's just as she starts to do what looks to me like a dance:

http://www.bodylanguagesuccess.com/2013/02/nonverbal-communication-analysis-2313.html

As you can see, she's not afraid.

 

[MissedItByThatMuch]

Apologies if this was already discussed, I didn't read back every page - but any chance she was on the 14th floor due to the Ramirez connection? Maybe she or someone she was hanging out with was into true crime? Completely speculation, but I can see some wild hand gestures going along with a narrative like "and he must have used this elevator! omg I'm so creeped out right now!" sort of conversation.

There's a big serial killer fan following on Tumblr, but I'm not aware if Elisa was into it or even aware of it.

Isn't she doing a little dance? Waving of the arms in a dance motion to a tune is not crazy or mysterious, so why isn't a dance part of the list of possibilities? Before she starts to wave her hands, she has quite a bright surprised smile toward the right-hand direction, like she sees someone suddenly. It occurs the moment she is out of the elevator after her button bout. It doesn't seem like she's trying to explain herself to a maintenance person or someone giving her the gears, and she's even bending the knees as would be expected in a couple of dance steps. But this someone that she apparently sees and celebrates does not come into view, to no surprise, and before long, the dance turns into a strange ending and even goes completely limp as she walks off forever. If this was all an act, it was to convey that there was someone there, and we are to guesstimate that he was the one she originally did not want to see, the one she was trying to avoid.

 

[linniluna]

After reading through this entire thread, I'm more confused than ever, but I'm also inclined to believe that her behaviour isn't too odd and that it probably doesn't give any clues. I wouldn't call it a red herring, because that sounds like someone is using her behaviour/the video to get everyone on the wrong track.

Upon my first viewing of the video my instant reaction was drugs but then I remembered that last weekend I hid under a sink in a hotel room just to see if I fit and then I got really comfortable... Her hand gestures are something I might do when bored. Anyone else act out stories that they've made up in their heads? Or peformed 'jedi' moves on automated doors? Sometimes having a rich imagination can look odd to the outside viewers. And if she really did have ADHD... well my brother's been known to make some odd hand gestures in order to 'entertain' himself. With this in mind, to me, it looks like she was waiting for someone and goofying around while she did.