Aram's background and early scanner interest

This week we spoke to Aram Shabanian, a Bellingcat contributor and experienced open source researcher. Aram is somewhat of an expert in monitoring live events. He's often the first to spot something on a livestream or hear an emergency call on a radio. In this talk he walks us through his preferred open source tools for watching things unfold and provides insight into how this type of research can save lives, prevent panic and create an important archive of historic incidents.

The talk was hosted by Charlotte Maher on Thursday February 26th 2026. Music featured is courtesy of Artlist.

Recorded live in the Bellingcat Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/bellingcat

Links discussed:

Broadcastify: https://www.broadcastify.com/

Compilation of resources including the aforementioned spreadsheet can be found on our Discord here: https://discord.com/channels/709752884257882135/1144296259805528256

Watch Duty: https://www.watchduty.org/careers

Earth Null School: https://earth.nullschool.net/

IQ Air: https://www.iqair.com/

Weather and Geological Phenomena channel in our Server: https://discord.com/channels/709752884257882135/1204206076493434930

US River gages: https://water.noaa.gov/rfc/mbrfc

VidGrid: https://vidgrid.tk.gg/

Sewage map (UK): https://www.sewagemap.co.uk/

This is for disease: https://www.wastewaterscan.org/en