PRAYER PERSON - PRAYER MAN OR PRAYER WOMAN? RESEARCH THREAD

[Guest Brian Doyle]

You're not answering what I said Mr Larsen or answering the questions I asked. It is very clear you conflated a part of Davidson's evidence that had nothing to do with what I'm talking about while somewhat foolishly missing the part that did. I would suggest backing off the gotcha business and try listening to what I'm explaining, and, more importantly, respond to it.

Davidson was trying to use Wiegman to show the height argument. MacRae was clever enough to detect that in the process Davidson had unwittingly uncovered a frame that showed a woman's face in clear detail. I'm afraid your entries show you don't understand what is being argued here. You took an irrelevant part of Davidson's attempt to compare heights between Lovelady and Prayer Man and tried to use it to refute the evidence of the woman's face. You didn't succeed for the reasons I just explained.

In your last entry you refused to answer my basic question. What caused the woman's face that you admit to? My explanation is correct and any person who was honestly seeking the facts in this issue would admit so instead of trying to attack it. In my opinion, by refusing to do so you are tacitly admitting to its legitimacy.

I am not squirming out of anything and if the prior evidence was not removed I could show you from Davidson and MacRae's evidence why what I am saying is correct. Also, I don't think you properly responded to what I wrote in my last post. You are trying to force the issue to your contrivance but it isn't accurate. Like I said in my last post, and you avoided answering, the evidence MacRae presents is based on your second photo graphic where the clear image is juxtaposed with the more blurry one before it. There's no doubt this corresponds directly to what I said and shows that Wiegman's camera managed to land on a steady shot for that frame and take a sharp image. It's right there in front of you in your own offering. This is why a woman's face appears clearly in that frame. This isn't difficult to understand and deserves a direct answer. You're trying to seize control here with a rather apparent faulty argument.

Please respond to this.

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy,

I really can't tell who is in that corner but I'll acknowledge it's someone.

In that everyone identified so far on the steps are employees of companies inside the TSBD I think odds are that he/she/it is also an employee.

Bart has put forth a pretty good argument for LHO, I'm really impressed by his attention to detail. Duncan not so much, maybe it's his presentation or attitude, idk.

I spent 5 years in video production as an IT guy and I learned a little bit about photography and encoding. I'm not impressed at all with the scans that we have to work from.

I think there has to be a push to get high def scans from the original negatives that haven't been converted to JPG or GIF or uploaded to a site which automatically re-encodes like youtube and facebook because that process takes definition away from the areas that we want to see.

garbage in garbage out.

Chris,

Several months ago, Duncan posted a large closeup GIF of Prayer Persons's head in which I detected (by freeze-framing very quickly) movement of PP's head to his right (and back again), and I could see sideburns on the left side of his face. So the existing "garbage" is good enough for that, if you know how to look for it (fast freeze-framing).

I wish I could find that GIF again on some website so I could try to tell others what I did in order to see all of that.

-- Tommy

PS Perhaps Andrej or somebody could re-create the same GIF if Duncan's can't be found.

bumped

edited and re-bumped

PS Duncan's GIF must have been of that part of Weigman where there are no cars in the forground, i.e., when Lovelady leans forward and Prayerman and raises his head, both apparently in response to their hearing a shot or the shots.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy,

I really can't tell who is in that corner but I'll acknowledge it's someone.

In that everyone identified so far on the steps are employees of companies inside the TSBD I think odds are that he/she/it is also an employee.

Bart has put forth a pretty good argument for LHO, I'm really impressed by his attention to detail. Duncan not so much, maybe it's his presentation or attitude, idk.

I spent 5 years in video production as an IT guy and I learned a little bit about photography and encoding. I'm not impressed at all with the scans that we have to work from.

I think there has to be a push to get high def scans from the original negatives that haven't been converted to JPG or GIF or uploaded to a site which automatically re-encodes like youtube and facebook because that process takes definition away from the areas that we want to see.

garbage in garbage out.

Chris,

Several months ago, Duncan posted a large closeup GIF of Prayer Persons's head in which I detected (by freeze-framing very quickly) movement of PP's head to his right (and back again), and I could see sideburns on the left side of his face. So the existing "garbage" is good enough for that, if you know how to look for it (fast freeze-framing).

I wish I could find that GIF again on some website so I could try to tell others what I did in order to see all of that.

-- Tommy

PS Perhaps Andrej or somebody could re-create the same GIF if Duncan's can't be found.

bumped

edited and re-bumped

PS Duncan's GIF must have been from around that part of Weigman when there are no cars in the foreground, i.e., when Lovelady is leaning forward and Prayer Man has lowered his hands / raised his head, both apparently in response to their hearing a shot.

(See below.)

Credit: Chris Davidson

Edited September 26, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Guest Brian Doyle]

Proof is usually determined by that which cannot be refuted. And, as Mr Prudhomme shows us, especially by that which others embarrass themselves with their excuses for not being able to answer.

There's no doubt that my evidence exists separate from myself and is valid own its own as cited. Mr Prudhomme is attempting a flagrant ad hominem end-around that normally isn't tolerated under objective conditions.

Bob can't answer the points and is obviously in contempt of the evidence he publicly can't answer.

What caused the face Sandy admits to Bob? You can't credibly ignore facts. I have backed-up what I wrote in plain facts and easy to understand images. Denial of this is usually interpreted as damaging to credibility under normal circumstances.

[Guest Brian Doyle]

Answer the point Bob and stop seeking excuses.

What caused the woman's face that Sandy admits to?

[Thomas Graves]

Answer the point Bob and stop seeking excuses.

What caused the woman's face that Sandy admits to?

Dear Brian,

A woman with sideburns? I thought those existed only in the circus.

-- Tommy

Edited September 26, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Guest Brian Doyle]

That is a regressive, inferior argument Thomas. There are no sideburns on the woman's face shown in Davidson. The isolated image Duncan produced 1) Shows the undoubtable facial features of a female (as Sandy admits). 2) Does not show any sideburns, so therefore a false and incorrect argument is being attempted in place of the better argument. 3) In objective analysis of evidence the female face is the stronger evidence. I have never seen anything I would call sideburns on any image of Prayer Man that I have seen. 4) Credible scientific peer review of the woman's face Duncan isolated would agree the image is that of a female beyond a doubt. 5) The employee list leaves females as the only likely candidates for Prayer Man.

Please. This is a serious discussion.

[Thomas Graves]

That is a regressive, inferior argument Thomas. There are no sideburns on the woman's face shown in Davidson. The isolated image Duncan produced 1) Shows the undoubtable facial features of a female (as Sandy admits). 2) Does not show any sideburns, so therefore a false and incorrect argument is being attempted in place of the better argument. 3) In objective analysis of evidence the female face is the stronger evidence. I have never seen anything I would call sideburns on any image of Prayer Man that I have seen. 4) Credible scientific peer review of the woman's face Duncan isolated would agree the image is that of a female beyond a doubt. 5) The employee list leaves females as the only likely candidates for Prayer Man.

Please. This is a serious discussion.

Dear Brian,

Obviously, I'm not talking about Davidson's GIF, or some "isolated image" posted by Duncan.

I'm talking about the large GIF of Prayer Man's head that Duncan put on this forum about a year ago, right before his "Prayer Person Was A Woman" (or whatever it was called) kinda morphed into the moderator-required thread you and I are posting on right here, and Duncan deleted that GIF during the morphing process.

Evidently you don't know the GIF I'm talking about.

The only way I was able to see Prayer Man's sideburns on his turned head was to free-frame that GIF many times (and very quickly) by "click-clicking" on my mouse over and over again. It was a very fleeting image. Why? Because Prayer Man turned his head very quickly.

-- Tommy

PS I can't imagine why Duncan removed that GIF after I'd mentioned the sideburns I'd seen in it.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Andrej Stancak]

I was able to identify the Wiegman's film frame which Chris Davidson has used in his analysis. It is frame 133 in the series of frames in Robert Groden's copy. I was able to locate it on internet and post is here. Please note that the part of doorway is in complete darkness. It is dark because there is almost no signal (information) there. We only see the bright spot suggesting that someone stood there. If the signal is that poor, any statement about the sharpness of any objects in this area of picture has no merit. One cannot have a sharp image of a face if neither the head or the body can be seen.

Wiegman's film, Frame 133

I have cut the region which Chris analysed in detail (below). The left panel shows the original picture. The middle panel is the same picture with only brightness added. This at least allowed to indicate the top of this person's head, which is highlighted by horizontal blue lines interspersed between pictures. The right panel is the one which should be the closest to Chris'es picture - both brightness and the contrast have been added. While the "Oswaldian" forehead is visible, the rest of head and the neck create another head. However, this is just an artefact caused by forcing the image to show at least something.

There has been a clever experiment performed by experimental psychologists in Glasgow. They generated random arrays of dots and asked their participants to press a key once they think there was a human face buried in the cloud of dots. They presented hundreds of such pictures, and then averaged the small percentage of pictures which people claimed to contain a human face (there never was any face in any of the pictures - dots were all random). The averaged image surprisingly showed two small circles as if eyes and a small dash line between and slightly below the eyes as if it would be the nose. When people believed that there was a human face in the cloud of random dots, their fusiform gyrus in temporo-occipital cortex (this is where human faces are interpreted in the brain) was activated. Human face is a powerful pareidolia object, and it is not surprising - from infancy we are primed and keen to see human faces. Thus, it is not that difficult to view a human face even if the visual field does not contain any face.

Taken together, this image and its processed products cannot prove the identity of Prayer Man. The part corresponding to head and neck contained as if two heads, the lower of the two not having any neck.

We may agree that: 1) there was someone standing in that part of the doorway, 2) the person held a bright object in his right hand, 3) we may draw a line defining the top of this person's head, 4) we can assume that the arms are in a similar "prayer" gesture as we see in Darnell. 5) there is a continuity between the person we see in Wiegman's and Darnell's films. Thus, identity information derived from Darnell's stills will apply to Wiegman's film. Due to the noise and poor signal in Wiegman's still, this inference does not hold vice versa.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Andrej Stancak

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

Wiegman's film, Frame 133

I have cut the region which Chris analysed in detail (below). The left panel shows the original picture. The middle panel is the same picture with only brightness added. This at least allowed to indicate the top of this person's head, which is highlighted by horizontal blue lines interspersed between pictures. The right panel is the one which should be the closest to Chris'es picture - both brightness and the contrast have been added. While the "Oswaldian" forehead is visible, the rest of head and the neck create another head. However, this is just an artifact caused by forcing the image to show at least something.

[...]

Andrej,

I don't think that's a "double forehead." I think Oswald Prayer Man has raised his head up and we also see his white T-shirt under his darker-colored outer shirt.

-- Tommy

Edited September 26, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Andrej Stancak]

[...]

Wiegman's film, Frame 133

I have cut the region which Chris analysed in detail (below). The left panel shows the original picture. The middle panel is the same picture with only brightness added. This at least allowed to indicate the top of this person's head, which is highlighted by horizontal blue lines interspersed between pictures. The right panel is the one which should be the closest to Chris'es picture - both brightness and the contrast have been added. While the "Oswaldian" forehead is visible, the rest of head and the neck create another head. However, this is just an artifact caused by forcing the image to show at least something.

[...]

Andrej,

I don't think that's a "double forehead." I think Oswald Prayer Man has raised his head up and we also see his white T-shirt under his darker-colored outer shirt.

-- Tommy

Thomas:

the signal in this particular area does not warrant any statement about whether it was a female or other head, or whether it was a T-shirt combined with outer shirt. Please have a look on the original Wiegman's frame. If you struggle to spot a human figure there, there is no chance to identify any details. It is likely that it was the brightness of the neck or T-shirt fusing with the head, however, this is already our speculation.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Andrej Stancak

[Chris Newton]

Andrej

What you are pointing out is what I've been saying all along, that the extant video we have to work with is of such poor quality that determining what is in that corner with any certainty is nearly impossible.

I could really bore a lot of folks with everything that can be done to a video to screw up the encoding process but let me simply point out to everyone that uploading a video to youtube means that the original video on the computer pre-upload is one generation cleaner than whatever you put on youtube. Every time it's re-encoded detail is destroyed.

The "data' that video encoders generally toss first is the "data" we are trying to analyze namely in the shadows and dark areas.

[Andrej Stancak]

Andrej

What you are pointing out is what I've been saying all along, that the extant video we have to work with is of such poor quality that determining what is in that corner with any certainty is nearly impossible.

I could really bore a lot of folks with everything that can be done to a video to screw up the encoding process but let me simply point out to everyone that uploading a video to youtube means that the original video on the computer pre-upload is one generation cleaner than whatever you put on youtube. Every time it's re-encoded detail is destroyed.

The "data' that video encoders generally toss first is the "data" we are trying to analyze namely in the shadows and dark areas.

Thanks, Chris, for reminding us the unfortunate issue of using youtube videos for photographic analysis. The Wiegman's still I used is not from a video though. I only used video to find out what frame number it was. This still is of much better quality than a youtube video of Robert Groden's copy of Wiegman film.

[Thomas Graves]

[...]

[...]

Andrej,

I don't think that's a "double forehead." I think Oswald Prayer Man has raised his head up and we also see his white T-shirt under his darker-colored outer shirt.

-- Tommy

Thomas:

the signal in this particular area does not warrant any statement about whether it was a female or other head, or whether it was a T-short combined with outer shirt. Please have a look on the original Wiegman's frame. If you struggle to spot a human figure there, there is no chance to identify any details. It is likely that it was the brightness of the neck or T-shirt fusing with the head, however, this is already our speculation.

Dear Andrej,

I'm not trying to be sarcastic or flippant, but I don't struggle to see a human figure in the middle frame, above.

Or this big one, here:

Wiegman's film, Frame 133 [per Andrej]

Maybe my eyes are just better than yours?

(I cannot tell whether or not he has a cleft chin, however.)

-- Tommy

Edited September 26, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Andej,

It gets worse. Groden's original copy may have been 3rd or 4th generation to begin with. It may have been then converted to AVi and then re-encoded when added to a DVD (5th and 6th generation) then copied off the DVD (7th G) and made an MP4 or M4V (8th G and a most destructive format - because it's adaptive ) and then loaded to youtube (9th G).

So whatever was in that corner becomes more of a "blob" at each step.

It's "artifact theory" at best.