Anthony Mugan

Hello all

hope you don’t mind me going back to an earlier discussion strand from August…?

There was some discussion around the extent to which Oswald’s move back to Dallas in October 63 and getting a job at the TBSD could be seen as evidence of a higher level of control than would have been possible from officers at JM/WAVE…

Leaving the debate as to if this was or was not Oswald acting under orders or not to one side, could I ask if it would be reasonable to suggest that WAVE was leading operations across a wide geographical area (certainly including New Orleans and Mexico as well as Florida and Cuba). There were known connections from various anti-Castro groups to Dallas and several indications of activity in the area (e.g fund raising, possible presence of one or more groups etc). Would it therefore be reasonable to suggest officers involved in both CI and propaganda work at WAVE may have had a legitimate interest in activity in Dallas?

if so do we see any examples in the records of operations in the USA outside the Florida-Louisiana area run out of Miami?

thanks

On 6/17/2021 at 5:06 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Anthony M-

Well, regarding Thomas...unfortunately, he makes an elementary error.  He repeats the canard that Connally was struck by a tumbling bullet. 

"But, there is evidence that the bullet which hit Governor Connally at Z-224 also hit President Kennedy. That evidence is the elongation of the entrance wound in the governor's back. A bullet hitting straight on would normally make a rounded perforation. The governor's wound was 0.5 cm wide and 1.5 cm long. The elongation can be explained by a bullet entering sideways from tumbling caused by an earlier impact." ----Thomas

See:

http://www.whokilledjfk.net/hear_no_evil.htm

Actually, as the attending surgeon made clear on many occasions, in treating Connally, Dr. Robert Shaw enlarged the entrance wound and thought it a "clean" shot. 

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol7/html/HSCA_Vol7_0168a.htm

Thomas posits the Connally bullet should have made a round hole, as if shot from, say, street level. But if the bullet was fired from an elevated point, it would have entered at a downward angle, leaving a clean but elliptical wound. Which is what Shaw found. 

In addition, Thomas' version requires (again, like the WC and the HSCA) that Connally did a 180-degree in his seat after receiving a shot that crossed through his body, obliterated most of a rib, and smashed his wrist. Shaw, who had treated more than 900 bullet and shrapnel wounds in military service, thought Connally doing so was highly unlikely. 

But again, Connally and his wife were firm in their statements that Connally was immediately incapacitated after being shot. Well, seems likely. 

Other parts of the Thomas view seems to lack imagination. There could have been additional shots from a weapon with a silencer, or a pneumatic gun, which might show up in the Z film but not on an audio report.  This is not even addressed. 

And if there were five audible gunshots as caught on the Dictabelt, why do so many witnesses say there were three shots, and some four shots? 

The blur analysis, whoever does it, has always struck me as suspect. Zapruder was an ordinary guy with a home movie camera, panning sideways. He could have been jerking around from gunshots, shock waves, adjusting the pan, somebody's scream, an unsteady hand, a sudden pumping of the heart, what have you. 

The acoustics...well, I do not know to say. Maybe there were five shots that day. Maybe more, through the use of silencers and pneumatic guns. 

All in all, I can't say I find the Thomas argument persuasive. 

Thomas' review of the Walker shooting, in his book, is very weak. The DPD concluded the shot fired at Walker struck a window pane, and was deflected lower, yet still struck well above Walker's head. Walker mentioned nothing about luckily ducking just before the shot in the initial police reports, and indeed initially thought kids had tossed a firecracker into his room. That's how close the shot was---that, not close. In other words, almost certainly an intentional miss. Probably a biography-builder. 

Thomas has some interesting points that the bullets Oswald used were manufactured under CIA contract, and intended to help dislodge De Gaulle or Italian communists.  

 

Thanks for your thought’s Ben. It’s very interesting to me as I have been very puzzled as to why there is still such a lack of consensus on the physical events of the day and your reply helps inform my thinking as to why that is the case.

We could engage in a conversation on some of the specifics, but I’ll leave that for now. My background has probably influenced me  to approach the problem in a particular way, methodologically and philosophically (Putting a lot of weight on the hard data and favouring a critical rationalist philosophical approach). That is probably why I like Thomas’ whole approach to the problem but I accept that probably reflects similarities in our training and is definitely not the majority approach…

Thanks and bye for now.

On 6/14/2021 at 4:02 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

Anthony M-

Thanks for reading and commenting. 

"The data in it (acoustic evidence) can not be detected by the human ear but has been extensively studied and it is critical to a coherent model of the assassination."--AM

You may be correct, but right away we have a problem, for general public consumption. 

The public hears this: That experts took the DPD dictabelt, put it into a black box for analysis, and determined it backs up the WC, or it does not. 

Josiah Thompson explains what happened here, and it does look like the Alvarez-Ramsey team was a hatchet job, not true analysis. 

https://whowhatwhy.org/2021/05/28/the-original-inconvenient-truth/

My true story, for public consumption, is that the single-shooter WC crowd posits that Connally was shot through the chest, had a fractured right wrist and other injuries, and then did a 180- degree turn in his chair to check on JFK. 

Anyone can see this is the WC version, and (sadly) even the HSCA version, by a simple review of the Z-film. 

I contend the WC version does not hold water on its own, and moreover conflicts with the explicit testimony of Connally and his wife, and others, who recount separate shots hit JFK, then Connally, then JFK.  Connally also remembers the shot he took as immediately incapacitating. 

Adding to the muddle:

Speaking of Thompson, he now says another bullet struck JFK in the head 7/10ths of a second after Z-313. OK, at 18 frames per second that works out ~326. 

I wonder what Thompson is talking about. 

A frame by frame version of the Z film. 

https://www.assassinationresearch.com/v2n2/zfilm/zframe327.html

I see nothing. Also, no one in the limo saw or heard the fourth shot either. I am mystified. 

 

 

Hi Ben

I can see where you are coming from. I’m not remotely convinced by Thompson’s idea of the final shot hitting JFK in the back of the head either. Many years ago Cyril Wecht argued that the fracture pattern in the skull was evidence for two severe impacts, with the impact at the rear preceding the impact at the front and that seems very credible (I’m using ‘impact’ deliberately as the hit at the back of the head gets more complicated).

That last shot also seems like the most likely candidate for the miss that hit the curb, with a fragment injuring Tague.

You are quite right that the data and the debate around it can seem opaque at first sight, but there are lots of things we need equipment to detect like atoms or distant galaxies, but these can be explained to non-specialists. The HSCA did us all no favours in fudging the correlation to the Zapruder film to fit their preferred shooting sequence, which naturally introduced contradictions with other data (particularly McLain’s location) and made it an easy target….

The best synthesis of all the physical evidence I’ve ever come across is Dr D B Thomas’ 2014 ‘Hear No Evil’, which is actually the only scenario I’ve seen which seems totally consistent with all known data. I keep mentioning it at the risk of sounding like a broken record but it doesn’t seem to have achieved the level of spread within the research community that it should have.  I get the impression we could potentially achieve much more of a consensus on the sequence of events than we actually have and help focus our time on those issues that remain unclear.  As an example your conclusion that the shots are too close together to come from the same Mannlicher-Carcano is very valid….I might have a minor debate with you on exactly what shot(s) did which injuries but this overall points to three shooters, one on the knoll and two behind the president…pinning down the location of that third shooter is to my mind a current question, just to give an example…

On 6/9/2021 at 5:32 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

 

The Simple Explanation of Why There Were at Least Two Guns in Dealey Plaza

It is beyond reasonable doubt that at least two shots were fired in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22 within too short a time to have been executed by a single-shot bolt action rifle.

How can this assertion be made?

Due to the unwavering testimony of Governor John Connally, his wife, and of several witnesses, all confirmed by the Zapruder film. 

Secret Service agents Clint Hill and Sam Kinney, and presidential aide David Powers, close at the scene on Nov. 22, all say there were three separate shots that struck President John F. Kennedy and Connally that day. Among other witnesses.  

Lee Harvey Oswald’s purported rifle that day was a single-shot bolt action rifle, the infamous Mannlicher-Carcano found in the TBSD.

Ergo, that means there was a second gun firing at JFK that day.  

The JFKA research community is to be deeply admired for dreadnought pursuit of truth over the decades, but this simple, compelling and presentable story seems to have been buried.

So let us review: 

Frame 225

In frame 225 of the Z-film, we see President Kennedy’s hands reaching for his neck or throat as the president emerges from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign. 

By witness testimony and Z-film confirmation, JFK has been shot at this point, whether from front or rear. Jackie Kennedy is looking at her husband, and concerned.  Connally is beginning to react, and turn around to see what happened. 

The WC posited—and inexplicably, the HSCA accepted—that Governor John Connally was also stuck by frame 225. And not only that, but by the very same bullet that struck JFK, now known as the “magic bullet.” 

Connally flatly refuted the WC version, in his testimony to the WC, and many times thereafter (and recorded on film), as did his wife, who was seated next to him that day in the limousine. 

Eventually, two Secret Service men and the presidential aide would reveal they concurred with the Connallys—that is, the first shot struck JFK, a separate second shot hit Connally, and a third shot struck JFK. 

Connally explicitly testified he heard the first shot, the one that struck JFK in the neck or throat. Connally was seated in the limousine, in a seat in front of JFK. 

Frame 284

Connally recounted he then turned around to peer over  his own right shoulder, trying to get a glimpse at JFK. And indeed the Z film at frame 284 shows the profile of the left side of Connally’s face—that is, Connally all but made a 180-degree turn in his seat to look for JFK. But after being struck in the neck, JFK had slumped towards Jackie Kennedy, to JFK’s left and out of Connally’s view. 

The WC version is, in essence, is that Connally was unaware he had been shot through the chest, had a shattered right wrist and leg wound, and then made a 180-degree turn in his seat to look for JFK. 

This does not hold water. 

The Z film confirms the Connally version, and that of the Secret Service agents and other close witnesses. Indeed, as stated, the left profile of Connally’s face is seen in frame 284, and he appears to looking for JFK, just as he consistently remembered and testified. Connally’s face is uncontorted, and does not show pain in frame 284.

Frame 300 

As he testified, Connally then begins to unwind himself to face forward, when he was struck. On the Z-film, Connally looks to have been struck ~296, and certainly looks distressed at ~300.

The Z film runs at about 18 frames per second, meaning Connally was struck about four seconds after JFK received his neck or throat shot. 

Frame 313 

And herein lies the story of why there were at least two guns that day in Dealey Plaza: Without dispute, a third shot strikes JFK in the head at Z-film frame 313.

Of course, the result of the above sequence is there is about one second between the shot that struck Connally and the subsequent shot that struck JFK. 

As even new JFKA researchers know, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle—to repeat, a single-shot bolt action rifle—requires a bare minimum of two seconds to manually operate between shots. 

This sequence, of a shot, then a four-second delay until the next shot, and then a one-second delay until the third shot, lines up with what many witnesses said that day: That there was one shot, a short delay, and then two shots in close succession. 

While witness testimony can be garbled and inconsistent, in this case the exact unwavering testimony of the Connallys is backed up by the Z-film. 

It is likely it this sequence and timing of shots that so bedeviled the WC, and in concert with Connally's straightforward testimony became the primary reason suppressing the Z-film and the invention of the single-shot theory, that of a bullet that passed through JFK and Connally.

If one suspects the Z-film has been altered, that is fine. The alterationists were unable to mask the timing and sequence of the shots.

Conclusion

The scholarship of the JFKA community, and the hunger for a nuanced understanding of the politics and mechanics of the assassination and the subsequent cover-up is to be deeply admired. 

Necessarily, JFKA researchers will go down some rabbit holes in search of the truth, and evolve some arcane and tortured narratives. 

And to be sure, the real truth may not be an easy-to-digest made-for-TV movie story. 

But for public consumption, the JFKA community has a true and easy to understand explanation of why there were two guns firing that day in Dealey Plaza, the one presented here. Two guns firing mean, at the very minimum, a conspiracy.

I am going to try to present this truth to mainstream publications, before President Joe Biden decides on Oct. 26 whether or not to release the remaining more-than 15,000 files still suppressed, as he should under John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

I hope others do also. 

Epilogue

Of course, everyone who watches the Z film notices the violent lurch JFK's body made after being shot in the head, to JFK’s back and left, as if shot from the Grassy Knoll. No doubt this bit of recorded celluloid history also made the WC very nervous. 

And in fact JFK may have been struck from a shot the Grassy Knoll. But the idea that bodies are violently propelled away from a gunshot is not always true, as hunters and soldiers can attest. Often, bodies do not move much after receiving a bullet, as seen by the first shot to JFK, and the second shot to Connally. For public consumption, this line of inquiry—the probable Grassy Knoll shot—can get muddied and twisted. 

It is regrettable that the acoustical evidence is simply not intelligible by the public in the way the Z film is. For example, when I listen to the Dallas Police Department dictabelt, said to be from an open mike on a Dallas motor cop’s cycle during the assassination, I hear nothing decipherable. 

However, how many people can believe that after being shot through the chest and having his right wrist shattered by a bullet, Connally would make a 180-degree turn in his chair to check on JFK, unaware that he (Connally) had been shot?  

I’d encourage anyone who would like to understand the objective historical reality of what actually happened on that day to make a serious effort to understand the scientific evidence that is now available. Within that the acoustic evidence is actually relatively easy to follow if you put your mind to it. The data in it can not be detected by the human ear but has been extensively studied and it is critical to a coherent model of the assassination.

I agree that the time intervals between shots from the rear are too tight to all have come from the Mannlicher-Carcano….beyond that would take a book….and it’s already been done.

Again I can see where you are coming from around Mexico City and the ‘coincidence’ of Oswald coming into contact with Azcue and Duran.

My worry about that as the underlying reason for the Mexico City incident is partially that LHO’s behaviour (or whoever it was) hardly seems designed to win friends and influence people, but rather seems provocative, slightly ‘nutty’ and more likely to make Azcue etc avoid further contact with him and quite possibly formally report the matter to protect his back.

A second worry is that if I’ve remembered correctly, the people involved in the ‘double punch’ approach on Azcue are identified in the available documents (or with likely candidates)?

Very interesting though and if I could get my head around how Oswald’s actions might have contributed to such a plan it would be a very neat scenario, and simpler than my currently preferred scenario of a CI op to identify the leak associated with Bakulin and LAROB that I’ve argued in favour of before.

Thanks...looks like it will be useful for me give TP a second reading...I hadn’t entirely grasped that connection first time round and the level of detail required now to keep up is such that I suspect that, just like SWHT, it will be useful to periodically re-refer to it as my own understanding gradually moves along...

David...

That is very interesting and I think I can see where you are going with this in terms of a short path for information to move between New Orleans and Miami involving operational level people who knew each other very well and trusted each other. Is that understanding correct?

There is also the resistance to releasing the Joannides files which may (or may not) be relevant...but they would relate more to the formal lines of communication between the DRE and JMWAVE...still I’d very interested to see what is in them. This is certainly an area where there is more to learn and I’m glad we have people expert enough to keep moving forward.

Tipping Point, like all Larry Hancock’s books, is exceptionally well researched and I’d suggest the best analysis of what might be termed the ‘minimalist conspiracy’ school of thought, at least in terms of the who and why of the assassination.

I would cordially disagree with the author on some elements of the physical events during the shooting, but that is not the main focus of the work and does not alter my opinion that this is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in understanding these events in terms of historical reality. Any more complex conspiracy scenario will need to include this scenario within itself to be consistent with the evidence, barring some major new development.

well done on yet another first class book

Hello

I agree that there is a very convincing body of evidence for one of the first two shots hitting the road surface in the manner described. In addition to the eyewitness testimony the acoustic evidence indicates five shots in total and the most persuasive alignment of that evidence with the Zapruder film and medical evidence suggests the main injuries were caused by shots 3 and 4, with the later the head shot from the knoll.

It’s been argued that the high positioned wound at the back of JFK’s head that the HSCA took for an entry wound, combined with the fracture pattern in the skull argues for a severe blow to the rear of JFK’s skull prior to the Z312/3 impact. A ricochet fragment from this early ‘miss’ is quite plausible as the likely cause of that injury.

we need to keep shot five hitting the kerb further down Elm to get the fragment that injured Tague. That leaves the remaining shot from the first pair going into the grass.

By the way the spacing of shots 1-3 are too close together to all have come from the Mannlicher-Carcano yet all three correlate better with the sniper’s nest location than the knoll (the only locations tested acoustically, unfortunately). That implies three shooters, one on the knoll and two behind the president...

In a sense both studies, but it’s the Weiss and Ashkenazy paper that went into much deeper detail on that particular shot that provides the key data for that specific calculation. The original work by Barger et. al. at BBN covered the whole shooting sequence and provides essential data for the overall shooting sequence of course.

Could I raise a second concern?

In the article there is a suggestion that a shockwave could not have been detected at Officer McLain’s location at the time of the Z312/3 headshot from the knoll. That assertion rests on using a 60 degree internal angle for the shockwave, which is described as the ‘rule of 60’ for a bullet at Mach 2. If the bullet was travelling at Mach 2 (around 2245 ft/sec at 65 deg. F and in a ‘standard atmosphere’ that would be correct.

the internal angle of the shockwave, and therefore the area in which it could be detected varies with velocity and the local speed of sound. This is usually calculated in terms of the critical angle whic is half of the full internal angle (I.e. the angle from the bullet trajectory to the shockwave). In the Mach 2 scenario 30 degrees, or half of the 60 degrees

critical angle = arcsin(1/M) where M is the Mach number or v/c where v is the bullet velocity and c is the local speed of sound. At M = 2 this does give a critical angle of 30 degrees and an internal angle of 60 degrees.

The key question is what was the actual velocity of the bullet at the closest point of it’s path to McLain’s position? That point is just before impact in this case. The velocity would drop from it’s initial value due to air resistance so the critical angle would vary and be at it’s largest just before impact when v was lowest but still supersonic.

if we take a counter scenario and estimate back the likely velocity of the bullet from the difference in timing of the shockwave and blast waves in the acoustic data we get an estimate of average velocity of 2202ft/sec +/- 104ft/sec. using HSCA test shot data to estimate the deceleration across the flight path we get an initial muzzle velocity of 2455 ft/sec and a final velocity closer to 2000ft /sec...both with similar error margins (yet again I find myself referencing Dr Thomas’s work!).
Using a mid-range estimate of 2000ft/sec would give a critical angle of 34.16 degrees and an internal angle of 68.3 degrees +/- 4 degrees in round terms (for the internal angle) when the margins of error are considered.

I would need to be a cartographer to draw the necessary maps accurately but this does seem to me to rather alter the interpretation of if the shockwave could have been detected or not.

So my question is would readers agree or are there other factors I have not considered?

thanks

James

I’d have to check through all the forensic information to be sure....In the source I was referencing it is described as being over half a centimetre in size and located 10cm above the occipital protuberance (just below the high positioned wound at the back of the head the HSCA proposed as their entry wound. Sorry not to be definitive...the medical side of this very complicated at least for my little brain. 

Thanks James

Perhaps the best overview of the evidence around the fragment at the back of the skull is in the same book I referenced above, Thomas, D., 2014, ‘Hear no Evil’ Chp 8 (the subsection titled ‘the radio-opaque lump).

It can be seen in one of the X rays (fig 8.8a in the above ref). It originally gets a mention in the FBI report from the autopsy but doesn’t get discussed in the original autopsy report. The HSCA Forensic Pathology panel discuss it (but go off record due to concern of one member around discussing it on the record) and the HSCA interpret it as a fragment that broke off a bullet on entry, as part of their problematic overall scenario.

I quite like scenarios where there are no discrepancies between different lines of evidence, which is why I wanted to ask what the readership here thinks about this in general terms...it seems to fit together well but there could be other evidence I haven’t come across.

I’ll come back with a second question in a day or two around the interpretation of the acoustic shockwave discussed in the articles.

Thanks for posting such an interesting discussion on your site...

I’d be interested in if there is any sort of ‘majority view’ on several of the points discussed. For reasons if space, time and focus I’ll raise these questions one a time if that’s OK, with initially some discussion of the reasons for each question.

Dr Robertson makes a point that the pattern of fractures in JFK’s skull strongly supports the idea that he received a severe blow to the back of the head shortly before the fatal headshot at Z312/3 hit at the front right (if memory serves, which in may not, Cyril Wecht originated that idea). That point strikes me as very persuasive but as critics have pointed out the acoustic evidence precludes the idea that this impact occurred 0.1 seconds prior to the grassy knoll shot.

Logically the impact on the rear of the skull does not have to have occurred so close to the grassy knoll shot. The evidence presented for that timing is the forward movement of JFK in that time frame but others have pointed out that the car was decelerating at time, leading to a natural forward motion (see Thomas, 2014, ‘’Hear no Evil’ Chp 10 for a review and references).

There was a bullet fragment recovered pancaked onto the outer surface of the skull, under the skin just below the high positioned wound at the back of JFK’s skull. As others have pointed out that suggests a fragment from a ricochet from one of the earlier shots hit JFK causing the initial fracture pattern. This might be consistent with Kellerman’s recollection that Kennedy exclaimed he had been hit, which would be unlikely to have occurred after the shot through the throat.

So...would people agree that both papers make valuable points in this regard and that evidence suggests JFK received a severe impact to the back of his head prior to the Z312/3 grassy knoll shot, but from one of the acoustically determined earlier shots that missed initially with a fragment then hitting Kennedy?

thanks

15 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Thanks for the references.

Any thoughts about why Corso wrote the book, in the first place?  (I still haven't read my copy of that book.)

For example, was it part of a broader MIC psy op regarding claims about "UFO" technology?

Hi

I would argue that it's extremely unlikely that Corso's book was part of any disinformation operation.

My reasons for suggesting that are that when you look back at the history of all this, pretty much all the 'perception management' efforts by the US government and its close allies have been in the opposite direction, towards downplaying the issue and reducing attention on it. Some examples of that include the policies that evolved around press releases in the early period (with much trial and error) but settling by the mid 50's on an approach of only putting out any detail on cases with a reasonable solution. By the second half of the 1950's NICAP was pushing hard for Congressional investigations, and there was a lot of effort put into managing perceptions of important Congressional figures to again downplay the issue and so on.

The reasons for that are fairly clear.

a) No politician wants to ever admit they don't know everything about everything. Admitting something is going on that we don't really understand is not good optics.

b) No official ever wants to tell a politician there is something going on they can't explain in their area of responsibility. It's distinctly career limiting.

c) Once the initial worries that this could be something Soviet faded, there remained a real concern that the phenomena could be used to create panic or to swamp 1950's era air defence systems with false targets. That theme runs through the Robertson Panel recommendations and the prior discussions within the CIA. Encouraging a degree of ridicule and making people look a bit stupid for misidentifications, and so discouraging reports, made a lot of sense in reducing 'noise' in the air defense system

I could go on... there are some interesting differences in approach once you move away from the English speaking world, but...

In that context putting out a sensationalist set of claims by someone like Corso (former Military Secretary to the 5412 Committee, if memory serves) was the exact opposite of downplaying the issue, so it just doesn't fit. I really don't want to speculate as to his true motives, but as the content of the book is largely garbage and he must have known that it doesn't leave too many options.

To be honest the intelligence community don't really need to do much to manage the situation....there are enough nutcases and charlatans out there to create quite enough confusion all by themselves.

ps. 

I read Corso's book years ago. After checking it out I threw it away.

On 7/12/2020 at 10:43 PM, W. Niederhut said:

After studying the lengthy "Unacknowledged" thread on the forum this weekend, (and watching that Netflix documentary) I have a question for the forum.

What are the best books (articles, etc) about Roswell and the UFO data?

I realize that the topic is not about the JFK assassination, per se, (unless, of course, E. Howard Hunt was telling Mr. Caddy the truth about JFK and the "alien presence"!) but I'm asking because I had stumbled around in the dark for a few years reading the JFKA literature before I gradually learned to distinguish the good stuff from the ubiquitous disinformation.

As an example, when I retired two years ago, a former patient of mine gave me a copy of the 1997 book, The Day After Roswell, by Col. Phillip J. Corso.  I haven't read it yet, mainly because I wasn't interested in going down the UFO rabbit hole.  (Also, Corso was a military-industrial complex insider.)

But, after watching, Unacknowledged, I'm curious.

 

Hi

I think Larry Hancock's suggested reading list is a very good start. I'll try to give a few recommendations for the different parts of the subject.

a) The Historical context

Larry Hancock's 'Unidentified' probably gives the best sense of how the problem was perceived by the military and intelligence community in the USA in the early period

'UFO's and Government' by Michael Swords, Robert Powell et. al. also gives a very good overview of the policy context although many of the case studies presented are really open to conventional explanations

In terms of recent developments, Keith Basterfield's blog gives quite a level headed overview of AATIP and all that stuff.

b) General Overview

I must recommend Ruppelt's 'Report on Unidentified Flying Objects' Although old (1st edition 1956 then a second edition with a fascinatingly different ending) and a bit 'happy' in style it really is essential reading. Ruppelt managed to slip quite a few little gems of information through behind that homespun style which have turned out to be correct such as the Twining memorandum, and a few interesting clues which tie in with later research around connections to the Research and Development Board etc.

Jacobs M (2000): 'UFOs and Abduction' gives a wide ranging and balanced series of essays by people from a whole range of perspectives, who were leading thinkers in that time period and gives a very good overview and introduction to different aspects of the problem.

Leslie Kean's 'UFO's' gives quite a good basic introduction from a post Blue Book perspective (the photo in there of the alleged Belgium Triangular UFO is now generally accepted to be a hoax, but other than that...). Chapter 27 has a short version of a very important paper by Wendt and Duvall 'Soverignty and the UFO', which is essential reading (the full versions is online if memory serves).

c) Technical and scientific aspects

Paul Hill's 1995 'Unconventional Flying Objects' is essential reading, although I worry he was largely inductive in his approach and many of the case studies used are less than secure

I would also recommend searching online some of the academic papers of Professor Michael Persinger and Dr John Derr on tectonic strain lights and UFOs...certainly not a panacea but part of the picture. There has also been some more recent work (I'd have to check the author) on the correlation between atmospheric plasma associated with the frequency of meteors and incidence of UFO reports. That correlation was first identified, as a purely statistical correlation, in the Condign Report which I would also recommend.

The Hessdalen project website is also good on what looks to be a natural atmospheric plasma phenomena that seems to be part of the solution, but not a full solution.

The Journal of Scientific Exploration has quite a number of good papers on this topic, although they tend to be less these days.

The NARCAP website is quite good if very focused on one angle on this.

I highly recommend Martin Shough's work. His RADCAT catalogue is a very impressive analysis of a group of radar visual cases, and his website has quite a few detailed studies and is very objective.

The 'UAP Reporting' website has some very good resources, including flow charts for identifying day time and night time misidentifications which I've found very useful in 'sanity checking' many claims. They are a little out of date now (drones etc) and don't cover radar cases, which get quite technical (see Martin Shough's work) nor help with photos and all the problems of CGI etc., but still very useful for older archive cases.

e) Official Studies

Blue Book Special Report 14 is well worth a read, if you check out the curious use of statistics...they actually more or less proved the opposite of what the wanted to claim.

You probably do need to read the Condon Committee Report

The Condign Report

The Cometa Report (short, but to the point)...there is also a follow up by SIGMA 3AF on that.

f) Roswell

I'd go with Larry's suggestion but a word of caution, Roswell is a complete dog's breakfast of fantasists, hoaxers, charlatans and bad analysis (including the various official explanations, which actually don't work), and some serious researchers. Bottom line is unidentified debris. It might be very significant or it might be just some random debris. The whole case needs stripping right back to basics and what can be documented, but I certainly don't have the patience for that morass...

g) A general word of caution

One thing I found over the years is that you can't rely on any claim or alleged fact in Ufology without checking it out for yourself. It is amazing how many famous authors just repeat stories from someone else's book and when you dig back into the primary documents it all falls apart. There is in the end a residue of cases that do represent a real challenge to the analyst and appear to represent a set of observations that appear to represent technological devices of a broadly consistent set of characteristics and patterns of behaviour, but they are actually quite few and far between. The other issue is that in reality not much changes quickly in this subject, which creates a problem for people who write, speak or blog about it. Over the decades there has been a trend towards more sensational claims and much of that is just nonsense put out in order to attract attention. It is a fascinating but also infuriating subject and the watch word is caveat emptor. That trend towards more sensational claims can also be seen on individual cases and as a general rule of thumb the later more sensational claims tend to be either demonstrably false or at best extremely dubious. I will mention one specific case, Rendlesham, which you might find interesting to follow through the timeline on. David Clark's analysis on his website seems to me to provide a full and coherent solution to what must have been a genuinely puzzling sequence of misidentifications at the time...but I'll leave you to consider that case in it's totality and how it get presented, along with the rest of it!.

Good luck!

Hi
 

I shall probably not be popular with this, but...

One of the things that was quite striking when I first began to study this subject was how none of the theories presented up to that point in time (more than 10 years ago now) worked fully across the full range of data. Quite a few worked for the evidence presented, but hit some awkward little facts when considered more broadly. This was challenging as I thought the physical evidence would be the area that would play to my strengths.

Then came Dr D B Thomas 2014 seminal work ‘Hear no Evil’ which is a staggeringly impressive piece of work. There are a few loose ends still  In terms of those 6 seconds but in all honesty JFK researchers need to recognise that there should no longer be this internal debate about the basic events of the assassination itself. Five shots, three shooters with the the fatal head shot at z313 from the grassy knoll. Thomas’ work is if the highest academic standard.

Any new proposal needs to build on that work and incorporate it in the way in physics new theories build on GR and QED which in turn build on and incorporates classical physics within themselves.

As a detail CE399 can’t have hit anything very hard at all.

11 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

David,

What evidence do you have that Silvia Duran is not telling the truth on any subject?

I watch her record carefully.  So far, she seems to me to be on the mark.

CIA officers complained about her not being one of their agents.

I know that her sister-in-law Lydia was a CIA source in Bolivia - KLAMBROSIA-29.

She was in a relationship with the married man Carlos Lechuga - AMLAW-3 - while the CIA was trying to convince Lechuga's wife and ultimately Lechuga to defect.

I have always viewed Silvia Duran as someone who was  being spied on.

Hi Bill

That is also the way I've always seen Silvia Duran too, for whatever that's worth.

18 hours ago, David Josephs said:

The notes at the top of the 2 images from the HSCA claim so... as does the WCR exhibit of the app.

Might be hard to read but it’s there... the wonderful world of JFK Assn evidence...

DJ

Sadly the interpretation is colored with the fraud perpetrated by the investigation.  Most are unaware of RAFAEL OCHOA..   who handled every item of Mexico side evidence...

Hi David

Could I play a 'devil's advocate' role here? In reality I am in no way decided on these visa applications, one way or the other. I should be clear that I have no expertise in questioned document analysis so I am just going to ask a few questions and hopefully we can see where it goes...

My starting assumptions are that Duran made two copies of the visa application, a top copy that went off to Cuba and a carbon copy that was retained in the Consulate files. She stapled a seperate passport sized photo of the applicant to each copy and got the applicant to sign both copies individually. The WC obtained a copy of the version held in the Consulate files and the HSCA got a copy of the top copy that went to Cuba.

In each case each image that we see has gone through several processes. There is a reference to Xeroxing the one from the Consulate and the HSCA photographing the version they saw. Presumably each copy has gone through various processes along the way to publication.

Q1. Could the various copying and photographing and printing processes done on the seperate images we see account for the distortions in the typed part of the document?

Q2. If you look at CE 2564, the visa application form from the WC report you can see a faint line of black dots in the photo of LHO running slightly diagonally in the upper part of the image, above his head. Could this be a trace of the staple on that photograph (a separate image to the one used in the top copy the HSCA got)? This image is much lighter than the HSCA one which presumably relates to the copying processes done on the different documents. Could this have led to the much fainter image of the staple in CE 2564?

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=844&tab=page

Q3. As the applicant would have had to sign both copies of the application is it possible that the applicant signed the top copy neatly but quickly scribbled his signature on the second copy? Has a specialist in handwriting looked at this at any time?

Q4. Is it likely that the top copy got the official stamp but the carbon going into the local file didn't?

Q5. As the version which looks most unusual is the WC version, obtained from the Consulate in Mexico, that would require the Cuban government to have co-operated in 'tidying up' the HSCA version at a later date or for the US to have modified the document to create a less than ideal forgery for the WC version in 1964 in a way that runs counter to their basic hypothesis. At first sight that seems the wrong way around for there to be forgery involved or am I missing something?

As I say, I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here to test out the possibilities...would actually be quite pleased if I could get to a point were I could 'sign off' on LHO not being physically present in Mexico as it would open the door to tying up the Odio incident, but I'm just not there yet.

Regards

Anthony

14 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Sometimes you just need a break...

Not really a "passport" application" but I get you...

I'm simply not sure if the application sent to Cuba, is the same as the one we see first in the WCR without a STAMP
or the second one at the HSCA - fully stamped - yet with a different signature and completely askew to the "original"....

But like all things from that time period, the evidence was created to fit the situation... standard FBI MO.
And that everything goes thru OCHOA, #2 at Gobernacion behind the CIA asset Echeverria.

There is no authenticated evidence available that puts Oswald in Mexico....  and those who were there and were our assets were not able to place him there.

We find it was Phillips and his assets who created much of the Oswald fallacy in Mexico... every BS story and bit of evidence traces back to him or OCHOA
who was basically helping cover Hoover's butt by offering (creating) evidence for Mexico when Hoover knew Oswald was doing his job traveling from New Orleans thru Austin to Dallas.

Hoover had no choice but to back the CIA's play, even if he had no idea what happened down there

If our man Ozzie wasn't there... how "real" can those applications be?

Here are the 2 items and superimposed using the #779 as the anchor.

Is it possible the captions are backward in the HSCA?  the one on the right looks like the original based on the thinness of the lettering yet that is the one they claim was photographed when HSCA staff met with Fidel.

If the fixed writing on these 2 sheets of this form line up for the carbon... the text would also line up.  

 

 

 

 

 

Hi David J

Thanks for the info...it's taking me a while to go through and I'm still trying to get my head around it. Can I just check I've got this right?

In the post I've quoted above the visa application image on the right is from a photograph taken by HSCA investigators in Cuba from a Cuban government source and has the staple in the photo and fairly genuine looking signature and a Cuban stamp. The one of the left (which looks older???) is the one the WC had and that has the faded photo with no obvious staple, the odd signature and no Cuban stamp??

Is that the right way around or am I getting muddled up here? 

That is just weird...not at all sure how to interpret that...

Anthony

2 hours ago, David Josephs said:

For the entire month of Nov the FBI looked for any sign of Oswald. (see composite of reports at bottom of post)

And when a list of FBI reports is compiled... these PECK & CRAWFORD reports are not listed...

Seems to me the FBI is deferring to the CIA transcripts as the only evidence of Oswald's trip... while hiding the facts as they learned them.

So why perform this CI activity the same weekend Oswald is with Cubans in Dallas, is seen by Odio and is at a shooting range also in Dallas?
Leaves Hoover very little room to wiggle if Ozzie is acting the informant/agent, getting paid and traveling with Cubans...  

Libeler: The Commission had information to the effect that sometime during November 1963, you saw a gentleman at the rifle range whom you subsequently came to believe was LEE HARVEY OSWALD?
Price: That's right. The first time I saw this person was in September, the last week, the last Saturday of September, and that was the afternoon they opened the rifle range.
Libeler: On the last Saturday of September? That would be Saturday, September 28, 1963?
Price: Yes.

 

 

Hi David

It is a really interesting question and your work has made me change my mind (from our previous conversation) from assuming Oswald was physically there for at least some of it to being very undecided about it to say the least.

Perhaps the key piece of evidence that keeps me agnostic on it is that Cuban visa application photo. That is clearly LHO and I can’t think of a scenario in which Duran wouldn’t spot that wasn’t the person in front of her and hard to see how either the USA could fake it without Cuba leaking the real version at some point in the last half century plus.

Do you (or anyone) have a view on that photo? 
 

cheers

Anthony

Hi Greg

If you don't mind I'd prefer not to go too far away from the focus on the original paper at the moment. You raise many interesting topics but they are slightly outside my main focus at the moment and in many cases open to various interpretations...we could end up producing a small (or, well, actually quite a large) book on all that. One very specific point. My take on the sequence of events after 22/11 is basically that apparent links to Castro and to the Russians scared the administration into closing down a serious investigation very quickly, and in the process missing the links to the anti-Castro groups. The exact motivations behind all that are open to debate, of course, but the sequence you alude to, with Hoover initially discussing what seems to be the actual events in Mexico City (more or less...bear in mind their understanding of the facts was evolving in real time and was not the same as we now have from our perspective). An example within that is the voice on the tapes (at least one copy of which we now know existed into 1964) and then that all very quickly reversing direction and that all seems to be part of that process. That could all be entirely honorable, or perhaps not for some individuals - that is one of the big open questions.

In terms of the telephone calls I suppose it boils down to the relative weight we place on the primary documentary evidence (or physical evidence in other areas where that exists) which I tend to give a high weighting to and only go away from that if I'm really forced to by other evidence. I suspect we may just have to cordially agree to disagree on the balance of evidence on that specific question.

The main thing I'm trying to outline in the paper is a scenario for why the 10th Oct memos were produced which works 'end to end' with the documentary evidence. That takes to me to suggest a link to a CI operation around concern of a 'high level of penetration' of the FBI that was occurring concurrently in Mexico City and it appears to be around the apparent test of LAROB by Bakulin back in July 1963. That may be entirely separate from the assassination conspiracy or it may not be. That's really the key proposal I'm putting forward.

Regards

Anthony

Hi Greg.

I don’t want to get too drawn into pre-62 stuff as that’s not been a recent focus for me, but a few thoughts...

I think we can all agree that O’s proficiency in Russian followed a trajectory of roughly:

1957 - next to nothing

late 1959 - low to moderate.

Early 1961 - good enough to pass as someone from the Baltic states on first meeting Marina.

1963 (and so probably by mid ‘62) - good enough to be a translator, or recommended as such..

In that context it seems clear he must have had plenty of practice speaking Russian, which is not evenly remotely surprising.

Would Anna Ziegler have memories, 36-38 years later, of O struggling with Russian? Obviously...particularly in the 1960 time period but even later, perhaps if the conversation was more specialised.

If I understand it correctly Mr Ziegler’s (or Zigler? The spelling seems to vary...) was fluent in several languages and O socialised with several people who where language students. It hardly seems strange to me that they would like to practice their English with O, so I have no problem with O speaking in English quite a bit with this group. He obviously wouldn’t be doing that much at work or in other every day situations. That could get you in bother with the authorities, as your friend found out, and impractical as most people wouldn’t have much English.

Other than the 1959 hospital incident I’m not aware of Soviet concerns about deception on O’s part around language. His language skills were developing in 59 which might be the answer to that particular incident...struggling to understand but having a good guess at the right answer...although he might also have been worried about what the Soviets were going to do with him and trying to pick things up. It is, however, a one off event and in highly unusual circumstances.

In general I see no convincing evidence that O deliberately pretended to be less proficient in Russian than he was beyond the 1959 hospital event, which seems easily understood in prosaic terms. There is no evidence of Soviet concern around anything like that, for example from 1960-62. The very old memories described also make sense in the context of Oswald evolving proficiency and the way memories distort rapidly.

In one sense it is always possible that an expert can pretend to be less skilled. In terms of Mexico City we have to ask the question of why on earth would he do that? The reason would have to fit consistently and coherently into the wider context of  at least one of O’s life, CIA operations or the conspirators’ plan. I don’t currently see a scenario for O himself doing that which works across the full ‘warp and weft’ of the data...which is why I’ve gone for the impersonation scenario, at least for the phone calls, with very high confidence.
 

cheers

Anthony

Hi Greg

At the moment I’m more inclined to the view that the author of the 1964 chronology got muddled up. We know that Duran phoned the Russian embassy late on the 27th during ‘Oswsld’s’ third visit that day (probably 5pm to 6pm) to check his claim that the Russians had granted him a visa.

I think the 28th Sept date for the caller in broken Russian talking about his address seems fairly well established. Yes, the consulate was close and the broken Russian is to me the most significant issue as the real Oswald was fluent.

Feinglass is indeed a psyeudonym for Boris Tarasoff. If you have a look at his 1978 HSCA testimony it does seem to me to resolve the issue around the ‘commentary’ on the transcripts you highlight.

Certainly a very complex situation and I’m very open to the possibility the the real Oswald was or wasn’t physically in Mexico City.

Cheers

Anthony