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PRAYER PERSON - PRAYER MAN OR PRAYER WOMAN? RESEARCH THREAD


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13 hours ago, Bill Miller said:

 

20130908-003704.jpg

 

Well I can't get over how fat "Oswald" looks here. And that can't be a loose work shirt as has been suggested. No loose shirt would look that wide on Oswald. A loose shirt is not much wider than the person wearing it. And what kind of shirt goes down to the knees if not the ankles?

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17 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

 

Well I can't get over how fat "Oswald" looks here. And that can't be a loose work shirt as has been suggested. No loose shirt would look that wide on Oswald. A loose shirt is not much wider than the person wearing it. And what kind of shirt goes down to the knees if not the ankles?

Could be a woman. ;)

*I won't make the 'button' argument that was previously debunked though. lol

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21 hours ago, Alistair Briggs said:

Lovelady entered the building twice! Once via the back and once via the front...

Lovelady's journey: On steps at front of building (with Shelley) -  leaves steps (with Shelley) - journeys round the back (with Shelley) - enters the building from the back (with Shelley) - is inside the building (separates from Shelley) - goes out through the front door - on steps at front of building (captured in Hughes film) - re-enters building via the front.

 

Muhahahahhaha Oh really?

You and Bill Miller  base this on what exactly?

The question him being asked at 29:00 mins was how long it took for him to get back inside after the shots had been fired?

I suggest you listen to both tapes!

 

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

And have a think about this as well while yer at it!

 

Sean Murphy mentioned in the Oswald Leaving TSBD thread the following:

Sean Murphy posts about Billy Lovelady at the Education Forum in 2013 (Prayer Man: Out of the Shadows and Into the Light, Chapter 9):
In the first part of his HSCA interview Billy Lovelady Lovelady is shown an image he has never seen before: a frame from the John Martin film showing him (Lovelady) standing over by the east side of the entrance some 15 minutes post-assassination. Lovelady identifies himself immediately.
HSCA: If a movie camera showed you farther in the center of the doorway than that person there [i.e. Lovelady in Altgens, who appears, due to the deceptive angle, to be well over to the left/west of the entrance] would you still identify that person as being yourself?

LOVELADY: Sure would. I would say the other picture was not taken at the split second as the one to the left is.
HSCA: Okay, alright. If it showed two figures in that doorway at the same time, and you could positively identify one as yourself, would that have any bearing on your identification of that other figure?
LOVELADY: No, that’s still me at the left [of the] doorway.
Whether knowingly (i.e., with knowledge of the Prayer Man figure in Wiegman) or unknowingly (i.e., by pure speculation), the HSCA interviewer has preempted the very discussion we have been having in this thread: 
Two Lovelady-resembling men caught on film at the time of the assassination, one over on the west ("left") side of the entrance and the other more towards the center.
 

Edited by Bart Kamp
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10 minutes ago, Bart Kamp said:

You and Bill Miller  base this on what exactly?

The question him being asked at 29:00 mins was how long it took for him to get back inside after the shots had been fired?

I suggest you listen to both tapes!

I've listened to both tapes.

I've also read your article on it where you pose this question:
" In Lovelady’s HSCA interview he stated that it took him 20 to 25 minutes before he returned to the TSBD. Then how comes he is standing on the steps in the John Martin pic/video below? "

 

22 minutes ago, Bart Kamp said:

And have a think about this as well while yer at it!

 

Sean Murphy mentioned in the Oswald Leaving TSBD thread the following:

Sean Murphy posts about Billy Lovelady at the Education Forum in 2013 (Prayer Man: Out of the Shadows and Into the Light, Chapter 9):
In the first part of his HSCA interview Billy Lovelady Lovelady is shown an image he has never seen before: a frame from the John Martin film showing him (Lovelady) standing over by the east side of the entrance some 15 minutes post-assassination. Lovelady identifies himself immediately.
HSCA: If a movie camera showed you farther in the center of the doorway than that person there [i.e. Lovelady in Altgens, who appears, due to the deceptive angle, to be well over to the left/west of the entrance] would you still identify that person as being yourself?

LOVELADY: Sure would. I would say the other picture was not taken at the split second as the one to the left is.
HSCA: Okay, alright. If it showed two figures in that doorway at the same time, and you could positively identify one as yourself, would that have any bearing on your identification of that other figure?
LOVELADY: No, that’s still me at the left [of the] doorway.
Whether knowingly (i.e., with knowledge of the Prayer Man figure in Wiegman) or unknowingly (i.e., by pure speculation), the HSCA interviewer has preempted the very discussion we have been having in this thread: 
Two Lovelady-resembling men caught on film at the time of the assassination, one over on the west ("left") side of the entrance and the other more towards the center.
 

I had already read that more than once prior to you posting it here by the way. What exactly is worth thinking about?

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Quote

Lovelady entered the building twice! Once via the back and once via the front...

Lovelady's journey: On steps at front of building (with Shelley) -  leaves steps (with Shelley) - journeys round the back (with Shelley) - enters the building from the back (with Shelley) - is inside the building (separates from Shelley) - goes out through the front door - on steps at front of building (captured in Hughes film) - re-enters building via the front.

It could have been...

Lovelady's journey: On steps at front of building (with Shelley) -  leaves steps (with Shelley) - journeys round the back (with Shelley) - enters the building from the back (with Shelley) - is inside the building (separates from Shelley) - goes back out the back door - makes the reverse journey - on steps at front of building (captured in Hughes film) - re-enters building via the front.

It's really inconsequential. As it's not hard to reconcile Lovelady's words in to a coherent timeline - without having to rely on him making stuff up. ;)

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On 2/12/2017 at 6:48 AM, Ron Ecker said:

 

Well I can't get over how fat "Oswald" looks here. And that can't be a loose work shirt as has been suggested. No loose shirt would look that wide on Oswald. A loose shirt is not much wider than the person wearing it. And what kind of shirt goes down to the knees if not the ankles?

And the figure is wide even when turned at an angle to the camera. Even wider if he turns straight on with the camera. While a fuzzy image can be said to look like it could have been Oswald - the girth causes him  not to be Oswald in my view.

It will be interesting watching how those who have so much invested in Oswald being Prayer-Man will handle this revelation. They either got to fatten the real Oswald up or slim Prayer-Man down.  :)

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15 minutes ago, Bill Miller said:

It will be interesting watching how those who have so much invested in Oswald being Prayer-Man will handle this revelation. They either got to fatten the real Oswald up or slim Prayer-Man down.  :)


They obviously don't see the same girth that you guys do. Otherwise they wouldn't be thinking PM could be Oswald. (I don't see the girth that you guys see either. I can't tell where PMs' shirt ends and the west wall begins.

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3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:


They obviously don't see the same girth that you guys do. Otherwise they wouldn't be thinking PM could be Oswald. (I don't see the girth that you guys see either. I can't tell where PMs' shirt ends and the west wall begins.

To start with - I don't think any girth was ever considered previous to now .... there certainly do not seem to have been any body size ratio comparisons made to that of Lee Harvey Oswald.  Also, if I had a lot of work involved in trying to make a case for Oswald being Prayer-Man, then I too would not be so quick to accept the girth observation.  The thing now is the girth has been raised and sooner or later someone skilled in Photogammetry will answer that question, thus leaving little wiggle room one way or the other on this issue.

Edited by Bill Miller
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3 hours ago, Bill Miller said:

To start with - I don't think any girth was ever considered previous to now .... there certainly do not seem to have been any body size ratio comparisons made to that of Lee Harvey Oswald.  Also, if I had a lot of work involved in trying to make a case for Oswald being Prayer-Man, then I too would not be so quick to accept the girth observation.  The thing now is the girth has been raised and sooner or later someone skilled in Photogammetry will answer that question, thus leaving little wiggle room one way or the other on this issue.

Bill:

as your style is, you again slip photogammetry as a tool to reconstruct and maybe measure Prayer Man's body or at least torso. However, to do photogammetry, one needs to have an object to be photographed from at least two quite different angles. The more angles the better the result. Would you please explain, since you propose it repeatedly, how can photogammetry be done with having Prayer Man photographed (although one can say repeatedly) from one and the same view angle? Or will you evade again as if nothing happened?

Coming to the question whether Prayer Man's torso looks thick: the problem is that we do not see Prayer man's torso as a spatial object, and therefore the side of his trunk is simply added to one large-looking 2D region. Instead of seeing how the front of the chest and abdomen bends towards the side, we see it as one flat area. It is that simple. The same applies to the lack of any clear boundary between the torso and legs. Oswald wore a worker type of shirt and slacks. Both were loose and the shirt wings appear to be over the slacks. Since they were of practically the same colour and owing to the really bad signal in that portion of the picture, it is very difficult to draw the contours of legs and waist.

I have modelled Prayer Man's figure extensively, and know that Praye Man's contour in Darnell's stills can be fit with a normal-weight man. The discussions of late in Prayer Man's threads are only about subjective interpretations of individual perceptions which lead the contributors to argue what could happen and what not, who someone was and who not. I am not sure that this is the way forwards.

I am adding the picture of Oswald's shirt and slacks again to explain my point re. the transition between the shirt and slacks in Prayer Man's figure one more time:

kosile.png

Edited by Andrej Stancak
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2 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Bill:

as your style is, you again slip photogammetry as a tool to reconstruct and maybe measure Prayer Man's body or at least torso. However, to do photogammetry, one needs to have an object to be photographed from at least two quite different angles. The more angles the better the result. Would you please explain, since you propose it repeatedly, how can photogammetry be done with having Prayer Man photographed (although one can say repeatedly) from one and the same view angle? Or will you evade again as if nothing happened?

"Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs, especially for recovering the exact positions of surface points. It may also be used to recover the motion pathways of designated reference points on any moving object, on its components, and in the immediately adjacent environment. Photogrammetric analysis may be applied to one photograph, or may use high-speed photography and remote sensing to detect, measure and record complex 2-D and 3-D motion fields ......"

My understanding is that if one knows the camera lens type and size, along with known measurements within the photograph .... distances and sizes of other objects in that photograph can also be determined. I know of one person who is experienced in Photogammetry and I have seen it applied to still 2D images. If I am wrong, then it should be easy for you to merely speak to someone skilled in that field to see if you are correct.

 

 

 

Edited by Bill Miller
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39 minutes ago, Bill Miller said:

"Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs, especially for recovering the exact positions of surface points. It may also be used to recover the motion pathways of designated reference points on any moving object, on its components, and in the immediately adjacent environment. Photogrammetric analysis may be applied to one photograph, or may use high-speed photography and remote sensing to detect, measure and record complex 2-D and 3-D motion fields ......"

My understanding is that if one knows the camera lens type and size, along with known measurements within the photograph .... distances and sizes of other objects in that photograph can also be determined. I know of one person who is experienced in Photogammetry and I have seen it applied to still 2D images. If I am wrong, then it should be easy for you to merely speak to someone skilled in that field to see if you are correct.

 

 

 

Thanks, Bill, for your explanation. The software packages mentioned at Wikipedia from which you seem to quote look very complicated and actually require multiple photographs.

Are you sure that photagammetry would work with this low-resolution picture in which it is difficult to recognise details of the body? 

It would be your big contribution to the Prayer Man topic if you could employ photogammetry to Prayer Man's figure. As you know, I work on 3D reconstructions using different approach and cannot embark on another project. We can then compare our findings obtained using photogammetry and 3D modelling.  Maybe you would you be able to contact the person familiar with photogammetry to ask about his/her view about the possibility to reconstruct Prayer Man from Darnell's still. In my experience, one cannot get more information from an analysis than that which the input data potentially contains. If we do not see e.g. the Prayer Man's left shoulder, how can we reconstruct his chest as a volume. However, I may be wrong and it may be all possible to do...

 

 

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On the subject of 'girth'...

... earlier on (either in this thread or in the other PM thread) the point was raised that the apparent look of the 'girth' of PM was too wide to be Oswald, the answer that was given to that was that the additional 'girth' was something of an 'illusion' caused by a woman standing lower down the steps in front of PM. However it has now been shown that there was no woman standing lower down the steps in front of PM that could explain the additional 'girth' - that is to say all the 'girth' belongs to PM.

Personally, I don't see the 'girth' in and of itself being an issue, inasmuch as, even with it all being PM's it doesn't preclude it from being Oswald because the 'girth' could be explained another way. (For example, as Andrej says about the 'loose' clothing)...

2 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Oswald wore a worker type of shirt and slacks. Both were loose and the shirt wings appear to be over the slacks. Since they were of practically the same colour and owing to the really bad signal in that portion of the picture, it is very difficult to draw the contours of legs and waist.

However, and considering this thread raises the question of whether Prayer Man may actually be Prayer Woman, it shouldn't imo be ruled straight out that it wasn't a woman...

... earlier on in this thread it was mentioned that 'evidence' of it being a woman was that there was 'buttons' synonymous with a woman's clothes, but that evidence was wholly debunked as the same 'buttons' were all over the image. In the same way that the 'no woman standing in front of PM causing the 'extra girth'' doesn't preclude it from being Oswald, the debunking of the 'buttons' doesn't preclude it from being a woman.

Earlier on in this thread it was stated that:

Quote

The gender is a given

The body shape is a given

The hairline is a given

All signposts point to one man. That is what has been proven.

There are those who claim that all of that has indeed been proven - and they no doubt believe it has been proven - and there is nothing wrong with that. ;)
On the flip-side though, as shown by others raising questions about the 'body shape', is it really a case of the 'body shape is a given'. Considering the 'quality' of the image/clip in question is it really a case that the 'hairline is a given', and as such is it really a case that the 'gender is a given'.

*Don't get me wrong, as I have stated earlier, I can look at the image and see it being a man that looks like Oswald, and can explain the 'girth' as being caused by 'loose clothing'. But that in and of itself doesn't prove anything.

Earlier on in this thread it was stated that: " No one admitting seeing anyone at all in the PM position" and that "no one admitted being in the PM position". It is true that none of the people who were on the steps at the time  either stated they were in the position or who was in that position... however from looking at what each and all of them actually stated about who they were standing with or near and in which location and then trying to match that with what we can see in the different images available of the doorway then we can start 'filling in the gaps' with regards to what each and everyone of them have said...

... and maybe, just maybe, by the process of elimination it might just show something of interest.

*I realise that there are those who are dead-set on it being Oswald, and that's fine, I have no problem with that at all. It is predicated on it being a man though, and I haven't yet ruled out the possibility of it being a woman.

 

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Alistair:

You hold both explanations (Prayer Woman or Prayer Man) open, and this is a fair standpoint. However, it becomes a bit different if you would like to dig deeper and beyond  this evaluation. You would maybe find out that you need an initial assumption, such as Prayer Man was Oswald, to navigate your research and test different discrete predictions. It would be difficult to assume that Prayer Man was just anybody and to do any research on that base because such standpoint would not generate any testable prediction. How can one "prove" that Prayer Man was just anybody?

While holding the view that Prayer Man was Oswald I do not claim I have proven it, only that there is enough cues to assume so and to direct my research in that direction. 

It would be a fair view to assume that Prayer Man was a woman. If anyone would hold this view, we would need to see the same effort as exerted by those trying to test that PM=Oswald. What would be the candidate woman? What testimonies support this prediction? Any pictures, any details about her body height? Would she drink from a bottle in public as Wiegman's frame shows? Or did she drink from a mug? Where this mug went to if it is not seen in Darnell's still? And so on, and so forth. I offered some researchers a collaboration on testing their assumption about Prayer Woman if they would let me know how tall she was and where exactly she stood. However, this has never been responded.

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4 minutes ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Alistair:

You hold both explanations (Prayer Woman or Prayer Man) open, and this is a fair standpoint. However, it becomes a bit different if you would like to dig deeper and beyond  this evaluation. You would maybe find out that you need an initial assumption, such as Prayer Man was Oswald, to navigate your research and test different discrete predictions. It would be difficult to assume that Prayer Man was just anybody and to do any research on that base because such standpoint would not generate any testable prediction. How can one "prove" that Prayer Man was just anybody?

Personally I'm not sure if it's a good idea to start with an initial assumption such as Prayer Man was Oswald and it's certainly not about proving that Prayer Man was just anybody! Of course, there does have to be a starting point from which to 'narrow the field'. My starting point has always been that Prayer Man, because of their position, has to have been someone from the TSBD building. To narrow that field down further I would thus make the assumption that it either has to be one of the people who stated they were standing on the steps or A. N. Other (and that with all things considered would be Oswald)..

14 minutes ago, Andrej Stancak said:

While holding the view that Prayer Man was Oswald I do not claim I have proven it, only that there is enough cues to assume so and to direct my research in that direction.

I appreciate what you are saying there Andrej. :)

With regards to the things that point towards it being Oswald, I have read this thread and the other PM thread and some of the things don't quite add up imo and maybe aren't actually useful things to use to point to it being Oswald...

... for example, what was PM holding? Perhaps not holding anything? Some have pushed the idea that it was a camera, but I haven't seen evidence to back that up. Some have pushed the idea that it was a 'coke' bottle - and as evidence of that they mention the 'coke' bottle and lunch bag still visible on the steps later on. Where is the link though? How do they know it belonged to PM? It could have belonged to someone else - for example: Lovelady testified to being on the steps for a period of approx. 30 minutes before the shots, during which time he ate his lunch and drank a bottle of 'coke'. His position on the stairs was closer to the location of the lunch bag and bottle caught in photos and although he doesn't mention leaving it, he also doesn't mention taking it with him - a very good inference can be drawn then that the lunch bag and bottle caught in the photos were actually Lovelady's...

... as much as it may look like PM is holding something in their hand there remains the possibility that they are holding nothing. The image just isn't clear enough to make a definite call on it.

17 minutes ago, Andrej Stancak said:

It would be a fair view to assume that Prayer Man was a woman. If anyone would hold this view, we would need to see the same effort as exerted by those trying to test that PM=Oswald.

For those trying to test that PM = Oswald, the 'burden of proof' is on them to prove it is Oswald, and in doing so they have a starting point that is the same as what I have mentioned above - that PM is either someone who said they were on the steps at the time or Oswald. It appears that some of those trying to 'test' that PM = Oswald have ruled it out as being a woman because it looks like a man.

As much as I can agree that from looking at it it does look like a man, that alone doesn't rule it out as a woman!

34 minutes ago, Andrej Stancak said:

What would be the candidate woman?

One of the ones that said they were standing on the steps at the time!

1 hour ago, Andrej Stancak said:

What testimonies support this prediction?

First, what testimonies support it being Oswald? None. Not one person mentioned Oswald being there! Could Oswald have been there unseen? Could he have 'sneaked' in to that position and not be noticed by anyone? How could he have done that? Consider the positions of the other people and consider how the door opens; the likliehood is that no one could have 'sneaked' in to that position unseen. What's left then? That he was seen and the people just didn't mention it? Wouldn't mention it? Couldn't mention it? For whatever reason... OR the reason no one mentioned Oswald being there is because he wasn't. What other testimony supports Oswald being there? Not Fritz, or Bookhout, or Holmes - ah, but they were making things up, right!

Anyway, all the testimony of all of those who were standing on the steps is very easily available and can be cross-referenced with each other to get an idea of who was where and with whom etc. The photographic evidence starts to rule certain people out straight away. Process of elimination shows who is left over, and they need to be somewhere don't they. Looking at who they each said they were standing with or near can further help pinpointing the locations of each. I've done it it all and narrowed it down and let me put it this way, if one of them has just mistaken 'left' for 'right' then that could go a long way... 'proving' it, well selling the idea to the 'masses' is a whole different matter.

1 hour ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Any pictures, any details about her body height? Would she drink from a bottle in public as Wiegman's frame shows? Or did she drink from a mug? Where this mug went to if it is not seen in Darnell's still? And so on, and so forth.

How tall Prayer Man is, what their body height is, what their size is, what they are holding or not holding is all relatively moot because of the 'quality' of the image. If a better quality image ever surfaced all of those things would still be relatively moot as the better quality image would no doubt show whether it was Oswald or not - and of course, it doesn't really matter who it actually was if it wasn't Oswald, because if it was shown not to be Oswald then it is not Oswald...

1 hour ago, Andrej Stancak said:

I offered some researchers a collaboration on testing their assumption about Prayer Woman if they would let me know how tall she was and where exactly she stood. However, this has never been responded.

Whilst we may know how tall Oswald was, we don't know exactly where PM stood, or indeed how PM stood, so not sure why those things would be an issue if testing it as not Oswald.

Setting all of that aside...

... find out all those that said they were on the steps, and consider them all, don't rule out the women. Look at where each of them said they were and who else they saw or who they were with. Use all of that to get an idea of where everyone was, cross check that with the different photos (Altgens 6, Weigman frame, Darnell frame) and see whether they moved or not. Start to identify each and every one from the photos and rule them out... see who is left over and then try and see where they could possibly be in the photos.If they can be unequivocally be placed in other positions then they can't be in the PM position, but if one of them can't be unequivocally placed elsewhere, then where must they be by definition... ;)

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