Pat Speer

Are you claiming he was hit at 227 or 228? Because he is undoubtedly reacting to something within a split second of coming out from behind the sign.

To me it's quite obvious. Kennedy reacts before going behind the sign in the film, and Connally reacts after coming out from behind the sign in the film. P.S. While Gerry is blindly guessing at reasons Kennedy made his sudden turn, at least he is acknowledging the obvious--that JFK reacts to something. For decades single-assassin theorists claimed JFK was calmly waving prior to his coming out from behind the sign, and that he and Connally first reacted at the exact same time. This is balderdash. But the CT side trying to dismiss that Connally is hit circa Z-224 is equally blind, IMO. I mean. just look at him. He turns. He winces. He yells out "Oh my God, they're going to kill us all." What more do you need?

I think you have it backwards. Jackie's turn to JFK as they went behind the sign--and the probability this came as a result of his being shot--has long been considered extremely problematic for the single-bullet theory, and thus the single-assassin solution. Is it a coincidence that these frames disappeared when Life cut up the Z-film? Is it a coincidence Dale Myers chose to leave Jackie's movements out of his cartoon? Maybe. Maybe not. But you won't find Jackie's head turn discussed in any pro-LN material. It is simply not discussed. As far as her recollections... We can not see Jackie's eyes, so it's entirely possible she started to look at her husband but saw JBC moving in his seat and then receiving a bullet and only then began to focus on her husband and realize he'd previously been shot.

I would agree that Humes most probably fudged his report to connect the EOP entrance to the large wound. (This may even be one of the reasons he destroyed his notes, along with the first draft.) But am confused by one line: "not have confused it for a trail that started 4 inches lower and that ended at a point 2 inches lower in relation to the reference points of the EOP and the right orbit." Ended at a point two inches lower? Is this a reference to the large fragment found behind the eye?

A couple of points. 1. I'm not aware of any evidence the Secret Service destroyed x-rays. Where does this come from? 2. The autopsy report was written 2 days after Humes last saw the x-rays. It seems apparent that his initial thoughts were that the back wound was a dead end. There is also some evidence he believed there were two head wounds, and only matched up the EOP entrance and large head wound after it became clear he needed to limit the number of shots. If so, he may very well have claimed the x-rays showed a low to high trail of frags, even though he had been denied the chance to double-check this.

Gary is reporting what others have said. This is not necessarily what he thinks. He knows full well that Harper said the frag was found in front of where JFK was assassinated, but is deferring to an FBI report (which he would usually dismiss as dog crap) because it helps him make a point that will help his case, true or not. Many of the top researchers view the assassination as a trial, where they are attorneys, and the public is the jury. As a result, they often repeat things, both in print and in public, that they think will win the case...that they don't actually believe. The other side is no better, by the way. I mean, we both know that Vince B et al would have destroyed the likes of Brennan, Markham, Givens, Specter, Belin, etc, should they have not told them what they wanted to hear.

Hello? I acknowledge that Gary thinks the tangential shot blew off the back of the head. But I am nearly certain he doesn't believe the Harper fragment was occipital bone. Nor that the Z-film is fake. Nor that the body was altered, etc. IOW, he is not a member of "Team Mantik."

Uhhh... I seriously doubt this, Sandy. I have had dinner with Gary several times, have been invited to his private conferences multiple times, and have even spent the night at his house. 1) I don't believe Gary has been active on the internet for quite some time. 2) When he was on the internet, he spent most of his time arguing with McAdams, and tried to stay out of CT on CT warfare. 3) He is reluctant to come to conclusions, but has closely associated himself with Tink Thompson, who holds that the first head shot was a tangential shot from the front, that blew off the top and back of JFK's head, and that the second shot was from behind and exited through the blown-out skull. He has also written numerous articles with Wecht. Neither Thompson nor Wecht have ever claimed there were THREE headshots, a la Horne and Mantik, nor that the Z-film was fake, nor that the autopsy photos are fake. They have tried, moreover, to separate themselves from those positions, seeing as those positions have been closely associated with Fetzer and Groden (who are not taken seriously by "serious" researchers.) I do believe, however, that both Aguilar and Wecht are open to the back of the head photos being deceptive, with scalp pulled up to to cover up a hole, and to the x-rays having been tampered with. But I am near certain neither Aguilar nor Wecht subscribe to Mantik's ridiculous orientation for the Harper fragment, and suspect they hold Robertson (who is as annoyed by Mantik's nonsense as I) in higher esteem than Mantik. As for myself, I have no idea what their current views are. But they must have thought highly of my research at one point, seeing as Gary has intervened on my behalf to allow me to speak at a conference, has shown slides from my website in his own presentations, and has invited me to speak at his private conferences, and seeing as Cyril invited me to speak at his 50th anniversary conference in opposition to Mantik, and received an hour-long private presentation of my research the following year.

You really need to read my "Stuck in the Middle with You" chapter, which details Mantik's journey. What you don't seem to realize is that there is pretty much.a cult surrounding Mantik, that support him because they find his findings sexy and provocative. But most of his findings are nonsense. I've shown this over and over over the years. As fart as prominent people supporting Mantik's findings...Your argument from authority falls flat. (I know David well enough to know that he would agree with me on this.) To be clear, a number of people find his OD readings interesting. But Mantik proposes a right frontal entrance and an exit involving the left back of the head, neither of which was observed at Parkland or Bethesda. And this is in addition to a tangential wound at the top of the head, and an EOP entrance from behind. (I forget at the moment just where he thinks this bullet exited.) In any event, he has long proposed not two head shots, but three. I have talked with Wecht and Aguilar and neither of them subscribe to this. They are both on Team Thompson last I checked in that they both suspect a tangential wound at the top of the head, and a second bullet from behind that exited though the open skull. Wecht has told me, moreover, that he has a friendship with Mantik and supports his writings, but that one should not take from this that he agrees with all of Mantik's findings. P.S. Here is Doug Horne pointing out the location for his and Mantik's phantom wounds. Note that it is built upon--no surprise--Mantik's clearly incorrect orientation for the Mystery Photo.

Oh my. I have a ton of material on the Harper fragment on my website. Much of what Mantik has written has been a response to what I've written, in an attempt to prop up his ridiculous conclusion the Harper fragment is occipital bone.

I don't want to get into it, but the list you cite is largely meaningless. Some of them like Mantik and think his research is interesting, but have separated themselves from many if not most of his conclusions. Ironically, I agree with David about the dictabelt and disagree with the conclusions of Don Thomas, which some of these people whole-heartedly support. (Should the point not be obvious, I'm pointing into out that this same list of people would not side with Mantik on numerous other points...) P.S. You still haven't addressed any of these points... 1. Does the white patch cover Mantik's location for the Harper fragment? If not, why did most everyone citing Mantik's research claim it did prior to my pointing out that it did not? 2. Does Mantik's orientation for the mystery photo depict a large hole on the LEFT side of the skull? And, if so, why is it okay for him to pretend his orientation is in keeping with eyewitnesses who saw no such hole? 3. Does Mantik's orientation for the large triangular fragment necessitate a large hole on the front of the head, separate from a hole on the back of the head? And, if so, why didn't the Parkland witnesses notice such a thing? 4. Seeing as the bulk of the witnesses saw one and only one large hole on the head, doesn't it make a lot more sense to assume the large triangular fragment derived from this hole, as opposed to pretending there was a large hole that nobody saw? I could go on for days...

Mantik's "new" book is a collection of old essays containing a number of findings he has since abandoned. He corrected his incorrect placement of the smudge on the Harper fragment in 2013, during a "debate" with myself. P.S. Let me address one of Mantik's points. He writes: "According to Angel, the sagittal (i.e., midline, top of the head) suture is visible on the Harper fragment. That suture line helped Angel to locate the Harper fragment near the skull vertex, as shown in my Figure 11. However, based on the Harper X-ray, the lead site then lies just to the left of the skull vertex—and the lead is on the outside of the skull! That is truly bizarre. No one has ever proposed that a bullet entered at this site, yet that is precisely where Angel’s (and Riley’s) placement of the Harper fragment has led them." This is blithering nonsense. The lead fragment is to the left of the skull vertex in Mantik's mistaken orientation for the lead fragment, but near the temple on what he now admits is the proper orientation for the lead. So it's bit of a switcheroo. He admits he's wrong about one point, but then says he's right about another, by citing what he already admitted was false. Even more ironic. Initially, Mantik rejected my orientation for the Harper fragment on the skull by claiming no one had noted an entrance by the temple. He then admitted I was correct about the location of the lead on the fragment, but, as we've seen, still pretended the location for the lead in Angel's (and my) orientation meant the lead was left of vertex. He then started proposing there WAS an entrance near the temple, exactly as I'd been proposing for years, but failed to acknowledge that this was consistent with Angel's orientation for the Harper fragment. In short, he is desperate to pretend the Harper fragment is occipital, and has actively concealed reasons to believe it is not.

Uhhh, yeah. She was a medical illustrator hired by the HSCA FPP to help them with their exhibits. As it had been decided that the FPP could not put autopsy photos on the record, she was tasked with "tracing" a number of the photos. The problem, of course, is that these exhibits were not created in a vacuum, and were twisted a bit here and there to help Dr. Baden "sell" the FPPs conclusions. The most notorious example of this is the tracing of the back of the head photo, which Baden had Dox re-do to make the red spot look more like a bullet hole. This is pretty awful, when you think of it. The FPP concluded there had been a bullet hole where no witnesses saw a bullet hole, and their illustrator traced a photo in such a manner that it did not look like a bullet hole. So Baden had her "correct" her work to help him sell this non-existent hole.

How many of these pathologists had a background in skull reconstruction, or skull anatomy? It's a canard that all doctors are experts in anatomy or x-rays, etc? As someone who's spent much of the last two years in hospitals dealing with widely respected doctors, I can assure you that a few hours with an anatomy book or radiology book will make you far more qualified to judge the location of a bone, or the proper placement of a bone fragment an x-ray, than most doctors. On the other hand, Angel was a forensic anthropologist, who reconstructed numerous skulls, and Riley was a neuroanatomist, an expert on skull anatomy. Their opinions on a bone fragment would hold more weight than a hundred forensic pathologists. But we don't need them. All we need are eyes. As stated, moreover, Mantik now acknowledges that the Harper fragment bears little resemblance to occipital bone, and has mused that maybe JFK's Addison's disease flattened out the ridges that would otherwise be apparent on the inner aspect of the Harper fragment. Do you believe this? If so, well, I feel sorry for you.

You're cherry-picking, Michael. How many of those claiming they saw a hole on the back of the head said the autopsy photos were fake? Very few. More telling, how many of them placed the wound LOW on the back of the head below the level of the ears? Only a few. And of this few, how many made this claim prior to being shown the so-called McClelland drawing? None, right? You really should check out my website. It debunks a lot of crap from both sides of the fence, and presents a lot of FACTS people have chosen to ignore. Here's a goodie. In the early '80's The Boston Globe showed both the back of the head photo and the so-called McClelland drawing to a number of Parkland witnesses. It's been widely reported that most of these witnesses said the autopsy photo did not reflect what they remembered. But unreported until I reported it is that an even greater percentage of these witnesses rejected the accuracy of the so-called McClelland drawing. So how did Livingstone and Groden deal with this? They perpetrated a hoax and said ALL of the Parkland witnesses said the McClelland drawing was an accurate depiction of JFK's wounds. This was not true, then, or ever. And yet Groden and many others continue to pretend that the McClelland drawing--which wasn't even drawn by McClelland--is an accurate depiction of JFK's head wound, and was acknowledged as such by most every Parkland witness. It's a con.

The Harper fragment is a 2 1/2 inch triangle, Michael. None of those drawings come close to depicting a 2 inch triangle of bone resting entirely on the occipital bone. The closest would be the top drawing, but that depicts a hole largely on the left side of the skull. How many witnesses saw such a thing? None. So, yikes, the eyewitnesses claiming to see a wound on the back of the head simultaneously suggest that the Harper fragment was not occipital bone.

When one studies images of occipital bones in photos and drawings it's 100% clear the Harper frag is not occipital bone. This was the conclusion, moreover, of Lawrence Angel--who was at that time the top forensic anthropologist in the country, and Joseph Riley, a neuro-anatomist. And yes, it's really quite obvious. Yes, even to Mantik. In his book he mused that the frag didn't look like occipital bone because Kennedy's Addison's disease had deformed his skull bones. I think we can agree that that is just desperate.

More or less where Angel put it. Baden realized that Angel's interpretation was at odds with his own interpretation of the location of the large triangular fragment. So he pretended the Harper fragment actually sprang from the right temple area, which no one but no one takes seriously.

Ok. It's clear you've never read my chapter on Fetzer, White and Mantik. Mantik has never countered most of what is presented within--because most of what is presented within is Mantik's own ever-shifting claims and statements. You should also be aware that he later admitted he was wrong about some of what he presented in his "critique" of my website. Most tellingly, he was forced to concede that his interpretation of the Harper fragment x-ray was incorrect and that I was 100% correct in my interpretation.

Mantik's "contribution" to Z-film analysis was his 'discovery" Mary Moorman was added onto the film in a location where she never stood. This was rejected by Moorman herself and debunked by Tink Thompson on this forum. Anyone who thinks Mantik's contributions to the JFK case, beyond the medical evidence, are taken seriously...,hasn't been paying attention.

If you could find me a single article in which he separates himself from Fetzer and says Fetzer was wrong about the moon landings, Z-film alteration, 9/11, etc, I would be surprised. If you go back through this forum you will find a pattern... Fetzer would claim Mantik was the top researcher blah blah blah and then claim Mantik said x. I would then correct him and say "No, that's not what Mantik says." He would then check with Mantik and Mantik would tell him I was right. He would then make another claim about Mantik that just wasn't true. And this wasn't entirely Fetzer's fault. Mantik had allowed a lot of people to think things, that he would later claim was untrue. The classic example is the white spot apparent on the x-rays. Numerous writers cited Mantik and claimed this spot covered up a hole on the back of the head from where the Harper fragment had been dislodged. The problem was that this white spot did not reach the back of the head where Mantik claimed the Harper fragment had once resided, and that there was no missing skull in Mantik's analysis underlying the white spot. So Mantik changed his conclusion to be that the white spot was inserted to conceal missing brain, not skull. But this made no sense to some of his biggest supporters. So they kept claiming it concealed the former location of the Harper fragment. This is documented ad nauseam on my website.

Dr. Davis nailed it when he admitted the "trail of fragments" appeared to be on the outside of the skull. It is. I will give credit to Mantik here because eons ago he observed that there was no brain where this "trail" was supposedly located. The obvious conclusion is that the bullet broke up on the outside of the skull at the supposed exit.

In 2013, I was invited to "debate" Mantik because some of the most prominent names in research-land wanted to put him on the defensive. I have come to know these people. They don't trust Mantik's research, and were delighted when he was forced to admit some of his mistakes during our "debate." What you fail to see, I suspect, is that to many Mantik is synonymous with Fetzer. He rose to prominence through Fetzer, and never cut ties with Fetzer. Although he's admitted some of his mistakes, he has never divorced himself from Fetzer's claims the moon landing was fake and the Towers were brought down by laser beams etc. And there's a reason for this. It's because they are two peas in a pod. (With the notable difference that Mantik is basically a gentle person and Fetzer is pretty much a bully.)

??? He presented a photo of a small wound that would normally be considered an entrance, then pointed out that IF the corresponding wound--the wound with which it connects--is an even smaller wound, well, then, THAT wound must be the entrance. This is a textbook by a prestigious doctor in collaboration with a number of other prestigious doctors. He was pointing out medical facts to people responsible for determining medical facts. And yet what he reported was 100% at odds with what he concluded as part of the HSCA FPP. As far as the Parkland witnesses, on what issue should we believe them? They nearly unanimously claimed the wound they saw was above the ear and thus not a large wound on the occipital bone. And yet, even so, most everyone saying they "believe" them assumes they were wrong about this. They also claimed they saw one large wound. And yet many of those supposedly "believing" them say there were two large wounds--one at the front of the head and one on the back of the head. Even more absurdly, those making this claim say these witnesses saw the large head wound on the back of the head while JFK was lying on his back, but failed to notice the large wound on the front of the head that was right out in the open. Balderdash.

Petty was a well-respected forensic pathologist. He did not conduct experiments on cadavers. The photos in his book were of actual gunshot victims. The "shored" wound explanation is a myth, like most of what's been published on the JFK medical evidence, from people residing on both sides of the fence. I spent years combing through the UCLA medical archives, and reading all I could find on gunshot wounds, forensic pathology, forensic radiology, etc. And most of what has been published and written on this forum have been second-hand myths scraped together to push a particular viewpoint. I'll give you a CT myth. Many have argued and continue to argue that it would be impossible for ALL the Parkland witnesses to be wrong, etc. This misrepresents the facts in two ways. One is that it holds, incorrectly as it turns out, that the Parkland witnesses were uniform in their impressions. And the other is that even if they were in agreement, they could still be wrong, as people are routinely and uniformly wrong about a lot of things, for a lot of reasons. When I was looking into this, I contacted two of the top cognitive psychologists in the country, and they assured me that people often misinterpret events or objects in a uniform manner. It's not remotely surprising to them. Now I know some like to quote Gary Aguilar on this, in which he cites Elizabeth Loftus, as support for the "fact" people don't make uniform mistakes. But Gary, a friend, screwed up, and totally misrepresented the substance of Loftus' findings. and the findings of those who've engaged in similar research.