David G. Healy
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Posts posted by David G. Healy
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and for the record BMiller, any alteration that took place in the Z-film happened at the 35mm level, multiple ways of accomplishing same... as I suggest and graphically displayed 6 years ago -- just like they do in the big leagues, the results dumped down to K-II 8mm film....[/color]
David, you must be really stupid to repeat the same half-assed argument over and over again. Once again, no one said the film could not be altered at any level if given a reasonable window of time ..... what you keep leaving out of the equation is that it could not be done so not to be detected by todays standards of investigating the possibility. No one has showed any evidence that the Zapruder film has been altered ... I believe that you and I have agreed on that to date.
Bill Miller
Unlike you, I make a living image composing, compositing and editing! Individual Z-frames frames altered within hours of the assassination, 1st alteration pass on the film 60 days -- plenty of time!
STUPID? In your fondest dream... lmao!
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Bill Miller'wrote:
Jack, are you not aware that the same Healy has told this forum that he has seen no proof of alteration to the assassination and post assassination images. That this statement came AFTER the article was written in the Hoax book. David deals with the POSSIBILITY of altering the Zapruder film and this point he has made clear several times to this forum, yet you somehow spent 30 minutes reading a three year old article and came away with an impression that doesn't even match what its author has stated to this forum. Maybe you may wish to spend 30 minutes reading Healy's responses concerning his opinion concerning the proof or lack thereof relating to Zfilm alteration.BTW, was it your purpose in starting this thread with the ridiculous remarks you made about 'retirement' for some of us so to incite and provoke a negative response? If so, then you failed.
Bill Miller
I suspect Jack is MORE than well aware as to my thoughts, position regarding possibilities of Zapruder film alteration. He presented just prior to my presentation at Fetzer's 2003 Z-film symposium, he was in-the-room when I presented, and he's privy to the to the entire symposium DVD set.
Your gang was 'retired' before you started regarding the subject at hand. The best hope you [and they] had going, was RZavada's [with Ray Fielding's help] update. A update I invited (to this forum) and one he discussed with others on other occasions. Failing that, its back to more of the same nonsense... attack Jack White, the Z-film alteration position and other messengers.
The only hope you have in defending the non alteration contention is; wake Groden up, get him to review some of his *acquired* 35mm Z-film [non-rotoscoped] strips and post a few "why it's impossible" photo examples and findings here, for all to see... Short of that, you're making more noise....
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I'm a retired businessman. My goal is to find out some information about the bombing of North Vietnam. My father-in-law was LtCol Richard James Hubbard. He flew B-52's during that war. It was my understanding that he the head of bomber operations during the heigth of the war in SE Asia. He was stationed out of Uddapao (sp) Thailand. I had had discussions with him about B-52 loses during the war. He said that there were none, but he could not discuss it. I understand there is a shot down B-52 on display at it's crash site in Hanoi. Is there anyone that can give me any information on this subject?
Dave,
I'd post your enquery to the alt.war.vietnam (Google) board, many, MANY Vietnam era vets hang out there.
To the best of my knowledge there were many downed B-52's during the Vietnam conflict, particularly when flying raids over North Vietnam, Hanoi specifically
.
David Healy
USArmy MAAG-Vietnam
1963-64
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Len Colby dronned:
LOL Jack you spent 30 minutes reading that and didn’t realize that it his chapter from “The Great Zapruder Film Hoax”? You know the book you both contributed to 3 years ago. Didn’t you read it when it first came out? It didn’t strike you as familiar?
dgh: my goodness Len, don't you recognize New York hype when you see it?
I skimmed but it didn’t notice any new despite his claim that it was revised. He didn’t even change the first line “During the past six months or so I have designed graphics…”
dgh: What's IT didn't notice anything? So, yeah, revised as in: cleaned up a bit, no additions - no deletions
Perhaps David can highlight what if anything is new here.
dgh: perhaps Len can tell us, if he can, something, some point he can prove in the revised that's inaccurate?
I didn’t find the chapter particularly compelling last time around.
dgh: you mean you can comment from a position of authority regarding film/video compositing
It still doesn’t answer any of the questions he did answer in any of the innumerous threads about Z – film alteration.
dgh: ah... what are you drinking down there, Len? I'm open to specific film compositing questions you and others have Len?
No where in it does he cite any films from that period with alterations comparable to what was alleged in Hoax
dgh: listen up einstein.... every, EVERY film from 1920 on utilized optical film compositing. Comparable, comparable to what? What degree of Z-film alteration do you think was possible in 1963, besides the usual Lone neuter rant; "it was impossible..... yakety-yak"? Anyone over there have balls these day's?
Zavada replied to Hoax soon after it came out.
dgh: you dufeses replied to HOAX BEFORE it came out, how'd you master that there Len, your handlers clear you for that yet?
We’re still waiting for Healy’s “formal claim” which he declared publicly would be ready “soon” 8 months ago a month before Zavada privately said he would write a new treatise but it would “take some time”. Speaking of which Healy has yet to provide any evidence that Zavada said it would be ready soon or admit he was wrong.
dgh: Formal claim? month before? You fool, Roland and I were conversing before you heard of Roland Zavada's name... put the vino down Len. Oh-wee, whose feeding you this nonesense? What do you call this tripe: the brazillian shuffle? LOL. The original Zavada report will stand, finished, old news, there won't be a update from Roland, for multiple reasons. Primarily cause he can't, not well enough -- although I suspect Harry Livingstone and Doug Horne (upcoming book) had a little to do with it....
ah, earth to Lenny -- evidence of what? wrong about what? Do I have to remind YOU; the deal I respond to is Roland Zavada's update report/presentation AFTER he uploads it here. NO DEBATE here or other boards or venues [from the peanut gallery meaning you clowns] which Roland put forth and I agreed. Shall I start posting private emails between he and I? Not to mention some emails which your side was not aware I was cc'd BY Roland Zavada and OTHER Lone Nutter's during the life of certain emails?
So hang around Lenster, get out a few college film production texts, hire yourself a film compositing guru and a master film prnter with KODAK 35/8mm film stock experience. There's a few Z-film frames you're going to have to evaluate, what those frames looked like in 35mm format, and what those same frames would look like after going from 35mm to 8mm (including grain structure).
So in closing Len, I'm a compositor/editor, I ignore reality, I make scenes happen -- what you or anyone else thinks about those scenes is none of my business, excepting the producer of course -- You don't believe it, fine. Prove, PROVE the thesis wrong, simple as that, Len. No whinning, no fuss, no 50,000 combined posts from wannabe CTer's, stop the whinning, prove me wrong....
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Dawn – I agree with you that BS is obnoxious but as Bill pointed out in this case Jack provoked this. I remember when Jack accused BS, Craig, Bill and me of being accessories to the murder of JFK and you were silent, but when we replied with indignation you asked why we were ganging up him. When Evan got pissed off because Jack accused him of hacking the forum you told him it was a joke and that he should grow up. BS's comment however in bad taste could be considered a joke too. I sense a double standard, when Jack is obnoxious you're silent but when his 'victims' reply you jump to his defense and criticize them. I once said Jack was the worst provocateur on the forum, I was wrong that 'honor' probably belongs to BS but Jack probably comes in 2nd or 3rd.Am I the only one to notice the sudden decline in
provocateur postings? How peaceful!
The budget must be tight at Provocateur Central.
Jack
Admittedly, I've been busy doing things you can only dream of: making a living; making love; not falling asleep in a recliner; being regular; etc. Just think how much more peaceful it'll be when God yanks your cord.
Earth to John:
This is at least the third time this wacco has called for someone's DEATH. Free sppech is one thing but hate seech should not be tolerated on a forum dedicated to education.
BS has zero to offer the research community. His continued presence here probally drives away a lot of interested newcomers.
I would bet if we took a poll to ban him he'd get one vote to remain: his own
Dawn
Len
Perhaps we've been at this a while longer than you... Double Standard is the Lone Nutter bane -- you can deal with it, you're a big guy!
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'John Dolva' wrote:
As far as I understand, it is possible to rewind some of these movie cameras and double expose.
dgh: Wiegman's camera is a 16mm Filmo 70 made by Bell & Howell (I have 3 of these cameras), its been said he used a fixed 10mm lens that day, the camera records NO sound. In order to "re-wind" exposed film, a handcrank needs to be utilized. I'm not so sure Weigman had one of those on his person, nor did he have the time, his habit was to have at least 5 unexposed reels (16mm on his person) film ready-to-go...
The second frame there doesn't seem to have the same 'double'.
The problem I have with through a vehicle window reflection (It's a good idea though) is the field of view (width,height).
Hopefully an expert on these things could offer some insight to help?
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John Costella announced today that newer technology has permitted
him to make several improvements on his great Zframes:
"I have updated the 'combined edit' frames at http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/?. They have been reprocessed completely from scratch, from the MPI DVD images, using better tools than I used back in '02."
For complete details, go to Rich DellaRosa's JFK site...
http://www.jfkresearch.com/forum3/index.php
Jack
Question for Jack, Lee, Robin, James and DGH
Is the appearance of 132 and 133 consistent with Zapruder
actually stopping and re-starting the camera?
I have read that if he had really paused and re started
the camera their would have been a fouled frame or two........
opinions?
has anyone tested this angle?
Hello Shanet,
Roland Zavada was well aware of and pretty clear on this issue, for whatever reason at onset of filming with the B&H414, "light leakage" is apparent in the first-second frame. I believe he cooresponded with (then commented on in his report) a few engineering members from Bell & Howell that worked on the design of this particular camera. Evidently they could NOT correct the problem.
I beleive Harry Livingstone's near recent book on the Zapruder Film went into considerable detail concering the subject and Zapruder frames 132-133.
DHealy
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I pay no attention to BS. He is a mere mosquito to be
swatted away or ignored. I was thinking more of Miller
and Lamson, who have been unusually quiet for days.
Everyone knows BS is a pompous fraud. Miller and
Lamson are more dangerous because a few ill-informed
people MIGHT believe them. I enjoy the quiet. How
interesting that BS thought I was referring to him;
clearly an inflated ego.
Jack
I think I will keep this post and response for future references. Jack cries and moans when his claims are responded to in a negative way, not to mention the select few who think he should just be ignored rather than to explain away Jack's ridiculous claims, and then when just what has been asked for is being given - Jack provokes those who he calls provacteurs. So my question is this .... Why is it if Jack enjoys the peace and quiet so much, then why start such an asinine thread designed to do what he constantly complains about ???
If Jack is so worried about people believing me or Lamson, then I suggest he gets his tail down to the plaza for more people come through there each day than who visits this forum and this is what Groden says about Jack's claims ...
Robert Groden: I have been a close friend of Jack's for thirty years ...................... In the matter of the Zapruder films authenticity and many of the other issues such as foreshortening, and other technical issues, you have been 100% right and Jack has been 100% wrong ........ The record must remain straight ......... This Zapruder film alteration foolishness has done so much harm, that it can not be measured. It is now spilling over into other areas of the photographic evidence in the Kennedy case. I am extremely frustrated by it all ............ Jack knows how disappointed I am about the damage that has been done by the irresponsible crap that has misled so many people in this case.
have the whinner himself drop by and post this drivel HIMSELF. Why is he hiding behind YOU?
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Am I the only one to notice the sudden decline in
provocateur postings? How peaceful!
The budget must be tight at Provocateur Central.
Jack
bet there's something cooking for Debra's November shindig in Dallas
Please explain. Are you insinuating that Debra's "shindig" is run by provocateurs? Or that provocateurs plan on infiltrating it? If the latter, to whom do you refer?
Is everyone who disagrees with Jack's alteration claims a "provocateur"? I'm trying to understand.
you nervous or participating in Debra's shindig... and WHO said her shindig is/was run by provocateurs? You need to lighten up there, Pat. What are you trying to understand?
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Am I the only one to notice the sudden decline in
provocateur postings? How peaceful!
The budget must be tight at Provocateur Central.
Jack
bet there's something cooking for Debra's November shindig in Dallas
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I stumbled across two JFK websites I had not seen before, which may interest some.
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/Issues_and_ev...ev/Cellura.html
Jack
wonder how KRahn likes Cellura as a website neighbor? Good Article!
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For more on who's really interested in letting Osama go free - hint: it's not Clinton or Sandy Berger - see:
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/09/tru...thiness_10.html
For more on conservatives with a conscience who also think ABC's entertainment was underhanded - and how unevenly the coverage has depicted the show's critics as being liberal [rather like BS himself] - see:
Robert...I was quite surprised on going to the website you recommend that
it turned out to be a leading ANTI-CONSPIRACY site. Indeed, it looks like
all the recommended articles were written by the CIA.
Jack
bet ABC's overnight ratings went through the roof .... poor suckers need something to stay competitive.... hope Sen. George Mitchell (ret-D) of Disney sent a thank you to B.Clinton...
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'Brendan Slattery' dronned:
[...]
You wouldn't even know about my politics were it not for the incessant, left-wing, McGovernite, birkenstock radicalism coarsing through the bloodstream of this forum.
[...]
***********
you're "late 60's references" are sounding very familiar, BS['er]... your not going to break out in a *commie rant* anytime soon are you?
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Drone tails!
Len, is it not any wonder why some people have so much trouble understanding the JFK assassination photographical record.
Bill Miller
is it NOT? LMAO! Stay on point champ -- drones and the JFK assassination photo record?
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Speaking of the media giving revisionists like Posner a forum denied those much more knowledgable...I read today that ABC is running a special on September 10 that blames 9/11 on Bill Clinton and Democrats in general. Have conservatives no shame?
WTF? What planet are you living on? Clinton and his cronies are nakedly intimidating an independent media outlet into censoring itself and it's conservatives' fault? How? You do realize that liberals are in charge of this miniseries, right? You do realize that Disney and ABC have been reliably pro-Democrat in the past, right? Would you be as magnanimous if Bush and Rove were pulling the same stunt? Hell no. BTW, the miniseries is equally tough on Clinton and Bush, but only the Clinton crowd is going apexxxx crazy. Nor do I see the Bush White House threatening to yank ABC's license, like Harry Reid did the other day on the Senate floor. Why is Bubba so worried? Because the terrorist menace grew and became increasingly obvious during his administration. Let us note a few highlights:
* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.
* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.
* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.
* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.
* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.
* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.
* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.
* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.
* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.
* June 14—June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.
* July—October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.
* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7
* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.
* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.
* February 25 - March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.
* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.
* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.
* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine".
* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.
* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre - 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.
* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.
* August 31 – September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.
* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States–Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.
* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.
* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.
* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.
* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of Aden, Yemen.
Be afraid, Bill.
BS you need about ten minutes with Al Franken, fix you right up. For a Washington media insider to be THIS (above) dumb, well, what can you say other than, a perfect display of latter-day GOP attitude and disinfo:when all else fails, blame Clinton --
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Once again the Iranian leader has challenged Geoge Bush to a public and open debate. And once again George Bush has gone to ground:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0907-06.htm
I thought the leader of the world's most advanced society would jump at such an opportunity to charm the Iranian 'fanatic' with his erudite logic. But no. Silence. What are we to make of this?
Nothing... Let the Iranian jerk, try to impress the rest of the world from say, old Jerusalem? THAT, I'd buy a ticket for ....
What sounds good to me is get both of them together in scrub country, west TEXAS. Who doesn't make it to the Rio Grande - gets 150 virgins... the NEXT American president can debate the jerks successor in Mecca, Medina or the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California, (Hillary's option)...
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The area in question is one which caught my attention as well.
Your compilation has answered some questions I had regarding the unusual movement/actions seen in the Z frames. I had wrongly supposed the area to be one where shots may have originated.
The opposing views clearly show there to be no rifle being fired from that area behind the bush as I had previously suggested.
Hi Chuck,
I disagree with your conclusion that there is not a rifle. In Z175 my interpretation is that I can see the shoulder bit of a rifle catch a bit of sunlight. In the frame, from the middle of the shadow, diagonally to left below. As well as there is a individual standing next to the shadow in the bushes. His head is not visible because of the leafs in front.
Apart from the obvious questions asked as before, there may be additional stuff pointing that direction.
For this I captured a frame showing the shirt of JFK. And ask you to check autopsy's for your own findings.
My interpretation, as shown, that the lumps on Kennedy's shoulder are bullets. See image below.
As bullets, I used WC-CE399 twice. You can blame me for that. But fits nice, I think.
I consider the chance of two bullets fired, to end up neatly next to one another, expremely slim ("Slim is my middle name."). Yet that is what I believe to see. If I look at the foto regarding Kennedy's back, measuring the entrance hole, I can see two bullet-paths from the spine leading to that top shoulder, and even cross one another. ( I only describe, I was born in 1970 )
I think the direction clearly shows leading back to that corner.
A couple of things I can clearly observe from the shirt image. The blood is dark red and lots on the shoulder. Meaning Kennedy was not fatally struck when the injury occured. Dead men do not bleed. Blood gathering in the wound, before heart stops beating.
As Kennedy falls into Jackie's lap, and she lays her hand on his right shoulder, the wound must have burst on the shoulder-side. This soakes the shoulder path of the shirt horizontally (to the neck). Otherwise (Kennedy is still sitting up) , more of the blood would stream down. That part of the shirt is easier to colour since it consists of one layer of fabric. The shoulder has more layers.
If the wounds happened after Z313 it would not bleed that much, in addition to the impossible angle of course.
I can rule out blood from the head, because of the jacket covering, and the colour. Kennedy fell to the left after 313. He did not take his jacket off his shoulder from what I could see, before Z313.
With regard to the bullet I used in the picture. I think it is not a coincidence they fit so nicely. Along the trajectory they do not meet dense objects, yet fired. A watertank-shot would result in less damage, anything else would result in more (cotton, sand etc.).
Because of the short distance (cannot miss ..... ) I consider the use of bullets with less powder would be very much desired for that corner. Since they do not leave an exit hole, nice small entrance wound (for normal autopsy's) easier to remove (for X-ray), and the drop of the bullet is not much over 5-10 meter.
In addition to that, the sound would be quite differend to a fully load bullet.
I think they tried to shoot simultaneous (not Miss) on que. Everybody in the crowd pointing somewhere else. Security confused. Ferrie's plan initially.
I am going far for this one. I think WC CE-399 and HSCA CE-399 had a collision inside Kennedy, where the upcoming bullet pushed (torqued) the led to one side, and chipping off a bit of the copper casing on the other side, what ended up in the tip of HSCA CE-399. Like I said far......
There are some huge problems with other theories on CE-399. The amound of deforming (or lack of). A bullet is always weigh-centred both horizontal and vertical for a stable trajectory. A bullet with that much more led to one side would wobble in flight. Not very useful.
The loss of copper at the base, according to someone in the military, is usually only seen when hitting something like hard wood. But then the tip does not match, would be curled back. Turning it into a very magic bullet. Apart from the difference in shape and size between the WC's, and HSCA's CE-399.
It is easy enough to remove these bullets like a splinter before x-rays.
That the Parkland docters payed no attention to his right shoulder is very clear, because of no life threatning wound (comp. to the head).
In a sence it is equally important, to figure out why they do not show on x-rays. If it is medical ( like a pace-maker would show up for example), why remove? If it is what I say, and the shirt confirms that to me, removal would be very important, to limit the amound of guns that day. Less to investigate. Less to ignore.
But from forensic-point of view, a crucial thing. That the bullet was not fatal, doesn't make it less of a criminal act. To shoot the president. People are locked away for joking in that direction. And to me a clear proof of more bullets, rifles. Eventhough I think I refind both CE-399's, but not on Connelly.
Turning the magic-bullet-theory into a multiplying magic-bullet-theorie. Fertile bullets
Odd.Maarten
informative post, thank you, Maarten.
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'Ashton Gray' wrote:
[...]
Re: The Myers Sixth Floor Show and Tell
I remain stupefied beyond speech that a man would invest the months of work required to create a 3D model of such infinite probative and investigative and exploratory potential, then limit the use of it to the narrow confines of "proving" a fixed and preconceived notion of one man, one gun, one place. I personally consider it the grandest abuse of art in the length and breadth of history. I have no idea what he was paid, but I hope it was worth it.
dgh: I'm sure ABC (or the leading project production company) paid at least union scale for his work, and of course, a *national* Emmy award IS worth it.
DHealy
[...]
Ashton
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Lying with Pixels
by Ivan Amato
Seeing is no longer believing.
The image you see on the evening
news could well be a fake—a fabrication
of fast new video-manipulation technology.
Last year, Steven Livingston, professor of political communication at George Washington University, astonished attendees at a conference on the geopolitical pros and cons of satellite imagery. He didn’t produce evidence of new military mobilizations or global pandemics. Instead, he showed a video of figure skater Katarina Witt during a 1998 skating competition.
In the clip, Witt gracefully plies the ice for about 20 seconds. Then came what is perhaps one of the most unusual sports replays ever seen. The background was the same, the camera movements were the same. In fact, the image was identical to the original in all ways except for a rather important one: Witt had disappeared, along with all signs of her, such as shadows or plumes of ice flying from her skates. In their place was exactly what you would expect if Witt had never been there to begin with—the ice, the walls of the rink and the crowd.
So what’s the big deal, you ask. After all, Stalin’s staff routinely airbrushed persona non grata out of photos more than a half-century ago. And Woody Allen ushered a variation on reality morphing into the movies 17 years ago with Zelig, in which he inserted himself next to Adolf Hitler and Babe Ruth. In films such as Forrest Gump and Wag the Dog, reality twisting has become commonplace.
What sets the Witt demo apart—way apart—is that the technology used to “virtually delete” the skater can now be applied in real time, live, even as a camera records a scene and instantly broadcasts it to viewers. In the fraction of a second between video frames, any person or object moving in the foreground can be edited out, and objects that aren’t there can be edited in and made to look real. “Pixel plasticity,” Livingston calls it. The implication for those at the satellite imagery conference was sobering: Pictures from orbit may not necessarily be what the satellite’s electronic camera actually recorded.
But the ramifications of this new technology reach beyond satellite imagery. As live electronic manipulation becomes practical, the credibility of all video will become just as suspect as Soviet Cold War photos. The problem stems from the nature of modern video. Live or not, it is made of pixels, and as Livingston says, pixels can be changed.
The best-known examples of real-time video manipulation so far are “virtual insertions” in professional sports broadcasts. Last January 30, for instance, nearly one-sixth of humankind in more than 180 countries repeatedly saw an orange first-down line stretched across the gridiron as they watched the Super Bowl. New York-based Sportvision created that line and inserted it into the live feed of the broadcast. To help determine where to insert the orange pixels, several game cameras were fitted with sensors that tracked the cameras spatial positions and zoom levels. Adding to the illusion of reality was the ability of the Sportvision system to make sure that players and referees occlude the virtual line when their bodies traverse it.
Last spring and summer, as Sportvision and rivals such as Princeton Video Imaging (PVI) in Lawrenceville, N.J,, were airing virtual insertion products, including simulated billboards on walls behind major league batters, a team of engineers from Sarnoff Corp. in Princeton, N.J., flew to the Coalition Allied Operations Center of NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Vicenza, Italy. Their mission: transform their experimental video processing technology into an operational tool for rapidly locating and targeting Serbian military vehicles in Kosovo. The project was dubbed TIGER, for “targeting by image georegistration.” “Just dial in the coordinates and the thing goes,” explains Michael Hansen, a young, caffeinated Sarnoff gadgeteer who can hardly believe he was helping fight a war last year.
Compared to PVI’s job, the military’s technical task was more difficult—and the stakes were much higher. Instead of altering a football broadcast, the TIGER team manipulated a live video feed from a Predator, an unmanned reconnaissance craft flying some 450 meters above Kosovo battlefields. Rather than superimposing virtual lines or ads into sports settings, the task was to overlay, in real time, “georegistered” images of Kosovo onto the corresponding scenes streaming in live from the Predator’s video camera. The terrain images had been previously captured with aerial photography and digitally stored. The TIGER system, which automatically detected moving objects against the background, could almost instantly feed to the targeting officers the coordinates for any piece of Serbian hardware in the Predator’s view. This was quite a technical feat, since the Predator was moving and its angle of view was constantly changing, yet those views had to be electronically aligned and registered with the stored imagery in less than one-thirtieth of a second (to match the frame rate of video recording).
In principle, the targeting step could have been hotwired to precision guided weapons. “We weren’t actually doing that in Allied Force,” Hansen notes. “We were just telling targeting officers exactly where Serbian targets were and then they would vector in planes to go strike the targets.” That way the human decision makers could pre-empt flawed machine-made decisions. According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, TIGER technology was used extensively in the final three weeks of the Kosovo operation, during which “80 to 90 percent of the mobile targets were hit.”
So far, real-time video manipulation has been within the grasp only of technologically sophisticated organizations such as TV networks and the military. But developers of the technology say it’s becoming simple and cheap enough to spread everywhere. And that has some observers wondering whether real-time video manipulation will erode public confidence in live television images, even when aired by news outlets. “Seeing may no longer be believing,” says Norman Winarsky, corporate vice president for information technology at Sarnoff. “You may not know what to trust.”
A crude form of video manipulation already is happening in the satellite imagery community. The weekly publication Space News reported earlier this year that the Indian government releases imagery from its remote-sensing satellites only after defense facilities have been “processed out.” In this case, it’s not real-time manipulation and it’s up front, like a censor’s black marker. But pixels are plastic. It is perfectly possible now to insert sets of pixels into satellite imagery data that interpreters would view as battalions of tanks, or war planes, or burial sites, or lines of refugees, or dead cows that activists claim are victims of a biotech accident.
A demo tape supplied by PVI bolsters the point in the prosaic setting of a suburban parking lot. The scene appears ordinary except for a disturbing feature: Amidst the SUVs and minivans are several parked tanks and one armored behemoth rolling incongruously along. Imagine a tape of virtual Pakistani tanks rolling over the border into India pitched to news outlets as authentic, and you get a feel for the kind of trouble that deceptive imagery could stir up.
Commercial suppliers of virtual insertion services are too focused on new marketing opportunities to worry much about geopolitics. They have their eyes on far more lucrative markets. Suddenly those large stretches of programming between commercials—the actual show, that is—become available for billions of dollars worth of primetime advertising. PVI’s demo tape, for instance, includes a scene in which a Microsoft Windows box appears—virtually, of course—on the shelf of Frasier Crane’s studio. This kind of product placement could become more and more important as new video recording technologies such as TiVo and RePlayTV give viewers more power to edit out commercials.
Dennis Wilkinson, a Porsche-driving, sports-loving marketing expert who became CEO of 10-year-old PVI about a year ago, couldn’t be happier about that. Wilkinson’s eyes gleam when he describes a (near) future in which virtual insertion technology pushes advertisements to the personalized extreme. Combined with data-mining services by which browsers’ individual likes, dislikes and purchasing patterns can be relentlessly tracked and analyzed, virtual insertion opens up the ability to shunt personally targeted advertisements over phone lines or cables to Web users and TV viewers. Say you like Pepsi but your neighbor next door likes Coke and your neighbor across the street likes Seven-Up—the kind of data harvestable from supermarket checkout records. It will become possible to tailor the soft-drink image in the broadcast signal to reach each of you with your preferred brand.
Just 15 minutes up the road from PVI, Sarnoff’s Winarsky is also glowing—not so much about capturing market share as about the transforming power of the technology. Sarnoff has a distinguished history in that regard; the company is the descendant of RCA Laboratories, which started innovating in television technology in the early 1940s and has given birth to a plethora of media technologies. The color TV picture tube, liquid crystal displays and high-definition TV all came, at least in part, from RCA qua Sarnoff, which has five technical Emmys in its lobby.
The ability to manipulate video data in real time, he says, has just as much potential as some of these forerunners. “Now that you can alter video in real time, you have changed the world,” he says. That may sound inflated, but after looking at the Katarina Witt demo, Winarsky’s talk of “changing the world” loses some of its air of hyperbole.
Deleting people or objects from live video, or inserting prerecorded people or objects into live scenes, is only the beginning of the deceptions becoming possible. Pretty much any piece of video that has ever been recorded is becoming clip art that producers can digitally sculpt into the story they want to tell, according to Eric Haseltine, senior vice president for R&D at Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale, Calif. With additional video manipulation technologies, previously recorded actors can be made to say and do things they have never actually done or said. “You can have dead actors star again in entirely new movies,” says Haseltine.
Contemporary shots featuring footage of dead performers have been around for several years. But the Hollywood illusion-craft that, for example, inserted John Wayne into a TV commercial required painstaking, frame-by-frame post-production work by skilled technicians. There’s a big difference now, says Haseltine: “What used to take an hour [per video frame], now can be done in a sixtieth of a second.” This dramatic speed-up means that manipulation can be done in real time, on the fly, as a camera records or broadcasts. Not only can John Wayne, Fred Astaire or Saddam Hussein be virtually inserted into pre-produced ads, they could be inserted into, say, a live broadcast of The Drew Carey Show.
The combination of real-time, virtual insertion with existing and emerging post-production techniques opens up a world of manipulative opportunity. Consider Video Rewrite technology, which its developers at the Interval Corp. and the University of California, Berkeley first demonstrated publicly three years ago. With just a few minutes of video of someone talking, their system captures and stores a set of video snapshots of the way that a person’s mouth-area looks and moves when saying different sets of sounds. Drawing from the resulting library of “visemes” makes it possible to depict the person seeming to say anything the producers dream up—including utterances that the subject wouldn’t be caught dead saying.
In one test application, computer scientist Christoph Bregler, now of Stanford University, and colleagues digitized two minutes of public-domain footage of President John F. Kennedy speaking during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Using the resulting viseme library, the researchers created “animations” of Kennedy’s mouth saying things he never said, among them, “I never met Forrest Gump.” With technology like this, near-future political activists conceivably will be able to orchestrate webcasts of their opponents saying things that might make Howard Stern sound like a mensch.
Haseltine believes video manipulation techniques will quickly be carried to their logical extreme: “I can predict with absolute certainty,” he says, “that one person sitting at a computer will be able to write a script, design characters, do the lighting and wardrobe, do all of the acting and dialog, and post production, distribute it on a broadband network, do all of this on a laptop—and viewers won’t know the difference.”
The End of Authenticity
So far, the widely witnessed applications of real-time video manipulation have been in benign arenas like sports and entertainment. Already last year, however, the technology began diffusing beyond these venues into applications that raised eyebrows. Last fall, for instance, CBS hired PVI to virtually insert the network’s familiar logo all over New York City—on buildings, billboards, fountains and other places-during broadcasts of the network’s The Early Show. The New York Times ran a front-page story in January raising questions about the journalistic ethics of altering the appearance of what is really there.
The combination of real-time virtual insertion, cyber-puppeteering, video rewriting and other video manipulation technologies with a mass-media infrastructure that instantly delivers news video worldwide has some analysts worried. “Imagine you are the government of a hypothetical country that wants more international financial assistance,” says George Washington University’s Livingston. “You might send video of a remote area with people starving to death and it may never have happened,” he says.
Haseltine agrees. “I’m amazed that we have not seen phony video,” he says, before backpedaling a bit: “Maybe we have. Who would know?”
It’s just the sort of scenario played out in the 1998 movie Wag the Dog, in which top presidential aides conspire with a Hollywood producer to televise a virtually crafted war between the United States and Albania to deflect attention from a budding Presidential scandal. Haseltine and others wonder when reality will imitate art imitating reality.
The importance of the issue will only intensify as the technology becomes more accessible. What now typically requires an $80,000 box of electronics the size of a small refrigerator should soon be doable with a palm-sized card (and ultimately a single chip) that fits inside a commercial video recorder, according to Winarsky. “This will be available to people in Circuit City,” he says. Consumer gear for virtual video insertion is likely to require a camcorder with a specialized image-processing card or chip. This hardware will take signals from the camera’s electronic image sensors and convert them into a form that can be analyzed and manipulated in a computer using appropriate software—much as photo editors at newspapers use Adobe Photoshop and other programs to “clean up” digital image files. A home user might, for instance, insert absent family members into the latest reunion tape or remove strangers they would prefer not to be in the scene—bringing Soviet-style historical revisions right into the family den.
Combine the potential erosion of faith in video authenticity with the so-called “CNN effect” and the stage is set for deception to move the world in new ways. Livingston describes the CNN effect as the ability of mass media to go beyond merely reporting what is happening to actually influencing decision-makers as they consider military, international assistance and other national and international issues. “The CNN effect is real,” says James Currie, professor of political science at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington. “Every office you go into at the Pentagon has CNN on.” And that means, he says, that a government, terrorist or advocacy group could set geopolitical events in motion on the strength of a few hours’ worth of credibility achieved by distributing a snippet of well-doctored video.
With experience as an army reservist, as a staffer with a top-secret clearance on the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, and as a legislative liaison for the Secretary of the Army, Currie has seen governmental decision-making and politicking up close. He is convinced that real-time video manipulation will be, or already is, in the hands of the military and intelligence communities. And while he has no evidence yet that any government or nongovernment organization has deployed video manipulation techniques, real-time or not, for political or military purposes, he has no problem conjuring up disinformation scenarios. For example, he says, consider the impact of a fabricated video that seemed to show Saddam Hussein “pouring himself a Scotch and taking a big drink of it. You could run it on Middle Eastern television and it would totally undermine his credibility with Islamic audiences.”
For all the heavy breathing, however, some experts remain unconvinced that real-time video manipulation poses a real threat, no matter how good the technology gets. John Pike, an analyst of the intelligence community for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., says the credibility risks are simply too great for governments or serious organizations to get caught attempting to spoof the public. And for the organizations that would be willing to risk it, says Pike, the news folks—knowing just what the technology can do—will become increasingly vigilant.
“If some human rights organization popped up at CNN with some video, particularly an organization they were not familiar with, I would think that [CNN] would consider that radioactive,” says Pike. Same goes for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). “No responsible director of an established organization would authorize such a thing. And they would fire on the spot anyone caught doing it. The stock-in-trade of NGO policy organizations is that ’we tell the truth.’”
Even cool heads like Pike, however, concede that the media’s fortress of skepticism has an Achilles heel: the Internet. “The issue is not so much your ability to get fake video on CNN, but to get it online,” he says. That’s because so much Internet content is unfiltered. “This could play into the phenomenon in the news production process where you would not replicate the original report, but you might report that it was reported,” says Pike. And that could cascade into a CNN effect. “These are undoubtedly experiments that will be done,” Pike says.
The trouble is, says Livingston, it may only take a few such experiments to forever make people question the authenticity of video. That could have enormous repercussions for military, intelligence and news operations. An ironic sociological consequence might emerge: a return to heavier reliance on unmediated face-to-face communication. In the meantime, though, there will undoubtedly be some interesting twists and turns as pixels become ever more plastic.
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Ivan Amato is a correspondent for National Public Radio and the author of Stuff: The Materials the World Is Made Of a chronicle of cutting-edge research in materials science.
Copyright © MIT's Technology Review July/August 2000
welcome to the compositing world.... realtime or not. You're not going to make these guys day, Jack! Think they can handle a world where you can't trust ANY image you see in the media?
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Hi !
Promised since long ago, an overview of the Keystone Olympic K35 Turret.
Here is the link: http://copweb.be/Charles%20Bronson%20Camera.htm
My Homepage has been updated and has moved, here is the new simplified URL: www.copweb.be
Enjoy!!!
great job, Marcel.....
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Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't feel like spending the time to go over the old threads, didn't jack claim that no one was on the pedastal?Amazing, you can physically ID Zapruder/Sitzman on that pedestal? Not one person, that I know of, based on viewing EVERY known film/photo taken in the plaza that afternoon can physically ID whose standing on that pedestal. How do YOU do that?I do believe in the vast photo archives one can find the Zapruder DP pedestal EMPTY at certain times on Nov 22nd right up to present day. So yeah, Jack's claim is RIGHT! Great starting point. Problem is, no one can ID those caught in pedestal film/photos on Nov 22nd? You saying YOU can?
Your mind is like a steel trap there Len, great catch.....
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Autodesk, the makers of both 3ds Studio Max and Maya have some options for those interested in pursuing higher-end animation software. They have a 30-day free trial of 3ds Studio Max (although if one is unfamiliar with the parlance of animation, this might not even be enough time to get over the learning curve).
Another possibility is the "Personal Learning Edition" of Maya. It is designed for people who want to learn about animation, etc. It apparently uses a special file format and watermarks its animations. However, for evaluation and learning, this might be a decent way to dip one's foot into the higher-end animation tools.
Be advised, though, that these tools are not for the faint of heart (nor for the faint of processor computers out there!). They are exceedingly powerful, but they are complicated. You do need a reasonably up-to-date video card to take full advantage of some features, too.
Lastly, Jack's GIGO point is well taken. From my understanding, Myers animated what he was asked to animate. Warner Brothers animated any number of things that violated the laws of physics, but this no more invalidates physics than Myers' animation proves the SBT...
AMEN, Frank.... ALL points
David Healy
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If any of you have large files you'd like to share such as 3d figures you've done in your animations, you can use
to share files up to 150 MB in size.
I was in contact with Dale Meyers last year concerning inaccuracies in his animation but we never went past the point of just discussing some observations I had. He of course is a lone gunman "theorist."
It was discussed earlier in this thread that there are better programs for 4D animations than Sketchup, and they are expensive. I'd be curious what program may be better to use. Of course what I'm looking for is the best bang for the buck to where a 3d presentation of the whole trip down Elm Street could be shown.
Thanks for any help
Bill
Same as Myers uses -- Lightwave! Or there's 3D Studio, not an easy upside learning curve, same for Maya... you can google them
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'Bill Miller' dronned on:
tell us PLEASE, what a "photo researcher" happens to be? The ONLY one I know of is Jack White. Not one person on this forum has the experience nor the knowledge of DP and JFK related film/photos...Perhaps your definition of 'photo reseacher' will enlighten many some here
I do not see how you would know who has what experience when you seem to have all your time wrapped up in trolling. The individual you are attempting to praise for having this great knowledge of the photographical record is the same guy who calls one photo or film altered only to call another image "genuine" which shows not only the same moment in time, but also the same exact things as the alleged altered images. That would also be the same person who cannot understand why a train car can be seen in one photo and not in the other despite the two photographers angles to the colonnade being different. It would also be the same person who says that Moorman's photo has been altered by having Zapruder and Sitzman added to the pedestal while not knowing that same camera original showing Zapruder and Sitzman on the pedestal was filmed for TV not 30 minutes after the assassination while never being out of Moorman's possession. So what I am saying is that there apparently seems to be a few people who have as much knowledge of the photographical record (if not more) than Jack has. But on the other hand ... some people can pretend otherwise if it supports their objective ---------
Baghdad Bob Healy
Bill Miller
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I've yet to see another photo researcher ID'd here. Of course researchers make mistakes.... take Bob Groden "photo expert" during the OJ trial -- the Bruno Maglli shoes comes to mind....
Amazing, you can physically ID Zapruder/Sitzman on that pedestal? Not one person, that I know of, based on viewing EVERY known film/photo taken in the plaza that afternoon can physically ID whose standing on that pedestal. How do YOU do that?
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I get emails from people on this forum who I never heard of before who read these threads who have asked that I never back down, so it appears that I am not going to be able to please them and you at the same time. Allow me to share just a few of some of those messages ...
Bill, I just want one thing to be clear. Nowhere in this thread did I say anything negative about the quality or value of your research. One the contrary, in my initial comment, I said you were a capable photo researcher. I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to respond to me with testimonials.
tell us PLEASE, what a "photo researcher" happens to be? The ONLY one I know of is Jack White. Not one person on this forum has the experience nor the knowledge of DP and JFK related film/photos...
Perhaps your definition of 'photo reseacher' will enlighten many some here
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'Bill Miller' wrote:
[...]
It's OK, Mike ... I never thought otherwise. I only wished to show that there is another part of this forum membership who does not want me to back down on this assassination and post assassination Dealey Plaza alteration foolishiness.
Bill Miller
I spell 'another part of the forum' as; GARY MACK, that the way you spell it?
Fight??? In 5 years, you've done nothing but rubber stamp the WCR evidence, that's FIGHT.....? LMAO!
Healy's magnificent 32-page Zapruder expose!
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
I dismiss EVERTHING you say, simply because your a BS artist, plain as that. You've no demostrable background in image composition and composing, much let alone photography. You claim title speaking for others, which no one that I know, on this forum, can verify. Sounds like a wannabe errand boy to me and others....
If Groden is cowardly enough to hide behind you, which would be a sad state of affair, he's got damn good reason for NOT showing up here and answering a few Z-film related questions. Hell HE'S the expert -- what the hell do I or any of the folks on this side of the argument need to talk to you for? Waste of bandwidth, get a clue manno!