Jeremy Bojczuk

Douglas Caddy writes: This sounds very much like a scam. Now that most people have got out of the habit of answering phone calls from unfamiliar numbers, scammers are using Windows Defender pop-ups instead: https://informationsecurity.wustl.edu/scam-of-the-month-windows-defender-pop-ups/ There's a similar story here: https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/computer-scam-locks-users-computer-instructs-you-to-call-microsoft-technical-support Another similar case is mentioned on this Microsoft forum: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ms-windows-defender-and-asks-me-to-call-a-specific/29da9b77-6aca-4920-8d01-1f000d54b7b9 Here's some official advice about how to identify computer scams and what to do if you think you've been scammed: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-and-report-tech-support-scams That page on the FTC website points out that "Security pop-up warnings from real tech companies will never ask you to call a phone number or click on a link." More evidence that if you're being asked to phone Microsoft, you're about to be scammed: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/what-is-telephone-number-for-security-support/382298f3-3caf-477f-883d-147a1e24033a That forum suggests that you download and use the free version of Malwarebytes security scanner and Microsoft's safety scanner, to identify and remove any nasty software the scammers might have installed on your computer: https://www.malwarebytes.com/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/defender-endpoint/safety-scanner-download?view=o365-worldwide Advice from Microsoft on what to do to protect yourself: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/protect-yourself-from-tech-support-scams-2ebf91bd-f94c-2a8a-e541-f5c800d18435 More advice on what to do: https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-microsoft-security-alert/ If you handed over details of your bank account and credit cards, please get in touch with your bank and your credit card supplier as soon as possible and let them know what happened. There almost certainly was no purchase; it's just a story made up by scammers. When you get in touch with your credit card company, ask them to look into any unusual purchases. The Watergate book sounds interesting. I'm sure the CIA had nothing to do with this episode.

For a comprehensive account of what actually happened to the film and its various copies, please see David Wrone, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination, University Press of Kansas, 2003, especially pages 20-74. The existence of three first-day copies, one of which is in the national archives and presumably available for inspection, seems to be the final nail in the alteration argument: If these copies were made from the original Zapruder film on the afternoon of the assassination, as solid documentary evidence confirms, the 'original' film at NARA must indeed be the original and not an altered copy, unless the hypothetical Bad Guys were stupid enough to allow the three first-day copies, which would clearly contradict their altered film, to remain at large. If, on the other hand, the copies that exist today were made from an altered Zapruder film, they cannot be the actual first-day copies that were made from the original Zapruder film, because the actual first-day copies were made on the afternoon of the assassination, before any alteration to the original film could have taken place. And if anyone is claiming that the copies which exist today were made from an altered Zapruder film, that person needs to explain what happened to the actual first-day copies, and provide documentary evidence which contradicts the existing documentary evidence relating to the history and ownership of the first-day copies (see Wrone's book for details). If anyone is claiming that the actual first-day copies were destroyed rather than altered, that person needs to explain why the original film was not also destroyed rather than altered. In other words, why did the reasoning which applied to the copies not also apply to the original film? If, on the other hand, anyone is claiming that the actual first-day copies were altered rather than destroyed, that person needs to explain the reasoning behind that crazy-sounding decision. In other words, why go to the trouble of altering four films, and hoping that the four altered films would end up looking identical, when the simpler, quicker, safer and foolproof option of destroying them was available? Once you accept that the first-day copies provide further authentication of the film that is in the archives: you can discard the NPIC event, since we know on other grounds that it almost certainly didn't involve the original film; and you can of course also discard any of the flimsy anomalies whose existence has not yet been confirmed by expert examination of the film that's in the archives (which, as far as I can tell, is every single one of them). Once you've done all of that, there's nothing left. It's now safe to use the Zapruder film to undermine the lone-nut theory!

Roger admits: Sandy, too, waves the white flag: Let's look at Roger's account of the alternatives: Answer: option (2), obviously! The only change Roger has made to his argument is that the Bad Guys would not have destroyed the film "before too much was learned about it". This makes no difference to Roger's argument. The Bad Guys would have had to examine the film closely before deciding whether or not it could be altered. They would have learned as much about it as there was to learn, before starting work on any alterations (or destroying it, as the case may be). At that point, they would have needed to decide what to do. One option was so obvious that it must have occurred to them: destroy the film. The question remains: when they weighed up the pros and cons, why did they decide not to take the simplest, foolproof option? What would their reasoning have been for not taking the simplest, foolproof option? The many advantages of destroying it were unchanged, and the many disadvantages of altering it (and then hoping it might be possible to bury it) were unchanged. Merely supplying an account, as Roger does, of what the Bad Guys' decision might have been (let's alter the film, and if that doesn't work we can hide it afterwards and hope it doesn't come to light) isn't good enough. This doesn't explain why they would have chosen that option when they would have been aware of a more plausible alternative. Faced with two choices, what reasoning did they use in order to come to the decision Roger claims they came to? I'm not aware of any reasoning process that would convince them to alter the film when they had the option of destroying it. Apparently Roger and Sandy can't think of one either. Yes, but why would they have "rejected destruction in favor of trying alteration"? What was their reasoning? Roger still doesn't explain the thinking that would have led his Bad Guys to make the decision he claims they made. Here is the rest of that paragraph, which presumably contains the justification for not destroying the film: But none of that tells us what the Bad Guys' reasoning would have been. Eliminating the option of hiding the film is indeed what destroying the film would have done. It's one of the advantages of destruction over alteration. It would eliminate the risk of the film ever coming to light and revealing evidence of conspiracy which existed nowhere else, an event which we know actually happened. What reasoning would the Bad Guys have used when making that bizarre decision? Roger still doesn't tell us. Roger then deals with what might have happened once his hypothetical Bad Guys' incompetent alteration had taken place: Again, why would they have "rejected the idea to destroy the film altogether"? What was the reasoning they would have used when deciding between the two options? Yet again, Roger doesn't explain the thinking that would have led his Bad Guys to make the decision he claims they made. That's because it's a decision no-one in their right mind would have made. There was no reasoning that would have led them to make that decision. This back-up plan (hiding the film in Life's vault while making numerous copies of it) was not a realistic option. The Bad Guys must have known that the copies would circulate and that the film would come to light before too long. We can be sure that copies would have circulated and that the film would have come to light before too long, because that is what happened in reality. Second- and third-generation copies proliferated within days of the assassination; bootlegs were floating around even before the Shaw trial; and the detailed content of the film became public knowledge only 12 years after the assassination. The Bad Guys surely would have known that it was not possible to bury the film from public view permanently while allowing numerous copies of it to be made. The possibility of hiding the film as a last resort would not have made the option of altering it any more credible. The only options facing the Bad Guys in Roger's hypothetical scenario would have been: destroy the film straight away, or try to alter it, and if that failed to eliminate evidence of conspiracy, destroy the incompetently altered film. Then there's the matter of the three first-day copies. Were they altered? The Bad Guys obviously couldn't allow three films to exist in a form which would blatantly contradict their altered 'original' film.* Roger and Sandy appear to accept that the problem with the original Zapruder film also applies in the case of the three first-day copies, as Michael was helpful enough to point out. The Bad Guys would have had to deal with the fact that their lone-nut story was undermined not only by the original film but also by three good copies of the film (and by all the copies that were made from these copies within the first few days). All the disadvantages of altering the original were multiplied in the case of the three (or more) copies. It is so blindingly obvious that destroying the first-day copies would have been preferable to trying to alter them that Roger and Sandy haven't even attempted to claim that the Bad Guys would have decided to alter them. And if you're claiming that the Bad Guys would have decided to destroy the copies, why would those Bad Guys not have applied the same reasoning to the original film? * Of course, how blatant the contradictions would have been depends on the alterations that are claimed to have been made. As we have seen, no-one appears to agree on exactly which alterations were supposedly made. Nevertheless, most of the claimed alterations would be obvious when compared to an unaltered first-day copy. There's also a chance, of course, that the alterations would also be obvious when compared to any other home movie or photograph which came to light in the days, weeks, or years after the assassination, another weakness with the alteration hypothesis which hasn't been addressed.

The spot-the-anomaly game just doesn't stop! Almost as soon as you've debunked one claim, someone else repeats it. Sometimes, the same person even repeats a claim that has just been debunked. On page 7, Keven Hofeling repeats a claim that he must know has already been debunked at least twice: Keven must know that this is nonsense, because I debunked it on page three of this thread in reply to Roger, and on a different thread in reply to Keven himself when he made the very same claim only a month ago. Why did he repeat a claim he knows to be factually incorrect? In case anyone is thinking of repeating the same nonsense yet again, here are some links to frames 314, 315 and 316, all of which show the "fine red mist suspended in the air" which Keven claims doesn't exist: Frame 314: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z314.jpg Frame 315: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z315.jpg Frame 316: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z316.jpg Pro-alteration folks: please bookmark those links, if only to save yourselves future embarrassment! My earlier reply to Keven, in which I debunked this claim, also provides an explanation for one of his other claims, the absence of horizontal debris in the Zapruder film.

Roger writes: The point I was making was not that because Horne and White made ludicrous claims elsewhere, their Zapruder film claims should be ignored. My point was that because they made ludicrous claims elsewhere, their Zapruder film claims should not be accepted uncritically, as Roger seems to have done. One of these characters is notorious for actively promoting Lifton's body-alteration scenario, and the other character is notorious for actively promoting the faked moon landings scenario. Both scenarios are very far-fetched, and would sound laughable to any reasonable person, as would the Zapruder film-faking scenario ("So the Zapruder film was altered specifically in order to remove evidence of conspiracy, but the people who altered it didn't bother to actually remove the evidence of conspiracy? Huh? You're pulling my leg, right?"). The faked moon landings scenario is particularly relevant here, since it shares a common methodology with claims about film-fakery. Namely, the spot-the-anomaly game. The flag is moving, but there's no atmosphere on the moon, so it must be a fake! The driver's head turns much too fast, so it must be a fake! We can't see the stars, so it must be a fake! That spectator is eight feet tall, so it must be a fake! I've spotted an anomaly, so it must be a fake! It really isn't good enough just to spot an anomaly and stop there. If you're claiming that an apparent anomaly is the result of altering the Zapruder film (or an Apollo photograph), you also need to demonstrate the plausibility of the sort of alteration that would produce that apparent anomaly. And if you're claiming that there are multiple anomalies in the film, you need to come up with a coherent system of alteration that would be consistent with all of those anomalies. But that almost never happens. The Zapruder film version of the spot-the-anomaly game has been going on since the 1990s, maybe even since the 80s, and hardly any of the players even try to come up with a plausible account of how all these anomalies could have been generated. This is partly because there's no agreed list of anomalies. While one person claims that anomalies A and B exist, another person claims that anomaly A exists while anomaly B doesn't exist (and that anomalies C and D also exist). It would help if each person who enjoys playing the spot-the-anomaly game would give us a list of his or her preferred anomalies and, more importantly, describe the alteration process that would have given rise to every single one of them. Those lists would be entertaining to read! As we've seen with the two anomalies Roger provided (The car's left turn is missing! The vertical plume of brain matter is only visible in frame 313!), most or all of the supposed anomalies that have been put forward over the last three decades or more fall into two categories: they possess straightforward explanations that the spot-the-anomaly players would have worked out for themselves if only they had applied some critical thinking; or the claim simply isn't true to begin with, as in the case of Roger's claim about the invisible vertical plume which turned out to be entirely visible, but only to those of us blessed with the magical ability to actually check the evidence for ourselves. It's just a game. It demeans a serious historical event, and it allows supporters of the lone-nut theory to claim that not only the anomaly-spotters but also rational critics of the lone-nut theory are no different from moon-landings deniers.

Roger continues: and and No, we don't know that, as I've tried to explain several times now! That is one possible interpretation of someone's recollections from several decades later. The other possible interpretation, supported by much stronger evidence than flimsy decades-old recollections, is that it was two copies, not one original, that were worked on that weekend. In reality, the original film was sent to Life's photo lab in Chicago, not to NPIC. Here, since Roger still doesn't seem to have read it, is Zavada's account which includes his reasons for claiming that the films are likely to have been copies and not the original: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf I assume Roger understands that once you let go of the unfounded assumption that someone's 30- or 40-year-old recollections cannot possibly be mistaken, the whole film-fakery scenario unravels. If the original film was not sent to NPIC, no coherent argument for alteration exists. Roger must surely accept that 30- or 40-year-old recollections can very easily be mistaken. Let go, Roger! You can do it! I can't argue with that hypothetical scenario, except that it still relies on two assumptions, namely that the Bad Guys: had control of the film; and wanted everyone to think that a lone nut assassinated JFK. But it is quite conceivable that: whoever was behind the assassination might not have had control of the Zapruder film, let alone all the other home movies and photographs; whether they controlled the images or not, they might not have cared in the slightest that evidence of conspiracy existed; indeed, evidence of conspiracy might have been just what they wanted the public to be aware of (if, for example, they wanted the blame to fall on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, which is not an unreasonable assumption, given that the eventual patsy had prima facie connections with both regimes). In which case, two conclusions follow: If the Bad Guys didn't control the film, altering the film would not have been possible. If the Bad Guys were happy with the public knowing that the assassination was a conspiracy, the Bad Guys wouldn't even have wanted to alter the film. But that's a separate topic. If the original film wasn't sent there in the first place, there's nothing to explain. For the umpteenth time, please read the PDF I've just linked to. Or read David Wrone's book, details of which I'll provide later. Again, Roger is getting worked up about a problem that vanishes if the original film wasn't sent to NPIC. In that case, there would have been no need to publicly name any individual at any top-secret photo lab. Let go of those flimsy recollections, Roger! In reality, the film was sent to Life's photo lab in Chicago, where a technician damaged it. If the Bad Guys really had wanted to destroy the film, they could surely have explained its destruction using a scenario along the lines of what really happened: "Sorry, people, but the film was sent to [insert name of location; e.g. Life's photo lab in Chicago], where a technician accidentally damaged it so badly that none of the frames showing JFK getting shot were usable. But we've managed to salvage the pictures of Zapruder's grandkids!" Or they could have put forward any other semi-plausible excuse they could think of. Not only would destroying the film have been a trivial thing to do, but explaining its destruction would have been no big deal either.

First of all, apologies for dumping several days' worth of posts on you all at once. A certain trigger-happy moderator sent me to the sin bin again, for four days this time. During my absence, Roger Odisio wrote: I'd answered that already, several times. But I'll try again. Let's accept for the purpose of this discussion Roger's premise that the people who were behind the assassination: had control of the Zapruder film; and wanted the public to think that the assassination was the work of a lone nut, so that the Bad Guys would get away with the murder. Of course, both of these premises are speculative, but let's go with them for the time being. How would the Bad Guys solve the problem of a home movie which undermined their preferred lone-nut scenario and prevented them getting away with the murder? The answer is obvious: destroy the film! As I've tried to explain, this solution would be easy to do and it would be foolproof, eliminating the problem completely. The only downside was that it would generate public suspicion of a cover-up. Against this, altering the film: would be difficult and time-consuming; might not eliminate the problem at all if it was not possible to remove every incriminating feature; and would cause severe additional problems if the altered film was contradicted by other films and photographs, many of which were not known about until long after the alterations were supposed to have taken place. There's no contest, is there?

Paul Bacon writes: Paul Rigby implies that it was, when he mentioned "the patsy-from-the-rear scenario, and the similarly pre-planned supporting film". If the masterminds had recruited Abraham Zapruder into their plot, they would have known that his film would contain evidence which undermined the lone-nut story. But even if the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made after copies had been made from the original, the problem remains. What happened to the first-day copies? Were they altered along with the original film, or were they destroyed? What decision would the masterminds have taken regarding the first-day copies? More importantly, what was the reasoning behind that decision? Those masterminds were left with the same easy choice: Should we go to a lot of trouble to alter three more films, with the risk that those films will retain evidence of conspiracy? Or should we take the simpler, quicker, safer and foolproof option of destroying them and making replacement copies later? They would have chosen the second option, wouldn't they? And if they took the easier option for the first-day copies, why would they not have made the same decision about the original film?

It's all about the thought processes of those hypothetical masterminds. Let's compare the reasoning for each potential course of action: Alter the film: We have control over a home movie which exposes our dastardly scheme to kill JFK and blame it on a lone nut. We want to prevent the public seeing the evidence contained in this home movie. We could achieve this aim by altering the film to remove or doctor the parts which contradict our lone-nut story. Before deciding whether or not to do this, we need to weigh up the pros and cons of altering the film. The first advantage of altering the film: if we do it properly, the evidence it contains will vanish for ever, and we can guarantee that this particular home movie will never be able to contradict our lone-nut story. The second advantage of altering the film: er ... there isn't one. The first negative consequence of altering the film: it may not be possible to alter the film satisfactorily, in which case it will continue to contain evidence that contradicts our lone-nut story, such as the 'back and to the left' head movement, the speed of the car along Elm Street, and the reactions of JFK and Connally, each of which would reveal our dastardly plan; and we would have wasted a lot of time and effort. The second negative consequence of altering the film: some necessary alterations may be physically impossible to achieve; we are in 1963, remember. The third negative consequence of altering the film: it will be a time-consuming thing to do. The fourth negative consequence of altering the film: before we even start work on altering the film, we would have to sit down and decide which parts need to be altered, and how to perform those alterations. The fifth negative consequence of altering the film: before or after we sit down and decide which bits need to be altered and how to perform those alterations, we would have to fly the film all the way to some top-secret lab at the other end of the country. The sixth negative consequence of altering the film: numerous other home movies or photographs were taken in Dealey Plaza, any number of which might contradict any of the alterations we make to the film, thereby exposing our dastardly plan, with serious repercussions for us, unless we track down those home movies and photographs and alter the ones that contradict our first round of alterations. The seventh negative consequence of altering the film: if another home movie or photograph that we don't know about now comes along in the future and turns out to contradict any of the the first round of alterations we make in the film or the second round of alterations we make to the other films and photos that we already know about, our dastardly plan will be exposed, with serious repercussions for us, and we won't be able to do anything about it. The eighth negative consequence of altering the film: doing so will involve the resources of a film-processing laboratory and numerous people, which would create a risk of someone giving the game away in the future. The ninth negative consequence of altering the film: tracking down and altering other home movies and photographs will also involve the resources of a film-processing laboratory and many more people, which would increase the risk of someone giving the game away in the future. Let's alter the film! Destroy the film: We have control over a home movie which exposes our dastardly scheme to kill JFK and blame it on a lone nut. We want to prevent the public seeing the evidence contained in this home movie. We could achieve this aim by destroying the film. Before deciding whether or not to do this, we need to weigh up the pros and cons of destroying the film. The first advantage of destroying the film: the evidence it contains will vanish for ever, and we can guarantee that this home movie will never be able to contradict our lone-nut story. The second advantage of destroying the film: it's very easy to do. The third advantage of destroying the film: it's very quick to do; we wouldn't need to fly the film all the way to some top-secret lab at the other end of the country. The fourth advantage of destroying the film: there is no chance at all that our destruction of the film will be exposed by any other home movies or photographs which exist now or which come to light in the future. The fifth advantage of destroying the film: it could be done by one person, keeping to a minimum the chance that anyone might give the game away in the future. The first negative consequence of destroying the film: we will get some serious egg on our faces from people who suspect that we are participating in a cover-up. The second negative consequence of destroying the film: er ... there isn't one. Let's destroy the film! Remember: if the masterminds gave any thought to either altering or destroying the film, they must have worked out the implications of each course of action, and they would have come up with some reasoning along these lines. Now, which of these scenarios is the more plausible?

In response to my question about why the supposed masterminds would have decided to alter the film rather than simply destroying it, Sandy writes: That doesn't answer the question, which was about the masterminds' reasoning which supposedly led them to choose alteration over destruction. Why was it that "the coverup artists did the quick alterations" when they had the opportunity to destroy the film? There was no need to alter it and "hope that that would be sufficient in convincing the public" of anything. Destroying the film was easier, quicker and certain to succeed in eliminating the evidence they wanted to hide; no "hoping" was required. The only negative consequence would have been public embarrassment. What was the reasoning which supposedly produced a bizarre decision instead of a rational one?

Michael Crane writes: I think the claim under discussion is that the hypothetical decision to alter the film was made before the original film was copied. But we have good documentary evidence that three copies were in fact made on the afternoon of the assassination, more than 24 hours before any alterations are claimed to have been performed. How do we reconcile the existence of these copies with the claim that the original film wasn't altered until a day or two later? Is the claim now that the copies were altered too? If so, when and where did this happen? Please provide all the evidence you have that alterations have been made to the first-day copies that are in existence today. If, as I suspect, there is no evidence that the existing copies have been altered, the claim now must be that the masterminds didn't alter the first-day copies but instead destroyed them, with new copies being made from the altered original some time later. Of course, in this case the masterminds would have made the correct decision: it would be far easier, safer, and more foolproof to destroy the first-day copies than alter them. In which case, the argument returns to bite these claimants on their rear ends. Since it would have been easier to destroy the copies than alter them, why would it not also have been easier to destroy the original than alter it?

Roger Odisio writes: Destroying a short reel of 16mm (double-eight) film doesn't sound like a particularly difficult thing to do. I suppose you could wrap it in old newspaper and put it in a bin, and it would end up in landfill, where it would rot. You could cut it into tiny pieces and put the pieces into several bins. You could burn it. You could wrap it around a brick and drop it in the ocean. You could dissolve it in acid. I'm sure you can think of numerous ways to dispose of a troublesome reel of 16mm film. As for who would take the blame, just pick on some anonymous lab technician. After all, in reality the original Zapruder film was damaged by an anonymous lab technician in Chicago, so the claim would be plausible.

Roger Odisio writes: No. I explained why the film at NARA must be the original. Please read my comment again. No. I didn't merely assert that the film at NARA is the original. I explained why it is the original. Please read my comment again. Did they examine the film that is in the archives? I suspect they didn't; but if they did, what reasons did they give to show that Zavada's explanation was incorrect? Jack White! He thought that the moon landings were faked, that no planes hit the World Trade Center, that Oswald and his mother were each a pair of doppelgängers, that photos of the sixth floor rifle taken from slightly different angles were actually of separate rifles, as well as all sorts of other crazy stuff. Not only was White spectacularly wrong about all of those things and no doubt much more, but he was wrong when he claimed (according to Roger's quotation): Zavada didn't just claim that the film in the archives was authentic, he gave technical reasons which demonstrated why it was authentic. Since Roger doesn't seem to have read that part, here it is again: Copying one Kodachrome film onto a second Kodachrome film will inevitably generate defects in the copy: increased contrast, increased grain size, and colour distortion. The film in the archives contains none of these defects. It must therefore be the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera. It follows that no alterations can have been made which required the original film to be copied. See: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf Jack White's objection does not overcome Zavada's claim. Until someone with adequate credentials inspects the film that's in the archives, and provides good evidence that it isn't the original, we must assume that Zavada was right. I've no reason to suppose that he was lying, just that his 30-year-old recollections were mistaken, as 30-year-old recollections often are. Anything that doesn't match what we see in the original Zapruder film that's in the archives. Zavada provides a perfectly plausible alternative explanation for what happened at NPIC. There's no need to accept Brugioni's more far-fetched version. And I explained why destruction was the only logical choice, in the hypothetical scenario Roger describes. I dealt with Roger's original claim in my first reply. Here's Roger's claim: But alteration would not have been the only way "to keep the story they were already going with from imploding". Destroying the film would also do the job, and would do so with more certainty of success, no real risk of failure, and with no serious consequences. Roger didn't explain why those masterminds would have decided to alter the film instead of destroying it. He simply asserted that that's what they did, on the basis of flimsy evidence such as Brugioni's 30-year-old recollections and a bunch of trivial anomalies. Here's my question again: If, as Roger assumes, the masterminds had control of a film which seriously undermined their case; and if they were able to eliminate this evidence simply by destroying the film; and if the only consequence they would suffer by doing so was public embarrassment; and if they understood that it might not be possible to alter the film properly, and that the film would still contain evidence that undermined their case; what thought processes made them decide not to destroy the film but instead to try to alter it?

Sandy Larsen writes: No, it's the sequence of events which Sandy and Roger imply actually happened. No-one would have done that. But that evidence doesn't amount to anything. It's just 30-year-old recollections and some trivial apparent anomalies in a home movie. If, as appears to be the case, plausible alternative explanations exist for these things, such evidence is weak. The question I asked, and which still hasn't been satisfactorily answered, is: what good reason would the masterminds have for not destroying a piece of evidence which (according to Sandy and Roger) they controlled and which seriously undermined the story they wanted the public to believe? In other words, why did they decide keep the film once they became aware that it contradicted their story? What was their thought process?

Michael Crane writes: No, unjustified preconceptions tell you that it's gone. Common sense tells you to look at the evidence, and the evidence which I provided tells you that it still exists. If you can provide a source who (a) is at least as authoritative as Roland Zavada and Raymond Fielding, and (b) has inspected the film in the archives, and (c) can explain why Zavada and Fielding were mistaken, please go ahead. If you can't, we are obliged to believe that the Zapruder film that's in the National Archives is the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination. This is like arguing with a cardboard cut-out! The claim about the left turn being deleted was dealt with in my previous comment. Perhaps Michael could explain to us why anyone would have wanted to delete that part of the Zapruder film. Paul and Denise suggested that it was because the shooting had already started at the time of the car's turn onto Elm Street. I pointed out that there is no good evidence that this happened, and plenty of good evidence that it didn't happen, such as the hundreds of witnesses who would have seen and heard it but who failed to mention it. It's a crazy suggestion; the shooting didn't in fact start until the car was some way along Elm Street. Can Michael think of a less crazy one? If not, the problem disappears: no-one deleted the car's left turn from the Zapruder film because Zapruder didn't actually film the car turning left. On the topic of crazy suggestions, I've just had another look at Paul's comment on page 3 and noticed this gem: Zapruder was part of the plot! I'd be interested to hear not only what evidence Paul has to support that claim but also how that scenario was supposed to work: The masterminds decide to get a local clothing manufacturer to film the motorcade for no obvious reason; the masterminds fail to predict that the clothing manufacturer's film would contradict their lone-nut story; the clothing manufacturer films the assassination, and his film does indeed contradict the masterminds' lone-nut story; the masterminds decide for no good reason not to cut their losses and destroy the film they had commissioned; instead, they decide to alter the film, in order to remove the incriminating parts; while altering the film to remove the incriminating parts, they forget to actually remove the incriminating parts; again they decide not to destroy the film that still undermines their story even after having been incompetently altered; instead, they allow bootleg copies of the film to be viewed by thousands of people; then they allow millions of people to view the actual film on TV; and it becomes common knowledge among the general public that the lone-nut story doesn't hold up. It doesn't look like a watertight plan to me.