Jeremy Bojczuk

I hope this rather embarrassing incident stops people jumping to the conclusion that, just because version A of an image looks a bit different to version B of the same image, the difference must be due to deliberate alteration. Each time a physical image gets copied, the copying process generates visual anomalies. The copy is never exactly the same as the original: the contrast will be different; the copy will probably be less sharp than the original; some areas might become lighter; some areas might become darker; and so on. The same goes for making a digital copy of a physical image. Even making digital copies of digital images often involves changing the resolution or the contrast or some other feature of the original image. Whenever you see different versions of an image and they don't look identical, the differences are almost guaranteed to be the innocent results of the copying and editing processes. We've seen this sort of thing numerous times with the Zapruder film (Look! That woman is eight feet tall! That car is back to front!). You'd think people would have learned their lesson by now. If you feel the urge to claim that a particular version of an image has been deliberately altered in order to deceive the viewer, you need to do more than simply point out anomalies. You need to construct a plausible scenario to explain those anomalies. How might that alteration have been achieved? Was it physically possible? How exactly did that particular alteration generate those specific anomalies? If you don't answer those sorts of questions, you're doing exactly what moon-landings deniers do. The JFK assassination is a serious historical event, and should be treated like one. In any case, there's really no need to presume that the Darnell or Wiegman films have been altered. It would be no great loss if a high-quality image from either film were to show the Prayer Man figure to be someone other than Oswald, since good evidence already exists which places Oswald on the ground floor a few minutes before the shooting, at a time when a gunman had already been seen on the sixth floor. Of course, it would be momentous if one or both of the films did provide confirmation of Oswald's alibi: that he was on the ground floor when JFK passed by the building. For now, the quality of the available images allows the possibility that the figure on the steps was a young white man with a receding hairline, wearing a dark work shirt. Given the lack of evidence that any other TSBD employee was standing in that specific location, and the lack of evidence that some random member of the public had mingled with the employees on the steps, and the weakness of the evidence placing Oswald on the sixth floor during the shooting, the most likely candidate would appear to be Oswald.

Andrej Stancak writes: The original Zapruder film never went away! It's in the national archives, and has been for some time. As for Andrej's contention that there's a discrepancy between the Zapruder film and the Wiegman film, his analysis contains too many variables to justify this conclusion: Myers may or may not be correct, but by itself, the image in which he juxtaposes Zapruder frame 447 and Wiegman frame 265 demonstrates nothing. The outlines of Carl Jones and Bill Shelley in Andrej's Figure 4, juxtaposing the Altgens 6 photo and Wiegman frame 12, are far too vague to convey any information about their precise orientation. They certainly don't demonstrate that Jones and Shelley were in different positions in the two images. The same goes for Andrej's Figure 5, which compares the Altgens 6 photo, Wiegman frame 12, an unnamed frame from the Darnell film, and a family snap-shot of Sarah Stanton. The same goes for the lines-of-sight attributed to Carl Jones in Andrej's Figure 6. The same goes for the supposed angle of Jones's shoulders in Figure 7, which again juxtaposes Altgens 6 and Wiegman 12. All of these images lack sufficient detail to allow precise descriptions of someone's orientation or line of sight. More importantly, we don't know when Wiegman started filming. Even Wiegman didn't know when he started filming! In Andrej's own words: "he was not sure if he started to record before or after the second shot". That observation alone negates the rest of Andrej's analysis. Even if the images were sufficiently detailed to allow someone's orientation or line of sight to be precisely determined, which they aren't, doing so would be meaningless if you can't match one film with another.

Here we go again! This is becoming a repeat of the other thread: Roger makes a claim but fails to provide evidence to support it; I point out that, in the absence of evidence, he is just making stuff up; In reply, Roger repeats the same evidence-free claim; I point out that he is still making stuff up, and that he really needs to provide some evidence; Roger claims that the reason he can't provide any evidence is because the CIA destroyed it. Roger Odisio writes: No, I'm asserting that no documentary evidence has been provided by Roger. It's Roger, not the CIA, who is making a series of improbable claims. It's up to him to support those claims with actual evidence. But he has chosen not to do so, presumably because no relevant documentary evidence exists. According to the evidence we have, some of which was in fact provided by the CIA (here's an example), we know what the CIA did with the film that weekend. The CIA allowed the Secret Service the use of the NPIC to examine the copy of the film which the Secret Service in Dallas sent to the Secret Service in Washington specifically for that purpose. I pointed out that Roger needs to provide evidence to support this claim. Has he finally got around to providing some evidence? No. Has he admitted that there isn't any? No. Roger is just repeating the same evidence-free claim! I'll try again. Where is the evidence for this claim? Has Roger found any statements by Johnson, McCone, or any of their staff to the effect that only the original film would do? Such statements would not imply that anything sinister was going on, so there's no reason to suppose that anyone would have destroyed those particular records. Do they exist? Has Roger looked for them? I provided a plausible alternative to Roger's claim: The original film was 600 miles away in Chicago, while a copy was available right there in Washington. If "Johnson and McCone", or whoever Roger thinks was the mastermind behind the NPIC event, wanted to find out what the Zapruder film showed of the assassination, their only practical option was to examine the Secret Service's copy, which had been flown to Washington specifically so that it could be examined. That copy would certainly not have been "useless to them". All the information in the original film which undermines the lone-gunman idea is present in the copy. I listed the evidence which demonstrates that it was the Secret Service's copy that was examined at the NPIC. Roger appears to accept that that evidence is sound. Where's his evidence that anything different happened? Yes, something was indeed done "with the original to conceal that fact"! It was purchased by Life and largely kept away from the public until the fuss had died down. That was the only thing that needed to be done. There was no need to even try to alter the film. The first-day copies contain just as much evidence which "contradicted the Oswald story" as the original film does. There was no reason for anyone to insist on using the original. So why has Roger repeatedly failed to provide any such evidence? There isn't any, is there? Life examined the original film in Chicago, and would have seen that it was (a) gruesome and upsetting; (b) potentially profitable; and maybe (c) harmful to the official interpretation that only three shots were fired, all of them by one person from behind. Any one of those reasons would have provided sufficient motivation for Life to purchase the film. It's disappointing but not at all surprising that Roger doesn't know what the word 'hearsay' means. Homer McMahon told the ARRB that he heard Bill Smith say to him, McMahon, that he, Smith, had come from Hawkeye Works. That's a textbook example of hearsay! Uncorroborated 30-plus-year-old hearsay is next to worthless as evidence for anything. It's nowhere near strong enough to justify a convoluted tale about altering a home movie. -- Roger claims that the reason he hasn't provided any documentary evidence is that the CIA destroyed it all, as dogs are wont to do to homework. But there's plenty of evidence which might help Roger's case, and which we could expect to exist if what Roger is claiming actually happened. Unfortunately, Roger doesn't seem to have bothered to look for any of it. A good example would be statements from insiders in Washington, which might support Roger's claim that no-one would have wanted to examine a first-day copy of the film. As I've already mentioned, such statements would not imply that anything sinister was going on, so there's no reason to suppose that the CIA, the KGB, the BBC, aliens from the planet Tharg, or anyone else would have destroyed those records. I gave a couple of other examples in my previous comment: airport records and statements by Life employees in Chicago. Both of these types of evidence might be able to support Roger's claim that Life handed the original Zapruder film to the CIA, and that the CIA flew the film from Chicago to Washington. This particular claim is a fundamental part of Roger's scenario; without it, the film cannot have been altered that weekend. Evidence for this claim might well exist, if the claim were valid. Of course, if the claim isn't valid, such evidence won't exist. Does Roger have any plans to look for such evidence? Probably not, because Roger doesn't seem to place any value in actual evidence. Either that or he, like the rest of us, suspects that no such evidence exists. -- Roger has done a good job in demonstrating that there is essentially no evidence that the Zapruder film was even taken to Hawkeye Works that weekend, let alone subjected to alteration there. It's clear that the film which Brugioni examined at the NPIC was one of the Secret Service's copies. Add to this the fact that Hawkeye Works was not equipped to make a copy of the film, which is an essential part of the claimed alteration procedure, and it's equally clear that the film cannot have been altered that weekend. Is there any other time when alterations could have been performed? This seems doubtful, since copies (and copies of copies, and copies of copies of copies) began proliferating soon afterwards and it would quickly have become impossible to round them all up and replace them. If anyone still thinks the film was altered, they need to answer a couple of questions. When and where were these alterations performed? If it happened after the weekend of the assassination, how were all the copies (and copies of copies, and copies of copies of copies) rounded up and replaced? No more guesswork, please, so make sure you cite all the relevant evidence you can find!

Sandy continues: Oh dear! If Sandy really believes that alteration "has been proven", he should assemble the relevant evidence, write up a cogent argument, submit it all to a reputable, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, and let us know what happens. That's a serious suggestion, by the way. If Sandy can convince a substantial body of people with the relevant expertise that, for example, "Photo densitometery has proven that the back part of Kennedy's head at 313 and several frames afterward are artificially too dark to be natural", the claim will be worth taking seriously. Until then, however, claims by random amateurs that the Zapruder film was altered in a top-secret CIA lab are no different from claims by other random amateurs that the moon-landings photos were taken on a film set in Arizona.

Sandy Larsen writes: No, that isn't what I think. I have shown that Roger's suggestion (in the scientific sense, it's certainly not a theory, and its lack of supporting evidence makes it dubious even as a hypothesis) is worthless because it is full of speculation. Every significant claim within Roger's scenario is unsupported by sufficient evidence, and some of his claims are actively contradicted by the evidence that exists. Roger makes six such claims, all of which fail: Someone at Life in Chicago handed the Zapruder film to someone from the CIA. There is no evidence at all that this happened. The CIA flew the film from Chicago to Washington. There is no evidence at all that this happened. The film examined by Brugioni at NPIC was the original. The only evidence for this is a 30-plus-year-old recollection. The claim is contradicted by documentary and witness evidence which shows that the film at NPIC was one of the Secret Service's copies. The film was taken by the CIA from NPIC to Hawkeye Works. There is no evidence at all that this happened. Hawkeye Works was equipped to alter the Zapruder film and create a faked, copied 'original'. This claim is contradicted by the evidence that Hawkeye Works did not possess an optical printer, and by evidence that the film that exists today is not a copy. The only conceivable reason Life bought the physical film from Zapruder was to conceal the botched attempt at alteration. This claim is contradicted by the observations that (a) what needed to be concealed was the evidence which undermined the lone-nut interpretation, and (b) this evidence existed within the unaltered film. There was no need to alter it! That's six claims, every one of which has failed. I think Roger should start again, this time by looking for some actual evidence to support his speculations, and get back to us when he has constructed a scenario that isn't made up almost entirely of guesswork and wishful thinking.

There is also an eighth problem, one which other pro-alteration enthusiasts seem unable to overcome. Let's see if Roger can solve the problem. Dino Brugioni claimed to have seen debris from JFK's head extending upwards, but not backwards, in the film he examined on the Saturday evening. Of course, this is what we see in the Zapruder film today. Brugioni's claim would appear to be further confirmation that the film hasn't been altered. The problem for our pro-alteration friends is in two parts: Because any alterations can only have been made after Brugioni saw the film, the film he saw must have been authentic and unaltered. If Brugioni really did see debris extending upwards, that debris must have actually existed and cannot have been the result of alteration as some people have claimed. If Brugioni was mistaken in recalling debris which extended upwards, we're justified in doubting other parts of his 30-plus-year-old recollections, including anything which implies that the film he examined was the original. Either way, the case for alteration doesn't look good. Roger: do you think that Brugioni was correct in recalling debris which extended upwards from JFK's head, or do you think that he was mistaken?

Do we really need to go over all of this again? Roger Odisio writes: My claim was not that "Life always intended to bury the film". Life's original agreement with Zapruder clearly implied that, as of the Saturday morning, Life did not intend to bury (or alter) the film. The decision to bury the film can only have been taken later that weekend and must have been related to Life's change of plan: to obtain ownership of the physical film. This claim is a fundamental element of Roger's scenario. If the CIA didn't fly the original Zapruder film to Washington, the film cannot have been altered that weekend and Roger's scenario collapses. Unfortunately, Roger has provided no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA, and no evidence that the CIA flew it from there to Washington. Has Roger even looked for documentary evidence, such as airport records or accounts by the many Life employees who were in Chicago that weekend, to back up his claim? If so, what did he find? If he didn't bother to look for any evidence, why did he not bother? In the absence of any documentary evidence to support it, this claim is a pure invention. Problem numero uno with Roger's claim: There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA. As I pointed out on the original thread, there's more to it than that. Several pieces of evidence, taken together, demonstrate that the film which was examined at the NPIC on the Saturday evening must have been one of the Secret Service's two copies: According to the existing documentary evidence, the only version of the film in Washington at the time was the copy which the Secret Service in Dallas had sent to the Secret Service in Washington overnight on the Friday. There is documentary evidence that every other version of the film was elsewhere: (a) the original film was with Life's printers in Chicago; (b) the Secret Service's other copy had been borrowed by the FBI in Dallas and was somewhere en route between Dallas and FBI HQ in Washington; and (c) the third copy was either (sources vary) with Zapruder in Dallas or with Life in Chicago, but was certainly not in Washington. According to witnesses at the NPIC, The film was brought to the NPIC by a Secret Service officer and taken away from the NPIC by a Secret Service officer. According to the head of the Secret Service in Dallas, the Secret Service in Washington: (a) wanted to examine the film; (b) did not possess the facilities to examine the film; and (c) would have asked to borrow the CIA's facilities: namely the NPIC in Washington. The film which Brugioni and others examined at the NPIC can only realistically have been the Secret Service's first-day copy which had been flown from Dallas overnight on the Friday, arriving in Washington on the Saturday morning. All of the evidence I've mentioned here was mentioned in the original thread, and there is no honest reason for Roger not to have mentioned all of it here. We have now identified two problems with Roger's scenario: There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original. As Roger implicitly admits, there is no good evidence that the film used for the briefing boards was the original. Roger has provided no evidence: that anyone in Washington demanded that the original be used; that anyone in Washington even discussed obtaining the original; or that anyone in Washington gave any thought to which version they preferred. That makes three problems: There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC. Correct. The Secret Service copy which Brugioni examined was neither altered nor buried. Yes, there was: practical convenience. The only version of the film which Life had access to in Chicago was the original, so Life used the original. The only version of the film which the Secret Service had access to in Washington was a copy, so NPIC used that copy. Roger's notion, that people in Washington would have insisted on using only the original film, is pure speculation. Roger has provided no documentary evidence to support this aspect of his claim. Again: has Roger even looked for documentary evidence to support his claim? If not, why not? More speculation. There is no evidence that any version of the Zapruder film was taken from NPIC to Hawkeye Works at 3 o'clock on the Sunday morning or at any other time. The only evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works that weekend is a piece of hearsay from more than 30 years later. One person claimed to have heard someone say that he had come from Hawkeye Works. Hearsay from more than three decades later is nowhere near strong enough to support the claim Roger makes. We have now identified four problems with Roger's scenario: There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination. Apparently not. It seems that Hawkeye Works did not possess an optical printer. Without an optical printer, Hawkeye Works would not have been able to make a copy of a home movie such as the Zapruder film. Almost all of the proposed alterations (the most obvious example: the removal of frames) require that the altered original film be copied, in order to create a plausible 'original' film. The alteration-at-Hawkeye-Works scenario proposes that a copy was made and was examined at NPIC that weekend. Perhaps Roger can explain to us how that copy might have been created, in the very limited time available, without using an optical printer. We know that it didn't happen, because the film that's in the national archives is not a copy but the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera. See: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf The problem tally has now reached six: There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination. There is no evidence that Hawkeye Works had the ability to make a copy of the Zapruder film. There is good evidence that the version of the film in the national archives is the original film and not a copy. Obviously, what changed Life's mind was the necessity to keep the film largely away from public view until the immediate fuss had died down. There's no need to invent any attempts at alteration, botched or otherwise. Once Life or [insert name of preferred Bad Guys] understood that the Zapruder film contained evidence which contradicted the lone-nut interpretation, the easiest and most practical course of action was to hide the film. This is what actually happened. We know that hiding the film worked, because it was only after the national TV broadcast in 1975 that pressure from the general public was able to force the authorities to confront some of the evidence which the Warren Commission had ignored. There was no need to even try to alter the film. There was no need to do anything other than hide the film away until the fuss had died down, which is what actually happened. We're now up to seven problems with Roger's speculation-filled and largely evidence-free scenario: There is no evidence that anyone at Life in Chicago handed over the film to the CIA. There is plenty of evidence that the version of the film at NPIC was a copy, and no evidence that it was the original. There is no evidence that anyone in Washington even expressed a preference that the original film be examined at NPIC. There is no good evidence that anything happened at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination. There is no evidence that Hawkeye Works had the ability to make a copy of the Zapruder film. There is good evidence that the version of the film in the national archives is the original film and not a copy. There was no need to alter the Zapruder film; it only needed to be kept largely out of public view until the fuss had died down.

Once Keven Hofeling has answered Kevin Balch's question about the reasons for bracketing fake 'copies' if the actual copies had not been bracketed, perhaps he could answer this one: Do you think Brugioni was correct when he recalled seeing debris flying upwards from JFK's head (and did not recall seeing any debris flying backwards) in the film he examined on the Saturday night? If Brugioni was correct, the vertical debris in the Zapruder film must be genuine. Not only (a) can that part of the film not have been altered, but (b) the existence of vertical debris implies the existence of a wound somewhere in the upper part of JFK's head. If, on the other hand, Brugioni's recollection was faulty, there's no good reason to trust his other recollections, and the alteration-at-Hawkeye-Works notion can be dismissed. So, which is it? Was Brugioni correct, in which case the film is genuine, or was he incorrect, in which case the film is genuine?

There are two relevant facts: Bruce Jamieson recalled, more than 30 years after the event, that the exposures had not been bracketed. He then changed his mind. The existing Secret Service copies do indeed appear to have been bracketed. From these two facts, two contradictory interpretations emerge. First, the obvious one: The exposures were in fact bracketed, and Jamieson had simply misremembered an event that had occurred more than three decades earlier. In other words: there's nothing to see here. Then there's Horne's alternative interpretation: The exposures were not bracketed. Nasty Zavada bullied and tricked poor Jamieson into reversing his original recollection. The existing Secret Service copies are fakes. The existing fake 'first-day copies' were bracketed for no obvious reason. The fake 'original' film and one of the fake 'copies' were sent to Life on Monday 25th (an allegation which is supported by no evidence at all). The genuine first-day copies were seized by some Bad Guys no later than Monday 25th (an allegation which is supported by no evidence at all). The two remaining faked 'first-day copies' were inserted into the record to replace the seized non-fake first-day copies (an allegation which is supported by no evidence at all). In other words, Horne has made it all up. He came across a trivial discrepancy in someone's recollections from decades after the event, and built a convoluted conspiratorial narrative out of it. Horne did the same thing with Brugioni's recollection from decades after the event and McMahon's hearsay recollection from decades after the event. Conclusion: Horne is a crank. Keven really needs to stop taking Horne seriously, and start treating him as a laughing-stock, as most JFK assassination enthusiasts do.

Paul Rigby writes: People have been carrying portable cameras for well over a century. The first type to become really popular was the Vest Pocket Kodak, introduced in 1912. According to http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Vest_Pocket_Kodak, which features a photo of a dapper fellow cheerfully popping a VPK into his jacket pocket, more than 200,000 units of the original model were sold, along with around two million units of later models between 1915 and 1926. Since 1912, and even in the 70 years or so since home movie cameras caught on, there have been numerous public assassinations and attempted assassinations of political figures. In all of these events, how many members of the public have had their films and photographs altered as part of a cover-up? Is there even a single credible case? Apparently not. What is alleged to have happened to the Zapruder film would seem to be unique. Because what is alleged is not an everyday occurrence, strong evidence is required to support the allegation. When one also takes into consideration the extreme difficulty of doing what has been alleged in the limited time available and with the limited equipment available, evidence as unreliable as eye-witness testimony is hopelessly inadequate. The meaning of "keeping the film largely out of public view" should be obvious to anyone with a reasonable command of English. The film was retained by Life, who were reluctant even to allow individual frames to be published. Bootlegs of the complete home movie circulated, but reached only a small proportion of the US population. Thus, the film was kept largely out of public view. This isn't difficult to understand, or at all controversial. There's a good account of the pre-1975 circulation of the film on pages 55-66 of David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination. Keeping the film largely out of public view until the immediate fuss had died down was all that needed to be done to prevent the public at large becoming aware of those aspects of the film which contradicted the lone-nut interpretation. There was never any need to alter the film, which is the primary reason no-one even attempted to alter it. The other reason, of course, was the practical impossibility of altering it, given the limited time available and the lack of appropriate equipment.

Chuck Schwartz writes: Thank you, Chuck. Yes, I think so too. The presence of vertical debris in the film which Brugioni viewed on the Saturday evening has three implications: The vertical debris cannot have been added to the film later. The debris must have come from a wound somewhere in the upper part of JFK's head. A good candidate would of course be the wound above JFK's right ear that is shown in the Zapruder film and in some of the autopsy photos. Descending debris would account for the brain matter which the police motorcyclists rode into. Summary: the visible wound produced the vertical debris; the wound and the debris were captured by the Zapruder film; and the descending debris struck the motorcyclists. Conclusion: there's nothing to see here.

I'd be interested to hear our pro-alteration friends' opinions about one specific thing: Brugioni's recollection that, in the film he saw at NPIC, debris flew upwards from JFK's head, and his failure to mention any debris flying backwards. In this instance, do you think Brugioni's memory was accurate or not? In the film he saw, did the debris in fact fly vertically rather than horizontally? The problem our friends face is that the film Brugioni saw on the Saturday evening cannot already have been altered, because the supposed alteration did not occur until the next day. If his memory was accurate, the vertical debris that's visible today cannot have been added later, and yet another pro-alteration claim bites the dust. But if his memory was not accurate, why should we trust anything else he claimed to have seen? In this case, the whole alteration-at-Hawkeye-Works scenario bites the dust. Of course, the obvious solution to the riddle is that the film Brugioni saw was the Secret Service copy which had arrived in Washington that morning. In other words, there's nothing to see here, and the alteration-at-Hawkeye-Works scenario bites the dust again. So: do you think Brugioni actually saw debris extending vertically above JFK's head, or not?

Sandy Larsen writes: It is a mistake to argue that because there was a cover-up, anything is possible. In how many official cover-ups have spectators' home movies or photographs been altered? This is at least the third time I've asked this question, and I'm still waiting for someone to produce a credible example (or indeed any example at all) of such alteration in any other assassination since the advent of photography. So far, there's nothing. Apparently, if the Zapruder film was indeed altered, it would be the first and only time something like this has happened. I'd be surprised if there aren't numerous examples of official cover-ups in which written documents such as witness statements were altered or invented. That's because altering a written document is a relatively straightforward thing to do. Altering a home movie is a much more complex undertaking. Altering a home movie in the way the Zapruder film is alleged to have been altered, in just a few hours and without access to modern equipment, is so unlikely that it needs to be supported by very strong evidence indeed. Evidence such as eye-witness testimony really isn't good enough (especially when those eye-witnesses can't even agree among themselves), because we know that eye-witnesses often get stuff wrong.

Kevin Balch writes: The three copies were made at three exposure settings: one at the presumed correct exposure, one at a slightly higher exposure setting (thus producing a slightly lighter image), and one at a slightly lower setting (producing a slightly darker image). The lightest copy would have lost some detail in its lighter areas compared to the other two copies, and the darker copy would have lost some detail in its darker areas compared to the other two copies. All three would have lost some detail compared to the original. It's almost certain that Brugioni did not see the camera original. The film he saw can only realistically have been one of the Secret Service's two copies, because: The film he saw was brought to, and taken away from, the NPIC by the Secret Service. The only version of the film in Washington at the time was the copy which the Secret Service in Dallas had sent to the Secret Service in Washington overnight on the Friday. The original film was in Chicago. We know that one of the Secret Service's two copies was noticeably lighter than the original, and that the other was noticeably darker than the original. For details, see pages 20-23 of the Zavada report: https://archive.org/details/ZavadaReport It isn't clear, as far as I can tell, which of these two copies was the one sent to Washington on the Friday night and viewed by Brugioni on the Saturday. But whichever one it was, it would have lacked details compared to the original. It's quite conceivable that details, such as a rapidly dissipating cloud of brain matter and the shadow area at the back of JFK's head, would have looked different in the copy Brugioni worked with than in the original.

Paul Bacon writes: Thanks for replying, Paul. Trivial details such as the colour and height of the debris can be explained by the uncontroversial variability of human memory. The fundamental claim is that the debris didn't "shoot up out of the top of Kennedy's head" as we see in the Zapruder film, but out of the back of his head, and that the vertical debris we see in the film is the product of alteration. But if Brugioni actually saw vertical debris and did not see horizontal debris, that vertical debris cannot have been added later. That aspect of the film must be authentic. Alternatively, if Brugioni's memory was faulty regarding the direction of the debris, how can we rule out the possibility that his other recollections were faulty too? Almost certainly nothing was done at Hawkeye Works on the weekend of the assassination. If you go back and read some of Tom Gram's posts, you'll see that the Hawkeye Works notion is the result of hearsay: someone claimed, decades after the event, that he heard someone else claim that he had come from Hawkeye Works. It's very flimsy evidence indeed.

Keven Hofeling writes: The question is whether or not the Zapruder film accurately depicts the brain matter. In other words, is what we see in the film what we would expect to see, or is it not? If it is not what we would expect to see, is it the product of alteration? Keven is claiming that the brain matter in the film dissipates too quickly, and must be the product of an altered film. But he has repeatedly failed to give any reasons to support his assertion. He could start by answering these questions: What is it about the properties of exploding brain matter that makes what we see in the film impossible in reality? How exactly should brain matter behave in this situation? Have any studies been carried out on the subject of exploding brain matter? If so, let's see some actual evidence, ideally with sources cited. If not, Keven should just admit that he is making stuff up. No, eye-witness evidence is not "far superior" to photographic evidence. The detailed recollections of eye-witnesses are notoriously unreliable. Films and photographs come out of the camera unaltered; that is their default state. When there is a conflict between eye-witnesses and photographic evidence, we have a ready-made explanation: the eye-witnesses were mistaken. If anyone wants to argue that the photographic evidence is faulty, it needs to be done on grounds other than eye-witness evidence. It's probably true that someone like Keven can't tell the difference. But that's Keven's problem. "Falsification of evidence" is a broad term. I have asked a couple of times if anyone can produce examples of something like the alteration of the Zapruder film in other assassinations. So far, no examples have been offered. Evidently, nothing like the proposed alteration of the Zapruder film has ever happened in any political assassination, including the JFK assassination.

Kevin Balch writes: Two good points there! Paul Bacon's reply should be interesting to read, if he can think of a way to rescue Brugioni's decades-after-the-event recollections. If he can't, I assume he will be brave enough to admit that Brugioni, like everyone else, was liable to misremember details of an event which happened decades earlier, and that those recollections are flimsy evidence for something as potentially important as the topic of this thread. Kevin's points need to be addressed by the everything-is-a-fake brigade. If you claim that Brugioni's recollections must have been accurate, how do you account for those parts which contradict your pet belief?

I see the copy-and-paste guy is back again! Keven appears to be worked up about comments I made back in January and February. That's been festering away for some time, hasn't it? Keven writes: Brain matter is visible even in relatively poor-quality copies of frames 313, 314, 315, and 316. Here we are again: 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 If Keven is claiming that the brain matter must have taken longer to disperse than we see in the film, he needs to produce some evidence and argument to justify that claim. Until he does so, it's just an empty assertion. As far as I'm aware, none of the people Keven mentions are "lone nutter advocates". This is an accusation which other everything-is-a-fake advocates have made in the past, and which tells us something about their mentality. Keven seems to think that the only alternative to the Oswald-did-it-all-by-himself interpretation is that there was a massive conspiracy by all-powerful Bad Guys who faked the evidence on a scale never seen in any assassination before or since. As I asked earlier, is there evidence that anything like the alteration of the Zapruder film has ever happened in any other assassination since the advent of photography? No such evidence has yet been produced. I'm sorry to disappoint Keven, but it's perfectly possible for a group of conspirators to assassinate a politician without going on to fake a load of evidence, let alone faking the single most important piece of evidence which demonstrates the existence of that conspiracy. No, there is no circular reasoning involved. No-one is claiming that "the altered evidence itself [corroborates] the very same altered evidence". The claim is in two parts: the evidence that has been put forward is insufficient to demonstrate alteration (for example, it is uncontroversial that eye-witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes), and superior evidence demonstrates that the film hasn't been altered (for example, the fact that the film in the national archives is the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination). Keven fails to understand the point I made several months ago (has this really been bubbling away inside his head since January?). During each exposure cycle of Zapruder's camera, the shutter was closed for slightly longer than it was open. The amount of time the shutter was closed between frames 313 and 314 was more than enough for any horizontal debris to fly out of sight; for details, see my comment from January. The fact that the film didn't capture any horizontal debris does not imply that the film was altered. It's interesting that Keven hasn't actually put forward an actual argument against the point I made. He merely copies and pastes accounts by people who were hit by brain matter, without explaining why those accounts require the film to have been altered. Of course, those accounts are perfectly compatible with an unaltered film. Here is Keven's homework for tonight: Produce some evidence and argument to justify his claim that "the pink cloud dissipates at an artificially rapid rate". Produce some evidence and argument to justify his claim that the Zapruder film must have captured any horizontal debris. Produce some evidence and argument to justify his claim that anyone who questions the everything-is-a-fake nonsense must be a lone-nutter.

Keven Hofeling writes: Indeed there are. But that wasn't the question I asked. Here is the question again, with the important parts in bold: I've never come across any examples of assassinations, political or otherwise, in which spectators' films or photos were altered or faked as part of the plot. Are there any credible accounts of photo alteration in any other assassination? In other words, has the thing that is specifically being alleged to have happened in the JFK assassination, namely the alteration of a spectator's home movie, ever happened in any other assassination? Pete suggested that because there's evidence that some types of irregularities seem to have occurred in the JFK assassination, such as the stripping of protection by the Secret Service, it's reasonable to assume that spectators' home movies or photographs might have been altered. I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption, since other assassinations have featured the stripping of protection, whereas there doesn't seem to be any precedent for the alteration of spectators' home movies or photographs, a far more complex course of action than the removal of a few bodyguards. If there is a precedent for this that I'm not aware of, I'd genuinely like to learn about it and see how closely it resembles what has been alleged to have happened in this case. Maybe the alteration of the Zapruder film isn't such a wacky idea after all! But if there is no such precedent, it reduces the already slim possibility that any perpetrators would have even considered altering the film, given that they had a couple of far more practical and straightforward ways of solving the problems created by the film.

Pete Mellor writes: I'm sure I've read about other 'inside job' assassinations in which protection was deliberately removed in order to allow the assassination to happen. But I've never come across any examples of assassinations, political or otherwise, in which spectators' films or photos were altered or faked as part of the plot. Are there any credible accounts of photo alteration in any other assassination? That's a genuine question. If any such accounts exist, it would be interesting to compare them with the claims about the JFK assassination. If no such accounts exist, in any of the numerous public assassinations and assassination attempts since the advent of photography, there's no good reason to equate altering photographs and home movies with relatively common events such as the removal of protection or the threatening of witnesses, or even the alteration of written documents such as witness statements. If, as I suspect, there are no credible accounts of anything like the alteration of the Zapruder film ever happening in any other assassination, it's a big mistake to assume that it happened in this case. The sort of evidence required to demonstrate that it happened in this case would need to be much stronger than the evidence we've seen so far: anomaly-spotting and (as Douglas Horne has done in his NPIC/Hawkeye Works speculation) the construction of elaborate scenarios based on nothing more than decades-old recollections.

Roger Odisio writes: "A plan to get away with the murder" - yes, and I've put forward, several times now, a plausible scenario for this which didn't require any of the photographic evidence to be altered. "and get the policy changes that motivated the murder" - no, we aren't justified in deducing that the policy changes motivated the murder. They may have done, or they may not have done. In order to resolve the question, we need actual evidence, the sort of thing Roger shows little interest in looking for. We don't even know who those people were, let alone what power they possessed! If Roger can provide us with an exhaustive list of the "likely" conspirators, with (and this is the important bit) a full account of how he knows that they were "likely" behind the assassination, we might be able to judge the amount of power they possessed. Until then, it's just more speculation. No. Firstly, it isn't a proof; it's merely a plausible suggestion that is consistent with the evidence we have. Secondly, there are two other factors besides the multiple shooters: The assassination was carried out in front of a large crowd, many of whom could have been expected to bring cameras with them. There was an obvious risk, maybe even a reasonable expectation, that those cameras would capture direct or indirect evidence of those multiple shooters. The choice of Oswald as a patsy. His apparent sympathies with the Cuban and Soviet regimes could be expected to come to light, something which did in fact happen (I'll come back to this point later). All three factors suggest that the assassination was intended to look like the work of the dreaded International Communist Conspiracy, and not like the work of a lone nut. How does Roger know that "the leadership of the planners" was not interested in targeting Cuba? Once Roger gets round to identifying those planners for us, we will be able to judge his latest claim. Until then, it's the usual speculation. No, I claimed that if Roger's basic speculative assumption were true, and the planners were the same people who carried out the cover-up, and if, as Roger also assumes, they wanted to eliminate the awkward evidence contained in the Zapruder film, the only certain way to do this would be to destroy it. But in reality the film wasn't destroyed, so one or both of Roger's speculative assumptions must be faulty (I suspect it's both). If, on the other hand, the people who carried out the cover-up merely wanted that awkward evidence to go away until the immediate fuss had died down, all they needed to do was ... guess what? ... hide the film until the immediate fuss had died down, which is what actually happened. In each of these scenarios, a far simpler, more obvious, and more practical option existed than trying to alter the film. I'd be surprised if anyone in Washington or Dallas, before or after the assassination, even considered the possibility of altering the film, given that 40 or more years of interest has failed to reveal anything resembling proof that alteration was considered. Wrong! Sorry. If by "that decision" Roger means the conscious choice between hiding the film or altering it, that decision was probably never made, for reasons I've just given. If he means simply the decision to hide the film, who knows? If I had to guess, it would probably have been around the time Life bought the film, or shortly afterwards. One or more of the politicians, bureaucrats and media people who were in the process of preventing a serious investigation. There is no documentary evidence that anyone in Washington insisted on having access to the original film. The fact that Life flew the original film to Chicago on the Saturday while the Secret Service took its copy, which was already in Washington, to the NPIC, tells us that Life and the Secret Service were happy to use whichever version of the film was available to each of them at the time. There is no good evidence that this happened. For the weakness of this claim, see Tom Gram's reply to Pete Mellor on page 45: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30511-the-zapruder-film-and-npichawkeyeworks-mysteries/?do=findComment&comment=542473 There is no good evidence that this happened either. See some of Tom's other comments. Hallelujah! Roger has seen the light! Consider these three factors: The film in the national archives is the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera (see http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf). No-one has come close to proving alteration in at least 40 years of trying. No-one who has examined the actual film that's in the archives has identified any evidence of attempted alteration. Given all of this, it's safe to say that altering the film probably wasn't even considered as an option, let alone attempted. Yet again, Roger speculates that the people behind the assassination were the same people who were behind the cover-up. Let go of those assumptions, Roger! The Secret Service appear to have taken their first-day copy with them when they left the NPIC early on the Sunday morning. As far as I'm aware, that film wasn't "returned maybe 10-12 hours later", or at all. More evidence-free speculation! As I pointed out earlier, why bother to invent a superfluous event for which there is no good evidence? To look at it another way, why would anyone in Washington have decided to do something so impractical when a far simpler solution to their problem was available? All that was needed was for the original, unaltered Zapruder film to be largely hidden from public view until the fuss had died down. There is a huge amount of evidence that this is exactly what happened. ----- There's one point I've made a few times now, which Roger hasn't commented on, as far as I'm aware. It concerns the choice of Oswald as a patsy. In Roger's scenario, Oswald was chosen by people who wanted the assassination to be viewed as the work of a lone nut. But Oswald's personal history made him look like the precise opposite of a successful lone nut assassin: he was a mediocre shot, and he appeared to have strong sympathies with the Cuban and Soviet regimes. If Roger's planners wanted a patsy who looked like a lone nut, there must have been any number of more suitable candidates than Oswald. So why did they specifically choose Oswald?

Pete Mellor writes: Fair enough! Witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes. In real life, witnesses get stuff wrong far, far more often than films are altered. That, until alteration is proven, is why there are discrepancies. Films come out of the camera unaltered. That is their default state. The first thing that needs to be proved is the claim that the film has been altered. Until that happens, the default state applies: the film has not been altered. Similarly, in the case of the moon landings photos, it is up to those who claim the photos are faked to prove their claim. It is up to those who claim that the moon is made of green cheese to prove their claim. Until all of these people do this, it is rational to believe that the Zapruder film is authentic, that the moon landings photos are authentic, and that the moon is not made of green cheese. In at least 40 years of people claiming to have spotted anomalies in the film, whether it is internal inconsistencies or contradictions with witness statements or with other images, nothing has been produced that would convince a reasonable, open-minded member of the public that the film has been altered. What needs to happen is for someone to assemble the evidence for one or more specific claims of alteration, write it up into an academic-level paper, submit that paper to a reputable peer-reviewed journal, and get the paper accepted. Until that happens, it is all just amateurish moon-landings-style speculation. As far as I'm aware, no-one has even tried to do this. It's all still at the level of "well, this kinda sorta looks a bit funny to me, so the film must have been altered." That level of amateurishness is liable to make rational critics of the lone-nut theory look like idiots by association. It's because of this famous passage in McMahon's ARRB interview: 'Major credibility problems' is an understatement!

Sandy Larsen writes: Presumably that would depend on the circumstances. Their first action might have been to replicate what happened with the Zapruder film: have a quiet word with the owners and keep the film or photo hidden for as long as possible. In the case of the Darnell and Wiegman films, I presume that no-one became aware until much later that there was an awkwardly Oswald-like shape in the doorway. If, let's say, a member of the public had taken a photo which clearly showed a gunman behind the fence on the grassy knoll, or showed a gunman who clearly wasn't Oswald in a sixth-floor window, and if it wasn't possible to keep that photo hidden away, that would amount to a huge problem for the political establishment. But not necessarily a problem for whoever instigated the assassination. That political problem would have been even worse if such a photo revealed not only that the Oswald-as-lone-nut story was incorrect but also that the authorities had been messing about with Zapruder film to remove evidence of a conspiracy. Probably by having another quiet word, invoking national security, and if that failed, by using threats. Not all threats need to have implied physical violence. See, for example, the case of Charles Givens, whose criminal record (combined with the colour of his skin) rendered him susceptible to pressure to change his testimony: http://22november1963.org.uk/meagher-the-curious-testimony-of-mr-givens It doesn't seem unreasonable that a political insider like Bundy would work out quickly that a lone-nut interpretation would be the safest option, from the point of view of the political establishment. Once he heard that an individual had been arrested in Dallas, he promoted the idea that this individual was indeed a lone nut. There's no need to assume that Bundy's action was part of a pre-planned scheme. A simpler explanation is available. As for "if the assassination plotters played no pre-assassination roll [sic] in setting up Oswald as the patsy", my interpretation is that they did set him up as a patsy, but not as a lone-nut patsy. Oswald's personal history suggests that he must have been chosen as a patsy in order to implicate the Cuban or Soviet regimes in the assassination once his apparent sympathies with those regimes became known, something which happened quickly. Thus, he wasn't a lone-nut patsy but a patsy who was part of a conspiracy (even if he wasn't aware of that himself). His links to the intelligence community suggest that he was chosen also as a way of preventing an honest investigation by the CIA and FBI. If "the assassination plotters" had wanted to set up a patsy in advance as a lone nut, surely they would have chosen someone who didn't carry all of Oswald's ideological baggage. As I pointed out to Roger, there must have been any number of potential patsies who worked along the route of the motorcade. If the plotters wanted to implicate someone as a lone-nut patsy, why would they have chosen Oswald?

Pete Mellor writes: You shouldn't be! Eye-witnesses, especially eye-witnesses to sudden and traumatic events, get stuff wrong sometimes. They forget details that were there, and inadvertently conjure up details that weren't there. Discrepancies like that don't amount to anything. If there's any solid evidence of that, I'd be interested to see it! As for the railroad carriages, can it be demonstrated that any contradictory photos or films were actually taken at the same time, and that the carriages must have been visible from both points of view? It's always a good idea to be sceptical of claims like this, and insist on solid evidence to support them. There was a claim years ago that a photograph of a row of spectators contradicted what the Zapruder film showed. It turned out that the film and the photograph depicted two different rows of spectators. Duh! People have been coming up with supposed discrepancies like this for the last 40 years or more. So far, not a single supposed discrepancy has been proven to be the result of alteration. Most of these claims either have plausible alternative explanations or have been shown to be wrong for one reason or another: witnesses were mistaken; witnesses have been misquoted; something missing from the film isn't actually missing at all; something that shouldn't be in the film is actually an artefact in a poor-quality copy; and so on. There's more about this here: http://22november1963.org.uk/zapruder-film-genuine-or-fake#anomalies My favourite anomaly claim is this one: the plume of brain matter above JFK's head only appears in frame 313, which means that frames must have been removed! That claim has actually been made more than once on this very thread. Needless to say, if you look at frames 314 onwards, you'll see the plume of brain matter. It's visible even in poor-quality copies. This fact has been known and pointed out on this very forum for years, and people still repeat the claim. The only thing these people needed to do was look at the actual film! But they didn't bother. It makes me think that it isn't the Zapruder film that's missing some brain matter. The sheer moon-landings level of amateurishness when it comes to claims of alteration is appalling. Check out some of Tom Gram's comments on this thread. The only evidence that anything at all happened at Hawkeye Works that weekend is a second-hand piece of hearsay from decades later by someone (McMahon) who admitted that he was a recovering alcoholic and drug-addict with a form of dementia: pretty much the ultimate unreliable witness. There is no evidence that the original film was in Washington that weekend, and plenty of evidence that it was in Chicago, 600 miles away. The film that was taken to the NPIC on the Saturday evening must have been the Secret Service's first-day copy, which we know for a fact was in Washington. And if that's the case, the original film can't have been altered.

Paul Rigby writes: But CBS didn't show the film, did they? It was owned by Life, who kept it largely hidden from the public for 12 years. Hiding the film solved the problem. There was no need to alter it! Nor was there any need to round up all the other films and photos and then alter whichever ones contradicted an altered Zapruder film, a ludicrously impractical scenario which we know did not happen but which must have happened if any rational conspirators wanted to prevent the public finding out that the Zapruder film had been altered.