Jeremy Bojczuk

Roger Odisio writes: Nothing much "happened at the two CIA labs". Some people turned up, looked at one of the first-day copies of the Zapruder film, and went home again. No big deal. It's possible, as Tom Gram points out, that nothing at all "happened at the two CIA labs" on the weekend of the assassination, and that the examination of a copy of the Zapruder film occurred in December. The only evidence we have that the original film didn't go to Chicago is Brugioni's claim, more than 30 years after the event, that the film he thought he worked with on the Saturday was the original. As I have pointed out, we have documentary evidence which suggests that Brugioni was mistaken, and that, if he worked on a film at all on the Saturday, that film was actually the Secret Service's slit 8mm first-day copy that was flown to Washington overnight on the Friday. Thanks to Tom's research, there is now no good reason to suppose that anyone worked on any version of the Zapruder film (the original, a first-day copy, or a fake) at NPIC on the Sunday. In the absence of any positive evidence that the original went anywhere other than Chicago on the weekend of the assassination, there is no good reason to believe that the original film was altered that weekend, whether at Hawkeye Works, the NPIC, a Hollywood studio, or anywhere else. And if the film wasn't altered that weekend, it can't realistically have been altered at all. Second- and third-generation copies began to appear shortly afterwards, all of which would have had to be rounded up and replaced without leaving a trace, a highly impractical scenario for which there is no credible evidence. Yes, I understand all of that. The point I was making was that the assumptions behind Roger's claim don't seem to add up. One of Roger's assumptions is inconsistent with another of Roger's assumptions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the claim seems to be that the same people ("the CIA", however that term is defined): carried out the assassination using more than one gunman; wanted the public to believe that the assassination was actually the work of a lone gunman; chose Oswald in advance as the lone-gunman patsy; seized the Zapruder film; and altered the Zapruder film to remove evidence of more than one gunman. (And failed to remove such evidence, but we'll leave that for now). The question I asked was: Why does Roger assume that the conspirators wanted the public to believe that the assassination was carried out by a lone gunman? Roger's answer: "They needed a story to cover up what they did and blame someone else." OK, but simply by choosing Oswald as the patsy, they possessed a ready-made story "to cover up what they did and blame someone else." Oswald's apparent sympathies with the Cuban and Soviet regimes inevitably generated suspicion that Oswald was acting on behalf of one or both of those regimes, either alone or with others. There was no need to seize the Zapruder film and try (unsuccessfully) to remove evidence of more than one gunman. In fact, doing so would have been counter-productive. If the Zapruder film contained evidence that more than one gunman was involved, suspicion of a communist conspiracy would have been strengthened. The more evidence of multiple gunmen, the better, from the point of view of Roger's culprits. An unaltered Zapruder film would have done exactly what Roger claims "the CIA" wanted: put the blame on someone else. There would have been even less need to alter the film if you believe that Oswald's very public pro-Castro activities in New Orleans, and his supposed visits to the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic compounds in Mexico City, were staged in order to portray him as a communist sympathiser. I don't know whether or not Roger believes that these incidents were staged, but it isn't an unreasonable belief, considering the plentiful evidence of Oswald's links to anti-communist activists in New Orleans, in particular Guy Banister. Roger's culprits must have been aware before the assassination of Oswald's public persona as a pro-communist sympathiser, and they must have known that these sympathies would become public knowledge after the assassination. Their only plausible reason for choosing Oswald in advance as a patsy was to implicate the Cuban and Soviet regimes in the assassination. And if, after the assassination, he could be seen to have been working with associates, those associates can only have been part of a communist-inspired conspiracy. The stronger the evidence for multiple gunmen, the stronger the evidence for a communist-inspired conspiracy, which is the only reason for choosing Oswald as a patsy in the first place. If Roger's culprits really wanted a patsy who could be framed as a lone gunman, why choose one with all of Oswald's ideological baggage? Why not choose, say, Buell Wesley Frazier? He was already working at the book depository before Oswald was (maybe) parachuted in, he had legitimate access to the sixth floor, he owned a rifle, he was just as disposable as Oswald, and there was no danger that he would generate immediate suspicion that he was working on behalf of anyone else. Someone like Frazier would have been an ideal lone-gunman patsy. Or how about one of the African American warehouse workers? With no ties to foreign powers, there would be no suspicion of conspiracy. In 1960s Texas, the chance that he'd survive long enough to make his case in a courtroom must have been pretty small. If a lone-nut patsy was required, there were plenty of better candidates than Oswald. Roger's "the CIA" could: choose Oswald as a patsy (in order to implicate the Cuban or Soviet regimes); or decide to alter the Zapruder film to remove evidence that more than one gunman was involved. But they wouldn't realistically have done both, as Roger implies. Choosing Oswald as the patsy would have negated the need to alter any of the photographic evidence. (Sorry for going off-topic with this, but I just wanted to clarify my objection to Roger's assumptions. Anyway, back to the NPIC storm in a teacup ... )

Keven Hofeling writes: No. Although the first-day copy which Stolley took possession of on the 23rd was certainly unslit, at least one and probably both of the other two first-day copies was slit, along with the original. According to Wrone, pp.26-27: Wrone cites interviews with Erwin Schwartz and Phil Chamberlain (e.g. "Chamberlain video interview. He is adamant on this."). The fact that Brugioni dealt with a slit 8mm film does not imply that he was dealing with the original. It looks as though both of the copies which Zapruder gave to the Secret Service were slit on the evening of the 22nd, and Brugioni was dealing with one of them. Thirty-plus years later, he assumed wrongly that it was the original, and a far-fetched conspiracy theory was born.

To paraphrase Roger Odisio's comment: there's no documentary evidence for any of this, but I'm going to keep believing it anyway. Of Roger's many unsupported assumptions, one in particular interests me. It's that whoever was behind the assassination: did the job properly by using more than one gunman firing from more than one location; and wanted the public to believe that the assassination was committed by a lone assassin; and had control of the Zapruder film; and decided to conceal evidence of more than one gunman by altering the Zapruder film. I wouldn't argue with the first claim, and I've already pointed out the problem with the fourth claim. But I'm not sure anyone has managed (or even attempted) to justify the other two claims. Claim no.2 in particular is puzzling. It's clear that bureaucrats in Washington, for straightforward institutional reasons, wanted the public to believe that only one gunman was involved. But why assume that the conspirators would want this? After all, if the conspirators wanted the blame to fall on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, which seems plausible to many people, given the history of the chosen patsy, wouldn't evidence of multiple gunmen be exactly what they wanted the public to see? This thread isn't the right place to discuss this point, by the way. I'm just curious about how the alteration of some or all of the Dealey Plaza photographic evidence fits into a coherent account of the assassination.

Pat Speer writes: Correct. This took place on the evening of the 22nd. Yes. The FBI took possession of one copy on the afternoon of the 23rd. This copy was sent to FBI HQ that afternoon (see Robert Morrow's comment). Zapruder handed over the original film and the third copy to Life on the morning of the 23rd. Technically, what he sold on the 23rd were "exclusive world wide print media rights" to his film, rather than the physical film and the physical copies. His contract with Stolley on the 23rd mentioned that Life would return the film to him at some unspecified point. This deal was superseded by the one agreed on the 25th, in which Zapruder sold the physical film and all three copies, two of which he still owned up to that point even though he had allowed the Secret Service to borrow them for non-commercial use. We know from at least two sources that Zapruder's first-day copy was handed to Stolley on the 23rd: Stolley's account in Esquire (https://classic.esquire.com/what-happened-next/ : "I picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy and sneaked out a back door of the [i.e. Zapruder's] building." Zapruder's contract with Life, dated Monday 25th: "You [C. D. Jackson] acknowledge receipt through your agent [Stolley, on the 23rd] of the original and one (1) copy thereof," That sentence continues: "and it is understood that there are two (2) other copies, one (1) of which is with the Secret Service in Dallas, Texas, and one (1) copy of which is with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C." Zapruder and Jackson were unaware that the Secret Service in Dallas had handed their remaining copy the previous day to the FBI, who had sent it to FBI HQ in Washington. It is this copy which must be the one examined at NPIC on the Sunday (if anything was in fact examined there that day). As far as I'm aware, one of the two first-day copies which were handed to the Secret Service on the 22nd is now in the national archives. I don't know what happened to the other one. Life's first-day copy was given to the Zapruder family in 1975, and was later handed over to the Sixth-Floor Museum, where I presume it still resides. As for Alexandra Zapruder's book, it is on my shopping list, but it might be a while before I get around to buying it. The history of the various first-day copies after the weekend of the assassination is confusing but not of much relevance to the claims of alteration, which can only plausibly have been carried out that weekend. Any later, and second- and third-generation copies start accumulating, all of which would have had to be rounded up, reproduced using a hypothetical altered 'original', and replaced without anyone noticing, a close to impossible task.

Chris Davidson writes: One possibility is that the FBI's expert had forgotten about the splice by the time the memo was written, more than three years after the event (the memo mentions Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment, which was published in August 1966). Another possibility is that the expert gave the matter no importance at the time. He would surely have been interested in what the film contained, and the quality of the detail, rather than on the lookout for damage to the film. And, according to the memo, the expert only examined the film "briefly". It's reasonable to assume that the expert at the showing on 25 February 1963 was Lyndal Shaneyfelt, who testified about the occasion to the Commission in June 1964 (Hearings and Exhibits, vol.5 pp.138-165 : https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=40#relPageId=148). Shaneyfelt appears to be unconcerned by details such as which generation of the film he is seeing. He mentions on p.177 of his testimony that the film he is in the process of showing the Commission is "The original Zapruder film", then changes his mind and describes it as "the first copy ... This film we just viewed is a copy made directly from the original Zapruder film of the actual assassination". But it appears that it wasn't even a first-generation copy. The film in question was designated Commission Exhibit 904, but upon later examination CE 904 turned out to be further removed than Shaneyfelt claimed (see Wrone, p.54, who cites an interview with Harold Weisberg as well as Weisberg's Whitewash II, p.213). A more remote possibility is that the film which Herbert Orth, who was the number two guy in Life magazine's photo lab, showed to the commission on 25 February wasn't the original but Life's first-day copy, which didn't have a splice. Or it could have been a later copy made from the original. Life does appear to have represented this film as the original, but I'm not sure we can completely rule out a bit of subterfuge: at the end of the memo Chris provided, we see that "Life was reluctant to release it [the original film] to the Commission." And it's unlikely that anyone at the meeting would have spotted the difference, especially after only examining the film "briefly".

Greg Doudna writes: Sorry, I was in a hurry when I scribbled my earlier reply to Greg; I just wanted to convey the huge range of things that would need to be done to create a faked 'original' from either the actual film or one of the first-day copies. The copy which Zapruder retained on the evening of the 22nd, and which he sold to Stolley, ended up in Life's offices in New York. Wrone writes (p.35) that "sometime on Sunday in New York City, Life's publisher C. D. Jackson viewed with horror the images on the newly arrived film." Wrone cites video interviews with Stolley (which I haven't seen) for this information. Anyway, this "newly arrived film" can only be the first-day copy which Zapruder retained and then sold to Stolley on the Saturday morning. It was presumably sent to Chicago along with the original on the Saturday, and was sent from there to New York, arriving on the Sunday. To answer Greg's question, the first-day copy which Zapruder retained appears to have been in New York at the same time as a different film was being examined at NPIC after perhaps having been processed at Hawkeye Works. So Zapruder's copy cannot have been used to make an altered version of the film. One thing I got wrong in my earlier reply was about the revised version of Life magazine going to press on Monday 25th. In fact, the edition of the magazine which contained frames from the film had gone to press earlier than that. It first appeared in news-stands on the morning of Monday 25th (see Wrone, p.35, citing p.376 of the Wainwright book I mentioned earlier). So any alteration and substitution of the Zapruder film, whether of the original or a copy, must have been completed on the Sunday. In short, there's no chance that a Kodachrome film could have been altered at Hawkeye Works on the Sunday, and then examined at NPIC on the Sunday, and then flown to Chicago on the Sunday, and frames printed from it on the Sunday, and the magazine laid out on the Sunday, and the magazine going to press on the Sunday. And no-one at Life noticed that this sequence of events was contradicted by the story that the original film arrived on the Saturday afternoon and was damaged that evening. Anyone who claims the film was altered needs to come up with a scenario which takes account of the facts for which we have documentary evidence, and support their scenario with properly documented evidence rather than speculation based on 30-year-old recollections, which is all we've seen so far.

Pat Speer writes: Yes. There doesn't appear to be any sort of credible scenario in which a copy was altered to make a fake 'original', then three copies were made from that fake, and finally the fake 'original' was carefully 'damaged'. I'd be interested to see if anyone can in fact come up with such a scenario, and whether there is any documentary evidence to support it. We're still waiting for documentary evidence to support Roger's scenario. One thing McMahon was clear about was that he was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict with some form of dementia. See McMahon's ARRB interview with Horne, reproduced at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15387-arrb-interview-homer-mcmahon/?do=findComment&comment=181453:

Greg Doudna writes: To do that, something like this sequence of events must have occurred: seize the original from Life in Chicago; fly it to Rochester NY; examine it closely to decide which parts needed to be altered and how to do it; actually perform those alterations (and how many hours would that have taken, if it was even physically possible?); produce a Kodachrome version of the altered film, to stand in as the original Zapruder film; create three copies of the intact altered film, with all the correct markings and the appropriate physical structure, to stand in as the three first-day copies; recreate the damage which had been caused by the technician in Chicago on the Saturday evening; send the altered and correctly damaged 'original' film to Chicago so that Life could make copies of the frames which were included in the next edition of the magazine, which appears to have gone to press on the Monday; destroy Life's first-day copy which by this time was in Life's office in New York, and replace it with one of the fake 'first-day' copies; track down the other two first-day copies, destroy them, and replace them with the remaining fake 'first-day' copies; track down any other copies that had been made in the mean time from the real first-day copies, and destroy them; track down all the people who had been handling and working on both the original film and the three first-day copies, and ensure their silence; and probably some other close-to-impossible tasks I can't think of at the moment. Succeeding in doing all of this, without being discovered or leaving an obvious trail of evidence, sounds somewhat unlikely, to put it mildly. I suppose it's possible in theory, in the same way that it's possible in theory for the same person to win the lottery every week for a year and then get struck by lightning every week for the next year. Tom and Jean: another book that might contain useful information is Richard Trask's National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film, Yeoman Press, 2005. I haven't read it, but it's on my (long) list of JFK books to buy once I can find time to read them. Trask's Pictures of the Pain is a very good account of the photographic evidence in general, though it doesn't go into much detail about the Zapruder film's chain of custody.

This is worth reading too: Chris Scally, 'Zapruder Film Chronology', Dealey Plaza Echo, vol.15, no.2, pp.3-11 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146539#relPageId=6)

Documentary evidence does, however, exist which contradicts Roger's claims about what happened to the original film and the three copies. Let's look at each claim: Correct, though not in the way Roger thinks. The plane in question was heading to Life magazine's photo lab in Chicago, not the CIA's photo lab in Washington. We can be sure that the plane was heading to Chicago because the film was examined in Life's photo lab in Chicago that afternoon, and because the damage to the original film was done in Chicago that evening (see, for example, Loudon Wainwright, Life: Great American Magazine, Knopf, 1986, pp.357-376). False. It wasn't the CIA who "left Dallas with the original film they had just bought", but Richard Stolley of Life magazine. Whether Stolley himself couriered the film to Chicago is unclear, but it was Stolley who bought the film (and one copy) and was responsible for sending them to his employers in Chicago. In his article for Esquire magazine ('What Happened Next', Esquire, 1 Nov 1973: https://classic.esquire.com/what-happened-next/), Stolley wrote: "I picked up the original of the film and the one remaining copy and sneaked out a back door of the [i.e. Zapruder's] building." False. When he sold the film to Life on the Saturday morning, Zapruder no longer possessed three copies. He and his business partner Erwin Schwartz had handed over two copies to the Secret Service in Dallas the previous evening. We have documentary evidence for this: a hand-written memo by the Secret Service agent they dealt with, Max Phillips, dated 9.55pm. The version of the memo in Commission Document 87, page 66 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=49) is almost illegible, but there is a partial transcript of the original in David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp.27-28: "Enclosed is an 8mm movie film taken by Mr A Zapruder ... Mr Zapruder is in custody of the 'master' film ... [Zapruder gave] two prints to SAIC Sorrels, this date." Phillips attached his memo to one of those copies, which he sent on a flight to Washington. That copy must have arrived in Washington very early on the Saturday morning, several hours before Zapruder sold the original and the remaining copy to Stolley. So ... we have good evidence that one Zapruder film, which can only have been the original, arrived in Chicago on the Saturday afternoon, and that another Zapruder film, which can only have been the first Secret Service copy, arrived in Washington on the Saturday morning. We also have good evidence that one Zapruder film was worked on at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington on the Saturday. Until documentary evidence is presented to support Roger's claims, the only realistic conclusion is that the film at NPIC on the Saturday was the Secret Service copy which Max Phillips sent to Washington late on the Friday evening. Why is that copy the prime candidate for the film that was worked on at NPIC? Three reasons come to mind. Firstly, the Secret Service big-wigs must have wanted to examine the film which they had asked their colleagues in Dallas to send to them urgently. Secondly, if we assume that the Secret Service did not possess its own specialist photographic interpretation facility, it is reasonable to assume also that they would ask to borrow the services of a fellow agency. Thirdly, it was Secret Service agents who brought the film into the NPIC; Secret Service agents who examined the prints that were made; and Secret Service agents who took the film away afterwards. One question remains. What was the film that was worked on at NPIC on the Sunday, after perhaps having been processed at the Kodak plant in Rochester, NY? This film can't have been the original, which had already been processed in Dallas and damaged in Chicago. It must have been one of the two remaining copies, or a copy of one of those two copies. The most plausible candidate is the second of the two Secret Service copies, the one which remained in Dallas overnight on the Friday. Two FBI memos on the Saturday allow us to work out what happened to that second Secret Service copy. A memo from DeLoach to Mohr (NARA RIF 124-10012-10183) asks for a copy of the Zapruder film to be sent to FBI HQ. A memo from Shanklin to FBI HQ (NARA RIF 124-10017-10033) asks the FBI lab to make three copies of the film, "one for Bureau use and two to be returned to the Dallas office by the most expeditious means possible." On the Saturday afternoon, the FBI borrowed the Secret Service's other copy, which had remained in Dallas, and flew it to Washington with instructions for the FBI's lab to make copies of the copy. The FBI's lab lacked the equipment to do so, but copies were made, either at the Kodak plant in Rochester on the Sunday or by an outside contractor on the Monday, or perhaps both (for a full account of the FBI's use of the remaining Secret Service first-day copy, with documentary sources cited, see Wrone, op. cit., pp.29-31). If a version of the Zapruder film was in fact processed at the Kodak plant that weekend, the only candidate for which documentary evidence exists is a copy of this Secret Service copy. The film that was examined at NPIC on the Sunday must have been either this first-day copy, or a copy of this copy. As things stand, the existing documentary evidence suggests very strongly that the film which was at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original but the Secret Service copy which had been flown to Washington, arriving very early that morning. The existing documentary evidence also suggests that if a version of the Zapruder film was processed at Hawkeye Works, it would have been a copy of the other Secret Service copy, which was borrowed by the FBI and flown to Washington later on the Saturday. If, as the existing documentary evidence indicates, the film which turned up at NPIC on the Saturday was not the original film but a copy, the case for alteration collapses. There appears to be no other scenario in which the original film could have been altered before numerous copies, and copies of copies, had been made and widely distributed.

Several pages ago, Roger Odisio made some claims about the chain of possession of the original Zapruder film and the three copies which were made shortly after 6pm on the day of the assassination. Roger writes: and: I would be very interested to see whatever documentary evidence exists to support Roger's claims. I suspect that there isn't any, but I'd be happy to be corrected. Could Roger (or anyone else) please cite these documents, along with links to any of them that are available online?

The definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film is David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003). If you're after a detailed account of the is-it-a-fake-or-isn't-it debate, this article might be worth reading (I couldn't have put it better myself): http://22november1963.org.uk/zapruder-film-genuine-or-fake

Keven Hofeling quotes Douglas Horne: So they have discovered an apparent anomaly in a fifth-generation copy, using methods that have not been fully described and which may have subjected this fifth-generation copy to an undisclosed form of digital manipulation which might itself be the cause of the apparent anomaly. The process appears not to have been replicated by anyone who possesses the appropriate technical skills and knowledge. This isn't much, although it is at least a step up from the usual amateurish anomaly-spotting game that has been getting us nowhere for decades. But, as Tom points out, the whole enterprise needs to be subjected to peer review if it is to be taken seriously. Get all the evidence together, write it up, submit it to a genuine scientific journal, and await the verdict of people who know what they are talking about. If it passes that test,* Wilkinson's study may actually suggest (but not prove) that the anomaly in this fifth-generation copy cannot have an innocent explanation. The next stage would be to get some independent experts on board and demand access to the original Zapruder film that's in the archives. If the film in the archives isn't the original but a copy, that fact should become evident upon close examination (Zavada, of course, already examined it closely and didn't find any evidence that it was a copy). If, on the other hand, the film in the archives isn't a copy but the original which has had black patches added to specific frames, that fact too should become evident. There's a long way to go before we will be justified in believing that the film has been altered. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the Wilkinson project falls at the first hurdle, by failing to demonstrate that the apparent anomaly wasn't caused by whatever digital manipulation was used. -- * If it doesn't pass that test, blame the CIA / Bilderberg / masons / lizard people and keep on spotting anomalies for the next few decades.

Sandy Larsen writes: I accept that Sandy doesn't intentionally punish people simply for disagreeing with him, but his reply illustrates the point I made. The people whom Sandy has punished have been, more often than not, people who disagree with positions Sandy actively advocates. When this happens, the impression inevitably arises that the former might be a consequence of the latter, even if no conscious intention exists. This is especially the case when a member is punished for no obvious reason, as in the case of Greg Doudna and Jean Paul Ceulemans. I've read their posts in the ridiculous, all-caps, PAT SPEER IS A HERETIC AND MUST BE BURNED AT THE STAKE! thread. Unless the offensive comments were removed before I got there, neither Greg nor Jean Paul appears to have done anything worthy of suspension. The only remaining reason for punishing them would seem to be the fact that they disagreed with Sandy, who was thus tempted to zoom in on some form of words which, under microscopic examination, could be taken to contravene one of the forum's rules. Any moderator who actively promotes positions which are controversial and divisive will generate suspicions of unfairness when they act against those who disagree with them. That's why Sandy, and anyone else who actively promotes divisive positions, ought not to have the power to punish other members. At the very least, a mechanism should be in place to prevent a moderator sitting in judgement on others while that moderator is actively involved in the thread in question.

I discussed the root of the current problem in the following post. This was back in January, when Sandy had barely begun dishing out punishments to members who disagreed with him: Caesar's wife comes to mind. A moderator must not only act fairly; he or she must be seen to act fairly. A moderator who actively promotes far-fetched beliefs will inevitably generate suspicion whenever he uses his moderator's powers against those who disagree with him. If people suspect, rightly or wrongly, that they won't get a fair deal on this forum, they are unlikely to hang around or even join in the first place. Hence the paucity here of lone-nutters and non-paranoid conspiracy theorists. I'm aware of several ex-members who questioned one or more far-fetched theories and were either banned or left of their own accord as a result. It's good that Sandy devotes time to the administration of this forum. The Watercoolers feature, which I assume Sandy had a hand in creating, was an effective way of defusing partisan political disagreements that had nothing to do with the JFK assassination. But the power to suspend or ban members should not be in the hands of people who actively promote far-fetched or otherwise divisive beliefs, because at some point those people will act against members who disagree with them, and suspicion will be generated. Personally, I think the panel of moderators should be entirely (or, at worst, largely) comprised of people who do not actively promote such beliefs. Whether enough suitable members can be found is another matter. (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30072-theorist-shamers-should-be-ashamed-of-themselves/?do=findComment&comment=526851)

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?