Jeremy Bojczuk
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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk
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Chris Bristow writes:
QuoteWe can't assume those witnesses saw no stop or extreme slowing just because they did not mention it.
But what we can assume is that they noticed nothing that struck them as suspicious. We can be sure that the car slowed down, because there are a number of witnesses who said so, and because four home movies show it doing so. But we can't be sure that the car stopped, since only a minority of those witnesses said so, and none of the films show it doing so.
Of course, it's conceivable that the 'slowing-down' witnesses saw the car stop but didn't think it was worth mentioning. But it's also conceivable that the 'car-stop' witnesses were mistaken, especially as some of them were not consistent in claiming that the car stopped.
QuoteSome witnesses saying it stopped and others saying it almost stopped is very consistent for a event where the car slowed to almost a stop.
Yes: the car slowed down but didn't stop, which is exactly what all the home movies show.
QuoteYou should be able to maintain your opinion and still acknowledge the consistency of the bike cops reports.
As I pointed out, two of the four cops were not consistent. Each claimed that the car both stopped and didn't stop:
- Hargis: "the Presidential car slowed down. ... the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that." And "[the car] slowed down almost to a stop."
- Chaney: "from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped." And "the automobile came to — almost came to a complete halt after the first shot — did not quite stop, but almost did."
The question is: which of their statements are more likely to be correct? It's a simple matter of weighing up the evidence for and against. A few witnesses claimed that the car stopped, but no films show that the car stopped. A larger number of witnesses claimed that the car merely slowed down, and four films show that the car merely slowed down. There's no contest.
Chaney's claim that the car "pulled to the left and stopped" is also contradicted by those four home movies and at least two photos. The Moorman photo and the Altgens 7 photo show that the car had not "pulled to the left" during the shooting; the Altgens 7 photo actually shows that the car moved to the right, not the left. No photos or home movies, as far as I'm aware, show the car in the left-hand lane. We can be certain that that part of Chaney's claim is incorrect.
QuoteThe best argument against alteration is the problems associated with altering multiple films.
Exactly! Home movies do not, as a general rule, get maliciously altered. If someone is claiming that even one home movie was maliciously altered, let alone four of them, the onus is on them to prove it. It's an enormous hurdle to overcome, and no-one has yet come close to doing so.
If it were just a matter of X number of witnesses said this and Y number of witnesses said that, one could argue that either group could have been correct. But when you consider that one group of witnesses can only have been correct if four home movies were altered (and maybe a couple of photos too), that claim becomes far more difficult to accept. Until someone comes up with proof that the four films were altered, the claim is worthless.
That difficulty increases further when you consider these facts:
- The Zapruder film contradicts the lone-gunman theory, a fact that somewhat undermines the notion that the film was altered to support that theory.
- There appears to be nothing in the film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory (as we've seen on another current thread).
- Almost all of the claims for alteration rely on nothing more than amateurish anomaly-spotting (back-to-front cars, Phil Willis's extra-long leg, and other similar nonsense).
- People have been searching for around 30 years, and no-one has come close to demonstrating the sort of proof of alteration that would satisfy a reasonable, open-minded person.
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Referring to my comment about the supposed car stop, John Butler writes:
QuoteWhat one needs to consider here is reasonable doubt. Were there enough reasonable, corroborated witnesses to establish reasonable doubt in the vehicle stop notion.
I've explained all of this several times, here and on other threads. There is more than enough "reasonable doubt in the vehicle stop notion". That doubt is largely based on which witnesses are corroborated and which aren't.
I'll try again, and see if the message gets through at the umpteenth attempt:
- Only a minority of witness statements claimed that the car stopped.
- A larger number claimed that the car didn't stop, but merely slowed down.
- All four of the home movies which show the car at around the time of the head shot fail to show the car stopping.
- All four films corroborate the witnesses who claimed that the car didn't stop.
- No evidence exists which corroborates the witnesses who claimed that the car stopped.
If you are arguing that the car stopped, you are arguing that all four of the home movies were altered, and that the majority of the witnesses were mistaken. You need to prove all of that.
I don't think I can make it any clearer. If John still doesn't grasp the point, it must be because he is incapable of processing arguments that contradict his beliefs.
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John Butler writes:
QuoteAnything I said would not be accepted as an answer
On the contrary, all John has to do is provide evidence to justify his claim. Here it is:
QuoteI believe the Zap film was altered to support the lone gunman theory.
Why is John so reluctant to justify his claim? I've asked him three times now, and he still hasn't come up with anything.
What do we see in the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory?
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Sandy Larsen writes:
Quoteof course they're going to begin the reenactment where they thought the limo actually was.
I'm genuinely puzzled why anyone should think the car's turn on Elm Street was evidence of conspiracy. No-one has explained what was so incriminating that it necessitated altering a home movie.
John Butler writes:
QuoteIf Jack White was correct, then who filmed the Zapruder film.
In real life, Abraham Zapruder filmed the Zapruder film.
In Jack White world, it was probably Stanley Kubrick, who, as we all know, went on to do something similar in the Arizona desert with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
In John Butler world, I dread to think who filmed the Zapruder film. Betty Oliver, perhaps. Or the same team of Martian doppelganger lizard people who were responsible for faking all the other home movies and photos from Dealey Plaza.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteBut there is another highly plausible explanation: Shortly before the assassination of JFK, one Oswald paraded around on the sixth floor of the Book Depository to be seen carrying a Big Gun while the other Oswald was on lower floor(s) of the same building.
You can't be serious! It's "highly plausible" that there were two Oswalds running around inside the book depository?
Contrary to Jim's and the Warren Commission's account, Oswald almost certainly was not on the sixth floor, shooting at JFK.
What's highly plausible is that the one and only Oswald's movements during the half hour or so until the assassination were deliberately misrepresented by the Warren Commission, and that his alibi was deliberately misrepresented in the FBI's reports of his interrogations:
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Ron Bulman writes:
QuoteI don't see how anyone can watch it objectively and not conclude ... that the Zapruder film was altered by the CIA
You shouldn't come to a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. As I pointed out, Horne is not a reliable source. He believes in Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! If someone like that tells you something, you really ought to check out alternative accounts.
You could start by checking the document I linked to earlier, from a review of Horne's book, which gives a plausible alternative account of the film's history:
http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf
If there's a plausible account that doesn't require the extra complication of film-alteration, why choose the account that does require that extra complication?
Quotethe limo stop. Witnessed by 60 people as a slow down from 11 mph to less than 5 mph, or a stop of 1-2 seconds per Vince Palamara's Survivor's Guilt, pg. 183. Some are emphatic, saying It stopped. For the head shots.
There were far fewer than 60 witnesses who claimed that the car stopped. Again, I provided a source which analysed the witness statements. Why not read it? Only a small minority claimed that the car stopped. Most of them claimed that the car merely slowed down, just as we see in the Zapruder film, the Muchmore film, the Nix film, and the Bronson film.
If you are basing your conclusion only on the number of witnesses, your conclusion must be that the car didn't stop.
If you are basing your conclusion on the number of witnesses combined with the film evidence, your conclusion must also be that the car didn't stop.
Here's the balance of the evidence about the supposed car-stop:
- Yes, the car stopped: supported by a minority of witness statements but no home movies.
- No, the car didn't stop: supported by a majority of the relevant witness statements and no fewer than four home movies.
To put it another way, for the car to have stopped, the Zapruder film must have been altered, and the Muchmore film must have been altered, and the Nix film must have been altered, and the Bronson film must have been altered, and many more witnesses must have been mistaken than correct.
If someone is going to assert that the car did stop, they need to demonstrate that all four films were altered, and why we should discard the majority of the witness statements. Until they do this, there is no good reason to suppose that the car stopped.
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Chris Bristow writes:
QuoteI think if we consider that the stop or almost stopping would have happened at the head shot or just after we should assume that many of the witnesses were absolutely stunned during the event. I think it would be no surprise if many witnesses never noticed a slowing to maybe 2mph or a momentary full stop.
Yes, we absolutely should not expect witnesses to have perfect recollections of a sudden, unexpected and traumatic event. Far too much trust has been placed in anomalous witness statements in this and other areas of the JFK assassination.
But that doesn't entitle us to assume that all the witnesses who didn't mention a car-stop were mistaken. A large majority, around 80%, of the witnesses who would have been in a position to notice a car stop didn't mention any such event. Is that percentage significant? Should we expect 80% of witnesses to miss something like that? I don't know. If anyone is claiming that 80% of a group of witnesses were mistaken, that claim needs to be demonstrated. That's where the burden of proof rests here.
The pertinent fact is that a small number of statements claimed that the car stopped, while a larger number claimed that the car merely slowed down. Both groups cannot be correct. All other factors being equal, the larger group is more likely to be correct.
Add to that the fact that four home movies show the car at around the time of the head shot, and none of them show it stopping. To claim that the car stopped, it's necessary to claim that all four films were altered. That's something else that needs to be demonstrated. Until someone does so, there's no good reason to suppose it happened.
QuoteThen there are the 4 bike cops. ... They ALL say the limo stopped.
They weren't consistent. Two of the four made statements denying that the car stopped:
- Hargis: "slowed down almost to a stop"
- Chaney: "almost came to a complete halt after the first shot — did not quite stop, but almost did."
The other two weren't exactly positive about an obvious stop:
- Martin: the car stopped "just for a moment."
- Jackson: "the car just all but stopped ... just a moment."
The bike cops were just as inconsistent as most witnesses to the assassination. Witnesses who claimed that the car both stopped and didn't stop are not good evidence for a car stop.
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I seem to have got the 'everything is a fake' gang rather worked up, haven't I?
Anyone who has argued with religious fundamentalists will probably have experienced the same type of hysterical reaction when you ask them to justify a particularly irrational belief. They simply can't cope with the notion that their belief ought to be questioned.
Clearly, Zapruder film alteration is a sacred dogma that must be accepted without question.
David Healy writes:
Quotewho are you to demand that anyone needs to demonstrate any of the three claims?
That sums it up. That's the sort of intellectual giants we're dealing with. David appears not to have heard of the elementary concept known as the burden of proof.
If someone makes a claim, the onus is on that person to justify their claim. Until they do so, their claim is worthless.
Let's start again. Ron, you made three claims. You need to provide proof, not empty assertions. Until you do so, your claims are worthless.
- Can you prove that the turn was eliminated? Why, in the unlikely event that it happened, would anyone have wanted to remove something so innocuous?
- Can you prove that the car stopped? You might like to read the evidence I presented which very strongly suggests that the car didn't stop, and see if you can come up with something better than that.
- Why should we believe that the forward motion of JFK's head in the Zapruder film is evidence of alteration?
It's quite remarkable that we're having to deal with people who don't understand that if you make a claim, you're obliged to justify that claim. Didn't they learn critical thinking at school?
John Butler writes:
QuoteThen, there is the Towner film. It is an animation.
Evidently not.
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteThe Z film as we have it is irreconcilable with what the witnesses say in three instances
Yes, but that doesn't mean much. It is an uncontroversial fact that witnesses get things wrong occasionally. We should expect there to be anomalous statements about all sorts of aspects of the assassination, and that's exactly what we find. Take, for example, the number of shots. Witnesses claimed that there were one, two, three, four, five or six shots, or maybe more. Some of those witnesses must have been mistaken. It's no big deal.
We need evidence that's a lot more solid than that even to suspect, let alone to demonstrate, that a home movie was physically altered. Let's look at each of Sandy's examples:
The Wide Turn
This is probably the weakest argument for alteration I've heard (well, apart from back-to-front cars and extra-long legs). Even if the Secret Service agent who drove the car messed up a sharp left turn, so what? I can't believe that anyone would put that down to negligence.
And even if the car did turn wide, what effect could that have had on the assassination, given that the shooting didn't start until the car was further down the road? Surely no-one would go to all the trouble of altering a film just to disguise something so innocuous!
The Car Stop
We can be certain that the car didn't stop. Even the witness evidence alone argues against the car having stopped. A small number of witness statements claimed that the car stopped, while a larger number claimed that it merely slowed down:
http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street
Not only that, but three other home movies also fail to show the car stopping: the Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films. There's also the Moorman photo and the Altgens 7 photo, which show that the car didn't swerve to the left while stopping, as some of the car-stop witnesses claimed.
We have to decide which of the following options is the more likely:
- A small number of witnesses were correct, and a larger number were mistaken, and the Zapruder film was altered, and the Muchmore film was altered, and the Nix film was altered, and the Bronson film was altered, and the Moorman photo was altered, and the Altgens 7 photo was altered.
- Or a small number of witnesses were mistaken, a larger number were correct, and none of the films or photos were altered.
It isn't a difficult decision, is it?
The Head Wounds
This belief seems to rely on misunderstandings of what the doctors actually stated. I'm not an expert on the medical evidence, but Pat Speer has assembled a pretty comprehensive collection of the doctors' statements. They indicate that the head wound the doctors saw was consistent with its appearance in the Zapruder film.
I'd advise anyone who's interested in this question to read Chapter 13 onwards at Pat's website, and let us know what he got wrong:
The main problem remains. If anyone wants to claim that this or that aspect of the Zapruder film is not genuine, it's up to them to do more than cite a few anomalous witness statements. The claim needs to be demonstrated, not merely asserted. What exactly was altered? Why was it altered? What actual proof is there that the film was altered?
So far, after three decades of searching, no-one has come up with the sort of proof that would convince a reasonable, open-minded person.
QuoteI can't speak for John, in part because he sees a lot of anomalies that to me appear to be optical illusions.
True dat!
QuoteNow, you keep asking John how any of the hypothesized alterations support the lone gunman theory.
What I'm keen to learn is why he thinks the film was altered to support the lone-gunman theory. If that is what he believes, he should be able to explain the reasons behind that belief.
I've shown that the Zapruder film actually contradicts the lone-gunman theory. No-one has yet shown that it supports that theory.
It makes no sense to claim that the film was altered to support the lone-gunman theory when the film does not in fact support the lone-gunman theory!
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Ron Bulman writes:
QuoteThe turn from Houston onto Elm was eliminated at Hawkeyeworks. As was the limo stop. And the violent forward head movement seen by Dan Rather and Cartha De Loach.
That's three claims you need to demonstrate, not merely assert.
What evidence is there that the turn was eliminated? What was so incriminating about the turn that it would have required the film to be altered?
What evidence is there that the car stopped? That claim has been debunked here, several times. See, for example, this thread:
A small number of witnesses claimed that the car stopped, while a larger number claimed that the car merely slowed down. Why should we believe the smaller number over the larger number? The witness evidence is collected and analysed here:
http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street
If the car stopped, it isn't just the Zapruder film that must have been altered, but also the Muchmore film, the Nix film, and the Bronson film, and possibly the Moorman photo too. Is all of that even remotely credible? If you think it is, you need to demonstrate how such a task was possible.
A couple of people recalled JFK's head moving forward. How does this prove that the film was altered? The film does show JFK's head moving forward, after the 'back and to the left' movement which indicates to most people that he was shot from the front, and which for some reason was not removed from the film. How is that supposed to work? They altered the film to remove the innocuous turn onto Elm Street but forgot to take out the part that shows him being shot from the front?
As I've pointed out elsewhere, the film provides strong evidence against the lone-gunman theory. How does that fit with the idea that it was altered to support that theory? What is there in the film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory?
And as for Douglas Horne, there is no reason to take anything he says seriously unless it is confirmed by a reliable source. Horne even supports Lifton's body-alteration nonsense! Would you buy a used theory from this man?
Horne's claim relies on interviews made several decades after the event. His account of what happened to the Zapruder film on the weekend of the assassination is contradicted by Roland Zavada's account in his review of Horne's book, here:
http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf
Here is where I pointed out that the Zapruder film actually contradicts the lone-gunman theory:
The Zapruder film is evidence against the lone-gunman theory, not for it.
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Still no answer from John Butler, I see. He claimed that
QuoteI believe the Zap film was altered to support the lone gunman theory.
John has so far been unable to show us how the film supports the lone-gunman theory. Evidently, the film does not support that theory.
Does anyone else really believe that the film was altered to support the lone-gunman theory? If so, could you give John a hand and tell us exactly what there is in the film that supports the lone-gunman theory?
I pointed out in my comment at the top of page 8 how the film actually contradicts the lone-gunman theory:
Not only does the Zapruder film not support the lone-gunman theory, it is actually one of the strongest pieces of evidence against the lone-gunman theory.
In that case, how could it have been altered to support that theory?
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Pat Speer writes:
QuoteJack was a colorful and sometimes helpful member of this forum. ... So I wouldn't put Jack at the top of the heap of those who've discredited the "community." Not by a long shot.
I'm sure he was a pleasant person, and I've heard stories from others about his helpfulness. And, of course, he was a fashion icon, with his trademark turtleneck and cardigan combo.
But he was wrong about almost everything. I think I began lurking here at the end of the Jack White era, and I would have dismissed him as a figure of fun, just one of those crazy types who get attracted to the JFK assassination when they should really be out looking for flying saucers and the lizard people.
One problem was his embarrassing appearance before the HSCA, when he was in effect representing critics of the Warren Commission, combined with his crazy claims about the moon landings being faked and that no planes hit the World Trade Center. That nonsense can't have done the public image of JFK assassination research any good at all.
Within the 'community' too, his influence was negative. His everything-is-a-fake obsession would have not only attracted gullible and paranoid people but also repulsed rational people. Looking back through this forum's history, I've noticed plenty of decent researchers who made very useful contributions but who have abandoned the subject. I recall at least one such who gave up researching the assassination because of the influence of White and his intellectual successors.
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Richard Price writes:
Quoteto me the significance is about where the limo turned. ... Explain Position A if the limo did not swing out wide. Position A is not in the Zapruder film, where did they come up with it (and WHY?).
I presume you're referring to the Secret Service re-enactment. I'm not sure why it matters that the re-enactment had the car starting out in this lane rather than that lane, since the shooting didn't begin until the car was some way down the road.
What was so incriminating about which lane the car was in at that point? Why would this have required that section of the film to be destroyed?
I'm not sure where this idea came from in the first place. Is it just a matter of some witnesses claiming something that doesn't quite match what we see in the film? If so, there's a simple explanation: witnesses get stuff wrong sometimes. Take the number of shots. Witnesses claimed there were any number of shots from one to six or more. Some of those witnesses must have been mistaken. Some witnesses claimed that the car stopped, while others claimed that it didn't stop but merely slowed down. One group must have been mistaken. It's no big deal. Witnesses get stuff wrong from time to time.
If we are going to claim that a film has been altered, we'll need much stronger evidence than some anomalous witness statements. Until proper, strong evidence is produced, there's no reason to suppose that the Zapruder film was altered to remove the car's turn onto Elm Street.
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John Butler writes:
QuoteI take that you believe there was someone taken from the rear of the Texas Theatre, but you do not believe it was Oswald.
Correct. And I've explained in detail the reasons for thinking that the man was George Applin. The man cannot have been Oswald, because we know that Oswald was taken out of the front of the building: numerous witnesses saw him, and there are photographs to prove it. Unless those photographs were faked, I suppose.
Here, again, is a link to my comment on page 7 in which I explained why the man escorted out of the rear entrance almost certainly was George Applin:
QuoteIt is time to give up this very poor resemblance description between Oswald and Applin. Do the two look alike in any characters other than young white males.
The point is that they were both white men in their early twenties. That's all the resemblance that's needed to explain Bernard Haire's mistaken impression that the man he saw being escorted by police officers was the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald.
At the time Haire saw the man being led out of the building, he had not heard about the assassination. He didn't know what the commotion was all about. He didn't find out who Oswald was until afterwards.
According to Jim Marrs, Haire did not discover for nearly 25 years that Oswald had been escorted from the front of the building. Haire clearly had little interest in a newsworthy event that happened right next to his place of work.
The simplest explanation is that Haire mistook one young white man for another young white man. Can John think of a simpler explanation than that?
QuoteCan you provide proof for this statement that Applin was escorted from the theater? And, what was the motive for the police to escort Applin from the theater?
Seriously? Click the link I've just provided.
QuoteThat is not at all what Jim Marrs said.
Yes, it is. Those are the very words that appear on page 354 of my scruffy old paperback of Marrs' Crossfire.
The man Bernard Haire saw must have been George Applin. There is no other plausible explanation. You can find a summary of the Texas Theater evidence here:
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I asked John Butler to justify his claim that what we see in the Zapruder film supports the lone-gunman theory. John was unable to do so. The best he could manage was:
QuoteYou should ask that question of the FBI, other government agencies, and the Warren Commission.
As far as I can tell, even the Warren Commission couldn't find anything in the Zapruder film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory.
Lone-gunman apologists have pointed to frames 224 and 225, and claimed that these frames show JFK and Connally being shot at the same time, as they must have been if the single-bullet theory is correct. But this claim has convinced few people. Significantly, it didn't even convince John Connally himself, who claimed that he was hit at around frame 238, nearly a full second later, and far too late for his wounds to have been caused by the hypothetical single bullet which hypothetically wounded JFK.
Clearly, the Zapruder film does not unambiguously support the single-bullet theory, the most important element of the lone-gunman theory.
Does the Zapruder film contain any other evidence that supports the lone-gunman theory? I'm not aware of any. Can John think of any such evidence? Apparently not, since he hasn't mentioned any up to now.
If the Zapruder film does not contain unambiguous evidence supporting the lone-gunman theory, John's belief must be faulty. He wrote:
QuoteI believe the Zap film was altered to support the lone gunman theory.
I'll try again. What do we see in the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory?
If, as appears to be the case, the film does not support the lone-gunman theory, how can anyone have altered it to make it support the lone-gunman theory?
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteAnd you have no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Applin looked even remotely like LHO.
But he did resemble Oswald. The one and only George Jefferson Applin was white, male and 21 years old. The one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was white, male and 24 years old. The incident Bernard Haire saw - one man being led out of the building and into a police car - would have taken just a few seconds. Haire could easily have assumed later that the man he saw had been Oswald, given that Haire did not learn until nearly 25 years after the event that Oswald had been taken out of the front of the building.
Everything Haire said is consistent with what happened to Applin. Here, for the record, is Jim Marrs' account of what Haire saw:
QuoteHaire went into the alley, which he said was also filled with police cars. Walking toward the theater, Haire was opposite the rear door when police brought a young white man out. He said the man was dressed in a pullover shirt and slacks and appeared to be flushed as if having been in a struggle. Although Haire was unable to see if the man was handcuffed, he was certainly under the impression that the man was under arrest. Haire watched the police put the man in a police car and drive off.
For nearly twenty-five years, Haire believed he had witnessed the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald. He was shocked to discover that Oswald had been handcuffed and brought out the front door of the theater.
(Crossfire, Pocket Books edition, 1993, p.354)
All the evidence we have agrees that only one person was escorted by the police from the front of the building, and that only one person was escorted by the police from the rear of the building. No witnesses mention more than one person being escorted from the front, or more than one person being escorted from the rear.
We can be certain that the one person escorted by police officers from the front of the building was the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. We can be certain that Applin too was escorted by police officers out of the building and into a police car.
If Applin did not leave by the front door, he must have been the one person who left by the rear door.
Applin's departure was a fleeting event that could easily have been misinterpreted by witnesses as the removal of an arrested suspect.
As I explained earlier, there are plenty of good reasons to suppose that George Applin was escorted by police officers out of the rear of the building and into a police car parked in the alley, and then driven away in that police car so that he could give a signed statement. If, as the evidence suggests, this sequence of events happened to only one person, that person must have been George Applin.
Is there a simpler explanation than that?
QuoteThe link Mr. B. provided at the top of this page wasn’t working when I tried it
It worked when I tried it yesterday, and again today. The photo shows a white [check!] man [check!] of about the right age [check!], wearing a garment matching Haire's description of "a pullover shirt" [check!], accompanied by a policeman [check!]:
Of course, there's no guarantee that the man in the photo is actually GEORGE Jefferson Applin. It could be his doppelganger with a 13" head, George JEFFERSON Applin. But inventing doppelgangers complicates matters unnecessarily. The simplest explanation is usually the best explanation.
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Richard Price writes:
QuoteJeremy, I have a question for you. Where is the turn? Show me the picture(s) that clearly depict the Presidential limo IN the arc from Houston onto Elm (the intersection). Offhand, I know of none.
I'm not sure what the significance of that question is. Would the absence of images imply that the turn didn't happen, and that the car magically vanished from Houston Street and appeared through a cloud of smoke a few seconds later on Elm Street? That doesn't sound very likely.
There are home movies and photographs that show the car turning in front of the book depository. If the complete turn isn't captured on any of the home movies or photographs, what's the problem? Is that supposed to be suspicious? If so, why?
Seriously, what is supposed to have happened in front of the book depository that would warrant chopping out a section of the Zapruder film? What evidence is there of anything suspicious at that point in the car's journey?
Since it was Ron who first mentioned the subject, perhaps he could answer the question. Why should anyone have wanted to remove that particular section of the Zapruder film?
John Butler writes:
QuoteWhere is your evidence that Zapruder forgot that he didn't film the motorcade, particularly the p. limo, in the intersection and in front of the TSBD.
The fact that the film doesn't show it, of course. Unless someone can come up with a good reason for chopping out that particular section of the film, the only plausible explanation is that Zapruder's recollection was faulty.
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Ron Bulman writes:
QuoteZapruder told the Warren Commission he Did film the limo turning from Houston onto Elm.
Since we know that people's recollections are often mistaken, one plausible explanation for the apparent discrepancy is that Zapruder's recollection too was mistaken.
Are there any reasonable grounds to suspect that the film would have contained incriminating evidence from the car's turn onto Elm Street?
I'm not aware of any. No reasonable person has claimed that the shooting had started by that point. What else might have happened that would have needed to be removed from the film?
Other images exist of the car during the period when it isn't shown in the Zapruder film. Do any of these images show anything incriminating? If they don't, what grounds are there to suspect that the Zapruder film would have done so?
Given that the Zapruder film actually contains strong evidence that contradicts the lone-gunman theory, what good reason is there to believe that a section before frame 133 was removed?
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John Butler writes:
QuoteI believe the Zap film was altered to support the lone gunman theory.
In that case, you should be able to explain to us exactly how the film supports the lone-gunman theory.
Which parts of the film support the lone-gunman theory?
Which parts of the film contradict the theory that more than one gunman was involved?
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteAnd did George Applin look anything like LHO? Did he have red hair? Was he balding? Did he weigh 300 pounds? Did he have a beard? You don’t have the slightest idea, but you’re absolutely certain he was the guy who two different witness thought looked a lot like Oswald.
We know that George Applin resembled Oswald: both were white, male and in their early twenties. We have no evidence that Applin looked substantially different from Oswald (and of course, even according to Jim's preposterous theory, the man cannot have looked substantially different from Oswald, apart from possibly having a 13" head). We also have a photo of a man of the right age, wearing the right clothes, at the police station, here:
Because:
- Bernard Haire only saw the man for a few seconds as he was led out of the building and into a police car parked in the alley,
- and all the written accounts we possess mention only one person being led out of the building and into a police car parked in the alley,
- and all the accounts we possess mention only one person (Oswald) being led out of the front of the building and into a police car,
- and, for reasons I've already given, George Applin was almost certainly led out of the building and into a police car parked in the alley,
there is every reason to think that the man Haire saw was Applin.
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John Butler writes:
QuoteYou say you are not a LNer, yet almost all of the things that you write serve that paradigm. Here's an example: You say the Zapruder film is true blue and unaltered, and no one has proven it to be so in 30 years. You say this with much force, but little evidence to back those statements up.
Why should one have to believe that the Zapruder film is a fake in order to question the lone-nut idea?
The film is probably the most important single item of physical evidence that contradicts the lone-nut idea. Quite apart from its depiction of JFK's 'back and to the left' head snap, the Zapruder film is the only evidence we have for the speed of the car during the entirety of the shooting, and thus for the amount of time available for a hypothetical lone gunman to aim and fire the sixth-floor rifle three times.
Couple that to the amount of time that would actually have been needed to aim and fire three shots from that rifle, and it's clear that the shooting would have required more than one gunman.
Discard the Zapruder film, and you remove that limitation. A lone-gunman apologist could simply declare that one gunman would have had enough time to aim and fire three shots, and there would be no way to refute that claim.
That's what makes the whole 'Zapruder film is a fake' business look crazy. If the Zapruder film is genuine, it provides very strong evidence against the lone-gunman idea.
But John seems to be under the impression that the film actually supports the lone-gunman idea. Is that what he thinks? If so, could John explain what it is about the Zapruder film that he thinks supports the lone-gunman idea?
I'm genuinely curious about why people believe these things. If you are predisposed to question the Warren Commission's interpretation, why would you even want to discard the Zapruder film?
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David Healy writes:
Quotea hell. of a book was written concerning same in 2003/4. I'll send you my autograph...
If you're referring to James Fetzer's comic masterpiece, The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, thanks, but I have a copy already. There are one or two useful essays in there, but the majority of it is laughably idiotic.
Rain sensors in Dealey Plaza are actually listening devices! They were placed there by Them to spy on fearless investigators who think Mary Moorman was standing in the street! The lampposts were tilted - by Them - to prevent the lampposts being measured accurately! One of the contributors was followed from the airport by Them! His shirt and electric shaver were damaged by Them when They broke into his hotel room!
It's exactly the sort of semi-paranoid stuff that allows the media to equate serious Warren Commission critics with flat-earthers and moon-landings deniers.
And speaking of moon-landings deniers ...
QuoteJack White ... I believe he testified in a congressional hearing regarding Kennedy assassination film imagery
Indeed he did! He got humiliated because he set himself up as an expert but didn't understand perspective and didn't know what photogrammetry was. Here's the transcript:
http://www.clavius.org/white-test.html
White's embarrassment at the HSCA hearings came about because he misinterpreted photographs of the sixth-floor rifle, something he did again years later in Fetzer's book.
If you turn to page 99, you'll see a montage containing three photos of the sixth-floor rifle. Each photo was taken side-on but from a slightly different angle, which caused the relative dimensions of the rifle to appear differently in each photo. Jack White claimed that this proved there were three different rifles. The man was an idiot.
With his belief in faked films, faked rifles, faked Oswalds, faked moon landings, and a faked attack on the World Trade Center, Jack White probably did more than anyone else to discredit JFK assassination research as a serious subject.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteBurroughs was wrong, Haire was wrong, Applin was wrong, Douglass was wrong, Stringfellow was wrong, the Tippit Homicide Report was wrong, and I’m wrong.
It's interesting that Jim doesn't actually argue against the points I made.
I explained why Burroughs and Haire were mistaken. Burroughs could not have seen what he claimed, 30 years later, to have seen. Haire saw one young white man being escorted to a police car, and jumped to the conclusion that the young white man he saw for a few seconds was the same young white man he read about in the newspapers. Their mistakes are understandable and perfectly credible.
I also explained why the police reports could easily be mistaken in reporting a trivial detail that the two authors probably couldn't have seen for themselves. Again, the mistakes are understandable and perfectly credible.
James Douglass presumably reported exactly what he was told by Burroughs. If he made a mistake, it was the same one Jim made. He failed to apply a bit of critical thinking to Burroughs' story.
Jim was indeed wrong to claim that George Applin "said he left the theater 'later'." It wasn't Applin who said this, but Joseph Ball, when questioning Applin on behalf of the Warren Commission, as Greg Parker pointed out to Jim three years ago. Applin did not, as Jim implies, say that he left the Texas Theater too late to have been seen by Bernard Haire. Is this what Jim is getting at when he wrote "Applin was wrong"? If so, it's Jim who is wrong, not Applin.
As I explained, the evidence shows that only one young white man was escorted by the police into the alley and driven away in a police car. We know of only one young white man who was escorted by the police into the alley and driven away in a police car: George Jefferson Applin, Jr.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteThis is an old debate. Here’s what I wrote three or four years ago
It is indeed an old debate. All the points Jim raises were dealt with in August 2019 on the threads I linked to in my previous post. Let's go through them again, shall we?
QuoteThere is no evidence that George Applin left the theater through the alley exit, nor is there evidence that he left the theater in time to be the man seen by Bernard Haire. (He said he left the theater “later” after the police had questioned the customers.)
There may be no direct evidence (e.g. photos or witness statements), but there is every reason to suppose that Applin did indeed leave by the rear doors:
- Applin was spoken to by police officers in the auditorium, which was located at the end of the Texas Theater furthest away from the main entrance, and adjacent to the alley.
- At least one of the police officers who spoke to Applin had entered the auditorium via one of the doors which linked the rear of the building to the alley.
- The alley contained several police cars. Those cars were surely the ones which had conveyed to the Texas Theater the police officers who spoke to Applin in the auditorium at the rear of the building.
- Applin left the Texas Theater in the company of those police officers.
- Applin was driven away from the Texas Theater in a police car.
- The police officers who escorted Applin from the Texas Theater and drove him away are very likely to have used the same cars in which they arrived.
- Applin was a 21-year-old white man.
- Bernard Haire saw one, and only one, young white man being escorted from the rear of the Texas Theater by the police and driven away in a police car that had been parked in the alley.
- There is no evidence that more than one person was escorted by police officers out of the Texas Theater via one of the doors leading to the alley, and then driven away in a police car. No witnesses mentioned such an occurrence. There are no known photographs or home movies or news films of such an occurrence.
- If, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, only one person was escorted by police officers from the rear of the Texas Theater and driven away in a police car, the sole candidate is George Jefferson Applin, Jr.
- Applin was (and, for all I know, still is) a real-life human being, as opposed to Jim's candidate, who is a made-up character in a work of fiction.
As for Jim's claim that Applin "said he left the theater 'later'", here is what Jim's friend Greg Parker wrote the last time Jim made that claim:
QuoteJim, you are [redacted] through your teeth when you say that Applin testified that he went down to City Hall "later". It was Ball who asked "Later did you go down to the police station and make a statement?" Applin replied it was after he gave his contact details. We know it was straight away because they tried to get him back to theatre in time to catch the end of the show but missed it. If if it was way later of course, there would be no point in rushing him back.
Jim continues:
QuoteBy his own account, Applin was on the main floor, not the balcony, and so he had nothing to do with the Balcony Oswald.
There was no 'Balcony Oswald'. I dealt with the balcony question in this comment:
Briefly, the evidence comprises:
- Two police reports of Oswald's arrest, both of them by officers who probably weren't present at the arrest. Because the precise location of Oswald's arrest was of no consequence, the reports most likely were repeating a mistaken detail from the pre-arrest alert that the suspect was "supposed to be hiding in balcony".
- An account first made by Butch Burroughs in 1993, a mere thirty years after the event. Burroughs had already spoken to the Warren Commission in 1964 and to Jim Marrs in 1987, but failed to mention any arrest in the balcony. Burroughs did not go up to the balcony during the incident, and from his position at the back of the auditorium he could not have seen into the balcony. He obviously saw Applin being escorted out by the police, and inadvertently added details three decades later when speaking to James Douglass, who repeated the padded-out version in JFK and the Unspeakable.
Altering the Z film
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Richard Price writes:
I presume you mean this Marcus Allen and Randy Walsh:
https://authorrandywalsh.com/
Here is a passage from the web page in question:
I presume that Richard agrees with these people that the moon landings were a hoax. That's OK - everyone is entitled to their opinion. But in the interests of balance, here are a just a few sources arguing that the moon landings did indeed happen:
NASA has announced plans for "astronauts landing on the lunar South Pole by 2024" (https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/back.html). I don't know whether it will happen as soon as that, but they certainly appear to have solid plans to go (back, maybe) to the moon. This raises a couple of questions:
To guide this thread back to JFK-related matters, I'm also curious about what a moon-hoax enthusiast would think of John Butler's theory that all the home movies and photographs from Dealey Plaza were faked. How would Richard rate John's theory on the wacky-o-meter, using a scale of 1 (perfectly sensible!) to 10 (fruitcake alert!)?
In other words, is John's theory more or less credible than the moon-hoax theory?