Jeremy Bojczuk
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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk
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Eddy Bainbridge wriets:
QuoteYou are repeating the claim that the film hasn't been altered.
No, I'm not claiming that the film definitely hasn't been altered. I'm claiming that no-one has yet provided convincing evidence that it was altered. That isn't the same thing.
QuoteI think your position is that people need to prove the film was altered.
Correct. If someone is saying that the film has been altered, it's up to them to prove it.
In the same way, if someone is saying that you robbed a bank, it's up to them to prove it. In the absence of such proof, the default setting applies: we should assume, provisionally, that the film is genuine and that you didn't rob that bank.
Currently, there's no good reason to suppose that the Zapruder film, or the Moorman photo, or the Altgens photos, or any of the other Dealey Plaza images, were altered. In the same way, there is currently no good reason to suppose that the Loch Ness monster exists, or that alien abduction stories are truthful.
If someone does come up with convincing evidence, I'll be happy to claim that the film was altered (or that Nessie exists, etc). But we've been waiting three decades or so, and that evidence hasn't turned up yet. I'm not optimistic that it ever will.
It's more likely that someone will discover the Loch Ness monster. Loch Ness is a very long, very deep lake, and there may be areas that haven't yet been fully explored. If that's the case, it might be conceivable that a colony of unknown-to-science animals has somehow survived in some remote part of the loch.
But the Zapruder film is a tiny 8mm home movie that runs for less than half a minute. It has been examined in detail by many people over the past 30 years or so. There aren't any remote parts that haven't yet been explored.
Given that almost all of the claims of alteration have turned out to be the result of reading too much into visual anomalies in poor-quality copies, what are the chances that anyone is ever going to discover something worthwhile that everyone else has missed up to now?
The search for this particular Holy Grail became a dead end years ago. Plenty of far more promising areas of research are being neglected because people are wasting their time looking for something they are very unlikely to find.
P.S. Does anyone still rob banks? I can't remember the last time I saw a news report about a bank robbery. What do bank robbers do these days? Flower arranging? Knitting? And what happened to all their sawn-off shotguns? Are they in a museum somewhere, with the muskets and longbows?
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Eddy Bainbridge writes:
QuoteTo say the Z film hasn't been altered is one claim. To say it has been considerably altered is another claim. To claim the film has been altered somewhat is a third claim, and one I subscribe to.
A fourth claim is simply to say that until someone comes up with convincing evidence, there is no good reason to suppose that the film has been altered. The same goes for the Moorman photograph, the Altgens photographs, and all the other films and photos taken in Dealey Plaza, as well as the autopsy photos and X-rays and the backyard photos.
Home movies and photographs taken by members of the public do not, as a general rule, get altered. The default setting is to assume, until proven otherwise, that they are genuine. The burden of proof is on those who claim that alteration took place. After 30 years or so of trying, no-one has come close to proving that the Zapruder film has been altered.
Not only that, but no-one has even suggested a plausible motive for altering the film, which is, after all, the single most important piece of documentary evidence that contradicts the lone-gunman theory.
And not only all of that, but there are strong reasons to suppose that the film cannot have been altered; such as the expert opinion that the film in the National Archives is the one that was in Zapruder's camera, and the obvious fact that any alteration was at risk of exposure from a contradiction with an unaltered image, any number of which could still be at large because there was never any attempt to identify all the photographers and round up their films.
The backyard photos and the medical images, on the other hand, are more likely candidates for alteration, since the reasons for supposing that the Zapruder film is genuine do not apply to them. There was enough time to make any alterations, and they form small, self-contained groups, so contradictions between them could plausibly have been eliminated. For what it's worth, I'm yet to be convinced that any of them were in fact altered, but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if someone were to come up with convincing evidence one day. I would be extremely surprised if someone ever came up with actual proof that the Zapruder film had been altered.
QuoteI see evidence from other sources (Witnesses,hospital, autopsy, documents) that do not align with the extant film.
Witnesses, in general, are not the most reliable source of evidence. People often make genuine mistakes when recalling events, and we should expect inaccurate recollections of a very brief and unexpected event such as seeing the president getting murdered. Just because some witnesses claim that something happened that isn't shown on the Zapruder film or another home movie or photo, doesn't mean much. The car-stop witnesses illustrate this. A small number of witnesses claimed that JFK's car stopped; a larger number claimed that it merely slowed down. One set of witnesses must have been mistaken. It's no big deal.
As for contradictions between the depiction of JFK's head wound in the film and the statements by the Parkland doctors and others, Pat Speer has done some good work on that. There isn't any great disparity between the medical witnesses and the film.
The biggest sign that it's all a lot of fuss about nothing is the fact that, as Eddy's second and third claims illustrate, there is no agreement about exactly what alterations might have been made to the Zapruder film. This part of the film was altered! No, that part is genuine but this other part was altered! No, you're both wrong! Frames were removed! No, frames were added! A small patch was applied to these few frames! No, the film is a complete fabrication and was constructed from scratch! People have claimed all of these mutually contradictory things, and proved none of them.
What this phenomenon demonstrates is that there exists a group of people who really like the idea that the film was altered by some enormously powerful group of conspirators. They take this as an article of faith, and then go looking for evidence to support that idea. But that's the wrong way to go about things. Conclusions should follow from the evidence, not the other way around.
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Sandy writes:
QuoteA number of guys laughing at me for prior claims I've made ... for [sic] which they have insufficient mental capacity to understand.
There are several reasons why people laugh at Sandy, but that isn't one of them.
A good way to stop people laughing at him might be to convince the world at large that his 'proof' amounts to something, and isn't just an empty debating point on an obscure internet forum.
Does Sandy really believe that, after 30 years of failed attempts by dozens of people, he and he alone has finally proved that the Zapruder film has been altered? I suspect he doesn't. But if he does, he should try to publicise his proof as widely as possible. He must make sure that it reaches people with sufficient mental capacity to understand it.
If Sandy is right, he will have come as close as anyone has in the last 59 years to proving beyond any doubt that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy. Real, absolute proof that the world's most famous home movie was faked would be an important discovery, wouldn't it?
His discovery would be a service to history! Also, it might stop people laughing at him. For these reasons, Sandy must tell the world that he, and he alone, has discovered conclusive proof that the Zapruder film is a fake!
There are plenty of 'alternative' news outlets that would surely be interested in putting it in front of their readers and viewers. Sandy should get in touch with them. Once Sandy's 'proof' builds up a head of steam in the alternative media, the established media won't be able to avoid covering the question. And then ...
Sandy will be famous! He will go down in history as the man who single-handedly cracked the JFK assassination! There will be appearances on chat shows! Documentaries will be made about the discovery of the century! Sandy will take his place in the intellectual pantheon where he knows he belongs! Remember, they used to laugh at Copernicus and Galileo too!
Not only will he be famous, but he will become rich! His memoirs will sell millions! Hollywood studios will battle for the rights to The Sandy Larsen Story, starring George Clooney! There will be million-dollar sponsorship deals from leading hat companies!
Even ignoring all of these personal advantages, Sandy's 'proof' deserves the world's attention. The JFK assassination is an important topic. If Sandy genuinely believes that his 'proof' has any merit, it is his duty to make the world aware of it. He needs to phone and email those news outlets, now!
But does Sandy really, truly believe that his 'proof' has any merit? I suspect that when he thinks about it, doubts appear. Is there something he has overlooked? The fog of uncertainty begins to obscure Sandy's vision. He is no longer convinced that his 'proof' would stand up to scrutiny, and he is wary of attracting any more ridicule. That's why he probably won't try to publicise it. He isn't prepared to be told, "You've got to be kidding! That isn't proof! Stop wasting our time! Go back to playing word games on that internet forum!"
Does Sandy intend to phone and email any of those news outlets? I suspect not, because he isn't really sure that his 'proof' amounts to anything. Does anyone else intend to phone and email them on Sandy's behalf? Again, I suspect not, because no-one else is sure that his 'proof' amounts to anything either.
But Sandy really ought to make an effort to broadcast his 'proof' to the world at large. If Sandy is right, millions of people will know for a fact that the world's most famous home movie is a fake! None of those millions of people will make fun of Sandy ever again!
Of course, if Sandy is wrong ...
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteYou don't need to show how the penguins were inserted to conclude that human beings did it. And likewise you don't need to show how selective deblurring occurred to conclude that human beings did it.
To conclude that human beings did something, you need to show two things:
- that it is possible for human beings to have done that thing;
- and that humans actually did that thing.
I demonstrated this using Sandy's very own example!
Sandy needs to show, first of all, that it was possible in theory for humans to have caused his pet anomaly. He then needs to provide a plausible account of how humans might have caused the anomaly.
But he doesn't want to do this. I think we can work out why he doesn't want to justify his claim. It's for the same reason that John Butler doesn't want to explain how the Moorman photo could have been altered before it was broadcast on TV two and a half hours after the assassination, or how all the Altgens photos could have been altered, or ... well, there is an endless list of far-fetched claims that won't ever be justified.
The nearest we've got to an explanation so far from Sandy is: "it's possible that the alterationists made composite frames from other frames ... and then inserted these frames where they needed them." Well, how exactly might those hypothetical "alterationists" have made those hypothetical composite frames? Which frames would they have used to construct the composite frames? What was their reason for using composite frames? Why did they insert those frames where they did? And so on. I'm sure we can all think of several other questions Sandy needs to answer before his claim about composite frames rises above the level of speculation.
QuoteIn both cases, all you need to do is show that it could not have occurred on its own without intelligent intervention.
And that is what Sandy has not done. He has not shown how his blurring phenomenon "defies the laws of physics", as he put it, because he has not eliminated all the possible physical causes of that phenomenon.
A couple of pages back, I explained why Sandy was mistaken in trying to eliminate all of the non-human causes by simply defining them out of existence. Sandy appeared at the time to have learned that lesson, but apparently he had not.
We've had 30 years of claims of alteration based on nothing but visual anomalies in the various home movies and photographs taken in Dealey Plaza. Most of these visual anomalies have turned out to have mundane explanations (see Exhibit A: the collected works of John Butler). None of them have been proved to be the result of deliberate alteration.
Given this history of failure, and given Sandy's own history of making dogmatic, far-fetched, evidence-free pronouncements, he really needs to do more than just claim: "I declare that it can only be due to this cause, therefore it was due to this cause".
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I presume Sandy now accepts that his simplistic 'proof' really wasn't a proof at all.
If he's still having trouble grasping that irksome burden-of-proof concept, I'll try to explain it in a different way. Look again at Sandy's claim about Mary Poppins, as quoted above. The conclusion ("Therefore the above Mary Poppins film required some human intervention ...") depends fundamentally on the premise ("Cartoonish penguins do not occur naturally in the making of film movies").
Now let's swap things around, to match Sandy's claim about the Zapruder film:
QuoteSelective blurring does not occur naturally in the making of home movies. Some intelligent thought would have been necessary to make and insert selective blurring in such a film. Therefore the above Zapruder film required some human intervention in order for that selective blurring to be inserted or generated.
Again, the conclusion depends upon the premise. Unless the premise is justified, the conclusion is invalid. Until Sandy demonstrates that selective blurring could have been caused, and actually was caused, by human intervention, there's no reason to believe his claim that human intervention was involved.
How, in principle, could human intervention have produced the sort of blurring that we see in the (copies of copies of copies of) Zapruder film frames Sandy is using? How, in principle, might humans have altered the film to achieve this effect?
Once he has answered those questions, Sandy needs to show that human intervention was actually done in this particular instance. To do that, he needs to answer some of the questions he has been avoiding up to now, such as:
- Who does Sandy think altered the film?
- Can Sandy show that they possessed the time and materials that would have allowed them to alter the film?
- How does Sandy think they altered the film to produce that particular effect?
- Does Sandy think they produced that particular effect deliberately or accidentally?
- If it was deliberate, what does Sandy think was their reason for doing it?
- Why does Sandy think any conspirators would have been even the slightest bit concerned about what the film showed?
- How does Sandy think they managed to get around the problem of their alterations being exposed by other films and photos that showed the same scenes?
Incidentally, there's a humorous discussion of Sandy's simplistic claim here:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2527-un-altered-film-proves-sandy-is-simple
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteCartoonish penguins do not occur naturally in the making of film movies. Some intelligent thought would have been necessary to make and insert cartoonish penguins in such a film. Therefore the above Mary Poppins film required some human intervention in order for those penguins to be inserted.
Sandy may not grasp the point, but if he is claiming that cartoon penguins could only have been inserted into the Mary Poppins film by humans, the burden of proof still applies (not that anyone would actually ask for proof, of course). The onus is still, theoretically, on him to justify his claim.
As with his pet anomaly, he would need to show two things: that it was possible, and that it actually happened.
In the case of the dancing penguins, there would presumably be film-makers' textbooks or manuals that he could cite. That would be more than enough to satisfy a reasonable person that humans were capable of inserting cartoon penguins into a film.
He could then complete his proof by also citing a first-hand source to do with the making of Mary Poppins, to show that the penguins actually were inserted into the film.
For example, he could cite a published account (a newspaper or TV interview, say, or a biography or autobiography) by one of the animators who created the penguins, or by the editor who inserted them into the film, or by the director or whoever supervised the process. Again, that would satisfy a reasonable person that the penguins were indeed inserted into the film by humans.
Are there any textbooks or manuals that tell us how Sandy's pet anomaly could have been inserted into the Zapruder film? Are there any first-hand accounts that tell us who altered the Zapruder film in that way? If there are, Sandy needs to produce them.
Until he does, there is no reason to believe that this happened. Why is Sandy so reluctant to justify his claim?
I can't believe Sandy really thought that the cartoon penguins in Mary Poppins were analogous to his pet anomaly in the Zapruder film!
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteIf there is an explanation that doesn't require human intervention, my critics will have to show it to me. ...
I will give my house to anybody who can show how a simple, non-computerized camera can remove motion blur in a photograph or frame that consists of both stationary and moving objects.It isn't up to anyone to disprove Sandy's claim. The burden of proof is on Sandy.
That, I'm afraid, is how that awkward burden of proof thing works. If you make a claim, it's up to you to prove it. If you can't prove it, as is currently the case here, then you're left with an empty assertion, just like all the other far-fetched claims of alteration over the years.
Quotethe only plausible answer is that humans have monkeyed around with the film.
I'm sure John Butler and Ralph Cinque think the same thing. The only plausible answer to Phil Willis's extra-long leg is that humans monkeyed around with the film. The only plausible answer to Oswald not being visible in the Altgens 6 photo is that humans, or at a pinch the lizard people, monkeyed around with the photo.
For Sandy and his two compadres, the "only plausible answer" is a far-fetched assertion. If Sandy wants to be taken more seriously than Messrs Butler and Cinque, he needs to show why "humans have monkeyed around with the film" is the only plausible explanation for his pet anomaly. I'd be surprised if he can do this. In fact, I'd be surprised if he even tries, since he hasn't yet made an effort to do so.
If Sandy is feeling brave enough to try, he'll need to start by showing why "humans have monkeyed around with the film" is a plausible explanation at all. He'll need to answer Jonathan's question:
QuoteHow was it done?
How were those humans able to monkey around with the film to produce Sandy's pet anomaly? Sandy's answer:
QuoteI don't need to explain how it was done to prove that it wasn't done naturally.
Unfortunately, he does. If Sandy wants to go further than simply asserting that his pet anomaly was done by humans, he will need to show, at the very least, that it was possible for it to have been done by humans.
Maybe he doesn't need to explain every step of the fabrication process (although it would be helpful if he could), but the more details he can provide, the more plausible his explanation will become.
At the moment, he has provided no details at all, no explanation at all. It's just an empty assertion. How did they do it? Sandy evidently doesn't know. Did they snap their fingers and say 'hey presto'? Sandy doesn't know. Did they have sufficient time to do it? Sandy doesn't know. Why did they do it? Sandy doesn't know. Who did it? Sandy doesn't know. Are you sure it was humans who did it and not creatures from the Planet Zog? Sandy doesn't know. Why should anyone care? I don't know.
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteJeremy thinks that I need to show how those who altered the film did so in a way that would result in the motion blur disappearing.
Sandy seems to be begging the question with his phrase, "those who altered the film". Again with the dogmatic pronouncements! If he still thinks he has proved, rather then merely claimed, that anyone "altered the film", Sandy needs to show that there are no straightforward explanations for his pet anomaly.
One possible straightforward explanation is that what we see is due to the normal functioning of Zapruder's camera, as Sean has suggested. Another is that what we see is due to the copying process, which is where many previous claims of alteration have come unstuck. Since it is next to impossible to identify all the factors that might have affected digital copies of digital copies of physical copies of a particular 8mm film taken with a particular camera and lens, Sandy has a big task on his hands.
QuoteI showed that whatever removed the blur
Whether blur has been deliberately removed is the thing Sandy needs to demonstrate.
QuoteIt's possible that the alterationists made composite frames from other frames, for whatever reasons, and didn't bother making sure they had appropriate motion blur. And then inserted these frames where they needed them.
Well, is it possible? Sandy needs to demonstrate this, not merely assume it. Those "whatever reasons" need to be identified, and the more precisely the better:
- Why should anyone have "made composite frames from other frames"?
- Which "other frames" did they make "composite frames from"?
- How exactly did they make these "composite frames"? Did they use the same finger-snapping, hey-presto method that they used to fake the Moorman photograph?
- If they had the ability, equipment and time to do this, why "didn't [they] bother making sure they had appropriate motion blur"?
- Why would anyone have wanted to insert these hypothetical frames "where they needed them"?
- How did they manage to insert these hypothetical frames without leaving physical traces on the film that's in the National Archives, the one that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination?
- How were they able to do all of this, with the time and materials available?
- And who were 'they' anyway?
- Why would 'they' have been even the slightest bit concerned about what the Zapruder film showed?
- If 'they' were trying to make the film compatible with the lone-gunman theory, how exactly did 'they' end up creating the single item of physical evidence that most strongly contradicts the lone-gunman idea?
- Who was in charge of this incompetent operation? The Keystone Cops? Laurel and Hardy?
It's like Phil Willis's extra-long leg, which, according to John Butler, was painted in by persons unknown, for reasons unknown. Why would anyone have wanted to paint an extra-long leg onto a spectator in a few frames of the Zapruder film? In his zeal to spot the killer anomaly that proves alteration, John doesn't seem to have asked himself that basic question.
Sandy too needs to provide plausible answers to some basic questions, and tell us what the purpose of his proposed alterations was, and how in practice they might have been achieved. He could start with an even more fundamental question: why should the conspirators, whoever they were, have cared what the Zapruder film showed?
As far as I can tell, Sandy's pet anomaly was first identified back in the 1990s. At least a quarter of a century has gone by, and still no-one has come up with plausible answers to any of these questions. Until someone does, it's just an anomaly without an explanation.
QuoteJeremy has an anti-alterationist ideology
Ideology is the wrong word. I'm quite happy to accept that a particular item of evidence has been altered, if the claim is credible. Altering witness statements, for example, would have been easy to do, and there are plausible reasons why it might have been done.
Home movies and photographs, on the other hand, are much more difficult to alter than witnesses' statements. Nevertheless, I'm open to the possibility (though not yet convinced) that the backyard photographs, for example, are not genuine. This claim would be credible for three reasons:
- There probably would have been sufficient time to alter or fabricate them.
- There's a plausible reason for doing so.
- They form a small, self-contained group. It would have been relatively straightforward to eliminate any contradictions between them, thereby minimising the risk of exposure.
But those three reasons do not apply to the Dealey Plaza films and photos. As we have seen with Sandy's pet anomaly, no-one has yet demonstrated that there was sufficient time to perform their preferred alterations, or what plausible reason there was for performing them. There isn't even any agreement about what alterations might have been made: some people claim that frames were removed from the Zapruder film, while Sandy at least has the originality to claim that frames were inserted.
More importantly, these films and photos do not form a small, self-contained group, a fact which would have dramatically increased the difficulty of making convincing alterations. Aspects of the assassination were captured in many dozens of home movies, news films and photographs. Alterations to one image would almost always require that alterations were made to others, as we have seen with the long-debunked claim that the car stopped: if one of the Zapruder, Muchmore and Nix films was altered, so must the other two, and probably the Bronson film and Moorman photograph also (and most of the witnesses must have been mistaken as well, but that's another topic).
We know that there was no plan to identify or track down those spectators who brought cameras to Dealey Plaza. Spectators dispersed far and wide, taking their cameras and films with them. Some images came to light months or years after the assassination; others may still be sitting in a box in someone's attic. No-one has yet explained how any conspirators could have overcome the risk of alterations being exposed by images that might have turned up in the future.
Until someone deals with all of these problems and comes up with a credible argument to support their claim, there's no good reason to suppose that the Zapruder film, or the Moorman photograph, or the Altgens photographs, or any of the other Dealey Plaza images, were altered.
That isn't a matter of ideology. It's simply the principle that claims need to be supported by sufficient evidence. The more far-fetched the claim, the stronger the evidence needs to be.
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteThe ONLY conceivable cause of "selective blurring" or "selective deblurring" is human intervention.
As I pointed out earlier, Sandy is asserting something which he needs to demonstrate.
QuoteBecause it requires some form of intelligence to distinguish where on the film motion blur exists and where it doesn't exist.
Again, Sandy is merely asserting something that he needs to demonstrate.
QuoteI can think of no other conceivable cause.
That's the problem.
There are all sorts of conceivable causes of visual anomalies in digital copies of physical films:
- Anomalies in 8mm home movies can result from the physical properties of the original camera, lens and film.
- Anomalies in digital copies, such as the ones Sandy is using, can result from the physical and digital copying processes, as John Butler has recently discovered with Phil Willis's non-existent extra-long leg.
Since Sandy has presumably not examined the actual camera, lens or film, and since he presumably cannot identify all of the physical and digital adjustments that have produced the copies he is using, I suspect he will have trouble ruling out each of these conceivable causes.
Until Sandy does rule out each of these conceivable causes, all we are left with is one more speculative, unproven claim of alteration.
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Sandy Larsen clearly doesn't understand the point I was making. He writes:
QuoteThat is like asking me to prove that a straight line drawn on a sheet a paper cannot spontaneously change its shape to a circle. I would say that's impossible
It is indeed impossible for a straight line to transform itself into a circle. The impossibility is a simple consequence of the accepted definitions of the terms 'straight lines' and 'circle'.
But Sandy's "proof" of alteration is not a matter of defining the terms. His analogy does not apply.
He is claiming that, of all the conceivable causes of the presence or absence of blurring in this or that frame of a much-copied 59-year-old 8mm film, every cause but one is impossible. This is an empirical matter. It relies not on the definitions of terms, but on empirical evidence.
Because anomalies in films are an empirical matter, Sandy needs to demonstrate that his claim is true. In order to demonstrate that his claim is true, Sandy needs to rule out every conceivable cause other than the one he mentions: deliberate alteration by unknown parties for unknown reasons.
Unfortunately, as Sandy probably worked out to his dismay shortly after he made his claim, it is almost impossible to rule out all of these causes.
Home movie cameras and 8mm films are physical objects and will inevitably possess physical imperfections. These physical imperfections will often manifest themselves as visual anomalies on the film, and on copies of the film. Digital copes of films and photos, and software manipulation of those copies, can also introduce visual anomalies. John Butler has recently joined the large club of anomaly-spotters who have reluctantly become acquainted with these elementary facts.
Sandy needs to rule out all of these potential causes. As I pointed out earlier, I don't think he will be able to do so, but it would be good if he could at least make the effort.
He not yet shown that his preferred explanation is even plausible, let alone conclusive. This too might be an almost impossible task. Before he heads off to College Park to find evidence that his pet anomaly actually exists on the original film, perhaps he could start by answering a few basic questions:
- What sort of deliberate alteration might have caused Sandy's pet anomaly?
- Who would have wanted to make that particular alteration?
- Why would this person or group have wanted to make that alteration?
- How might the alteration have been made?
- Was the alteration physically possible, given the time and materials that were available?
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteJeremy seems to think that cameras and photographic copy machines might have some kind of artificial intelligence that is capable of identifying motion blur, and the processing power to remove it.
What does artificial intelligence have to do with it? Does Sandy really not understand the point I was making?
He was claiming that his new anomaly "defies the laws of physics" and "cannot have occurred naturally." He is implying that his anomaly cannot be the result of any cause other than deliberate alteration.
If that is what he meant, then he needs to prove it, by ruling out every other possible cause, including the most obvious candidates:
- the workings of Zapruder's camera, and
- the physical and digital processes involved in creating the copies in which Sandy has spotted his new anomaly.
The copying process in particular needs to be ruled out, because it has been the cause of umpteen other unsupported claims of alteration that anomaly-spotters have come up with over the last few decades. As we have just seen, Phil Willis's extra-long leg is a simple product of the copying process (combined with a lack of critical thinking, another feature of unsuccessful anomaly-spotting claims over the decades).
Perhaps Sandy isn't claiming that his new anomaly must be the product of deliberate alteration, but merely that it may be the product of deliberate alteration. Well, I'd agree with him. It may be the product of alteration by all-powerful conspirators with no apparent motivation, who just felt like stretching their photo-alteration wings. It may be the product of alteration by the same people who went on the fake the moon-landings photos, or by extraterrestrials, or by the lizard people.
If it may be the product of alteration, why should we care about it? Why should we assume that this example is any different from all the other claims? No-one has yet proved that their pet anomaly must be the product of deliberate alteration. Why should we take Sandy's claim seriously if he is unable or unwilling to look for straightforward, everyday explanations for his pet anomaly?
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John Butler writes:
QuotePhil's extra, long leg grows and shrinks from Z frame 154 to Z frame 160. It does so in a consistent manner and not in a random way as would be some sort of film imperfection.
Pat Speer has worked it out:
QuoteCould it be that what you think is his leg is a combination of his leg and the shadow of his leg and foot?
Of course the leg doesn't grow and shrink! It's an illusion caused by the poor quality of the copies John is using.
In the few frames leading up to and including frame 154, Phil Willis is standing with his right leg in the road. As the police motorcyclists approach, Willis moves out of their way. He lifts his right foot off the road and leans backwards. A few frames later, he ends up with his right leg back on the curb.
As Willis lifts his right foot off the road, the distance between his hips and the road increases. Because the foot is close to the road, it casts a shadow. The poor quality of the frames John is using obscures the distinctions between his trouser leg, his foot, the shadow cast by his foot, and the side of the curb that is in shadow. They are all rendered as pretty much the same shade of dark grey. Result: one extra-long leg. But it's an illusion.
Better-quality images, with more varied tonal gradation, may show these distinctions. If John has a copy of Robert Groden's heavily illustrated book, The Killing of a President, he should turn to pages 20 and 21, where he will find clear versions of frames 153 and 161. You can make out distinctions between the curb, the shadow, and Willis himself.
But sometimes even good-quality copies aren't enough. A frame of 8mm film like Zapruder's is very small, and many details simply can't be recorded. What might appear to be anomalies are the product of the limitations of the medium.
Like most of the supposed anomalies in the Zapruder film and other assassination images, Phil Willis's non-existent extra-long leg is down to uncritical interpretation of poor-quality images. We've had 30 years of this anomaly-spotting nonsense. You'd think people would have learned their lesson by now.
John should have been able to work out that there's nothing sinister going on here by asking himself a simple question. Why on earth would anyone have wanted to paint an extra-long leg onto Phil Willis? What were they trying to cover up? Did he have a top-secret, state-of-the-art, remote-controlled miniature gun concealed in his right shoe?
There's a lesson here for anyone who thinks that this or that film or photo has been faked. If you can't come up with a plausible reason why a particular alteration was done, you can safely assume that it wasn't done.
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Phil Willis's Extra-Long Leg, Explained
John has claimed more than once that the Zapruder film must have been altered because it shows Phil Willis with an extra-long leg. He claims that Willis's leg has been "painted into the frame".
As we have seen with Sandy a few posts ago, if you're claiming certainty about something as far-fetched as film alteration, you will end up looking silly if you can't prove your claim. The way to avoid embarrassment is to check for alternative explanations, and then carefully rule them all out. Did John do that? Evidently not.
One alternative explanation that comes to mind is that John has been using poor-quality versions of the frames in question, and that better-quality versions will not show Willis with an extra-long leg. The extra-long leg would be an illusion caused by the copying process.
If John doesn't yet have a copy of David Wrone's excellent book, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), he should buy one as soon as possible, as should Sandy. It's essential reading for anyone who thinks the Zapruder film has been altered.
Open Wrone's book and turn to the glossy photo spread between pages 180 and 181. Look at the reproductions of frames 199, 200 and 201. You'll see Phil Willis standing by the curb with his camera held up to his eyes, and the Secret Service car approaching from his right, the viewer's left.
In each of these frames, look at Willis's legs and feet. Both legs look like perfectly normal legs, ending in perfectly normal feet. You can clearly see the curb in front of his feet. Both legs appear to be the same length, give or take the normal human variation.
Look at the Secret Service car. A Secret Service agent, presumably Clint Hill, is standing on the left front running board. The agent is wearing a black jacket, and his left arm is hanging down by his side. There is a small white rectangle on the left-hand side of his chest, possibly a badge or more likely a handkerchief that's protruding from his breast pocket.
Now look at Wrone's larger, more detailed reproduction of frame 202. You will notice that the Secret Service car has just reached Willis. Look at the agent's left arm and the white shape on his chest. The agent's shoulder and arm are lined up with Willis's right leg. The agent's jacket and Willis's trousers are both black, which might give the impression to an inattentive viewer that Willis's leg has almost doubled in length.
But we can tell that his leg hasn't doubled in length, and that the extra length is actually the agent's body, in front of Willis. We know this because we can still see the agent's badge or handkerchief half-way down Willis's apparently elongated leg.
What John Butler thinks is an extra-long leg is actually nothing more sinister than part of the Secret Service agent who has moved between Willis and Zapruder in frame 202.
How did John make such an obvious mistake? Presumably, he used poor-quality versions of the Zapruder frames, while putting his brain in neutral.
The moral of the story is: if you're going to claim that a particular image looks wrong, make sure that you are using the best-quality version you can find, because the copying process invariably degrades the quality of images. Everyone, please note that if you don't take this elementary precaution, you may end up looking like John Butler.
Of course, that's assuming that the version of frame 202 which John used is in fact of such poor quality that it doesn't show Clint Hill's handkerchief, or whatever the white rectangle is. If John was using an image that does show this, and he just didn't notice it ... well, I don't think any of us would be surprised.
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The Burden of Proof, Explained
John continues:
QuoteThey can't really refute what I have said or shown. They said things like the burden of proof is on me and not themselves. This relieves them to make any claim they want
The burden of proof is on John. He made a positive claim, so the onus is on him to support that claim. That's how things work. It isn't up to anyone else to disprove his claim.
The claim in question was about Phil Willis's magical extra-long leg. Here's John showing us that he hasn't managed to grasp the burden-of-proof idea:
QuoteI think he needs to show how copying would stretch Phil Willis' leg to a ridiculous length. He needs to show that it is not painted into the frame.
Nope. No-one "needs to show that it is not painted into the frame." If John is claiming that the extra-long leg was "painted into the frame", it's up to him to prove it.
Would John like to try?
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Referring to the suggestion that a particular anomaly might be due to the normal operation of the camera, Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteThat is impossible.
And, referring to the suggestion that a particular anomaly might be due to the copying process:
QuoteThat is impossible.
I'll try yet again. Sandy needs to do a lot more than simply declare that something is impossible. He needs to explain in detail why it is impossible.
He is claiming that the selective blurring which he sees in a copy (of a copy, of a copy, etc) of the Zapruder film cannot be due to anything other than deliberate alteration of the film.
He has used the phrases "defies the laws of physics" and "cannot have occurred naturally." He is claiming that every cause other than deliberate alteration is impossible. That's a big claim to make, and a high hurdle of proof to overcome. It is up to him to demonstrate, and not merely assert, that every other conceivable cause is impossible.
To do this, he needs to consider the conceivable causes I mentioned, and show why they cannot have happened. Of course, other conceivable causes may come to mind in the future, each of which would also need to be ruled out.
Let's start with physical imperfections in the mechanism of Zapruder's camera or lens or the film he was using. Has Sandy, or anyone else, examined that particular model of camera and that particular model of lens? If not, are there any plans to do so?
How is it impossible for such factors to have caused the anomaly? Were the shutter mechanism, the sprocket mechanism, the lens, and every other component so precisely engineered and manufactured that all physical factors can be definitively ruled out?
Then there's the copying process. I presume Sandy has only looked at copies of the film and not the actual film that's in the National Archives. In fact, I suspect that Sandy has only looked at relatively poor-quality copies, such as the Costella frames he has posted here. Has Sandy inspected any good-quality copies?
If he has, how good were they? If not, how would he rule out the possibility that better-quality copies than the ones he is using will not show the anomaly in question (as we have seen with other claims of alteration such as John Butler's claim about Phil Willis's extra-long leg)?
Given the number of physical and digital processes that can be used in the copying of films, how is it impossible for any copying process to generate the anomaly? Does Sandy have a comprehensive list of the copying processes, both physical and digital, which were involved in creating the images he is using? If not, how can he rule out the possibility that an unknown copying process caused the anomaly?
That should keep him busy for a while.
If Sandy were following the usual pattern, and merely claimed that something in the film doesn't look quite right to him and he can't think of a non-sinister explanation so maybe it's due to alteration, then I'd be tempted to agree with him. Maybe the anomaly is due to alteration. Maybe it isn't. So what? Who cares? Until someone comes up with proof, it's just one more anomaly to add to the three-decades-old pile of worthless anomalies and unproved speculations.
But since Sandy has decided to go all dogmatic and is actually making the positive claim that any explanation is impossible that doesn't involve alteration, he's given himself a big problem to solve. It's up to him to prove that every reasonable explanation that doesn't involve alteration is impossible.
It's a huge task. I don't think he'll be able to do it, but it would be good if he could at least make an effort.
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John Butler writes:
QuoteJeremy claims that all of this is "copying" errors.
No, that's not what I claimed. John is either mistaken or dishonest. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is mistaken due to his blind devotion to the preposterous belief that every film and photo taken in Dealey Plaza has been faked. I suspect he didn't bother reading my comment, or at least didn't read it carefully enough. I hope that's what happened, and that he wasn't deliberately misrepresenting what I had claimed.
My claim was that the copying process can produce visual anomalies. We know that this happens. Just look at some of the many versions of the Zapruder film and other assassination-related films and photos that are available online and in print. The quality varies. Some show more detail than others. You can see blobs, lines, and other objects in one version of a particular film frame or photo that you won't see in other versions. That can only be caused by the copying process. It's the result of factors such as the number of generations between the original and the copy in question, the equipment that has been used to make the copy, the type of film used, and software adjustments to digital copies.
All of this may be news to John, but it really isn't controversial to anyone who knows the first thing about photography, a group of which John appears not to be a member.
QuoteI think he needs to show how copying would stretch Phil Willis' leg to a ridiculous length. He needs to show that it is not painted into the frame. Nothing surrounding Phil is distorted except his leg. ... As far as copying errors, he won't explain how that happens.
No-one needs to prove any of those things. John is the one making claims that certain anomalies, such as the extra-long leg, are due to alteration. He needs to support his claims.
The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. If John wants us to accept that all the films and photos were altered, he needs to offer proof, not merely empty claims.
He could start by justifying his claim that the Zapruder film was altered to produce Phil Willis's "extra-long leg". How might that have been done, exactly? Why was it done? Was it done deliberately, or was the "extra-long leg" an accidental by-product of an alteration done for another reason? If so, what was that reason? The more detail John can provide, the less ridiculous his claim will be.
Going back to an earlier claim that John has been asked several times to prove, so far without success, can John finally show us how the Moorman photo could have been altered in the two and a half hours between the assassination and its broadcast on TV? If he can't even show that such a thing was physically possible, why should we take his claim seriously? Not that anyone does take any of his claims seriously, as far as I can tell.
QuoteJeremy is a supporter of the Warren Commission conclusions
Again, John is either mistaken or dishonest. Since I have mentioned more than once that I am not a "supporter of the Warren Commission conclusions", John is unlikely to be mistaken.
He has recently, and falsely, claimed that Pat Speer and Jonathan Cohen are also "Lone-Nutists". Why does John keep making these false claims? Is he being deliberately dishonest, or does he sincerely believe that anyone who questions his belief must be a supporter of the lone-gunman idea?
If it's the former, he should resign from the forum. If it's the latter, he is absolutely wrong. The arguments against the lone-gunman idea do not require any, let alone all, of the Dealey Plaza photographic evidence to have been faked. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Zapruder film invalidates the lone-nut idea. If you want to dispose of the Zapruder film, you are disposing of the strongest item of evidence against "Lone-Nutism".
QuoteThe Forum is clogged with many, many researchers over the years and decades pointing out the anomalies found in the Zapruder film.
Indeed so. And none of those 'researchers' has managed to do more than spot what they think are anomalies in the film, then jump to the conclusion that if something doesn't look quite right to them, the film must be a fake.
It's amateurish, and it gives a bad impression of JFK assassination research in general. After maybe 30 years of trying, no-one has come up with anything that approaches proof of alteration.
Anomaly-spotting is just a game, something to keep people busy who have nothing more productive to do. John Butler, in particular, really needs to find a new hobby, one that doesn't tempt him to make dishonest or mistaken claims about serious Warren Commission critics.
Collecting beer-bottle caps, for example, is a fine hobby that many people find intellectually satisfying. Building scale models of the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Opera House out of matchsticks is a bit more demanding, but would at least keep John busy. Anything to prevent him embarrassing himself further by making absurd claims that all the assassination films and photos are fakes.
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteWhat I have shown, to my satisfaction and perhaps to the satisfaction of other forum readers, is that there are anomalies in the blurring of certain objects in certain frames that cannot have occurred naturally.
I'll try again. Sandy has not "shown" that the anomalies he mentions "cannot have occurred naturally". He has asserted that they cannot have occurred naturally. It needs to be demonstrated, not merely asserted.
Sandy has not yet demonstrated this. No-one has done so at the ROKC forum thread either:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2523p25-peculiarity-of-frame-303
There appear to be three possible explanations:
1 - The blurring is the result of the normal operation of Zapruder's model of camera and lens on Kodachrome double-8 film. I presume Sandy is claiming that this cannot happen because it is a physical impossibility. Maybe Sandy will turn out to be correct, but he still needs to demonstrate that what he claims to be a physical impossibility is in fact a physical impossibility.
To do that, he needs to demonstrate that the physical properties of the actual camera, lens and film cannot produce the blurring effect. As far as I'm aware (but I may be wrong), Sandy has not yet examined the actual camera, or a similar model of camera, or the actual lens, or a similar model of lens, or the actual Kodachrome film that is in the National Archives.
2 - The blurring is a result of the copying process. I presume Sandy is claiming that it is a physical impossibility for any copying process to produce the blurring effect. Again, if he is, he needs to demonstrate this.
I doubt that he will be able to do so, since it is an uncontroversial fact that the copying of physical films can generate a range of visual anomalies, as can the copying and digital manipulation of digital copies.
Numerous previous claims of alteration, such as John Butler's groundbreaking discovery that the film must have been altered because a copy of a copy of a copy shows Phil Willis with an extra-long leg, have turned out to be enthusiastic misreadings of simple visual anomalies caused by the copying process.
Given the range of anomalies that the copying process can generate, and the depressing history of the amateurish and unsuccessful everything-is-a-fake anomaly-spotting craze over the last 30 years or so, the copying process surely provides an explanation that is plausible and almost impossible to refute.
As far as I'm aware (but I may be wrong), Sandy has only examined digital copies of the film, not the actual Zapruder film that is in the National Archives. There are dozens of branches of NARA all over the US, but the one with JFK assassination-related material is at College Park, Maryland. Sandy can find contact details, directions, opening hours, and other useful information for his forthcoming visit by clicking this link:
https://www.archives.gov/college-park
If, on his visit to College Park, Sandy finds no blurring in the actual Zapruder film, he will know that it must be due to the copying process.
He may be able to save himself the bother of a visit, by getting hold of better-quality copies than the ones he has used so far. If the better-quality copies don't show any blurring, again it must be due to the copying process.
3 - The blurring is the result of nefarious alteration. Once he has demonstrated the physical impossibility of options 1 and 2, Sandy will need to provide a plausible account of how a particular alteration might have produced that particular effect. Ideally, he would also be able to tell us why the alteration in question needed to have been made.
In other words, he needs to answer three questions:
- How exactly was the film altered to produce the blurring effect?
- How was that particular alteration physically possible, given the materials and time available?
- What was so incriminating about that part of the film that it needed to be altered?
I'd be surprised if Sandy can come up with plausible answers to those questions, since no-one has yet come up with a plausible answer to a more fundamental question. Why would anyone have wanted to alter the Zapruder film at all?
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Sandy Larsen writes:
Quotenumerous witnesses whose testimonies corroborate each other are probably right.
The more mutually corroborating witnesses there are, the more likely they are to be right, in the absence of other factors.
When dealing with purely witness evidence, it is relative numbers, not absolute numbers, that is the deciding factor. A larger group of mutually corroborating witnesses is more likely to be right than a smaller group. When one group of witnesses says that X happened and another group says that X didn't happen, we can reasonably decide which group is more likely to be right purely by counting the number of witnesses.
We saw this recently with the question of whether JFK's car stopped on Elm Street. A smaller number of witnesses claimed that the car stopped, and a larger number of witnesses claimed that the car merely slowed down. Going by witness evidence alone, we must conclude that the car probably didn't stop.
But when the question is one of witness evidence versus physical evidence, we need to consider the reliability of each type of evidence. Witness evidence is inherently unreliable; people often make mistakes when recalling events. Certain types of physical evidence, such as home movies and photographs, are inherently more reliable than the recollections of human witnesses. Home movies and photographs may be imperfect in that they sometimes contain visual anomalies, but they are not routinely faked.
If a group of witnesses says that X happened, and a home movie or photograph shows that X didn't happen, we are surely obliged to go with the home movie or photograph, simply because, in the real world, it is far more likely that the witnesses were mistaken than that the home movie or photograph was faked.
Now, if there is good, independent evidence that the home movie or photograph in question had in fact been faked, the inherent reliability of that physical evidence would no longer apply. Note the word 'independent' there. Independent evidence would not include any witnesses who simply contradict what the home movie or photograph shows.
The faking of physical evidence needs to be demonstrated independently of such witnesses. As we saw a few pages ago when trying unsuccessfully to get John Butler to demonstrate how the Moorman photo was faked, it's a much more difficult task than the average 'everything is a fake' merchant thinks.
QuoteI am now in the camp of the Zapruder film alterationists.
In that case, the onus is on Sandy to demonstrate that the film has been altered. Again, there are questions that will need to be answered, such as:
Which parts were altered? Was the entire film constructed from scratch? Or were one or more sections of the film altered?
How was any alteration done? Sandy needs to show, at the very least, that whatever alteration he is proposing was physically possible, given the materials and time available. The more detailed his explanation, the less speculative his case will be.
If he claims that a scene has been altered, and that same scene appears in another home movie or photograph, he will need to demonstrate that the other film or photo was altered too. How was it done? Again, the more details Sandy can provide, the better.
No doubt there are other questions Sandy will need to answer, but these should keep him busy for now.
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Sandy continues:
QuoteIt was only after I found an instance of selective blurring that I realized it was actually proof of alteration, because it cannot be present in an unaltered film.
There are a few questions that need to be answered before we can conclude that 'selective blurring' shows that the Zapruder film is a fake. Let's start with these:
How do we know that selective blurring "defies the laws of physics", as Sandy described it earlier? That needs to be demonstrated, not merely asserted, Butler-style.
How do we know that selective blurring exists on the actual Zapruder film in the National Archives? Has the phenomenon been reported by anyone who has examined the original? If it exists only in copies and not in the original, then that's the end of the matter; it has to be a product of the copying process, even if we can't yet explain exactly how.
If it does exist on the original film, how can we rule out physical and mechanical causes to do with the camera, the lens, or the film?
If no-one has examined the actual film, and the only examples we have are from copies such as the Costella frames, how can we rule out the copying process as the cause? After all, pretty much every anomaly that has been claimed as proof of alteration over the last 30 years (Phil Willis has an extra-long leg! It's a fake!) has turned out to be due to the copying process.
Does anyone know what physical transfers and software adjustments were used to produce the Costella frames and other online copies? If anyone does know this, have they used the same process again to see whether the same phenomenon is reproduced?
Are there any better-quality copies available than the Costella frames? Do they show selective blurring? If they don't, then again it's all down to the copying process.
If, as Sandy seems to be implying, selective blurring indicates that frames have been removed, how exactly would the removal of frames produce that particular effect?
N.B. Jamey has pointed out correctly that this thread has wandered off-topic. Assuming that Sandy will give a detailed explanation for why 'selective blurring' indicates forgery, it might be best if he set up a new thread for that topic.
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteJeremy moved the goal posts. I said that a large number of corroborating witnesses are likely to be right. Here he is saying that that is not so given that witnesses often make mistakes. While that statement is true, it's only true because he removed the qualifiers "large number" and "corroborating."
Sandy seems to misunderstand my point, which is that the two forms of evidence in question are not equally reliable. On the one hand, films and photos in general are very rarely altered. On the other hand, witnesses in general are often wrong. In real life, witnesses are mistaken a lot more often than films and photos get faked.
If there is a conflict between a generally reliable form of evidence, such as films or photos, and a generally unreliable form of evidence, such as the recollections of human witnesses, surely it is rational to believe the former over the latter, all other factors being equal.
At what point should the number of fallible human witnesses make a difference? More to the point, how many witnesses would there have to be for Sandy to believe them over, say, the Zapruder film or the Moorman photo?
We've seen on the other current Zapruder film-based thread that the large-numbers-of-witnesses argument doesn't support the most popular claim for alteration, namely that frames were removed to conceal a car-stop:
Quite the opposite, in fact. Only a minority of witnesses claimed that the car stopped; many more claimed that the car slowed down, just as we see on the Zapruder, Muchmore and Nix films. If you put credence on the numbers of witnesses, the evidence becomes even stronger that the film wasn't altered. Is there any claim for alteration to which the large-numbers-of-witnesses argument applies?
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John Butler writes:
QuoteAbout 20% of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza say something different than the official story. Your [Pat Speer's] witnesses are responsible for the official story. There are over a hundred witnesses saying something different.
John tried this trick almost exactly three years ago. On that occasion it was 50 witnesses who, according to John, said that JFK wasn't shot where all the films and photos show he was shot.
But when you look at what his witnesses actually said, many of them are perfectly consistent with what the other witnesses said and with what the films and photos show:
As Ray Mitcham asked John on page 4 of that thread, "Are you completely mad or just pretending?"
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On page 14, Jamey Flanagan writes:
QuoteAnd there is no doubt in my mind that there was at the very least a brief limo stop or what officers call a rolling stop at the time of the head shot or head shots that we do not see on this film.
This was dealt with back on page 3. Only a minority of witness statements claimed that the car actually came to a stop. A minority of that minority claimed that the car swerved to the left-hand curb as it came to a stop.
Far more witness statements claimed that the car merely slowed down, just as we see on the Zapruder, Muchmore and Nix films. This page looks at the witness statements and concludes that well over 80% of the spectators who had a clear view of the car did not notice that it had stopped:
http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street
On the one hand, we have a small number of witnesses who claimed that the car stopped. On the other hand, we have a larger number of witnesses who claimed that the car slowed down, but who appear not to have noticed that it had stopped. In addition, we have three home movies which agree with the majority of the witnesses; the films show the car slowing down but not stopping.
Which evidence should we believe, and which should we disbelieve? There are two alternatives. Either:
- a small number of witnesses were mistaken, or
- a larger number of witnesses were mistaken and the Zapruder film was altered to conceal the car-stop and the Muchmore film was altered to conceal the car-stop, and the Nix film was altered to conceal the car-stop. And, perhaps, as well as these three films, the Bronson film and the Moorman photo were altered to conceal the car's swerve to the left-hand curb.
It isn't difficult to work out which alternative is the more likely to be true. There is no good reason to suppose that the car stopped or that any films or photos were altered to cover it up.
Quoteno witness in Dealey Plaza seeing this horrific event unfold right before their eyes have EVER reported seeing that violent backwards head snap that day. And many have said that his head went forward after the head shot.
Several witnesses spoke of JFK's head moving backwards. Check out Pat Speer's collection of witness statements:
https://www.patspeer.com/chapter7morepiecesofthepuzzle
As Jamey mentions, many witnesses spoke of JFK's head moving forward. They were correct; his head moved forward after having moved sharply back and to the left. Those witness statements are consistent with what we see in the home movies, and do not imply that any of the home movies or photographs were altered.
Different witnesses at different times reported different aspects of what they had seen. They had experienced a sudden, unexpected and traumatic event. We can't expect them to recall everything with photographic accuracy. As someone pointed out elsewhere:
QuoteKeep in mind too these people were not standing around saying, "OK here it comes! Now watch his head now as the bullets hit." They were there simply to see the president and it happened so quickly that there was simply no way these people were going to describe in great detail what you actually see in the film.
Moving backward, moving forward, slumping: all of these descriptions were used by different witnesses at different times, and all of them match what we see in the Zapruder film, the Muchmore film, and the Nix film.
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John Butler seems to be sticking with his claim that the Moorman photo was altered by having its book-depository background replaced by a grassy-knoll background. But he still hasn't come up with an explanation of how this might have been done.
We know that the photo's current grassy-knoll background existed as early as two and a half hours after the assassination. Any alteration must have been made within those two and a half hours.
It's up to John to provide a plausible explanation of how it might have been done. He doesn't seem to have even tried to provide any explanation at all.
Let's see if we can help John. Here are a couple of possible explanations:
- The conspirators snatched the photo, took it to the mobile photo-alteration lab near Dealey Plaza that was being used to add face masks to the Altgens photos, and snapped their fingers and said "hey presto!", and that's how the background changed from the book depository to the grassy knoll.
- Creatures from the Planet Zog snatched the photo, beamed it up to their spaceship, put it into one of their super-duper intergalactic warp-factor-ten photo-alteration machines, and out popped an altered photo.
Those are the most plausible explanations I can think of. Can John come up with anything better?
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I claimed that, in the absence of a plausible explanation of how an image might have been altered, we should assume that any witnesses who contradict the image are mistaken.
Sandy Larsen disagreed:
QuoteNot so if there are numerous witnesses to the same thing and only a few witnesses to the opposite.
If witnesses are all we have, then numbers might be significant. It's more likely that the majority will be correct than that the minority will be correct, all other factors being equal.
But in a contest between witnesses and images, the images have a built-in advantage. We always have a plausible explanation of why witnesses might be mistaken: the uncontroversial fact that witnesses often make mistakes.
We don't always have a plausible explanation of why an image might be inauthentic. What we do have is a plausible explanation of why the image is likely to be authentic: the uncontroversial fact that altering images is not a trivial task.
The burden of proof is on those who claim that a photo or home movie has been altered. The claim needs to be demonstrated, not just asserted. As John Butler has discovered, explaining how an image was altered is much more difficult than it might at first appear.
Incidentally, Sandy's earlier point about blurring in certain frames of the Zapruder film has been taken up at the ROKC forum, with contributions from a couple of people with relevant professional experience:
That thread includes a link to another thread, where the discussion continues.
JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
James DiEugenio writes:
It's worse than that. He hasn't even bought his own domain name. He is using a subdomain of a domain name belonging to Wix, a DIY website provider: https://steveroeconsulting.wixsite.com/. Wix offer these subdomains free of charge, with a small annual fee for hosting the website.
Other companies, such as Wordpress, offer the same thing (Wordpress's software is vastly better than Wix's). This sort of arrangement isn't aimed at businesses, but at people who want to get a hobby website up and running as cheaply as possible.
No reputable business would sign up for this sort of scheme. It looks amateurish. You can get your own .com domain name for just a few dollars a year, and you'll look far more professional.
The use of the word 'consulting' does give it an air of authority, though, doesn't it? You can imagine the Chief Executive Consultant stepping out of the elevator on the 73rd floor of Steve Roe Consulting Towers, barking orders to an open-plan office full of deferential Steve Roe Consulting employees, as his sharp-suited professional minders escort him to his penthouse suite so that he can get stuck into some more high-powered consulting.