Jeremy Bojczuk

Steven Kossor continues: What we see in the various home movies and photographs is entirely consistent with a shot from the front causing brain matter to fly 'back and to the left', as the famous phrase has it (or, indeed, in any roughly horizontal direction; as Tony Krome points out, brain matter seems to have gone in all directions). That's because, as I recently explained on another thread, there is no good reason to assume that any horizontal exit debris would have been caught on the Zapruder film. That applies also to the other home movies which show the same scene. If the debris wasn't recorded, there would have been no need to remove it from the films.

Steven Kossor writes: It isn't only the Zapruder film that must have been altered. The Muchmore and Nix films record JFK at the same moment in time, and they too fail to show any pivoting of JFK's head. There's also the Moorman photo, which shows JFK's head in the same unpivoted position, a fraction of a second after the fatal shot. Either all four were altered, or there was no "pivoting of JFK's head". Until someone comes up with a plausible, detailed account of how those three home movies and one photograph were altered, the only reasonable conclusion is that JFK's head didn't "pivot". We saw something similar on another thread a couple of weeks ago. Paul Rigby claimed that the Zapruder film had been altered to eliminate the limo swerving into the left-hand lane and stopping. It was pointed out to Paul that the Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films, along with the Moorman and Altgens 7 photographs, corroborate what we see in the Zapruder film. It appears that Paul hadn't even bothered to check the rest of the photographic record. Understandably, we haven't heard much from Paul since then. The moral of the story: before you claim that a particular element of the Zapruder film isn't genuine, you should check to see whether other films or photos show the same thing!

David G. Healy writes: What credentials do you need, to point out flaws in people's thinking? I don't suppose many people have better credentials in analysing the technical aspects of Kodachrome film than Roland Zavada and Raymond Fielding. Let's see what Prof Fielding has to say. He actually mentions David: In that document, which is well worth reading for anyone who thinks the Zapruder film is a fake, Zavada concludes: Also worth reading is this thread: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/22946-the-zapruder-film-and-film-information-between-the-sprocket-holes/ David 'technically naïve' Healy continues: Yes, I think the evidence for that is pretty strong. Here we go again! Why does David equate skepticism about extreme conspiracy theories with acceptance of the lone-nut theory? It is perfectly possible to question both the lone-nut theory and all of the implausible conspiracy theories that are based on nothing more than anomaly-spotting and wishful thinking. Clearly David isn't able to explain how all the films and photos I mentioned were faked. That isn't surprising, because faking them would have been not only an enormously difficult undertaking but also an impossible one in the limited time available. Until someone comes up with a plausible, detailed account of how the necessary alterations could have been made, we can rule out the notion that JFK's car swerved into the left-hand lane and stopped at around the time of the fatal shot. Perhaps Paul Rigby can help David here, since he brought up this particular example of fakery in the first place. How were the Zapruder film, the Muchmore film, the Nix film, the Bronson film, the Moorman photo, and the Altgens 7 photo all altered to cover up the car's swerve to the left? It didn't happen, did it?

John Kowalski writes: If there's something obvious that I'm missing, I apologise. Perhaps you could try making your point in another way. You wrote earlier that I "say that the conspiracy must not be true." Which conspiracy do you mean? If you mean the 'Harvey and Lee' conspiracy, then of course it isn't true. That particular conspiracy has been shown to be untrue, just as the conspiracy in which the driver shot Kennedy, or the conspiracy in which all the photographs and home movies were faked, have been shown to be untrue. As I explained, there is no good reason to suppose that any long-term double-doppelganger scheme ever existed, because every aspect of it that has been examined in detail has been shown to be seriously flawed. Since there was no 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme, what exactly was the problem with the question I raised?

John Kowalski, I don't recall you taking a large part in earlier 'Harvey and Lee' discussions, so I assume you haven't yet fallen into the paranoid rabbit hole, and are still amenable to reason. You write that I If by 'conspiracy' you mean the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger scheme, we know it can't be true. We know that not because of any made-up scenario but because many elements of the theory have been looked at in detail, and they all have serious faults. If you don't believe me, check some of the links I provided. If by 'conspiracy' you mean the plot to kill President Kennedy, I'm not saying that isn't true. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most of the critics of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of some sort. You can believe that without believing in a ridiculous, decade-long scheme involving fake Oswalds and fake Marguerites. There was no "Oswald double operation" in the 1950s. Again, check some of the links I provided. It's very likely that Oswald was indeed sent to the Soviet Union, but there's no need to invent a far-fetched 'Harvey and Lee' scheme to explain that. It's quite possible to claim that Oswald was involved in some sort of intelligence-related activity, in the Soviet Union and in the US, without inventing a ridiculous long-term scheme involving two pairs of doppelgangers and however many people were needed to keep the show on the road for a decade. Likewise, Oswald could have been impersonated, in Mexico City and perhaps also in Dallas, with no doppelgangers being involved. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory explains nothing that doesn't have a simpler and more credible explanation. As for the question you find so unsettling: we know that the double-doppelganger scheme didn't happen; my question illustrated why it didn't happen. The scheme could never have happened, because anyone intending to send a 'Harvey and Lee'-type defector to the Soviet Union had a far easier way to achieve that goal.

David G. Healy writes: I am well acquainted with the Warren Report, thank you very much, and with Mr Zavada's report, which demolishes from a technical point of view the claim that the Zapruder film in the National Archives is not the one that was in Zapruder's own camera. Zavada's report by itself refutes the claim that this part of the Zapruder film, or that part, or the whole film, is a fake. Anyone who's interested in reading Zavada's report can find a link to it here, along with articles discussing the report: http://www.jfk-info.com/moot1.htm It would be in your own interest to click on the links I included a few posts ago. The Oatmeal contains a number of useful and amusing tutorials on the accepted usage of English, for the benefit of those whose command of the language is limited. As well as being amusing, they are concise, which readers with a short attention span will appreciate. Most of the time, they also use simple words, a feature which some people might find helpful. Reading comprehension clearly isn't David's specialist subject. He keeps coming out with this mistaken claim, that anyone who objects to the most far-fetched and over-elaborate conspiracy theories must subscribe to the lone-nut theory. Does anyone share David's belief? If you do, you're wrong. It's quite possible to claim that the JFK assassination was the result of a conspiracy of some sort, without claiming that everything connected with the assassination was a conspiracy. Now, David G. Healy, it's time for you to justify your apparent belief that the Zapruder film was altered. Since Paul Rigby (any relation to Raul Pigby?) brought up the matter of the presidential limousine swerving to the left and coming to a halt in the left-hand lane, let's start with that example. As I asked earlier, tell us exactly how it happened that all the relevant home movies and photographs were altered to disguise this left-hand swerve. There are three home movies and two still photographs that agree with the Zapruder film on this point. How were they all faked?

Jack White was a top-class fruitcake. You name it, he thought it was faked: the Zapruder film, most of the other assassination images, the moon landings, the planes flying into the World Trade Center, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marguerite Oswald. All fakes! White's appearance before the HSCA doesn't give him any credibility. The opposite, in fact. His ignorance got him shredded: http://www.clavius.org/white-test.html He didn't understand the simple fact that when you photograph an object from slightly different angles, the proportions of the object (in this case, the sixth-floor rifle) will change. White thought this meant that they were actually different rifles. He was an idiot. Few people have done more than Jack White to tarnish the public image of rational criticism of the lone-nut theory. Anyone who stumbles upon White's video and is tempted to believe a word he says should search for any obvious alternative explanations. There are plenty around. You could start here: http://www.jfk-info.com/moot1.htm That page contains plenty of links to articles critical of the whole 'Zapruder film is a fake' anomaly-hunting nonsense, including non-existent anomalies with the Stemmons Freeway sign. Thanks for that link to Josiah Thompson's article, Jonathan. I hadn't been aware of that one. Incidentally, the Moorman-in-the-street nonsense was thoroughly and easily debunked more than 20 years ago, as Thompson explains here: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination.html The moral of the story is: if you think there's something wrong with this or that part of the Zapruder film, make an effort to see if common-sense explanations exist before claiming that it's a fake.

I wrote: David sort of replied: Firstly, David will find out what the word 'your' really means here: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling Secondly, I'd guess David's reply means that he does agree with Paul that all the films and photos were faked. Again: three home movies and two still photographs, plus the Zapruder film, show that the car did not move over into the left-hand lane. How did the masterminds manage to fake them all, given that: the films and photos came to light at different times; they were distributed and became publicly available at different times; and some of them were publicly available within a very short time of the assassination? How was it done? Please describe the process in detail, so that we can compare the plausibility of that process with the plausibility of the alternative: the witnesses who stated that the car moved left were mistaken. I'm not using this example just because it makes Paul and David look like a pair of credulous [deleted]. Remember, it was Paul who brought up these particular witnesses' statements in the first place. He evidently thought they were irrefutable evidence of fakery. But a minute's critical thought shows that these witnesses must have been mistaken. Firstly, David will find a good illustration of the accepted use of the apostrophe here: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe Secondly, the conspiracists did not have nigh on 60 years to perform their dastardly fakery. To take just one example, the Moorman photo was shown on TV less than three hours after the assassination. Copies were distributed among journalists soon after that, at which point they must have been out of the reach of any photo-fakers. Any alteration must have been done within a few hours. The problematic part of the photo, the police motorcyclists in the left-hand lane, occupy a quarter of the image. How was that piece of fakery done in the time available? Please describe the process in detail. Then move on to the Altgens 7 photo and describe in detail how that one was altered in the time available. My first reply to this question would be: no idea. I wasn't there. As I understand it, no-one's even sure whether Kodak or Jamieson did the job. Sources offer differing accounts. Richard Trask speculates that they may have shared the work. In any case, my second reply would be: so what? Now, perhaps David will be brave enough to answer the question that Paul has avoided. How could the film-fakers have been sure that no photograph or home movie would come to light in the future, containing proof that the Zapruder film was a fake?

John Kowalski writes: Oh, I have looked at the evidence presented in Harvey and Lee, and at the evidence presented on this forum by the cult's few believers. That evidence has been looked at by plenty of other people too. The theory has been done to death over the past couple of decades. Every element of the theory that has been looked at in detail has been shown to be, at best, poorly supported, and at worst outright nonsense. Just like other examples of extreme JFK assassination conspiracy theories, it relies overwhelmingly on reading far, far too much into common-or-garden anomalies in the evidence. Witness recollections from decades after the event, for example, are taken to be infallible. Documents and photographs are wilfully misinterpreted. For an example of the latter, check out the claim by some 'Harvey and Lee' believers that one of the doppelgangers had a 13-inch head: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1412-the-13-inch-head-explained-for-sandy As you can see, it isn't just down to poor interpretation. Plain stupidity comes into it too. The 'Harvey and Lee' cult exists because some people (fortunately, not many) really want to believe that huge conspiracies exist, and they aren't too concerned about questioning their beliefs. Huge conspiracies make them feel good. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory is not a serious insight into the JFK assassination. It is a figure of fun, as these videos illustrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvm-jqy1Bnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEfKELTWKiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXq_c7Kc3To https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDRPZddmxtY Unfortunately, being a figure of fun, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is liable to tar all critics of the lone-nut theory with the same brush. Look at these so-called critics! They think there were two Oswalds! They're all crazy! I guess the Warren Commission was right after all! You might want to use the search function on this website, and check the criticisms I and many, many others have made of 'Harvey and Lee' here. You could start with the following discussion of the ridiculous notion that two Oswald doppelgangers were arrested in the Texas Theater: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25901-two-oswalds-in-the-texas-theater/?do=findComment&comment=407170 Then you could pop over the road to the Reopen Kennedy Case forum, which contains a large number of discussions of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. This thread lists some of them: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1588-harvey-lee-links-to-alternative-explanations Others can be found by scrolling through this section, which includes a thread devoted to your comment: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-debunked As you can see, I spent a lot of time looking at the evidence before asking my question. The question I posed may be hypothetical, but so is the proposition that there were two virtually identical Oswalds, one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination, and two virtually identical Marguerites, one of whom vanished without trace immediately after the assassination. To understand why the question I posed requires an answer, you need to put yourself in the shoes of whichever group of masterminds is supposed to have set up the 'Harvey and Lee' double-doppelganger defector scheme. If they genuinely wanted to do what the 'Harvey and Lee' theory claims they wanted to do, namely send to the USSR a defector with a plausible American background who could understand what was being said around him in Russian, they had two options, one obvious and one very far from obvious. If such a scheme really had been planned, the masterminds would not have chosen the double-doppelganger option, because it was so far-fetched and elaborate that it would never even have occurred to them. Perhaps you could tell us why the masterminds might have chosen the far-fetched and over-elaborate option?

David G. Healy writes: If I've interpreted this correctly, David is asking me to find a copy of the film that contradicts the one we all know and love, and point out inconsistencies between the two, and explain why these inconsistencies couldn't have happened. Why? It's David, not me, who thinks there are 'disputed' images out in public. What has any of that got to do with the point I was making? If David is claiming that the Zapruder film is faked, it's up to him to: - tell us exactly which parts of the film have been altered (everyone who thinks the film is a fake seems to have a different opinion about which parts were altered, which is a pretty good sign that it's all just speculation); - describe in detail how such fakery was achieved; - and tell us why we should accept fakery when a far simpler explanation is available. The simpler explanation is, of course, that witness statements are often mistaken, and any such statements that contradict what we see in the Zapruder film (and in other images) can be dismissed as worthless anomalies. We've seen that Paul Rigby's witnesses, who claimed that the car pulled to the left and stopped, cannot be correct. Their statements are worthless anomalies. Does David Healy agree with Paul that the car pulled to the left? If so, how would he explain the fact that three other home movies and two photographs corroborate what the Zapruder film shows? Paul implied earlier that he thought all the films and photos were faked. Does David agree with Paul about this? If so, perhaps he could provide us with a credible explanation of how this huge task was achieved, and why we shouldn't just discard the witness evidence instead. This is crazy. Quite apart from the practical problem of making one fake after another, and the fact that the film contains no inconsistencies with the other films and photos, how would the fakers have got around the problem of all the bootleg copies that were in circulation long before 1975? How would they explain away all the inevitable inconsistencies? Related to the problem of inconsistencies between films, perhaps David could have a go at telling us how the conspirators could have ensured that no film or photograph would have come to light in the future, containing proof that the Zapruder film was a fake?

Paul Bacon writes: I'd imagine that pretty much anything could have been removed, in theory, given the right tools and sufficient time. But why assume that any of this data was there in the first place? I showed earlier that there's no reason to assume that backwards-flying "exit debris" would have been captured in the film. What reason is there to assume that any of the other supposedly incriminating data were captured in the film? If the only evidence for them is anomalous witness statements and the like, we can discard them, for reasons I've already given. Even if sufficient time and appropriate tools were available, and even if it was possible to make Zapruder Film Mark II consistent with whatever other films and photos already existed, problem A remains: How could the conspirators ensure that their fakery wouldn't be exposed by other films and photos, yet to be discovered? Not only that, but the four or five versions weren't all stored at the same location. To cover up the existence of copies and the dispersal of the copies, a good deal of arm-twisting would have been needed, whether the film had been altered or not. Problem B remains: why go to all the trouble of altering it when you could just destroy it?

Paul has constructed a far-fetched and ridiculously complex structure out of essentially nothing but his imagination. How has he managed this? It's because the methodology used by Paul, and by other 'everything is a fake' believers, is faulty: - A small subset of the relevant witnesses reported something anomalous, so it must have happened! - A poor-quality reproduction of an image contains anomalies, so the image must have been altered! - A document mentions something anomalous, so it must be accurate! But people are fallible. They can make mistakes when filling in forms and other documents. Witnesses can make mistakes when recalling anything, let alone brief, unexpected and traumatic events such as seeing the president get shot. Witnesses to anything are even more likely to make mistakes when the events they are recalling took place years earlier. Images too are fallible, simply due to the laws of physics. Reproductions of the analogue films and photos taken in 1963 will very often generate anomalous artefacts that weren't there in the original. Anomalies are worth spotting, because they can in theory lead to a reappraisal of the evidence. But almost always they don't. They are just mistakes: in images, written documents, and recollections. When you find an anomaly, you need to do the rational thing: see if you can come up with a common-sense, everyday explanation for that anomaly. Close to one hundred percent of the time, you will find that a simple, credible explanation exists. When you find one, use it. Paul's enormous conspiracy relies on anomalies. A handful of people claimed to have seen something vaguely like the Zapruder film on TV in the first few days after the assassination! Wow! Someone in the CIA recalled something several decades after the event! Amazing! And this guy was corroborated by a colleague! Incredible! And the colleague admitted that he was suffering from dementia! That makes him even more believable! Some people claimed they saw the car moving into the left-hand lane! That means it must have happened! There are so many anomalies! Surely they can't all be worthless? Yes, they can, easily. No matter how many anomalous witnesses (or anomalous blobs in a photo) you have assembled, it's very likely that your alternative explanation, when it has been worked out in detail, will still be less plausible than any common-sense explanations for those anomalies. The working-it-out-in-detail part is where things falls down. It's easy to state that such-and-such a film or photo was faked. It's not so easy to provide a plausible, detailed explanation of how it was done. Paul's ginormous conspiracy requires the Zapruder film to have been faked. How was that done? The Bad Guys didn't just snap their fingers. Please describe the process in detail. If the Zapruder film has been faked, all the films and photos that agree with it must also have been faked, as I pointed out earlier. How was that done? The Bad Guys didn't just snap their fingers. Please describe the process in detail. One complicating factor is that the photographs and home movies that corroborate the Zapruder film came into existence at different times, and were made public at different times. The Moorman photo, for example, was a Polaroid, and emerged as a finished picture approximately 50 seconds after the shutter button was pressed. It was seen by other people within minutes of the assassination. It was shown on NBC-TV at around 3.15pm. Copies were made within hours, and were in the possession of journalists. It appeared in a large number of newspapers the following day. In the photo, the police motorcyclists whose presence to the left of the car is a fake, according to Paul, occupy roughly a quarter of the image. How was that piece of fakery done in the time available? Please describe the process in detail. The Altgens 7 photo, which completely contradicts Paul's claim that the presidential car moved to the left at the time of the fatal shot, was the next one to come to light. The negative was processed less than half an hour after the assassination. How was that faked, and made to match the already existing Moorman photo, in the time available? Please describe the process in detail. The Muchmore film, which also shows the car clearly in the middle lane and not the left-hand lane, was in Muchmore's camera until the following Monday, when it was sold before being processed. It was shown on TV the next day. How was that faked, and made to match the already existing Moorman and Altgens photos, in the time available? Please describe the process in detail. And so on, through all the photos and films. Each photo and film, as it came to light, would need to be matched not only to each corresponding element of the Zapruder film but also to each existing photo and film. Paul: if you want to make your theory credible, please describe the process in detail, for each photo and film, and for each matching element. How long did it take to work out precisely what needed to be altered in each image? How, exactly, were the alterations made in each image? How long did it take, and how many people were required, to make the alterations in each image? You'll find that the common-sense explanations for those supposed anomalies will be infinitely more credible than the detailed descriptions you come up with. Then there's the complication of how to deal with other images, not yet discovered. Finally, we arrive back at the question Paul (and other 'everything is a fake' believers) don't seem to have an answer for. How could the film-faking conspirators be sure that a home movie or photograph, containing proof that the Zapruder film was faked, would not come to light in the future? The film-faking conspiracy Paul has described simply could not have happened.

Paul Rigby writes: Exactly! He's got there at last! If evidence of a conspiracy was no problem, there was no need to alter the Zapruder film. Paul has made his entire, Byzantine, cast-of-thousands conspiracy redundant. Why does Paul feel the need to invent things that then need to be excised from the film? His easily falsified car-in-the-left-hand-lane nonsense, for example. Why invent that, insert it into the film, and then have to invent a team of film-fakers to remove it? The same goes for every imaginary piece of incriminating evidence that we don't actually see in the Zapruder film. If you don't invent it in the first place, you don't need to remove it. Cut out the anomaly-generated imaginary middlemen altogether, and you'd end up where we have been for nearly 60 years, with a Zapruder film that provides evidence of conspiracy.

Ron Bulman writes: I dealt with this point a couple of posts ago, on this very page: Horne assumes that the camera must have caught any backwards-flying debris, but he was wrong. If no backwards-flying debris was captured on the Zapruder film, there was no need to hire a team of film-fakers to remove it.

Paul Bacon writes: Why should we trust his memory? He was interviewed in 1997, 34 years after the event he described. You may not want his memory to be fogged, but it's quite conceivable that it was.

Denny Zartman writes: You're correct that the 'back and to the left' head snap doesn't persuade everyone who sees it, but that wasn't what I was claiming. Public showings of the Zapruder film, such as the Geraldo screening and Stone's JFK, have been the catalysts for all the main revivals of interest in the case. These revivals must have been due substantially to what people saw in the Zapruder film that they thought was inconsistent with the lone-gunman doctrine. The most obvious such evidence in the film is the 'back and to the left' head snap. It's true that some people claim that the Secret Service guy shot JFK by accident, or that the driver shot him (interesting rumour about that here), or Jackie shot him, but no-one takes these people seriously.

Paul Rigby writes: The guy who wasted the ARRB's time by promoting Lifton's body-alteration nonsense? That's a big warning sign that there's a purveyor of craziness on the loose. As it happens, though, I have read some of his Zapruder-alteration stuff. It's just as nonsensical as his body-alteration stuff. On the plus side, he is a decent writer. Horne offers three alternative explanations for the presence of the 'back and to the left' head snap in the Zapruder film: 1 - The film surgeons didn't have the time to remove every item of incriminating evidence, so they left that one in. 2 - The film surgeons didn't have the tools in 1963 to do the job, so they weren't able to remove the head snap. 3 - The head snap wasn't actually in the film until the film surgeons created it accidentally. Whoops! Objection to explanation 1: If they didn't have time to remove such an obvious indicator of a shot from the front, why didn't they just make the film vanish? Objection to explanation 2: If they didn't have the tools to perform such complex film surgery, why didn't they just make the film vanish? Objection to explanation 3: It's nuts! Arguing that the 'back and to the left' movement, the most obvious evidence for a shot from the front, didn't actually happen is one of the most stupid things in the whole JFK assassination literature (and I'm including 'Harvey and Lee' in that). It's also a sign of desperation. Having been given the task of wiping the incriminating evidence from the film, Horne's mastermind film-surgeons ended up actually creating the most incriminating evidence in the film? What's this guy going to come up with next? The masterminds wanted to conceal the fact that the assassination took place in Dallas, so they painted in a background that looked just like Dealey Plaza? Objections 1 and 2 - making the film vanish - would have the advantage of helping the conspirators avoid a particularly unpleasant outcome: another home movie or photograph coming to light in the future, containing proof that they had altered the film. Which leads me back to one more unanswered question. How could the film-faking conspirators be sure that a home movie or photograph, containing proof that the Zapruder film was faked, would not come to light in the future? They couldn't, could they? Paul also writes: I can't speak for everyone, but I think most of us try to use our critical faculties, so that we don't end up swallowing impossibly vast and unnecessarily complex conspiracy theories that allow lone-nut propagandists to portray all of us as a bunch of crackpots. It is perfectly possible to make a case that the assassination was an unsolved political crime, and that it involved more than one gunman, and that Oswald almost certainly wasn't one of those gunmen, without claiming that all the films and photographs were faked, and Oswald and his mother were faked, and JFK's body was faked, and the trees on the grassy knoll were faked. Really, it can be done, if you try. P.S. The Groden anecdote was just that: an anecdote. P.P.S. One of the things Horne thinks needed to be removed from the Zapruder film was horizontal "exit debris" from JFK's head. As I explained on another thread, there's no need to assume that the film must have captured this. Any such "exit debris" flying backwards would have been travelling very fast, and could easily have gone out of sight during the time when the shutter was closed. We can see in the film that the camera cannot always capture fast-moving items: there's no vertical debris in frame 312, but plenty in frame 313. This debris had travelled upwards during the time when the shutter was closed between frames 312 and 313.

Chris Barnard writes: It's good to see a Zapruder film doubter arguing sensibly and rationally! I suspect the reason for this apparent anomaly might simply be that not everything gets recorded on a home movie film. Zapruder's Bell and Howell camera filmed at an average rate of 18.3 frames per second (though this varied a bit due to the varying strength of the winding mechanism). To record everything that happened, the shutter speed would need to have been no faster than approximately 1/18 of a second. But the shutter speed was quite a bit faster than this: approximately 1/40 of a second. During the period when each frame of film was in position to receive an image, the shutter would have been open for just under half the available time, and closed just over half the time (18 times one-fortieth is the same as 18 divided by 40, which equals 0.45). If you're filming a car moving along a road, nothing important will be lost. But a piece of skull flying very quickly out of someone's head might well occur during one of the fractions of a second when the shutter was not open. It's quite possible that a very brief incident like this would not have been recorded. Another apparent anomaly turns out to have a common-sense explanation! Technical information about the camera and film can be found in Roland Zavada's report for the Assassination Records Review Board: http://www.kenrahn.com/Marsh/Zavada/zreport.htm For information about the camera's shutter speed, follow the link to Study 4, part 2 (PDF, 500kB).

Paul Rigby writes: I'm not sure how Paul's reference to Robert Groden(*) makes his case any less flimsy. I'd guess the reasoning is that because Groden made a mistake in the Simpson case, and because Groden helped to present the Zapruder film on national TV in 1975, Paul's theory is therefore correct and his ginormous conspiracy, in which omnipotent overlords faked all the photographic and film evidence, isn't a delusion. Or something like that. Paul seems to be claiming that one or more bootleg copies of the Zapruder film were shown in public before the well-known TV screening in 1975. If that's what he's claiming, he's correct. Paul appears to think this is sinister. His inability to risk the use of plain English makes it difficult to tell exactly what point he's making, which may be deliberate, but he seems to be suggesting that the bootleg showings contradicted some sort of official orthodoxy, in which the film was never seen by the public until the Geraldo and Groden screening in 1975. If my translation of Paul's convoluted prose is accurate, he's wrong. It has been widely recognised for years that the film was seen by the public long before 1975. There were hundreds of public showings of bootlegs before 1975, as David Wrone tells us on pages 59 onward of his The Zapruder Film: Reframing Kennedy's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003). The bootlegs originated from copies made for the Time-Life offices and the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans. Wrone provides details: It is an uncontroversial fact that many thousands of people saw the Zapruder film before 1975. Of course, many millions didn't, and Time-Life's sequestration of the film served its purpose, severely limiting public access to the incriminating evidence contained within the film, in particular the 'back and to the left' sequence. That pesky 'back and to the left' sequence leads us to an important contradiction in Paul's argument that he has not yet addressed. If, as Paul claims, omnipotent overlords caused all of the photographs and home movies to be faked, why did they leave that sequence in the Zapruder film? Supposedly, the film was altered specifically so that it would present a lone-nut-friendly interpretation of the assassination. But it does the precise opposite! That 'back and to the left' sequence is probably the single most widely recognised piece of evidence against the lone-nut theory. Why did they leave that bit in? It would be nice if Paul could at last address this fundamental problem with his theory. In plain, comprehensible English, if he can manage it. The existence of that 'back and to the left' sequence by itself proves that the film wasn't altered, doesn't it? --- (*) I met Robert Groden once, a couple of decades ago, on the grassy knoll during my one and only visit to Dallas. We had a brief chat, and he seemed quite pleasant. Of all the printed booklets and photocopied pamphlets being hawked in Dealey Plaza, his was the least unprofessional-looking, being the only one that didn't have a large-typeface biblical reference on the cover, so I bought a copy. I'd never heard of him at the time, not having followed the Simpson case, and I had no idea who he was until I read his booklet on the plane home a few days later. I was interested to learn from his booklet that he had had a few non-speaking parts in Oliver Stone's JFK. Anyway, for the record, that's my only connection to Robert Groden.

Paul Rigby writes: Why should the plotters have wanted to control the images of the assassination? Why should we assume that they could have done much about the photographic record even if they wanted to? Paul may find the notion of all-powerful overlords and a vast conspiracy psychologically satisfying. But the photographic evidence shows that this can't have happened. It's obvious that the plotters (whoever they were) had next to no control, if any, over the visual record. There is all sorts of incriminating evidence in the photographs and home movies, most famously of course the 'back and to the left' head movement which the Zapruder film depicts very clearly. If the plotters had "control of visual information", why does all this incriminating evidence exist? Why did they fake the Zapruder film while not bothering to remove the 'back and to the left' bit? One point I made in my post at the top of this page is that if the Zapruder film is a fake, all the other home movies and still photographs which are consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film, must also be fakes: How does Paul get around this problem? If he claims that the other films are genuine, his argument (that the car moved into the left-hand lane) collapses. But if he claims that the other films are fakes, he would be shown to be stark raving living in cloud-cuckoo land somewhat misguided. He writes: Paul Rigby really does believe that they're all fakes! At least he's consistent. If your analysis is based on identifying anomalies and ignoring common-sense explanations for those anomalies, you will end up claiming that all the photographic evidence has been altered. Readers might be tempted to laugh at Paul, and move on. This 'everything is a fake' craziness might look like harmless eccentricity, but it has the potential to be very damaging to the public perception of the JFK assassination, as this post points out: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2399-a-dialogue-between-angleton-and-machiavelli-on-the-grassy-knoll#36396 If the public can be persuaded that all lone-nut critics are crackpots, we're in trouble.

Chris Barnard asks: There are some assumptions built into that question! Why assume that the people who organised the assassination were also in control of the cover-up? Why assume that the cover-up was centrally controlled at all, and that anything more than an occasional nudge in the right direction was required, if that? Why assume that anyone who had any connection with the assassination was bothered about what the Zapruder film and the rest of the photographic evidence might contain? There's no overwhelming evidence for any of these things, so taking them for granted is a mistake. A lot of the activity that our more imaginative brethren attribute to conspiracy was just the normal self-preserving behaviour of institutions: The Dallas police were notorious for fitting people up, and could be relied on to construct whatever evidence might be needed to incriminate Oswald after the assassination (incriminating him before the assassination is a different matter). The political institutions could be relied on to sweep things under the carpet. Media institutions could be relied on not to rock the boat too much (by buying the Zapruder film, for example, and keeping it away from the general public until the immediate fuss had died down). Any links, even arm's-length ones, that Oswald might have had to the FBI, CIA, or similar institutions, would have prompted those institutions to do their part in keeping things quiet. Top-down diktats may have happened but were not required. We need to do away with the common assumption (at least, it's common on this forum, less so on forums with a lower tolerance for unnecessarily complicated explanations) that everything that happened was part of some all-encompassing conspiracy, with all the details worked out in advance and performed by a cast of thousands, satisfying though that idea might be to some people. As for handling the incriminating evidence contained in the Zapruder film, that would depend on whether the people behind the assassination were concerned about what was in it. That in turn would require the lone-gunman explanation to have been part of the original plan (another widely held assumption that lacks strong evidence to support it). Because the film contains so much evidence pointing to the existence of more than one gunman, it's safe to conclude that: (a) the lone-gunman explanation was not part of the original plan; or (b) the people who organised the assassination did not have the power to alter or destroy the film; or (c) both of these. I'd probably go for option (a), but I wouldn't entirely rule out option (c). If I, as temporary ruler of the world in 1963, had been in control of the plot and the cover-up, and if I had wanted to make sure that as few people as possible ever suspected that the assassination was a political act, I would have made the Zapruder film disappear, because that's the only way to make sure that the film would never reveal my dastardly plan. I wouldn't alter the film, because there would be no way for me to guarantee that some other film or photograph wouldn't come to light in the future, containing obvious discrepancies and proving that the film had been altered. I certainly wouldn't do what some people on this thread seem to think happened: half-heartedly alter the film, leaving plenty of incriminating evidence in it, because that incriminating evidence too would generate suspicion, as indeed it has done. If, on the other hand, I as Chief Conspirator was only concerned with bumping off Kennedy and saving my own skin, and if I thought that political and institutional loyalties would be sufficient to prevent a serious investigation into the crime, there wouldn't be any need for me to waste my time trying to alter or destroy the film. As it turned out, political and institutional loyalties were sufficient to prevent a serious investigation into the crime, and the incriminating evidence within the film didn't end up identifying whoever was behind the assassination. Failure to alter or destroy the Zapruder film would have resulted in exactly what has in fact happened. Not everything is a conspiracy!

Paul Rigby writes: Post twelve doesn't answer my question. It just lists a handful of trivial anomalies: witness recollections that are inconsistent ("The presidential limousine in the left lane of Elm Street") with what we see in the photographic record. So what? Knowing what we know about the fallibility of human memory, why should we believe these people? What about the far greater number of witnesses who didn't report what these witnesses reported, and whose silence on the matter implies that the car's incriminating swerve into the left-hand lane didn't actually happen? Why shouldn't we believe them instead? Paul's comment illustrates the problem with amateurish anomaly-spotting. If you look at a handful of anomalies in isolation, you might notice a sinister pattern. Some of the shadows of Armstrong and Aldrin on the 'moon' look wrong! There aren't any stars in the sky! The flag looks like it's fluttering in a breeze! That means the moon landings were faked!(*) But when you look at the rest of the relevant evidence, the paranoid mystery vanishes and sanity is restored. Let's look at the rest of the relevant evidence. What do other home movies and photographs show? Do they show the presidential car pulling over to the left-hand curb at around the time of the fatal shot, as Paul imagines? Sadly for Paul, they do not. They are consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film: The Muchmore film clearly shows the car in the middle lane before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does. You can see the lane markings, and you can see the two police motorcyclists riding in the lane to the left of the car. The Nix film, taken from a less helpful angle, doesn't show the lane markings, but it does show the police motorcyclists riding to the left of the car before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does. The Bronson film also doesn't show the lane markings, but it does ... wait for it ... show the police motorcyclists riding to the left of the car before, during and after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does. The Moorman photograph was taken too close to the car for the lane markings to be visible, but it does show one police motorcyclist (and part of the second bike) very clearly riding to the left of the car immediately after the time of the fatal shot, just as the Zapruder film does. The Altgens 7 photograph (actually the sixth one he took, but occupying frame number 7 on the negative) shows the presidential car a few seconds after the fatal shot. Clint Hill is clinging onto the rear of the car, and Jackie Kennedy is climbing out of her seat. You can see the lane markings clearly. The car is in the middle lane, and has in fact moved not left but right. Its rear right-hand tyre is touching the marking on the road that separates the middle and right-hand lanes. I'll repeat that last item of information in case Paul was unable to process it: the Altgens 7 photograph absolutely contradicts Paul's claim that the presidential car moved into the left-hand lane immediately after the fatal shot.(**) All of the above sources, as well as the Altgens 6 and Willis 5 photos (and probably others, but like Paul I can't be bothered to check), also show the car in the middle lane as it approaches the point of the fatal shot. You will not be surprised to learn that the Zapruder film does so too. I'm not aware of any photograph or home movie that shows the presidential car pulling to the left-hand curb, as Paul would have us believe. Can Paul provide us with any images which support his claim? If he can't find any, what does that tell him? What it tells me is that Paul didn't perform even basic checks on his fallible eye-witnesses, by looking at the rest of the photographic evidence and finding out how much of it contradicts his claim (quite a lot) and how much of it supports his claim (nothing, apparently). He found some anomalies, and that was good enough for him. Paul's witnesses aren't looking too convincing now, are they? On one side, we have a handful of fallible eye-witnesses. On the other we have three home movies and two still photographs, plus the Zapruder film. Which group should we believe? Difficult choice, isn't it? Paul now has a problem. Because he claimed that the Zapruder film was altered to conceal the car's move to the left-hand curb, he must also claim that the Muchmore film was altered, and that the Nix film was altered, and that the Bronson film was altered, and that the Altgens 7 photo was altered, and that the Moorman photo was altered. Presumably, Paul agrees with John Butler's recent claim that "all or nearly all of the media record in Dealey Plaza has been altered". Does Paul believe that all the home movies and photographs I've mentioned were altered? If he doesn't, how can he claim that the Zapruder film's depiction of the car in the middle lane is not a true representation of reality? Everyone makes mistakes. Would Paul now be good enough to admit that he was mistaken in trusting the evidence of a handful of fallible eye-witnesses over that of several photographs and home movies? Once he's done that, perhaps Paul would also be good enough to explain in plain English exactly how his game of spot-the-anomaly answers the question of mine that he has been avoiding: If the conspirators wanted to conceal the incriminating evidence contained in the Zapruder film, why would they go to all the trouble of altering it, while leaving in it plenty of incriminating evidence, rather than simply making the film vanish? --- (*) If Paul wants to apply his spot-the-anomaly method to the photographic evidence of the moon landings, he should prepare for disappointment. The moon landings, like the Zapruder film, weren't faked. Plenty of apparent anomalies have been pointed out in the Apollo photographs, but they all have common-sense explanations, just like the anomalous eye-witness accounts which Paul pounced on unthinkingly. Unsurprisingly, one of the earliest and most prominent 'Zapruder film is a fake' merchants, the late Jack White, also believed that the moon landings were faked (oh, and that Oswald was faked, and that Oswald's mother was faked, and that the images of planes flying into the World Trade Center were faked), all arrived at by using Paul's spot-the-anomaly research method. Paul Rigby is following a fine tradition. More here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/5911-jack-whites-aulis-apollo-hoax-investigation-a-rebuttal/ http://www.clavius.org/jackwhite.html (**) The Altgens 7 photograph is on page 316 of Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain, an excellent book which Paul may want to consult before unthinkingly putting his trust in any other fallible eye-witnesses whose statements contradict the photographic evidence.

John Butler writes: Did the people behind the assassination really have the lone-nut explanation in mind all along? I'd like to see some solid evidence for that. Not everything is a conspiracy! The lone-nut explanation was a political device, promoted largely by bureaucrats in Washington and then by the media, in order to contain the general public's questioning of established institutions. The assassination was a political event that just happened to involve more than one gunman. The conspiracy aspect is not the important factor. On Mr Butler's second point, if the Zapruder film "had to conform to" the lone-nut theory, why does it not do so? Why does it contain so much evidence that contradicts the lone-nut theory? If anyone did alter the film to make it fit the lone-nut theory, they didn't do a very good job, did they? It's not only the Zapruder film that contradicts the lone-nut theory. The whole body of photographic and eye-witness evidence makes it blindingly obvious to most people that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of some sort. The impression I get is that the people behind the assassination couldn't care less about what the various photographs and home movies showed. There was no intensive gathering of photos and films, many of which remained unknown to the authorities, to the general public, and obviously to the conspirators also, until months or years after the assassination. As long as the shooting happened and the gunmen were able to get away undetected, why should the conspirators care?

I wrote: Chris Barnard replied: It would indeed look suspicious, but much less so than, say, having the main suspect shot dead by a dodgy nightclub owner in the basement of police HQ, surrounded by dozens of cops, in front of millions of viewers on live TV. Accidents do happen; Life's photo technicians did in fact damage the film, presumably by accident. A handful of the more paranoid over-imaginative conspiracy enthusiasts have been suspicious, but this apparent accident has never generated any suspicion at all among the general public, as far as I'm aware. It would certainly look much less suspicious than the 'back and to the left' head movement, which is the one item of anti-lone-nut evidence that's widely known among the general public, and which to many people is the prime evidence that more than one gunman was involved. The only home movie that shows the 'back and to the left' movement clearly is the Zapruder film. One 'whoops' moment in the photo lab, or during the film's journey around Dallas and Chicago, and the task of pushing the lone-nut theory becomes vastly easier.

Ah! Now I understand why Paul Rigby jumped in a few pages ago with such a bizarre non sequitur. He hadn't actually read the post he was replying to. The question I asked was not: Why would anyone alter the Zapruder film and then destroy it? but rather: Why would anyone alter the Zapruder film instead of destroying it? Off-hand, I can't think of any good reason why the Bad Guys would have gone to all the trouble of altering the film, only then to make it 'accidentally' disappear. I don't know why Paul thought I would even ask that question. Now, what we need from Paul (or anyone else) is a good explanation of why the Bad Guys did what they are claimed to have done, when they had a far easier and absolutely foolproof alternative method of achieving their apparent goals. The claim seems to be that the Bad Guys noticed that the Zapruder film contained images that gave away their dastardly plot. They needed to stop the general public seeing these images, so they decided to alter various parts of the film.(*) Why would the Bad Guys decide to alter the film when they could have made it 'accidentally' disappear? When Paul (or anyone else) has answered that question, he could turn his attention to Jonathan's question: --- (*) Unfortunately, there's no agreement about which parts were altered. If you add all the claims together, pretty much the whole film must have been laboriously altered. Years ago, Josiah Thompson pointed out a phenomenon that he called 'Anomaly of the Week'. When one apparent anomaly in the film turns out to have an everyday, non-conspiratorial explanation, the believers drop that one and bring up another: Witness A said something that isn't consistent with what we see in the Zapruder film! That means the film is a fake! What's that? Witnesses are sometimes unreliable? OK, but what about this strange blob in frame x? That means the film is a fake! What's that? Poor-quality reproductions very often generate visual artefacts? OK, but what about this bit of the scene that doesn't line up with this other bit? That means the film is a fake! What's that? I got my measurements wrong? OK, but what about ... That's a pretty good indicator that the whole thing is just an amateurish game of spot-the-anomaly and inventing the most implausible explanation for them that you can think of. It no doubt fulfils a psychological need, but it doesn't get us any closer to understanding the JFK assassination.