Jeremy Bojczuk

Pamela Brown writes: There's good evidence that in the run-up to the assassination, Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City, and perhaps also in Dallas. People sometimes get impersonated; it doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. There's nothing far-fetched about the idea. But this is completely different from the proposition that Oswald was a pair of doppelgängers, part of a CIA scheme set up when they were boys and carried on for a decade or more. Not only is this idea preposterous on its face, since there is no evidence that such a scheme has ever happened in real life, but there is no direct evidence to support the claim that it happened in this case: no CIA memos, no statements from whistle-blowers, no records identifying the Oswald boy doppelgänger or the Oswald mother doppelgänger. It is an invention by a crackpot who thought the moon landings didn't happen. And more importantly, it was the body of the same person who had undergone a mastoidectomy operation at the age of six: that's how the pathologists knew that it was Oswald's body. But according to H&L mythology, the person who was buried in Fort Worth was not the same person who underwent the mastoidectomy operation at the age of six. According to the mythology, it was an Oswald doppelgänger who was buried in Fort Worth. You can find out more about this aspect of the mythology here: http://22november1963.org.uk/john-armstrong-harvey-and-lee-theory This is just about the most conclusive proof you could expect to find that the H&L mythology is an invention. The only way to resurrect the mythology is (a) to propose that the Oswald doppelgänger too had undergone a mastoidectomy operation, and (b) to provide evidence that this operation actually happened. Of course, no such evidence has been provided: no hospital records, no statements from medical personnel, nothing. The H&L mythology is an invention.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, is it really a good idea to entrust the running of the forum to someone who actively promotes ideas that a reasonable person would consider to be far-fetched? Members who have disagreed with some of Sandy's far-fetched views have already had their posts accidentally removed (Miles Massicotte), or been suspended (Jonathan Cohen), or been threatened with suspension (Pat Speer). No doubt such events are coincidental, but it's the sort of thing that might tempt serious researchers to stay away, or even to abandon study of the assassination altogether (the example of Lee Farley comes to mind). At some point, this forum may contain little other than propagandists trying to sell whack-job theories to gullible newbies. To be honest, it's not far from that state at the moment. Ideally, moderators should be people who do not promote controversial ideas. Any volunteers?

Sandy Larsen writes: I suppose that's the closest Sandy will get to admitting that a reasonable member of the public would consider his pet theories to be far-fetched (or worse). Sandy ought to be concerned about this. By promoting ideas which are far-fetched, he is playing a small part in harming the chances of getting the JFK assassination resolved. If the general public associates criticism of the lone-nut dogma with the sort of far-fetched stuff Sandy promotes, the case is unlikely to get resolved. The point of this thread is that Sandy would prefer people not to point out that far-fetched theories are far-fetched, because he personally believes in those far-fetched theories. Of course we should be able to describe far-fetched (or crackpot, or whack-job) theories as far-fetched (or crackpot, or whack-job) theories. If someone puts forward a theory which a reasonable member of the public would consider laughable and no better than Jack 'I thought up the Harvey and Lee nonsense' White's theories that the moon landings were faked and that no planes hit the World Trade Center, of course we should be able to point that out, even if Sandy himself agrees with that laughable theory. All Sandy has explained numerous times is that people define 'far-fetched' in different ways. I have pointed out that if there is no agreed definition of 'far-fetched', the term is meaningless. I've put forward a definition which I think most of us would agree on. I'd still be interested to find out why Sandy promotes theories which he knows would be considered far-fetched (or worse) by reasonable members of the public. Or, if he doesn't want to admit that his pet theories are far-fetched (or worse), where would he draw the line, and how would he justify that definition?

Keven Hofeling writes: The point I was making was in reply to your comment that "There is no visible indication of skull and brain fragments being 'blasted out' of the back of JFK's head at Z-313 of the Zapruder film as there should be, based upon witness testimony." I explained that the length of time the shutter was closed could have allowed any horizontal debris to fly out of sight between frames 312 and 313. I assume you accept that this is a plausible explanation for that apparent anomaly. I'm not sure what the roses have to do with anything. The roses were in sunlight; the back of JFK's head was in shadow.

Sandy Larsen writes: Indeed they can. But that's the problem. When people use different definitions of a term, that term becomes meaningless. We need an agreed definition of the term 'far-fetched'. If Sandy doesn't like his pet theories being described as far-fetched, he needs to tell us what he means by 'far-fetched'. I've explained what I mean by 'far-fetched', and how it applies to certain claims about the JFK assassination. A reasonable, intelligent member of the public with no preconceived ideas about the assassination would describe certain claims as far-fetched and other claims as not far-fetched. For example: An eye-witness made a mistake when recalling an event : not far-fetched. Someone made a mistake when filling in a form : not far-fetched. A witness was coerced into changing his or her testimony : not far-fetched. An item of evidence was planted at a crime scene : not far-fetched. Oswald was impersonated in the weeks before the assassination : not far-fetched. Oswald was one of two unrelated boys recruited by the CIA at an early age, along with his mother and an unrelated woman who played the role of mother to the other boy : far-fetched. The two Oswald boys were almost identical in appearance, despite being unrelated to each other, except that one of them had a 13-inch head : far-fetched. The two Oswald mothers were almost identical in appearance, despite being unrelated to each other, apart from their eyebrows : far-fetched. One of the Oswald doppelgängers was recruited specifically for his knowledge of Russian, only for him to be allowed to forget so much of his Russian that he had to learn the language again, thereby defeating the whole point of recruiting him in the first place : off-the-scale far-fetched. One of the Oswald doppelgängers and one of the mother doppelgängers disappeared from the face of the earth immediately after the murder of the real, one-and-only Oswald by Jack Ruby, with no explanation of where they went or how their disappearance came about : far-fetched. One of the Oswald doppelgängers, the doppelgänger who disappeared without trace, was given a mastoidectomy operation at the age of six, only for the other doppelgänger's body, decades later, to show conclusive evidence of having undergone the mastoidectomy operation : you-can't-be-serious far-fetched. One of the adult Oswald doppelgängers magically changed his height, being 5' 11" tall on one occasion and 5' 6" tall on another occasion : how-can-anyone-believe-this-nonsense far-fetched. The reasonable member of the public would describe these claims as far-fetched because such things would not fit with his or her experience of how the world works. People often recall events inaccurately, or make mistakes in written documents. More rarely, people get impersonated for one reason or another. But people do not grow or shrink by 5 inches within a short period of time, or acquire damage to their bones from operations they didn't undergo, or have 13-inch heads, etc. As far as the reasonable member of the public is concerned, these sorts of things simply do not happen in real life. Sandy would agree with this definition of 'far-fetched', wouldn't he? If not, why not?

Keven Hofeling writes: It's quite conceivable that debris flying horizontally backwards was not captured by any of the home movie cameras. Zapruder's camera took roughly 18 exposures per second. Each exposure cycle took approximately 0.055 of a second. During each exposure cycle, the shutter opened and closed. Each time the shutter opened, it stayed open for approximately 1/40 or 0.025 of a second.* Each time the shutter closed, it stayed closed for approximately 1/18 (= 2.2/40) minus 1/40 second, or 1.2/40 of a second, or 0.03 of a second. In other words, the shutter was closed for almost as long as it was open. If the debris was moving fast enough, it would have passed out of sight during the time the shutter was closed between frames 312 and 313. How fast would the debris have been moving? Who knows, but any horizontal debris would certainly have been moving much faster than the vertical debris. A bullet travelling at 2000 feet per second would have travelled around 60 feet during the time the shutter was closed. No doubt the horizontal debris would not have been moving as fast as the bullet which caused it, but it only had to move a few feet in order to have evaded capture by a home movie camera. There's no reason to assume that Zapruder's camera must have captured the debris. We can forgive newbies for not performing basic research before repeating canards like this, but even the following relatively poor-quality edition of the Zapruder film shows debris hanging in the air for several frames in addition to frame 313: Frame 314: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z314.jpg Frame 315: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z315.jpg Frame 316: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z316.jpg -- * For technical details such as the camera's shutter speed, see http://www.jfk-info.com/zavada1.htm. I could copy and paste the whole thing here, but I think it's better to just give a link.

Before this thread degenerates into yet another H&L copy-and-paste spamathon, could I ask Sandy whether he agrees with my definition of 'far-fetched'? We should judge what's far-fetched and what isn't far-fetched according to what a reasonable, intelligent member of the public would think, shouldn't we? A member of the public who has no preconceived ideas about the assassination, and who measures claims by comparing them with his or her idea of how the world works. Sandy raised the question of far-fetched claims when he created this thread, so he must have an opinion about how we should define the term. If Sandy thinks that our hypothetical member of the public's judgement isn't the correct yardstick, what alternative would he propose?

Sandy Larsen writes: I don't "advocate for shutting down ... claims", if you mean demanding that such claims not be discussed. I advocate for people who make far-fetched claims being obliged to provide sufficient evidence to justify those claims. The examples I've mentioned (presidential body-snatching squads, mass alteration of films and photos, long-term doppelgänger projects, etc) are inherently far-fetched and have been supported up to now by insufficient evidence. Those claims remain far-fetched and unworthy of belief, even when they are repeated over and over again. Especially when they are repeated over and over again. I think it's reasonable to point out this fact, and the fact that such far-fetched claims risk making rational critics of the lone-nut dogma look like idiots by association, which isn't a good thing for anyone who wants to get the case resolved. The original point I made here and in the other thread concerned a definition of 'far-fetched'. Would Sandy agree with me that we should adopt the viewpoint of a reasonable, intelligent member of the public who has no preconceived ideas about the assassination? If not, how would Sandy define the term?

Sandy Larsen writes: I explained clearly on another thread what I think the standard should be for a claim to be considered far-fetched: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30064-moderators/?do=findComment&comment=526064 We should adopt the viewpoint of a reasonable, intelligent member of the public who has no preconceived ideas about the JFK assassination. Does Sandy (or anyone else) see a problem with this definition? If so, what exactly is the problem? And what alternative definition of 'far-fetched' would be appropriate? Once we have agreed a definition of the term 'far-fetched', we will be justified in referring to certain claims about the JFK assassination as 'far-fetched' (or 'crackpot' or 'whack-job', as appropriate). Using the definition I've given, a number of claims are far-fetched, because they do not reflect a reasonable person's view of how the world works. Far-fetched claims are not necessarily wrong, but they do require a higher level of proof than claims which are not far-fetched. The more far-fetched the claim, the stronger the evidence needs to be. Far-fetched claims which rely on trivial discrepancies in the written or photographic record, for which plausible everyday explanations are usually available, do not meet the standard. Surely Sandy would agree with that.

Michael Griffiths writes: If that is aimed at me, Michael seriously misunderstands my point of view on these matters! Here's my critique of the single-bullet theory: http://22november1963.org.uk/single-bullet-theory-jfk-assassination And here's my critique of Vincent Guinn's use of neutron activation analysis: http://22november1963.org.uk/jfk-assassination-neutron-activation-analysis Exactly! The sort of manipulation of evidence that we see in cases of wrongful convictions would not be considered far-fetched by a reasonable member of the public. But the crackpot theories go much further than everyday examples of manipulated evidence. There are good reasons to believe that Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City and perhaps also in Dallas in the weeks leading up to the assassination. A reasonable member of the public would surely not consider that sort of impersonation to be far-fetched. I'm not aware of any documented imposter projects which involved the following far-fetched elements: two unrelated boys being recruited at an early age, along with the mother of one of them plus an unrelated woman who played the role of mother to the other boy; each of the boys being almost identical in appearance, despite being unrelated to each other, except that one of them had a 13-inch head; each of the mothers being almost identical in appearance, despite being unrelated to each other, apart from their eyebrows; one boy being recruited specifically for his knowledge of Russian, only for him to be allowed to forget so much of his Russian that he had to learn the language again, thereby defeating the whole point of recruiting him in the first place; one of the boy doppelgängers and one of the mother doppelgängers disappearing from the face of the earth immediately after the murder of the real, one-and-only Oswald by Jack Ruby, with no explanation of where they went or how their disappearance came about; one of the boys, the doppelgänger who disappeared without trace, being given a mastoidectomy operation at the age of six, only for the other doppelgänger's body, decades later, to show conclusive evidence of having undergone the mastoidectomy operation; one of the adult Oswald doppelgängers magically changing his height, being 5' 11" tall at one point (when it suited the needs of the theory) and 5' 6" tall at another point (when it suited the needs of the theory); and plenty more such nonsense (see https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/f13-debunked for other examples). I'd be very surprised if the average member of the public would be aware of any documented examples of any of these things happening in real life. It isn't simply a matter of impersonation, it's the sheer implausibility of the details which would make this particular theory seem ridiculously far-fetched to any reasonable outsider. If you trawl through some of the old threads on this forum, from the era of James 'Sandy Hook' Fetzer and Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White, you'll find references to one or more photo-alteration vans parked either in the railway yard or on Houston Street, I forget which. It's ridiculous, but it was a necessary consequence of the need to explain some hypothetical and pointless alterations to the Altgens 6 photograph, which was distributed all over the world in its current (and allegedly altered) form only half an hour after the assassination. A couple of years ago or so, someone on this forum suggested that the background of Mary Moorman's well-known Polaroid photo was altered within an hour or two of the assassination. Apparently the background originally showed the book depository, but it was altered to show the grassy knoll. That photo, too, was widely distributed on the afternoon of the assassination. Whether the same photo-alteration van was used in this instance is a matter for debate. Polaroids used a different process than Altgens's 35mm film, so maybe there were two vans. No reasonable member of the public would take seriously the notion that They (whichever group of all-powerful conspirators They were) would station a van, kitted out as a photographic darkroom, near the scene of a presidential assassination, on the off-chance that some photographs might urgently need to be altered. In how many assassinations of prominent political figures (or indeed anyone else) has that sort of thing happened? Such a notion would seem preposterous to anyone with a fully functional reality filter. But fully functional reality filters can be in short supply around here. Maybe we do, but the point I was making is that the interception of a president's body from under the noses of everyone on Air Force One, and surgery secretly being performed on that body, are not the sort of things a reasonable member of the public would be familiar with. Now let's add that the purpose of the alteration was to make all of the wounds consistent with shots from the sixth floor, only for the supposedly altered wounds to be blatantly inconsistent with shots from the sixth floor. To a reasonable member of the public, every element of the body-snatching scenario would seem far-fetched. As for the notion that gunmen were hiding in papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll, I hope I don't need to explain to anyone what the average member of the public would think about that! Incidentally, there's a list of wacky JFK assassination theories at Tony Krome's new forum: https://jacks.forumotion.com/f2-debunked

Paul Rigby suggests that my "real function is to attempt to police a debate in the service of the perpetrators". There we have it, ladies and gentlemen: anyone who questions the far-fetched stuff must be working on behalf of "the perpetrators"! If anyone is helping "the perpetrators", it's the promoters of theories which reasonable members of the public would describe as far-fetched or worse. Presidential body-snatchers, long-term doppelgänger projects, gunmen hiding in papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll, photo-alteration vans in Dealey Plaza: this stuff does not feature in a reasonable person's account of how the world works. It really doesn't! Reasonable people would not recognise such things as part of the world in which they live. They would regard them as far-fetched, maybe even as fantasies invented by crackpots. "Why don't you believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission?" "Well, you see, they kidnapped President Kennedy's body and surgically altered it, and of course Oswald was actually two people, and so was his mother, and most of the photos and home movies were altered, and ... Wait, where are you going? Why are you laughing and shaking your head?" Theories which propose this sort of nonsense as solutions to the JFK assassination will discourage reasonable people from taking an interest in the subject, and will allow the media to claim that if you question the lone-nut dogma, you must be a crackpot. If the general public comes to believe that everyone who questions the lone-nut dogma is a crackpot, is that more likely to harm or help "the perpetrators"? Because it influences people's attitudes, of course. In particular, it influences the attitudes of reasonable people who are not familiar with the facts of the JFK assassination, and encourages those people not to take the case seriously. If the case is ever going to get resolved, it requires the support of the general public. Do believers in far-fetched theories actually want the case to be resolved? I suspect it isn't a high priority for them. Incidentally, I'm wondering whether we should introduce a scale for describing off-the-wall theories, since 'far-fetched' is rather mild for some of them. Perhaps we could start with 'far-fetched', then go to 'crackpot', and end with 'whack-job'. Where on the scale would the presidential body-snatchers theory go? Is it more far-fetched than the long-term doppelgängers theory, or less far-fetched? Is the long-term doppelgängers theory even less credible than the photo-alteration-van-in-Dealey-Plaza theory? How does the photo-alteration-van theory compare with the body-snatchers theory? What about the papier-mâché trees theory? Where should that one go on the scale? And I'm sure we can fit some little green men in there somewhere. There's plenty of scope for constructive discussion!

Pamela Brown writes: Indeed we should! But we should also try to put ourselves in the shoes of reasonable members of the public, and be aware that certain ideas and theories really do seem far-fetched (to put it mildly) to people outside the Ed Forum echo-chamber.

Sandy Larsen writes: Sandy then names four people who do "present substantial evidence rebutting a so-called farfetched theory". A lot depends on what we mean by 'far-fetched', of course. This came up in another current thread, and I've just given my opinion of how we ought to judge what's 'far-fetched' and what isn't, here: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30064-moderators/?do=findComment&comment=526064 Of the four people Sandy mentions, Robert Charles-Dunne rarely posts these days, as far as I'm aware, and when he did post he was one of the most level-headed and respectful of commenters. Robert most certainly presented "substantial evidence rebutting a so-called farfetched theory". Another of Sandy's "shamers" is Michael Walton, who is no longer a member (unless he has recently been welcomed back) since he was banned due to pressure from promoters of the same far-fetched theory. Greg Parker is another former member, banned for a similar reason. What exactly is Sandy's objection? As Jonathan points out, a theory which the majority of JFK assassination conspiracy theorists consider to be far-fetched, but which Sandy himself has supported, has been taken to pieces numerous times on this forum and elsewhere. This particular theory has been buried under an avalanche of "substantial evidence". Would Sandy prefer that this far-fetched theory, or far-fetched theories in general, were given immunity from criticism? Far-fetched and thoroughly debunked theories really ought to be criticised, because they are harmful to rational criticism of the lone-nut dogma. The media is always keen to equate rational critics with moon-landings deniers and the like, and it's the far-fetched theories which enable them to do so.

What is or isn't far-fetched is an interesting question. I'm sure that even the most ardent lone-nutter accepts that conspiracies sometimes happen, and that assassinations of prominent political figures are very often the result of conspiracies. Any reasonable member of the public would certainly accept this. Hardly anyone would rule out, a priori, a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy or any other political figure. It's individual conspiracy theories, and the assumptions behind them, that some people rightly or wrongly consider to be far-fetched. Of course, what each person considers to be far-fetched depends largely on their own view of how the world works. Someone who considers it unremarkable that a group of people might have possessed the ability to fake the moon landings, for example, would define 'far-fetched' very differently from someone who believes that the moon landings did actually take place. The moon-landings denier might not even understand the term. If you think it's perfectly conceivable that many thousands of people worked together to fake the moon landings and all the associated photos and films, the term 'far-fetched' probably won't mean anything to you. So who should get to judge what is far-fetched and what isn't? I would suggest that we should adopt the view of a reasonable, intelligent member of the public who has no particular interest in, knowledge of, or opinion about the assassination: someone who accepts that criminal conspiracies occasionally exist but who requires an appropriate amount of evidence before accepting that any specific conspiracy existed in this case. Our reasonable member of the public would judge certain claims to be inherently more far-fetched than others, based on his or her personal experience. Being reasonable, he or she would not rule out a claim in advance. But he or she would demand stronger evidence for those claims which did not match his or her idea of how the world worked than for those claims which did match it. So, for example, our reasonable member of the public would probably accept that the sixth-floor rifle or the CE399 bullet might have been planted, as long as it could be demonstrated that an opportunity existed for either of them to be planted, since he or she would be aware that items of evidence are sometimes planted at crime scenes. For similar reasons, he or she would accept that a witness might have been coerced into giving false testimony, or that a written statement might have been falsified. All it would take for such a claim to be made plausible and not far-fetched would be for the opportunity and motive to be demonstrated. For a claim that a photograph had been altered, the standard of evidence required might be higher, since our reasonable member of the public might well think that incidents of nefarious photographic alteration are much less common than the coercion of witnesses, or the alteration of written documents, or the planting of evidence. For a claim that numerous spectators' photographs, press photographs, autopsy photographs, home movies, news films and X-rays, as well as JFK's body, were altered, the standard of evidence required would be higher still, because our reasonable member of the public would presumably not be aware of any criminal case in which such widespread falsification of evidence had ever happened. The more items that are claimed to have been altered, the more far-fetched the claim, and the stronger the evidence required to make the claim plausible. Such a claim would start out far-fetched, since it would not match the reasonable person's experience of how the world worked. It would remain far-fetched until very strong evidence was provided. If, as is usually the case, the claims of mass alteration are based on trivial discrepancies in the evidential record, and plausible everyday explanations exist for such discrepancies, the standard of evidence required would be even higher. The main problem with the sort of claim which a reasonable person would find far-fetched is that even though some evidence might exist that is consistent with the proposition, such evidence is insufficient to overcome the inherent implausibility of the proposition. As a wise man once said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Unfortunately, the JFK assassination has always attracted the sort of people who would be equally at home discussing which locations Stanley Kubrick chose when filming each of the so-called moon landings, and why NASA employs people to manufacture all those so-called satellite photos of a supposedly round Earth. Something doesn't look right, so let's not bother searching for obvious explanations but instead let's invent an elaborate, inherently implausible conspiracy to explain it, and then fail to provide sufficient evidence to overcome that implausibility. Also unfortunately, this forum has attracted more than its fair share of that sort of person over the years. At times, it seems as though there's a competition going on here to see who can come up with the most elaborate conspiracy based on the flimsiest body of evidence. Presidential body-snatching squads, the mass alteration of photographs and films, and top-secret long-term doppelgänger projects are precisely the sort of claims any reasonable member of the public would define as far-fetched, or even outright crazy.

Boldface is useful when applied in moderation. It's an effective way to emphasise individual words, phrases or sentences. But using boldface all the time is counter-productive. It's the online equivalent of shouting. To be more precise, it's like hearing someone in the distance who is shouting. It acts as a warning. You can't yet make out the words, but you sense that you'd probably be better off not getting any closer. Many people will assume that someone who cannot express himself or herself without resorting to permanent boldface, someone who feels compelled to shout at strangers, probably isn't worth bothering with. Using boldface all the time not only limits the writer's audience but it also limits the writer's options. He or she is depriving himself or herself of a handy tool. What happens when the writer needs to emphasise a word, phrase or sentence? He or she can't use boldface, because everything is in boldface already! What can you do? I suppose you could make the text larger or give the text a different colour, such as bright red or blue. But that would be even more counter-productive. It would make the warning even more obvious, wouldn't it? A distant glimpse of big text or red text, and the needle on the audience's fanatic-o-meter would be almost off the scale! When presented with a lengthy post containing boldface almost throughout, along with large text and bright red and blue passages, what are most people likely to think? Would they think: "This looks like someone with a well thought-out argument, who is open to constructive criticism and willing to admit that he may have got some details wrong. I'm eager to find out what he has to say!" Or would they think: "Uh-oh! Angry crackpot alert! Let's back out of here slowly before he accuses everyone who disagrees with him of being a paid-up CIA disinformation agent!"

Jonathan Cohen writes: I suspect that "Bill Kelly" is in fact a CIA-generated impostor and Jack White's doppelgänger. Has anyone checked to see whether "Bill Kelly" was given a top-secret mastoidectomy operation at the age of six at a hospital that hadn't been built yet? Or that the unrelated mothers of "Bill" and "Jack" looked identical apart from their eyebrows?

Roger Odisio writes: Thanks, Roger! I very much admire the work you've been doing to get the case reopened, but I think you're on the wrong lines with this particular matter, which I suspect is because you treat Horne as a credible researcher rather than a crank with an agenda. I'll give a quick reply to some of your points before I switch off the computer and go into festive mode for a few days. Other points have already been answered by Pat. There are more. The debris is visible in the next few frames, the precise number of which varies according to the quality of the copies you look at. Costella's version isn't of particularly high quality, but even there you can see debris in several frames: https://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/. There are better quality versions online, but I don't have the links to hand. That's an example of the special pleading I mentioned in my comment! If it wasn't possible to alter the film to remove all of the obvious evidence of conspiracy, why not just lose the film? The scenario proposed by Horne and others is that a bunch of all-powerful conspirators possessed the ability to plan and carry out the assassination, and had control of the film, yet lacked the ability to alter the film successfully, so they altered this bit and that bit but left in plenty of other stuff that negated the effect of the few alterations they did make, so they then decided to hide the film for a few years, not very successfully because plenty of bootlegs were floating around, and in the end they released the film to the public, who immediately spotted that it contained strong evidence of conspiracy. This makes no sense. An alternative account might be that the people who performed the assassination either had no control over the photographic evidence, or that they simply didn't care what that evidence showed. Maybe they actually wanted there to be photographic or eye-witness evidence of more than one shooter. Maybe they didn't, but they weren't in any position to prevent such evidence existing. All of these alternatives sound more plausible to me than the notion of all-powerful figures who don't actually appear to be very powerful at all (I'd insert the obvious theological analogy here, but it's the festive season, so I won't). Not really. Life, along with whoever else was involved in the acquisition of the film, had a perfectly credible motive for keeping the film largely but not entirely out of public sight until the immediate fuss had died down. Namely, the fact that the film contained strong evidence that invalidated the lone-gunman theory. I'm no expert either. In such cases, the rational course of action is to give the actual experts the benefit of the doubt. One of the strongest points Zavada makes is that if the film that exists today is a copy and not the original, it must contain physical evidence of being a copy, and that if such evidence is not present the film must be the original. Copying one Kodachrome film onto a second Kodachrome film would inevitably increase the contrast, increase the grain, and distort the colours. According to someone with the relevant technical expertise who has examined the actual film, it contains none of these defects. The film that exists today must be the same physical film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination. This rules out any alterations apart from something like painting over a hole in JFK's head, an alteration that is at least physically possible but has not yet been demonstrated.

Miles Massicotte writes: Good question. If the film actually contained evidence that shots were fired from more than one direction, or that JFK and Connally were hit by separate bullets, or that the car's progress along Elm Street allowed insufficient time for a lone gunman to fire three shots from the poor-quality sixth-floor rifle, there was no need to go to all the bother of altering the film. All that was needed was to accidentally lose or destroy the film. Whoops! Accidents happen! But the film does in fact contain all of those incriminating elements. Was it altered in order to incorporate those elements? I suspect not. The claim that the film we see today is the result of alteration to cover up evidence of conspiracy, yet still contains evidence of conspiracy, makes no sense. It requires a large helping of special pleading: ah, but they didn't have time to do a proper job, and they forgot to remove everything, and they didn't have the right equipment, and they weren't able to destroy the film because ... um ... I'll get back to you about that. To claim that the film contains evidence of conspiracy and was altered to remove evidence of conspiracy really is a very silly claim. Of course, there is a good chance that recollections of an event that took place four decades earlier will be inaccurate in some way. The main problem here isn't that Brugioni's four-decades-old recollections have been taken seriously but that Douglas Horne's far-fetched scenario based on those claims has been taken seriously. Horne has a record of believing and promoting crazy stuff, such as Lifton's body-alteration nonsense. One person who has taken the time to debunk Horne's interpretation of Brugioni's recollections is Roland Zavada. See this reply to Horne, in particular pages 15 onwards: http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf Anyone who still thinks that the Zapruder film might have been altered needs to read the whole of Zavada's reply to Horne. Zavada, who knows what he is talking about since he helped to create the Kodachrome film that Zapruder used, takes Horne's claim to pieces. He concludes (on page 32): Pat Speer writes: Indeed it was. See also this two-part essay by Thompson: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination.html https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_-_part_2.html

Benjamin Cole writes: Greg Parker contends otherwise, with a musical ending: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2815-i-contend

Alan Ford writes: That is not true. Ever since I started commenting on the Prayer Man question, I've always acknowledged the possibility that, if and when good-quality frames become available, the Prayer Man figure may turn out not to be Oswald. See, for example, http://22november1963.org.uk/prayer-man-jfk-assassination, which has been online for at least eight years: Friends! I'm far from being the only person who thinks that the most plausible candidate for the Prayer Man figure is the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. Many others, including the people whom Mr Ford thinks are forming a "project", can be found at the ROKC forum. I'm sure Mr Ford will receive a warm welcome when he raises his concerns with the individuals in question. Here's one of the threads in which Mr Ford will be keen to participate: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2800-three-card-monte But! A warning! The members of that forum tend to be somewhat less willing to swallow blatant nonsense than the members of this forum. Nevertheless, I'm sure Mr Ford has sufficient confidence in the soundness of his evidence and arguments that he will be eager to test them before a more discerning audience! Now! Let us return to the question I asked Mr Ford, concerning the incident in which Billy Lovelady wrestled with Sarah Stanton over a Confederate flag, and the curious lack of corroboration by the human witnesses to that incident. Mr Ford claims that: I regret that Mr Ford has misunderstood the question I asked him. I wondered if he could help me out by thinking of a good reason why none of the dozen or more spectators who almost certainly noticed the scuffle between Lovelady and Stanton failed to mention it. I wasn't asking about whether the scuffle was captured on film. It clearly was: if you look closely at (a copy of a copy of, etc) the Towner film you can see Lovelady and Stanton wrestling over a Confederate flag. That fact cannot be denied or wished away. I was asking why none of the human witnesses to the scuffle, who surely would have noticed such an unusual incident, failed to mention it. Even Tina Towner herself, who filmed the scuffle and must have seen it, failed to mention it! Why could that be? Were all of the witnesses blackmailed or otherwise arm-twisted into keeping their mouths shut? Or! Was there an even more sinister reason, perhaps to do with shape-shifting lizard people? You see, the problem is that some naysayers might argue that the scuffle between Billy Lovelady and Sarah Stanton, which I can clearly make out in (a copy of a copy of, etc) the Towner film, isn't actually there, and that all we can actually see is a moving blob of indeterminate origin. Why, I implore Mr Ford, did no-one mention an incident that is so clearly visible? What conceiveable reason could there be for their silence on this important matter? Surely it isn't possible that, as those naysayers might allege, there was no such incident and I was reading too much into a tiny moving blob in a copy of (a copy of, etc) a home movie? The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of using the factual scuffle between Lovelady and Stanton as the foundation of an elaborate theory which claims that Altgens 6, the Wiegman film, and who know what else, were faked, and that Lovelady was actually Oswald but his face got pasted over and someone painted a black line down his right-hand side, or something. It's a very exciting and entirely rational new theory, and I'd like Mr Ford's reassurance that the whole thing isn't just made up. P.S. If it turns out that the scuffle between Lovelady and Stanton isn't actually visible in the Towner film, we will know for a fact that the Towner film, just like the Wiegman film and the Altgens 6 photo, was faked!

Alan Ford writes: I don't know enough about that particular image to categorically rule anything in or out. With any image, alteration needs to be demonstrated, not merely asserted, as seems to be the approach of people who don't understand that the production of poor-quality copies can generate anomalous details. The default setting should be to assume that an image has not been nefariously altered. We shouldn't assert that it has been until sufficient evidence is presented. My account of the tussle between Billy Lovelady and Sarah Stanton, which we know happened because these antics were witnessed (and we know that they were witnessed because I say so), is about as far as I would be prepared to go, given the quality of the images that have been posted. As I'm sure Mr Ford appreciates, it's a mistake to read too much into small details of poor-quality copies of photos and film frames. If I ever get the chance to study either the original Towner film or a good copy, ideally under a microscope, I might be able to come up with a more comprehensive account, and perhaps resolve questions such as which way up the Confederate flag was being held during the scuffle, and how high Billy Lovelady was jumping, questions which have puzzled scholars for decades. One thing Mr Ford might be able to help me with is my failure to come up with a plausible explanation of why the flag-fluttering scuffle between Lovelady and Stanton (which we know happened because the Towner film shows something that can't possibly be anything else) wasn't commented upon by any of the other dozen or so people in the vicinity. I mean, most or all of them must have seen it, and it's not the sort of thing they would have expected to see, so they must have paid attention to it. Even Billy Lovelady and Sarah Stanton didn't mention it, and they were involved in it! So we have an obvious and unusual incident which perhaps a dozen people would have seen, but which none of them commented on. How would Mr Ford explain that lack of expected corroboration? Since this particular copy seems to be of very poor quality, a reasonable explanation might involve a combination of shadow and excessive contrast generated by the copying process. Again, there's a limit to the conclusions we can come to, if all we have to go on is a poor-quality copy which contains numerous obvious defects. The way to find out is to get hold of the best quality version of the frame that's available, and see what that image tells us, while resisting the urge to invent convoluted stories to explain details in a poor-quality copy, details which may not actually exist in better-quality copies of that image. I'm still puzzled by Mr Ford's juxtaposition of the Cronkite and Groden versions of Lovelady in Altgens 6. If he wasn't claiming that the former was more accurate than the latter, what was he claiming? There's no need to answer this question, by the way. I'm puzzled but not particularly interested. But if what we see in the Cronkite version is an essential part of Mr Ford's theory, he may as well state it clearly rather than rely, Davidson-like, on posting images without explaining their relevance to his argument. He could also explain why he thinks any of the details in this very poor-quality version can be trusted, if that's what he thinks (and if he doesn't think that, why did he make such a big deal of the Cronkite version in the first place?).

Pat Speer writes: Correct! Just to clarify: I wasn't suggesting that Pat agreed with any of the claims of nefarious photo-fakery! He's far too sensible to fall for that nonsense. I was just using his comments as a jumping-off point. Sandy Larsen writes: OK. Alternatively, we're looking at a small part of a hand-held photo that occupied part of a small TV screen, and was broadcast in low resolution using 1960s technology, and may have been copied who knows how many times since then. In other words, the image is heavily degraded and any anomalous details can be explained by the copying and transmission processes. It's a really poor-quality image, and reading anything definitive into its details is a mistake. Alan Ford writes: OK. Alternatively, as I've already explained, it was Billy Lovelady who was witnessed trying to stuff the Confederate flag into the mailbox. I know this for a fact because I saw a strange blob in a poor-quality copy of a photo, and I didn't find the obvious explanation exciting enough so I invented a convoluted story to explain the blob. That story featured the antics of Billy Lovelady, which means the story must be true, because those antics were witnessed. Having said that, I wouldn't entirely rule out Sarah Stanton as the person who was trying to stuff the flag into the mailbox, since her antics were also witnessed, and I know they were witnessed because I say so. How did the wizard in the cowboy hat turn the flag into a raincoat? That's what I want to find out. I'm working on a theory now, as it happens, based on a number of blobs in a poor-quality version of a different photo of some guy wearing a cowboy hat in Dealey Plaza. The blobs definitely look like a top hat, a magic wand, and a rabbit, if you stare at them for long enough. It's Billy Lovelady jumping up and down while wrestling with Sarah Stanton over a Confederate flag, each of them wanting to have the honour of taking the flag over to the mailboxes in accordance with the wishes of their CIA handlers, Bill Shelley and Elvis Presley. Now, there's no corroboration for this, and it isn't the sort of thing that witnesses might easily have overlooked (like, say, a nondescript warehouse worker, who had only been with the company for a month, briefly emerging onto the steps while everyone's attention was elsewhere). I'll get back to you when I've thought of a plausible reason why no-one reported the flag-related scuffle, or indeed anything to do with flags being waved or stuffed into mailboxes. Alternatively, it's something painted in by a photo-faker. You see, a film of Oswald waving a flag would give away the whole plot, so They had to eliminate any trace of a flag by painting over both Oswald and the flag, and They decided to do this by painting in something that some random guy on the internet six decades later would interpret as a flag. In the same way, They wanted to avoid generating suspicion that Oswald was visible on the steps in Altgens 6, so They decided to disguise Oswald's head by pasting over it the head of someone who looked so much like Oswald that it generated suspicion that Oswald was on the steps (copyright © Oswald Insanity Campaign). But! Now let me ask Mr Ford a question. It's to do with Mr Ford's original claim, that Lovelady's left sleeve is actually Carl Jones's arm, based on analysis of the Cronkite version of Altgens 6. I've raised this matter two or three times now, and I'd be interested in hearing Mr Ford's opinion. Mr Ford appeared to claim (several times, but first of all on page 11) that we should prefer the exceptionally poor-quality Cronkite version over better-quality versions such as Groden's, on the grounds that the Cronkite version dated from the day of the assassination and the Groden version dated from years later. In other words, the fact that the Cronkite version predated the Groden version meant that the Cronkite version was necessarily more accurate than the Groden version. Ah! Is that what Mr Ford was claiming? It's what he appeared to be claiming, but he didn't state it outright, so I'd like to be sure, one way or the other. Why? Because anyone who thinks that an earlier image is necessarily more accurate than a later image is making a big mistake and revealing a fundamental lack of understanding of photography. Go on! As I pointed out to Sandy a few paragraphs ago, it is the physical processes which have been applied to an image that will largely determine the accuracy of what we can see in that image. Just look at Lovelady's (or Oswald's, if you prefer) hairline in the Cronkite version. It goes way back to the top of his head, with only a narrow strip in the middle. In reality, neither Lovelady's nor Oswald's hairline went back that far. We know this by looking at better-quality images. Now look at Lovelady's (or Oswald's) head in the poor-quality frame from the Wiegman film that Mr Ford has posted elsewhere. Lovelady (or Oswald) is completely bald. In reality neither Lovelady nor Oswald was completely bald. We know this by looking at better-quality images. All that's needed to explain the discrepancies are the different processes that were involved in producing the various images. The dating of the images has nothing to do with it. So! Here's the question again. Does Mr Ford really think that because version A of an image predates version B, version A must necessarily be more accurate than version B?

Sandy Larsen writes: Well, if Sandy is claiming that the sleeve has been painted in, the question of whether or not it was done to deliberately mislead is quite important, I would think. Jones's head is there. At least, there's a blob where Jones's head should be. The reason it isn't as clear as in the Groden version is the same reason everything else isn't as clear as in the Groden version: the TV screen-shot version is heavily degraded. Pat Speer writes: It's true that not all of Groden's claims are reliable. If I recall correctly, he once published what he claimed to be a previously unknown photo of JFK's body taken during the autopsy, which turned out to be a frame from the film, JFK, featuring a prosthetic dummy. Perhaps Groden didn't have access to the original negative, as he claimed. Nevertheless, his version of Lovelady in Altgens 6 in The Killing of a President is consistent with its having been made from a good-quality negative. I appreciate that if Carl Jones's arm was raised in front of Lovelady (not Oswald), it would produce the light-toned area that we see in the Cronkite version, and that news organisations might well retouch that area to make it match the front of Lovelady's (not Oswald's) shirt, if they thought that doing so would help their friends in high places. Exactly why they might have thought that, isn't entirely obvious. But there's no need to jump to that conclusion here. Differences in copying processes are sufficient to explain trivial discrepancies in different versions of an image. That's especially true in the case of the Cronkite version, which is probably the least clear and most degraded version of Altgens 6 that's in circulation. Why should we trust the Cronkite version when it is obviously degraded and many better-quality versions exist? So far, all we've had is the suggestion that because version A predates version B, version A must contain a more accurate depiction than version B. This doesn't follow at all, since it ignores the uncontroversial fact that copying and transmission processes affect the amount and quality of detail in an image. If anyone wants to demonstrate, rather than merely suggest, that Lovelady's sleeve was painted in, they could start by collating as many securely dated versions of Altgens 6 as possible from TV broadcasts, newspapers, magazines and books, and see if a pattern emerges which isn't consistent with the obvious, non-conspiratorial explanation for trivial discrepancies between versions of an image. Then they could try to trace anyone who has seen and handled the original negative of Altgens 6, and find out whether it contains any evidence of tampering (yes, I know: if there's no evidence of tampering, it just shows how good those photo-fakers were!). After that, they could try to come up with an explanation of how the painting-in might have been done, and more importantly when it was done, given that Altgens' film was developed and printed, and the image transmitted all over the world, within half an hour or so of the assassination. The claim seems to be that Lovelady's sleeve was painted in to assist in discrediting Oswald's alibi. On the question of when any alterations could have been made, it's worth noting that Oswald didn't give his alibi until his first interview, which (I think) began at around 2:15. The Altgens-alteration timeline thus needs to take into account the fact that the image was floating around, and no doubt being copied, for more than an hour before the alibi was even known about, let alone any decisions made (by whom?) about why and how the alibi should be discredited. Furthermore! It now looks as though today's theory is that the Lovelady figure in Altgens 6 is actually Oswald, not Lovelady, and that the person waving the Confederate flag was Lovelady, not Oswald. As to where the shape-shifting lizard people enter into this fantastical tale, we'll have to wait for tomorrow's instalment!

Sandy Larsen writes: But if nefarious alteration isn't the "some reason" that caused Groden's copy to grow a plaid pattern, what is? What needs to be explained is the fact that, in a version of Altgens 6 which includes a wider tonal range and more detail than all the other versions we've seen here, the pattern on the sleeve matches the pattern on the front of the shirt, as well as on the sleeves of Lovelady's shirt that are visible in other images. A perfectly obvious explanation is available: the Groden image depicts the actual pattern on Lovelady's shirt. Until Sandy comes up with a plausible, innocent explanation of how "Groden's copy grew a plaid pattern", the only options are that either (a) the Groden image was deliberately faked or (b) it represents what Lovelady's shirt actually looked like. And since no-one has come close to demonstrating that Groden's image was faked, we can rule out option (a). But! It gets worse. Paul Rigby writes: Attention! Do Sandy and Alan realise what they've done? Someone who appears to believe in the old Doorman nonsense (i.e. that the figure in Altgens 6 which every sane person recognises to be Billy Lovelady is actually Lee Oswald, but with Lovelady's head pasted on it) is on the loose! As Andrej Stancak pointed out on the 'those front steps' thread, this new dose of 'Altgens 6 is a fake' craziness is turning the forum into a laughing stock. With the sixtieth anniversary approaching, and newspaper pundits no doubt looking for material to justify articles claiming that all conspiracy theorists are crazy, let's hope they don't stumble across either of these threads.

Sandy Larsen writes: Sandy's version is better than some but is noticeably inferior to the Groden version. Compare it to the second image that Alan supplied, which I assume is a scan taken from Groden's book. There's more detail in Alan's Groden-sourced version than in Sandy's version, and the actual book's printed version is more detailed still. In the superior-quality images, the pattern on the sleeve matches the pattern on the front of the shirt. In the inferior-quality images, the pattern on the sleeve isn't so obvious, or isn't there at all. This is exactly what we should expect to see if all the images are authentic. The quality of the copying process determines the amount of detail that will have been lost and the anomalies that will have been generated. To begin with the assertion that the inferior-quality images depicted the scene as it really was, and then to conclude that the extra detail in the superior-quality images must therefore be due to nefarious alteration, is perverse. At the very least, the claim needs to be supported by an argument that's a bit stronger than "this photo contains details that contradict my theory, so it must have been altered". Furthermore! Was I correct in suggesting that Mr Ford really did think that the cruddy, degraded TV image was more trustworthy than the Groden image simply because the former has been around longer than the latter? And! That Mr Ford gave no thought to the different physical processes which might have resulted in these two images of very different quality? Because! If so, that would make two instances of very sloppy thinking, which more often than not leads to erroneous conclusions. Or! If he had thought of those things, why then did he appear to claim that the obviously degraded version was accurate and that the detailed version had been altered? Also! There is an interesting discussion of Mr Ford's theory (or theories) here, which he may find of interest: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2793p75-prayer-man-with-a-rounded-collar Pat Speer writes: Yes, it's true that they often did more than simply touch up dust spots and other minor blemishes, and that such alterations were done innocently. But Alan and Sandy are claiming that Lovelady's left sleeve was painted over Carl Jones's arm for nefarious reasons. Exactly what those nefarious reasons are, I'm still not sure, since Sandy's theory appears to differ from Alan's theory, and Alan's theory today appears to differ from Alan's theory yesterday, and all three will probably differ from Alan's theory tomorrow.* The main problem is that any theory which depends upon a photograph or film having been altered by conspirators really needs a solid demonstration that the image has indeed been altered. Here, the raw material consists of poor-quality copies of the Altgens 6 photo and the Wiegman film, and the claims of alteration are being made by people who seem not to appreciate that poor-quality copies often contain visual anomalies that are not the result of nefarious alteration. That's why I'd like Alan to tell us whether he really does think that because the TV image was broadcast on the day of the assassination it must be more accurate than Groden's print from years later. If that is indeed what he thinks, we'll know to apply a large helping of salt to his interpretations of what he sees in other poor-quality images. P.S. Mr Ford's reliance on faked photos and films may be on shaky ground, but his account of the curtain rods on the 'a new look ...' thread is very promising! Allegations of alteration or lack of authenticity are far more plausible when applied to written documents than to photographic evidence. -- * Tomorrow's theory will probably involve Oswald running into the road, waving a Confederate flag at the Yankee president, then handing the flag to Sarah Stanton, who isn't sure what to do with it and hands it to Billy Lovelady, who slinks over to the mailbox and tries to stuff the flag inside the mailbox as he had been instructed to do before the assassination by his fellow conspirators Bill Shelley and Elvis Presley, only to be prevented from doing so by Officer Baker, who isn't sure what to do with it either and hands the flag to Roy Truly, who also isn't sure what to do with it and hands the flag to the chap in the light-coloured cowboy hat, who is actually a wizard, and the cowboy-hatted wizard magically transforms the flag into a raincoat which he drapes over his shoulder and takes into the building. What happens to the magic raincoat-flag after that will depend on how we interpret a series of blobs in a different poor-quality photo.