Andrej Stancak

Andrej, I don't think that's a "double forehead." I think Oswald Prayer Man has raised his head up and we also see his white T-shirt under his darker-colored outer shirt. -- Tommy Thomas: the signal in this particular area does not warrant any statement about whether it was a female or other head, or whether it was a T-shirt combined with outer shirt. Please have a look on the original Wiegman's frame. If you struggle to spot a human figure there, there is no chance to identify any details. It is likely that it was the brightness of the neck or T-shirt fusing with the head, however, this is already our speculation.

I was able to identify the Wiegman's film frame which Chris Davidson has used in his analysis. It is frame 133 in the series of frames in Robert Groden's copy. I was able to locate it on internet and post is here. Please note that the part of doorway is in complete darkness. It is dark because there is almost no signal (information) there. We only see the bright spot suggesting that someone stood there. If the signal is that poor, any statement about the sharpness of any objects in this area of picture has no merit. One cannot have a sharp image of a face if neither the head or the body can be seen. Wiegman's film, Frame 133 I have cut the region which Chris analysed in detail (below). The left panel shows the original picture. The middle panel is the same picture with only brightness added. This at least allowed to indicate the top of this person's head, which is highlighted by horizontal blue lines interspersed between pictures. The right panel is the one which should be the closest to Chris'es picture - both brightness and the contrast have been added. While the "Oswaldian" forehead is visible, the rest of head and the neck create another head. However, this is just an artefact caused by forcing the image to show at least something. There has been a clever experiment performed by experimental psychologists in Glasgow. They generated random arrays of dots and asked their participants to press a key once they think there was a human face buried in the cloud of dots. They presented hundreds of such pictures, and then averaged the small percentage of pictures which people claimed to contain a human face (there never was any face in any of the pictures - dots were all random). The averaged image surprisingly showed two small circles as if eyes and a small dash line between and slightly below the eyes as if it would be the nose. When people believed that there was a human face in the cloud of random dots, their fusiform gyrus in temporo-occipital cortex (this is where human faces are interpreted in the brain) was activated. Human face is a powerful pareidolia object, and it is not surprising - from infancy we are primed and keen to see human faces. Thus, it is not that difficult to view a human face even if the visual field does not contain any face. Taken together, this image and its processed products cannot prove the identity of Prayer Man. The part corresponding to head and neck contained as if two heads, the lower of the two not having any neck. We may agree that: 1) there was someone standing in that part of the doorway, 2) the person held a bright object in his right hand, 3) we may draw a line defining the top of this person's head, 4) we can assume that the arms are in a similar "prayer" gesture as we see in Darnell. 5) there is a continuity between the person we see in Wiegman's and Darnell's films. Thus, identity information derived from Darnell's stills will apply to Wiegman's film. Due to the noise and poor signal in Wiegman's still, this inference does not hold vice versa.

Brian: it is not my obligation to provide evidence on your behalf. You may wish to contact the Author and ask him kindly to re-post his results. I am willing to look at any evidence once you show any.

Brian: we need to see your evidence to be able to comment. Please provide an article, link, or a post number describing the "evidence" so that we can have a look again if you wish so. I would be grateful if you could keep your messages less personal else what will hapen is that people will start ignoring you not because of their alleged inability to discuss specific points but simply because they do not like your too personal style.

Brian: would you please indicate Chris'es post in which in your view he proved that Prayer Man was actually a woman. I am familiar with this thread but in none of the posts did Chris prove anything, and as I know the style of his work and posting, he would not even pretend doing so. Chris might have had an opinion, as we all have.

Brian: Maybe I need to point to the problem of using Wiegman's film in clarification of Prayer Man's identity more clearly. The top panel shows a very nice frame of Wiegman's film, downloaded from ROKC picture repository (http://www.reopenkennedycase.org/apps/photos/photo?photoid=199187640). One would not even think that there is Prayer Man in that very dark corner. This part of the doorway was covered by a shadow and the Wiegman's camera and film produced too much contrast and, together with the distance of shooting, did not yield enough signal there. The lower panel shows the effect of Fill light and clarity tool (Corel Painshop Pro). Indeed, adding light has helped to identify a human figure and his gesture and a light object about at the level of the mouth, however, this is about all what we can say about this figure. Once this noisy image is processed further (magnifying, resampling etc.), it starts to create chunks which have no good interprepation. There is simply not enough information there. If you would like to make the case for a female using Wiegman's film, would you please provide the original Wiegman's frame from which results have been produced, and demonstrate every processing step.

Brian: Unfortunately, the signal in the dark corner of the doorway in Wiegman's film is just too poor for an unequivocal indentification of the person which others and I believe is a man. The figure's head appears to be split into two causing it to appear too tall in some frames. Unless there is a better copy of Wiegman's film we may not be able to identify beyond any doubts the person's identity solely from Wiegman's film. I have contacted the Sixth Floor Museum in January 2015, and they were kind enough to communicate the recommendation of the late Gary Mack that Oliver Stone has used a copy of Wiegman which was in the film archive of UCLA, LA (a 35 mm copy). "Four days in November" film was their next recommendation. All other sources appear to rely on the original NBC footage from 11/22/63. I have contacted NBC right away after the email exchange with SFM, however, they never replied to my query. This leaves Darnell's film as a much better candidate for any feature analysis and maybe identification. The problem is well known as a face recognition problem, and it has been intensively studied over past years. Thanks to the advance of face recognition algorithms, we can have electronic passports etc. However, the algorithms suffer if the face image is noisy, does not show enough of facial features, and - importantly - the face cannot be viewed from a direct front view. I have posted few ideas how to deal with this problem in one of my previous posts in this thread. I have analysed the height of Prayer Man in detail, also in this thread. However, even without a 3D reconstruction and just by applying some logical thinking one can get that Prayer Man in Darnel's film cannot be someone too small. The top of Prayer Man's head aligns with the neck/shoulder line of Wesley Buell Frazier and since the height of human head is 9''.4 on average, the height of Prayer Man, if we assume he was standing on the top landing, would be only between 5'1'' and 5'3'' (Frazier's body height was 6'). However, a small person has also shorter arms and narrower shoulders which causes impossibility to align his/her arms and body exactly in Prayer Man's style - the arms of that small person would be too short. Naturally, one can distort the arms of a small person to somehow fit Prayer Man's arms, howoever, the distance between the head (e.g., chin) and the arms would then be too short and unlike we see in Prayer Man. Mr. Murphy's research showed logical problems in the testimonies of a number of witnesses pointing to fabrication of second floor encounter. Prayer Man's figure in Darnell would miss the point without this logical analysis of the second floor encounter. Second floor encounter is currently discussed by experts in another thread in this forum in case you would be interested.

That's a good find Andrej. I see now that we're not dealing with a posterboard, but rather with a large wall. And the "curled papers" are really large posters that are set on the floor and leaning against the wall. As you remarked, this is a problem for pincushion analysis because the leaning posters introduce a large amount of perspective distortion. It is difficult to distinguish between the perspective distortion and the pincushion distortion. What this means is that I can't draw vertical lines at the bottom showing that the vertical lines in the BYPs must also diverge like they do at the top if you accept that the optical distortions in this photo represents the distortions in the BYPs. In short, there is nothing I can do with this photo. However, as it turns out that's a moot point. Because after studying carefully the family photo you presented, I became convinced that asymmetrical distortion was occurring. It's not supposed to occur given the symmetrical way lens elements are manufactured. But when I saw in the home photo all kinds of asymmetrical distortions (for example pincushioning on the right outside wall and roof-line, but straight angles in other areas) I concluded that significant asymmetrical distortions were indeed occurring. I checked further and discovered that the lens for this camera is made out of plastic. BINGO! I knew I had found the problem. Glass lenses are ground and polished in a way that maintains symmetry. Plastic lenses, I'm sure, are not ground at all. They are made by casting or injection molding. The shape is determined by the mold, which was made in some machine shop. Machine shops don't necessarily use cutting techniques designed to make a mold radially symmetrical. So, as of now I believe that the angles we see in the BYPs are due to imperfections in the plastic lens. Not keystoning. I could change my mind if a photo from the same camera surfaces that doesn't have the same optical foot print as the other photos. But right now I'm satisfied with this conclusion. Sandy: thanks for summarising the issue. Your posts on lens distortions and other photographic problems were very educative. I am glad we found agreement in the problem of divergent vertical lines. Let us see where this thread will lead us further.

Well, then I misunderstood, somehow, Andrej. I thought the main question of everybody here was whether or not the BYP were authentic. I thought you were arguing for the BYP being authentic. I was seeking feedback on Roscoe White's chin in the BYP. If I've misunderstood you, Andrej, then I apologize. Regards, --Paul Paul: I am afraid that you have misunderstood. Please read the title of the thread: How Did They Get Roscoe White To Lean Like That And Not Fall Over?The question of authenticity of the backyard picture came later, however, no harm done.

Paul: my interest is actually the posture of Prayer Man as this is the problem I have been working on for a long time, and I somehow occurred in this thread. According to what you write, my future here seems to be pretty grim.

Sandy: I found a better version of Figure RIT 4.1 in the HSCA report, page 182. It shows that the bottom two squares did really stand out from the brick wall and therefore, cannot be used for any pincushion analysis. Naturally, a small pincushion effect is present also in the picture below, however, it is not that strong as indicated with your blue lines which wrongly copy the bottom rectangles. In contrast to the bottom squares, which appear to be framed, the top square is mounted flat and fixated in the corners with pieces of tape. This square reveals an optical problem of this particular camera which appears to have been overlooked for so many years. As I am constructing the 3D model of the doorway, I can now trust rather my model in terms of the vertical lines than the pictures from this camera - the program does not know about any imperfections of this particular Imperial camera. This picture is very useful. It shows that the vertical lines in the bottom part, especially in the centre of the picture, were straight. The problem is the right upper quadrant, especially the part which is occupied by the right top part of the square. It causes the vertical line to fall rightwards, and maybe the horizontal lines downwards. To convince you that Oswald's camera distorted the pictures especially in the upper right quadrant, I am posting a family picture made by Lee Oswald. There are no guiding lines here, however, I hope you can extend the edges of the top square into the family picture (I have aligned the left edge of the top square with the brick column in the upper picture). The brick column is straight, however, the windows grills further to the right and the right wall fall towards the right. Please, note the leftward orientation of the window in the left part of the family picture, exactly as in CE133A. I hope I have answered your queries. I am posting below the updated alignements of RIT 4.1. and the three backyard pictures.

Andrej, surely you see that the yellow line drawn passes directly through LHO's head, but only grazes your left ear. The center of gravity is not the same. That's beside the fact that your right toes are keeping your balance -- unlike LHO's. Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul: The purpose of this small experiment was to show that extreme leaning is possible without falling down. Here I showed a pose which inclined even more than Oswald's pose. I had no intention to reproduce the exact Oswald's pose in CE133A - this would require a thorough preparation, shooting pictures by triggering the camera from the laptop, inspect the result by comparing each new picture with the backyard picture, and shooting again. It should also involve preparation of an object of similar shape and weight as the rifle held in man's left hand. The center of mass analysis has some limitations. The rifle held by the left hand was an essential component in keeping this posture stable. Further, the man's body is not a sack of potatoes which would fall or not depending on the location of centre of mass. Human's foot muscles (actually the tibial muscles) can exert force which counteracts the gravitation force, hence it is not just a calculation of centre of mass as in the paper from Dartmouth university.

This is impressive, Andrej, but here is the further challenge. We have not one, but four different BYP poses. To add confirmation to your demonstration, you must show that this angle applies to ALL FOUR of the BYP poses. Can you? Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul: I am not sure I am familiar with the fourth backyard picture. Please post it or a link if possible. Thank you. OK, this is getting more interesting, Andrej. Here's my understanding of it. You have shown three poses -- and yet there were four BYP's. Yet, there were really only three poses of Roscoe White (in my theory) and the fourth pose was LHO himself. And, we don't have the original pose by LHO (in my theory). However, for 133-A, we have TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS, and this is what I was thinking of, when I said four BYP's. The two different versions are the 1st one found allegedly in Ruth Paine's garage (CE-133A) and the 3rd one found by Jeanne and George DeMohrenschildt in 1967, (CE-133A-deM) around the time of the Jim Garrison scandal. This is the same pose -- BUT A WIDER BACKGROUND than the Ruth Paine model. Perhaps you have seen the difference. Here is a link: http://www.jfklancer.com/Rifle.html Now -- it you have proven that Jack White was mistaken about his "Keystone" theory -- then I'm duly impressed. I always thought that Jack White was decades ahead of everybody else in this regard. You might have surpassed him, and that's spectacular, if you have. One more photo should do it, IMHO. Now, having said that, it does not change the question of pasting LHO's head onto Roscoe White's body. The Imperial Reflex camera was the same -- according to your findings -- but the body-double question remains open, in my reading. I personally see a lump in the right wrist of the BYP -- and LHO didn't have such a lump -- but Roscoe White did. I wonder if you are working with the most original copies. I have asked NARA for exact replicas back in 2013, but they denied my request. Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul: You raised many interesting question, and I hope that this thread will answer many if not all of them. Too bad that NARA did not volunteer to give you copies of backyard pictures. I have the highest appreciation for Mr. Jack White's work. He was limited in his research by the technical possibilities of that time. I am sure he would be delighted to see that researchers continue to search for the truth about the backyard photographs. And if some of components of his research would now be updated, so be it - this does not detract from his work at all. However, it would be a mistake not to check Mr. White's findings and conclusions.

I have flipped a different version of CE133A, the one showing more of the background, and it does not look to me any more suspicious than the unflipped version. We come to the pose itself soon.

This is impressive, Andrej, but here is the further challenge. We have not one, but four different BYP poses. To add confirmation to your demonstration, you must show that this angle applies to ALL FOUR of the BYP poses. Can you? Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul: I am not sure I am familiar with the fourth backyard picture. Please post it or a link if possible. Thank you.

Tom: Your new ICOs are brilliant as always. I would wait with the angle of Oswald's body inclination because I would not be able to say responsibly at this moment. The 3D reconstruction of his stance is more or less finished, however, I see still some minor problems with the arms. We come back to it then if you would agree.

Finally, please see the alignment of RIT 4.1. and the CE-133c. Again, a very good match. Thus, my answer to the question I asked in post No. 239 would be that the Imperial camera had an optical problem causing the vertical lines in the right part of the picture to be displaced towards the right. Thus, keystoning was in place, however, it was a natural phenomenon which related to a certain malfunction of this particular camera. Further, it is almost excluded, in my opinion, that this defect was present in every Imperial camera. Therefore, the divergence of the vertical lines actually cements this particular camera as the one used to take all three backyard pictures.

And here we go with CE 133B and RIT 4.1. - the same angle. The backyard picture was rotated to have the staircase post vertical.

The problem of Figure RIT 4.1., exhibits of the HSCA, can be understood from the picture below. It shows the lines extending the left and right edges of the top square. These lines create an angle opening upwards. And surprise, surprise: the same angle applies to the angle created by the rightwards falling vertical edge of the fence and the staircase vertical post next to Mr. Oswald. Well, this match cannot be a coincidence. There are only two explanations for having these angles in a perfect match: 1) The Imperial camera had an optical problem, such as e.g., the mirror in the camera slightly misplaced relative to the axis of the lens (tilted) creating "keystoning" on every snap; therefore, RIT 4.1. and the backyard picture had to show identical anomaly, and actually this anomaly strengthens the authenticity of the backyard picture. 2) The RIT 4.1. was rigged to show an anomaly which exactly matched the alteration made in the backyard picture. Any preference?

Andrej, The camera is exhibiting pincushion distortion, which is an inherent feature (i.e. not caused by a flaw) of all lens elements. (Though the distortion can be, and is, compensated for and minimized in most camera lenses.) oswald_camera_pincushion_distortion.jpg Pincushion/barrel distortion always results in curved lines. Since the BYP lines are not curved (they are only slanted), we know that their angles must be the result of either perspective or keystoning, NOT pincushion. And since the vertical lines in the BYP diverges at the top but not at the bottom, then we know that perspective isn't at play. (Because perspective distortion is always symmetrical about the lens's axis.) That leaves only keystoning as the cause of the angled lines. Sandy: the backyard picture shows a pincushion effect as it should, however, this is a very minor change to the course of the vertical lines compared to the displacements we see in Figure RIT 4.1 of the HSCA. The picture below takes the vertical edge line of the fence in the right part of the backyard picture. I drew a blue dot line which runs in parallel with this edge line and touches it in the middle (left panel). The middle and the right panel show magnified views of the top and bottom part of the vertical fence line. The edge line deviates from the straight blue line as expected if pincushion is present: in both the top and bottom parts the edge line bends to run towards the right hand side. The size of pincushion is very small, and this was the reason that for practical purposes we have treated the vertical lines in the backyard picture as perfectly straight in previous posts. They are not straight though - a small pincushion effect is present. The small size of pincushion is logical because the lens used was a 35 mm one and the film frame was a square of 6x6 cm - this is a pretty wide-angle setup. Pincushion is usually seen in a telephoto type of lenses. I would not agree with your pincushion drawing in the RIT 4.1 picture. The displacement seen in RIT 4.1 is dramatic and exceeds by a large margin the pincushion effect I show in the picture below. Please note how poorly is the bottom right square in RIT 4.1. mounted on the wall - it flips away from the wall and creates a curvature which you assimilated into your blue pincushion line. One can see even a shadow cast by the left edge of the square. So, there must be a different explanation for the rightwards running top square in RIT 4.1.

Rob: Marina’s testimony raises serious doubts because of the points you mentioned. It will be difficult to find out the full truth about these pictures which had damned Oswald, but also Marina, so much. Mrs. Marina Porter is alive and there is still a small chance to learn more details about these pictures from her. Actually, Marina has admitted taking the pictures because Lee asked her to do so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJCCBZxpCY There is a woman’s handwritten note in perfect Russian “Ochotnik za faschistam, hoi-ha-ha!” on the back of one of the backyard pictures. It is very likely that it was actually her note. If so, that would indicate her good knowledge of the pictures. If it is true that she has destroyed one of the pictures right on the 23rd or 24th of November, then she understood very well how damaging these pictures were both for Lee and herself as the one who potentially assisted the President’s assassin. The pictures not only show Mr. Oswald as a potential political aggressor, they also pointed to his association with the infamous rifle. Marina was in a difficult position and had tried to tune down her role in taking the pictures by only reluctantly admitting taking one, then two pictures after being shown the other picture. She might have admitted taking more pictures during her WC testimonies if additional pictures would be submitted to her. Thus, she clearly revealed as little as possible about the backyard pictures. It is true that she did not present herself as a very trustworthy witness, however, her situation was such that this little what is in her testimonies may still be the minimum truth she was willing to concede. Her interviews (links above) suggest she indeed took the pictures, and maybe more than two. I have tried to check the likelihood of the pictures being taken on March 31. The shadows cast by the man’s figure in CE133A would match Sunday, March 31, for the period between 11.30 and 12.00, very likely 11.37. It is a very indirect yet at least some empirical support for the possibility that the pictures were taken by Marina on Sunday morning when Lee was at home and not at work. Lee’s denial of the pictures may have had also the purpose to protect Marina as the pictures made her a potential accessory to the fact. His denial and his accusation of DPD involvement in these pictures were maybe also his big mistakes comparable to exclaiming he was a patsy or trying to call his cut out in North Carolina. The right people had realised he would not take the blame and that he knew about them.

The House Select Commitee experts tested the Imperial camera allegedly used to shoot the backyard photographs. One of the tests carried out at RIT was the analysis of curvatures produced by the lens. The left panel is the HSCA exhibit FIGURE RIT 4.1 which can be downloaded as http://jfkassassination.net/russ/infojfk/jfk6/6figrit4ap188.jpg . I have rectified the left vertical edge of the middle square which appears to be well mounted. This is illustrated in the right panel. Interestingly, the right vertical edge line is not parallel to the left one, instead it diverged rightwards creating an open angle towards the top of the picture. The horizontal lines were supposed to be orientated perpendicular to the left vertical edge, however, they rather show a decline towards the right of the image. Could the optical features of the lens be the cause or at least a contributing factor in the divergence of the vertical lines (fence) in the right part od the backyard picture?

Andrej, No, CE 133-A is also manipulated. The square chin is the first clue. Also, the thick neck, the broad shoulders and the lumpy right wrist. All these belong to Roscoe White. Further, look at the right knee on CE 133-A. Now look at your right-knee in the photo you shared. Your leg is STRAIGHT. Now look at LHO's knee -- it is bent backward. Actually, look at the line of the horizontal fence-post that intersects the vertical knee point. There is re-touching there. No, CE-133A is also manipulated. We no longer have the single photo that Marina took. But even Marina herself was fooled -- as LHO was a superb deceiver. He reveled in it. Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul: you may have not read my comment properly - I admit that manipulations in the head/face area occurred in CE133A, while you try to make an impression that I deny any manipulations in CE133A. The rest of your examples of manipulations are illusory. The right leg is stretched and as the shin is in a slightly unnatural angle, latched into the knee, however, the leg is not bend backwards. The trouser around the knee makes a fold which creates a bil of illusion that the leg is bend in opposite direction. The right wrist in CE133A appears normal to me. The shoulders are not particularly broad - I was modelling this figure in Poser and had to reduce the standard size of the shoulders to match the picture. Now, what would be the reason for Marina taking pictures of Roscoe White? Or did she photograph Lee, and then Lee's figure was replaced with Roscoe's figure, and then Roscoe White's head again by Lee's head. Naturally, tilting of the right (or left?) side of the picture would be a good ingredient to this mess. And if Roscoe was photographed - how did he achieve this specific pose if the pose would be impossible?

I agree entirely, Robert. I also think the best explanation for this was given by both Sandy Larsen and Jack White. The BYP is a photograph of a photograph. Sandy explained that well. Then, the end result which defies gravity is made by lifting one end of the photograph before the final snapshot, as Jack White explained. This was obviously done DELIBERATELY, for PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY, almost certainly by LHO himself at JCS during the same period in which LHO created his fake Alek J. Hidell identification cards. Regards, --Paul Trejo Paul: you see in my post 40 that the rightward inclination of the fence in the right part image was also seen in one modern picture which shows the backyard seen from a very similar view angle. Some of the posts supporting the platform/stairs appear like that they never were perfectly straight and perpendicular to the ground. This may also relate to the downward inclination of the picket which can be seen in almost all pictures of this backyard. If someone would lift the right side of the photographic plate during repeated shooting of the picture, the gate would point upwards, not downwards, and the heights of individual posts would be increasing towards the right. If the left side of the plate would be lifted, we would see anomalies predominantly in the left part of the picture. It would be necessary to see the result of Mr. White's experiment (keystoning) to confirm that this manipulation has occurred. While I also believe that especially CE133B and C were manipulated, I think that CE133A was actually the picture shot by Marina. It is likely that the CE133A was manipulated in the head/face region which would be what Mr. Oswald indicated during his interrogation.

The horizontal lines in the stonework are perpendicular to the force of gravity, unlike the horizontal structures in the BYP. Robert: actually, there is still about 1 degree rightwards displacement of the main vertical axis in my picture. in spite of my daughter trying to keep the vertical lines straight. So, my leaning is even more extreme than shown here. As far as inclinations of the vertical lines in the backyard picture, I will come back to it when my model is complete.