Sandy Larsen

Horne asked Brugioni how sure he was -- on a scale of 1 to 10 -- that the flying debris he'd seen in '63 was far different than what he was seeing in the extant copy. His reply? Ten. Of course it was! Anybody with good eyes and good sense can see that. Look at other photos of JFK and Jackie that day in Dallas and you will see that her hair that day was darker than his. Then look at Z313, at the back of JFK's head. Compare how dark that is to the same side of Jackie's head. Amazingly the "hair" is darker on Kennedy's head. Somebody has darkened the back of Kennedy's head. That should be proof enough for the anti-alterationists, given that they believe in photographic evidence over witnesses. Though the color logarithmic scan that Keven has posted makes the alteration obvious. In the Brugioni video he suggested the use of a densitometer to prove the alteration. I recall that member Andrej Stancak once did just that, and did confirm it was an alteration. Of course, it's impossible to change the minds of anti-alterationists, with their tightly held preconceived notions.

Robert, Everybody knows that it is wrong for a moderator to issue a penalty to a member just for disagreeing with them. I mean, duh! But that is not what happened with Pat Speer when he was telling everybody that James Jenkins claimed that the gaping head wound was at the top of the head. What happened is that another member, Keven Hofeling, noticed that what Pat said was factually incorrect. Keven set out to prove that what Pat said was untrue. I, as moderator, studied Keven's post and found that he was right, that James Jenkins didn't say what Pat claimed he said. He in fact said quite the opposite! There is a forum rule against posting demonstrable falsehoods. I was asked to take action against Pat for violating that rule. I informed Pat that Jenkins said the wound was on the back of the head, not the top. But that he (Pat) could continue saying what he claimed about Jenkins' position if he could show me any instances of Jenkins saying the wound was indeed at the top. Pat couldn't. I then asked Pat to correct the falsehood he was trying to pass off as being a fact. He wouldn't. Finally I suggested to Pat that he preface his Jenkins claim with words such as "I contend" or "I believe." That way, he could say whatever he wanted and it wouldn't be violating a forum rule. No matter what I said, Pat refused to budge. He insisted on posting his falsehood, and so I penalized him.

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Oh really? Here's what they said. (Note that the words occipital and cerebellar refer to areas LOW in the back.) CHARLES JAMES CARRICO, MD: In his first mention of JFK's skull wound to the Warren Commission on 3/25/64, Carrico said, "There seemed to be a 4 to 5 cm. area of avulsion of the scalp and the skull was fragmented and bleeding cerebral and cerebellar tissue." (6H3) And... "The (skull) wound that I saw was a large gaping wound, located in the right occipitoparietal area. I would estimate to be about 5 to 7 cm. in size, more or less circular, with avulsions of the calvarium and scalp tissue. As I stated before, I believe there was shredded macerated cerebral and cerebellar tissues both in the wounds and on the fragments of the skull attached to the dura." (6H6) MARION THOMAS JENKINS, MD: In a contemporaneous note dated 11-22-63, Jenkins described "a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital) (sic), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound." (WC--Exhibit #392) FBI AGENT JAMES SIBERT: In an affidavit prepared for the HSCA Sibert claimed, "The head wound was in the upper back of the head.", and "...a large head wound in the upper back of the head with a section of the scull (sic) bone missing..." (HSCA REC # 002191) SECRET SERVICE AGENT CLINT HILL: Described the wounds he saw at Parkland as, "The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed...There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head." (WC--V2:141) They all described a gaping hole on the back of the head, with both doctors saying it was low enough for cerebellum tissue to be dripping from it. In contrast, Pat says that what they saw was the back-of-the-head with no wound whatsoever. Yeah, right Pat. And I have some beach-front property here in Utah that I'd like to sell you.

I'm not intimately familiar with the differences of opinion between us all. Some CTers believe that the assassination plotters planned for Oswald to take the blame. Others believe that it was the U.S. government who made that decision. What I believe is that the plotters made it appear that Oswald was paid by Cuba to assassinate Kennedy. This was done to set up a pretext for an American invasion of Cuba. But it had a backup plan... should LBJ choose not to invade Cuba, the plotters made it easy for him to blame Oswald alone and keep the Cuban conspiracy secret. What the plotters did to make blaming Oswald alone easy, was to control the Best Evidence so that it looked like the work of a lone gunman. Controlling the Best Evidence meant controlling the autopsy and any films that gave good views of the gunshot wounds. The only film that fit that bill was the Zapruder film. The autopsy and the Zapruder film needed to show shots only from the rear.

Perhaps. But keep in mind that you're debating just one CTer... Roger Odisio. There are others like myself who think that Horne's Hawkeyeworks theory is basically correct, but who think that the plotters built into their plan both a communist conspiracy and a lone gunman angle. (The Peter Dale Scott Phase-1 / Phase-2 theory.)

Steve, There is a great deal of evidence indicating Lee Harvey Oswald was in two locations at the same time on multiple occasions. And was both 5' 9" and 5' 11" in height while in the Marine Corps, but almost never 5' 10". And was missing two teeth and at the same time still had all his natural teeth. There is substantial corroboration for much of this evidence Harvey & Lee is a theory that explains this contradictory evidence. Researchers are free to come up with their own theories. But so far I've seen nothing that makes as much sense as Harvey &Lee.

Problem is, Steve, not all evidence is "solid evidence." In a cover-up, you first need to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Years ago I reconstructed a Tippit shooting timeline based on times from multiple sources. It is documented here: As I describe in the post, it consists of a preliminary timeline, followed by a timing analysis, and then the final timeline. Tippit was shot at 1:06 PM. T.F Bowley calls the shooting in on Tippit's radio at 1:09 PM. The ambulance arrives at 1:10 PM. Officer Croy arrives at 1:11 PM. The ambulance departs at 1:11 - 1:12 PM. Officer Poe and Patrolman L.E. Jez arrive at 1:12 - 1:13 PM, and interview an excited Helen Markham.

Only a fool would ridicule a reasonable theory backed by solid evidence. Use of a high-tech weapon isn't an unreasonable theory.

Jean, If you go down this rabbit hole, you're going to find out everybody's timing is off by something like 8 minutes. Ultimately you'll come to the conclusion that the timestamps on the DPD Dictabelts are off by that same amount. That is to say, the coverup artists added those minutes to the Dictabelt recordings. Once you compensate for that by subtracting 8 minutes from what is shown on the Dictabelt transcripts, then all is well and everybody's timing works out. Except that Oswald cannot have been there in time to shoot Tippit. Which is fine because he wasn't. Apparently the coverup artists added those extra minutes to give Oswald time to arrive and shoot Tippit. BTW, here's an example of times being inconsistent: The doctors at the hospital tried to resuscitate Tippit. They couldn't, so they pronounced him dead-on-arrival at 1:15 PM. Problem is, according to the Dictabelt timestamps, Tippit hadn't even been picked up by the ambulance by then.

I was impressed with the statistical data that you found. You want to use that data to perform statistical predictive analytics. To do what you are trying to do would require a good deal of data collection, careful work, and some experience in statistical analytics. In contrast, my statistical analysis is a simple formula used to calculate the probability of an outcome of repetitive events each having a binomial probability. To do this, all you need to know is the probability of a single event (e.g. 1/2 for a coin toss), how many events there will be, and what the desired outcome will be.

Look Pat, everybody knows that the more corroboration there is among witnesses, the more likely it is the corroborators got it right! The only thing my mathematical analysis does is give us the odds of a corroboration of witnesses being right. (Or, conversely, wrong.) Unfortunately for you and your anti-alterationist followers, your preconceived notions and biases have forced you into an illogical corner. You are forced to believe that most the gaping head wound witnesses -- those who corroborate one another-- are wrong! My numbers are the most reliable because I choose from each witness their earliest recollections. In contrast to you, who waits for witnesses to change their minds based on (altered) autopsy photos shown to them by Gerald Posner or some other external influence. First, I hardly have anything to do with Mantik or Horne or what their theories say. I've never bought or read a book by either one. (Maybe you haven't noticed, but I haven't been engaging in the Horne/HawkeyeWorks debate going on in the other thread.) If I happen to believe some of the same stuff they do, it is only because I and they see a lot of the same evidence. And so it's not surprising that we end up coming up with similar conclusions. As for your bait and switch charge against me, it is nonsense. No two witnesses place the gaping wound in precisely the same place as any other witness, nor give identical sizes. Some variation between witnesses is to be expected, but for some reason you make a big deal about it. As for me, I believe the wound was located and sized at roughly the average of the locations and sizes given by the witnesses. You are the de facto leader of the anti-alterationists on the forum. They all deserve to be debated/attacked for holding the irrational belief that photos or films wouldn't be altered in a government coverup. It is because of that irrational belief that you guys have painted yourself into the ridiculous corner of believing the vast majority of the wound witnesses mass hallucinated a gaping wound on the back of the head. I think I'm pretty close to mainstream in my JFKA thinking. When I watch JFK: Destiny Betrayed, I don't notice anything I disagree with. I DO notice that Jim DiEugenio agrees with me on the location of the gaping head wound (back of head) and does disagree with you.

My statistical analysis has nothing to do with forensics. It is a purely mathematical analysis that has been proven to be correct... mathematically correct. The only thing my statistical analysis does is calculate the odds of so many witnesses being wrong (which is what Pat claims) and yet corroborating one another. Suppose you had 40 coins and you tossed them all. Would you be surprised if, say, 18 came up heads and 22 came up tails? No, you wouldn't. But would you be surprised if all 40 coins came up heads (or tails)? I sure would be! There is a formula that calculates the odds of a specified number of heads (or tails) that will come up. It is called the binomial distribution formula, and there are numerous such calculators online that can perform the calculation for you. (Here is one.) I just used the calculator to determine what the odds are of all 40 coins coming up heads. The answer is one in 1,111,000,000,000. This means that you will have to toss the 40 coins 1.111 trillion times in order to expect all 40 coins to come up heads JUST ONE TIME. Those odds would be the same for all 40 head wound witnesses to be wrong, and yet all say the wound was on the back of the head. Hopefully by now the reader should be understanding the problem this statistical analysis presents for Pat's belief. It's virtually impossible for so many witnesses to be wrong and yet at the same time corroborate one another! Now, there IS one hope remaining for Pat. And that is the fact that not every witnesses said they the gaping wound on the back of JFK's head. Approximately 5 of the witnesses said the wound was on the top or side of the head. We need to calculate the odds of 35 of 40 coins coming up heads. I just ran the numbers and the calculator gave the odds being one in 1,446,537. That is also the odds of 35 wound witnesses being wrong, but still corroborating one another. So clearly Pat and his followers have reason to worry about their beliefs. The rest of us don't have a problem because we don't claim that those 35 out of 40 witnesses are wrong. In fact we claim they are right, and the other 5 are wrong.

I think that what Pat said is a fair assessment. I believe that Trump will be a very real danger to American democracy if elected.

W, It should come as no surprise that Pat dismisses the accounts of these JFKA-coverup related deaths. Eyewitness testimonies and statistical analysis mean nothing to anti-alterationists like Pat when it comes to defending their precious preconceived notions. Recall that anti-alterationists believe that nearly every witness to the gaping head wound (~40 of them) merely mass-hallucinated a large wound being on the back of the head, which they claim was really on the top of the head. Statistical analysis proves that the odds of that happening naturally (i.e. without magic) is virtually zero. But that fact means nothing when put up against their preconceived notions.

If you read only McMahon's paragraph regarding his psychological problems and substance abuse, it indeed gives the impression that his testimony cannot be trusted. But it's a whole different ballgame if you read his full testimony, complete with the self-disparaging comment for context. Reading it that way gives the impression that he knows exactly what he is talking about and admits when his memory isn't strong on something. And the self-disparaging remark sounds like it is said in jest, with a wink. I agree with Tom Gram, that it is an exaggeration on McMahon's part.

Wow... a young, clean shaven, pigtail-less Willy Nelson!

I don't know why you say that Bill. If a person is upright but on their knees, they could fall any direction (if not pushed). For example, if they are unconscious.

Oh c'mon, that can't possibly have any significant effect. Whoop! There ya' go!

Yep, conservation of momentum is conserved, even though energy is lost in the form of heat. Now, if you can somehow get a lot of mass to exit -- fast --in the direction of the bullet (M3V3), it's theoretically possible to get the now-lighter skull to reverse direction and move back toward the gun (M2V2). Which is what Professor Alvarez recognized in the equation and what he set out to demonstrate in a real experiment. He eventually got a melon bound up in tape to do just that, and LNers have been praising him since. But, alas, it was but a parlor trick.The professor could never get the correct amounts of masses moving at the correct velocities to show that that was indeed what happened.

You know, you might be the only person in all of Denmark named Mark Ulrik! (The website says "less than 3.") Ulrik is very rare, with only 117 in Denmark.

Thanks Mark! I live in Utah, where the Mormons settled. Among the Mormons were a lot of Danish and other Scandinavia converts. I've known people here with all but three of the surnames listed (Kristensen, Thomsen, Møller. and Mortensen). BTW, my great, great, great grandfather's name was Lars Larsen.

Mark, I'm just curious. I am told that I get my surname from a Danish immigrant. Is Larsen a common surname there? What about Lars? is that still used as a given name?

If somebody addressed me as "Mister Larsen," I would think they were in a jovial mood. If I jovially addressed somebody in the same way and the person took offense, I would apologize and try not to make that mistake again. Human interaction can be messy. Especially when it's in words only with no tone of voice.