Chris Bristow

"But that doesn't entitle us to assume that all the witnesses who didn't mention a car-stop were mistaken. A large majority, around 80%, of the witnesses who would have been in a position to notice a car stop didn't mention any such event." We can't assume those witnesses saw no stop or extreme slowing just because they did not mention it. You would need ask them if they saw a stop and if they say no then you have something. As we have established, the event would have happened in the seconds following the head shot and many witnesses were far from the event. Not mentioning a stop and saying there was no stop are not the same. you mentioned the witnesses on Huston and at the TSB were farther away and their testimony is less valuable. Did you apply that to the 80% as well? As I said before and it deserves repeating, If the car slowed to almost a stop then we would expect some to miss the moment when it stopped. Trying to discredit the bike cops testimony for very slight differences in their accounts is not a valid argument. The difference between a full stop and rolling stop could be as little as 1/2 mph and 1 second. You ignore the implications of a limo that may have slowed to almost a stop. Some witnesses saying it stopped and others saying it almost stopped is very consistent for a event where the car slowed to almost a stop. " Hargis: "slowed down almost to a stop" Chaney: "almost came to a complete halt after the first shot — did not quite stop, but almost did." The other two weren't exactly positive about an obvious stop: Martin: the car stopped "just for a moment." Jackson: "the car just all but stopped ... just a moment."" "almost to a stop". "almost came to a complete halt" "the car just all but stopped" 3 out of 4 are undeniably consistent and ignoring this shows a large bias on your part. Martin saying it stopped could easily be due to the limo only stopping for a split second, or maybe it got down to 1/2 mph and Martin mistakenly thought it stopped. All this is what you would expect if it slowed to almost a stop which is what was reported by people very close to the limo. You should be able to maintain your opinion and still acknowledge the consistency of the bike cops reports. It does not mean you think they were right but denying it shows that you are not honest about their testimony. It is beyond the pale for you to try and say they were inconsistent. The best argument against alteration is the problems associated with altering multiple films. It took me several years of pondering the Z film alteration theory to find a plausible way to take out a limo stop. The Nix film has it's own set of problems because people like Foster were in between Nix and the limo. That would mean alteration would require a lot of cut and pasting to take out a limo stop. I don't know exactly what it would take to fix the Nix film and others but I have not ruled it out. I try and look at the issue with an open mind but so much of the debate is simply people entrenched in their view and unwilling to honestly evaluate the evidence. I have to say your view on the bike cops testimony is slanted to the point that, imo you are not willing to engage in fair discussion.

I read the article on the limo stop and witness accounts. I am trying to be fair but there are some points that I think are a stretch. In general witnesses can be unreliable but when they tell a consistent story it is likely correct. The well known account of a classroom experiment in which students witnessed an unexpected event then gave their accounts right afterwards showed 30% of them got the facts wrong. This is cited as proof we can't trust witness accounts. But 70% got it right and that is where corroborating testimony becomes valuable. I think if we consider that the stop or almost stopping would have happened at the head shot or just after we should assume that many of the witnesses were absolutely stunned during the event. I think it would be no surprise if many witnesses never noticed a slowing to maybe 2mph or a momentary full stop. Within the limo I think Jackie was focused on JFK at that moment and watching his head explode inches from her face could be why she did not notice a brief stop. Nellie Connally was focused on Gov Connally and he was seriously wounded. They both rolled over and down and laid low around the theorized stop so they could have missed it. The lack of testimony has a logical possible explanation so the point, imo, is moot.. When it comes to Greer and Kellerman I think because we are discussing the possibility of a coverup I can fairly postulate that they and the SS in the follow up car would not be forthcoming about a stop if it was removed as it may tend to implicate them. Another argument that I find to be a stretch is witness that said it stopped and those that said it slowed are contradicting each other. If there was a full stop that was just momentary we should expect many to miss it since it would have happened in a moment of confusion for all who saw his head explode. Many witnesses said the limo 'stopped or almost stopped'. This indicates the limo slowing to such a slow speed that many were not sure if it fully stopped or just slowed way down. That would have to be around 2mph. So some saying it just slowed and others seeing a full stop is not necessarily mean one story is wrong. There are approx 9 people who were specific enough in their account to say it stopped or almost stopped. People like Brehm, Newman?, Willis, Hill and Moorman were very close to the limo and their testimony should be considered valuable. Then there are the 4 bike cops. I think theirs is the most credible and important testimony. A big part of their job was to keep pace with the limo throughout the entire parade. They were ordered to stay back a bit because of the noise so they were constantly monitoring the limo speed and position relative to themselves. They were the closest and they were paying more attention to the limo than anyone else except Kinney. They ALL say the limo stopped. They saw more than just the slowing they say they saw a brief full stop. All 4 of them corroborating each others account is huge when we consider they were in the best position of any witness and were all paying close attention to the limo. I do not think the explanations offered in that article make a convincing argument against the witness accounts.

Thanks for that. I had learned that once and forgot it.

I did not correct from 1/40th to 1/35 so I would need to subtract about 12% from the amount of relative motion blur between background and limo. As far the ratio I am just noting the difference in shutter speeds and the resulting difference in the amount of motion blur of 1/35 sec shutter speed vs 1/100 in any single frame. As I said before this subject is a challenge to envision so I may be misunderstanding some of the points you and others trying to make. I realized something today. Although I can get a slowing limo to appear in each frame as if it traveled at 8 mph by altering the location of the limo there would still be a motion blur problem. When I start to insert original frames (6,8,10,13) they will have less motion blur because the limo was moving slower and slower in the hypothetical film, By frame 13 it would be slowed to 2mph showing far less motion blur. All the frames inserted after hypothetical fr 13 would also show only 2 mph speed and the blur would be inconsistent with the created illusion of the limo continuing at 7 mph. The altering process would now have to include some cut and paste work to the frames in question. Maybe 50 frames would have the background cut and motion blur added, then re pasted back to the frame. Not really too difficult but another step. I suspect as we spitball this theory it may get to complicated to be realistic. But so far it looks workable.

I find the Parkland issue to be the most convincing circumstantial evidence. In fact the JFK issue for me can all come down to a second shooter and a coverup. That means it could be Oswald on the 6th floor. Partial patsy, full patsy, innocent, I don't need to bother with it to consider the basic form of the CT. I would guess partial patsy but it is just my guess. Pondering how a film could be altered is the most entertaining thought experiment, imo.

Oh thank you! So the shutter speed is just short of 3 times longer in the 'run' setting. We should see 3 times the motion blur at 1/35th between background and foreground than the 1/100th slow motion. The overall film supports the 18.6 fps. The limo would have to be going almost 3 times as fast as the 'official' record to achieve the motion blur between foreground and background. Frame 232 has half the blur as pointed out by John Costella. Is that an artifact of a different frame rate? If it is there still has to be another film that produced the 18.6 fps version. I want to lean towards a simpler explanation that does not require two films if possible.

Yes you mentioned the additional panning by Z and it is an interesting possibility. "the curb down Elm? So? That issue (?) will be covered for the most part by a layer above it, ie., original asphalt footage of the motorcade going down Elm St." I don't know if I get you on this. I mentioned before that the angle of the curb to Z increases as they move down Elm. Looking again I see it changes a lot right after 312 when the curb is nearly perpendicular to Z but much less from frame 350 on. So it is less of a problem than I thought. Not knowing what may have been altered and how much leaves us guessing. Like just how much did the limo slow, how long did it last and how quickly did it decelerate. I thought it would be interesting to make an 8mm film of a vehicle mimicking the limo stop, then take that 8mm film and see if the stop can be removed, what it would take and how real might it look. It may reveal the problems and possibly the type of artifacts the process may leave.

I use 1/40th sec. I think it is a little less but close enough. The relative blur between foreground and background is consistent with the limo moving around 9mph at frame 312. If the frame rate increases to 48 fps the dist the limo traveled would be reduced by 2.5 times and so would the motion blur. As I imagine this the distance the limo travels could be adjusted by frame removal. So we could get the limo to move at 9 mph but that would not change the motion blur recorded in each single frame which would still be related to the 48 fps rate.

Z filming extra footage is an interesting thought. A second camera has been mentioned somewhere but if it was only one foot away from Z's camera it would have a very different line of sight. The wall behind the Stemmons would appear off by more than 2 feet. Maybe mixing the two would work depending on where they meet. One additional problem with a matte is the curb appears almost level across the frame around 312 but constantly changed as he panned down Elm. That would be another mis match to be addressed. I had considered that if you re filmed the background on the weekend of 1/20/64 around roughly 10:30am the azimuth and elevation would match 11/22 at 12:30.

I just realized that if it was filmed at 48 fps the open shutter time would be about 40% of what we see in the film. But the motion blur in the film is consistent with 18 fps.

If you had 48 fps to work with it would tighten the timing up a lot. In my graphic frame 8 from above is used to replace frame 6 below, but there is a 2 inch difference between them. I thought that may be small enough to go unnoticed but maybe not. But if you had 48 fps to work with that 2" difference could be cut down to about .8 seconds difference.

One thing I forgot to mention is a possible trick to help with a matte process. If you took the frames and magnified them slightly to simulate more zooming effect you would would have a little extra background image that does not appear in the frame. You could use that for the extra background needed for the matte. That fixes the problem of the extra background having to match in motion blur because the extra background is from the same frame and will always be a perfect match. You would only need to increase the zoom by one or two degrees to get the 3 inches of background needed for the first 3 frames of the deceleration.

The problems with using a matte or just cutting frames are many. But I have a possible method to overcome most of the problems of mattes and frame removal by combining them. The problems with mattes is they place the limo against a background that will be a mis match. The wrong angle to the limo would be easily spotted, the reflection on the trunk would not match(Like Mary Moorman or the paristyles behind her) and neither would the shadows. It could be somewhat fixed with additional mattes but not everything, imo. When you have to make the background pass by faster to simulate speed you add some future frame image to the current frame. If you do make the background move faster you are mixing backgrounds from different frames that would have to have the exact same level of motion blur to mix together. Also if you take a film that has the limo going by people like Foster at 2mph and modify it to 8 mph the relative motion blur between the limo and background will be off. Removing frames can help some but it cannot be used for the slowing down phase. Slowing the limo by half is easy but you can't slow it by 1/4 for a gradual deceleration. As an example: Say you took one of every 4 frames out to slow it by 1/4, it would not work. The limo would still go it's normal speed for frames 1,2,3 and if you cut the 4th out it would suddenly double its speed for one frame when it jumped from frame 3 to frame 5. Then it would slow down again for frames 5,6,7. I have been looking at mixing some matte work with frame removal and there is a way to minimize the problems. The top part of the chart tracks the hypothetical limo as it slows though 13 frames. it slow from 8 to 2 mph over 13 frames. That means is travels 1/2 inch less distance every frame as it slows. 8" then 7.5", them 7" etc. That is the 1st row figures. The 2nd row keeps a running tally of how many inches the limo progresses from 1 to 13. In box 13 it shows the limo traveled 57". Below all that is another set of 13 frames. This set shows how far the limo would travel if it never slowed and continued at 8 mph or 8" per frame(approx). The next row down is again a running tally of distance traveled. Notice box 13 above shows 57" of travel and the box below shows 96" travel. The slowing limo travels 39 " less and that is what needs to be made up in order to alter the limo speed back to 8 mph. Looking at the bottom set frames 1-4 are marked "Background matte size. Those 1st frames can be altered by shifting the background 1/2, 1.5 and 3 inches respectively. That neutralizes the deceleration and increases the speed back to 8 mph with the matte mismatch being only 3 inches. Now for the next frame no matte is needed. Frame 5 in the bottom section(The alteration attempt) would have advanced the limo 32.5 inches down the road. Well in the top set frame 6 has also advanced the limo 32.0" down the road. To fix frame 5 in the lower set we only need to replace it with frame 6 from the upper set. Frame 6 from above is not from a matte so the background and limo are back in their true positions. The matte induced mis match would continue to increase if continued and the problems would get worse. But using the hypothetical original frames that showed a limo stop fixes the matte problems. Frames 8, 10 and 13 from above would also be used. Once we use frame 13 from above we are using frames in which the limo travels 2 mph from frame to frame. If, as in this scenario the limo proceeded at 2 mph for a couple seconds than the frames after 13 will all represent 2 mph speed. So all you have to do then is take out 3 out of every 4 frames from the top and use them for the frames after frame 8 below. when you take out 3 out of every 4 you always have 3 frames removed between each one. So unlike taking every 4th frame, taking 3 out of 4 makes each frame 3 frames from the last so the limo does not jump around like it would taking one out of 4. This stuff is a nightmare to try and visualize but I hope it is clear enough to get the point across. I have not puzzled out the acceleration back to normal speed yet, but this method would only require matting 3 frames and removing 4 frames for the deceleration part. The frame removal would only require two consecutive frames to be removed and two more single frames.

John, It's ok to criticize and we can go over each point. I forgot to say that the test was only about how far back her body is on the trunk and about her right elbow appearing lower in Nix. I could not get the left arm to articulate so it just sticks out. It is not part of the test. I think the left arm you point to in Nix by Jackie's head could be a film artifact of her hair image being smeared right. Or more likely it is her hair blowing, the color match seems perfect. You can see the shape change over several frames. Her left arm may be the shadow just behind her right upper arm. Z shows she has all her weight on her left elbow and so could not reach up with the left arm. Just to make sure everyone understands, the two photos are the same set up photographed from the Nix and Z viewpoints matching both degree of angle and elevation. It is not two separate versions made to match each film. We don't see Hills right arm reaching out because it doesn't start till around frame 380 to 385, after the frames I used. I wanted to make two points in the recreation. first, the position of her right hand relative to the handholds matches in both Z and Nix. Second, her head and torso match Nix and Z relative to the view of the handholds. Overall you can see the recreation makes Jackie look like she is much farther out on the trunk in Nix than in Z. But the wooden Jackie is the same position in the Z as in the Nix recreations. Only the perspective has changed and that does recreate the two different apparent positions of Jackie on the trunk.

Here's a recreation of Jackie on the trunk in Nix and Z. If not conclusive I think it shows the different angles and elevation of Nix and Z's camera's can account for the apparent variation in Jackie's location. I had to edit the recreations a bit because I made the limo too wide for Jackie's size, it is now accurate. Her forearm is low on the trunk in the Nix view but may be perceived as higher from Z's perspective. First her elbow is pointed away from Z so we see no angle at the elbow to judge it's height above the trunk. The only way to know the elbow height from Z's view is to make an assumption about where her elbow is. The only clue is the crease in her clothing at the elbow or the smaller look of the sleeve at the elbow. Two problems with that. first the bright background of the street shrinks the sleeve on the sides. Second the crease maybe the elbow but the images is very blurry. I think the crease position in the Z recreation is at the same place as the actual Z frame. The forearm and upper arm seem to match the recreation. The point of the diagram at the bottom is to show where Jackie's head would line up with the handholds, red for Nix and blue fro Z.

Thanks. If the Elm St pipe was only 12 inches the shooter in the drain theory is factually disproven.

I don't what to make of Hoffman's story. Two shooters on the east and west end fence? Maybe he filled in the gaps of his observation and can't distinguish fact from fantasy? How does the shooter or spotter cross the tracks just feet from the overpass crowd and not be seen? Maybe Tom Tilson was right and the shooter was on the northwest corner of the overpass and Hoffman just mistook their position. I think there is some truth in Hoffman's account but I don't know which part.

Thanks for the detailed drain layout. It would have been easier than I thought. Maybe Heygood would still have a shot if he trekked down the tube a ways. The drain that is part of the this CT is not the drain at the west end of the knoll fence. It is the drain down on north Elm a few feet west of the steps, right next to where Heygood dumped/parked his bike. There is a separate theory about the shooter at the west end of the fence exiting through the drain they were standing in at the mouth of the drain. Where did you find the info on the drain layout?

I would consider him a possible knoll suspect but as you said my point is only about using him as a comparison for the timing of the egress.

I won't rule out the trunk but have a hard time considering it or any theory that requires a delayed or slow egress. similar to the storm drain theory where the shooter would have to crawl on their hands and knees all the way to the river. If anyone saw and reported the shooter to Heygood there would be 50 cops waiting for them to emerge from the drain at the river. Or Heygood could jump into the drain and shoot them in the ass. I degressed.

Looking at the Groden copy and the MPI copy I don't see any difference at least in the frames I have compared. For this thread I have used the Groden copies and other than not being pincushion corrected they seem to be the same.

I have heard that before but I think it would be safer to get out of the area right away. Once you are gone you are gone but as long as you remain there is still a chance of being found, imo.

I think they still need to escape as the ID's are fake, imo.

Ya I favor the south knoll over the grassy knoll.

I think the short answer is yes. Lets say he fired the head shot then turned to place the rifle in the trunk or under the hood of the vehicle right behind his position. That would take only 5 second if the hood is already popped open. Then he walks at 3.5 mph around the back of the colonnade and east up the Elm annex Rd. After 15 seconds he would be crossing the path between the fence and the pergola. At 25 seconds he would be at the middle of the colonnade. At very close to 45 seconds he has passed the east pergola and would be in the spot where Mr Bothun photographed the "Silhoutte Man". We know for a fact that Silhoutte Man exited the plaza unimpeded and disappeared. We can also conclude that walking at an average speed would put the knoll shooter at the same location as Silhouette Man. I'm not saying Silhouette Man was the shooter but he proves it is feasible that a shooter walking from the knoll fence could have disappeared exactly as Silhouette Man did. interesting to note that Officer J. Smith would have been passing right by Silhouette Man when the Bothun photo was taken and somewhere along there he encountered the guy who flashed SS ID. Who would have seen the shooter? first the guy next to Emmet Hudson ran right past the fence and could have seen him or maybe he would be bending down to stash the rifle. Either way he never came forward. Next Dogman and the other 'Runner' next to him would have at least seen the shooter from the back. They never came forward. I guess if I starred into the face of the assassin and could identify them I would stay silent! Next is Mr Hester and he would have got a good look. But since they heard the shots come over their heads from the TSB, a person walking behind the colonnade may not raise suspicion. Just to save space I have an unrelated observation. Emmet Hudson is a star witness for the LN'er because he was just feet from the knoll fence and said he clearly heard the shots from the TSB. He said he could hear the shots extra clearly because he and the guy next to him both hit the ground and from down there you could tell where the shots came from. Well FYI, Hudson and the other guy are seen in many images all throughout the shooting sequence and they are standing the whole time! He never drops to the ground unless it is for maybe 5 seconds between shots. The star witness' memory about how he heard the shots could not be more wrong.