Chris Bristow

My evaluation of this theory is negative. At the same time I find Dr Costella's Pincushion theory about the Stemmons sign to be one of the most compelling bits of evidence to date. I have looked deeply into the subject and after two years I still can't find a valid reason to explain it. So I am not attempting to impugn his integrity as a researcher, but the lamppost anomaly may not be evidence of alterations. The image below shows that the angle of the lamppost changes relative to the wall as you pan across. So for the Barnes photo and the the Z film to match you would have to duplicate the direction the camera is pointing to. In the Barnes photo the camera is pointing about one or two feet to the right of the Stemmons sign. In the Z film you don't even see the lamppost till frame 261 when the camera is pointing around 18 degrees to the right. So a comparison is impossible. I have not measured this yet but I think the change is due to the the angle of the wall changing as you pan. As the cameras lens pans it's angle to the wall changes. The wall is at an angle to the camera to begin with and it adds to the vanishing point by a keystone effect. The wall appears to angle down more and more toward the center of the photo as the camera angle increases. That widens the angle of the lamppost to the wall, so in the series of photos were I aligned it by the angle of the wall the lamppost leans more and more to the left.(Often we mistake vanishing point as something that causes things to appear higher in the frame as they recede into the distance. It actually moves everything toward the center of the photo.) One other problem with comparing the Barnes photo against anything is the extreme amount of distortion in it. In the Barnes photo below the buildings lean outward more and more as they appear farther and farther from the center of the photo. The center of the photo generally shows were the optical center of the lens is. (At the optical center the distortion is about zero because the front and rear surfaces of the lens are parallel.) The buildings lean outward from that center. This is equally true for the horizontal axis. The same distortion occurs as you move up or down from the optical center. It is harder to find because there are not a lot of horizontal lines to track. I have to conclude that the changing angle of the lamppost is normal and expected. Actually I don't like to reach full conclusions because in these complicated issues it is easy to miss something. how many times has some theory seemed valid then after a while new information or evaluation can turn things around. So I am pretty confident in this analysis but am still open to being proved wrong.

Yes the glare does make it look like it blocks all the light. The angle of the photo helps do that since the angle of the Sun at 39 and the camera angle to the window are similar. If the Sun hits the window at 39 degrees then the greatest glare will be seen by anyone who views the window from a similar but opposite angle. I guess the camera angle was around maybe 55 degrees. I will check that. there is another photo on this thread taken from inside with several people standing at the window. The sharp shadows on the floor give an idea of how much light was blocked by the dirty window.

Jim, I considered the different lighting but it still seemed like the neck would be in shadow. Some illumination from the lower part of the window could bounce up under his neck but it looked too bright to me. Edit: I just looked at the azimuth and elevation and now I am convinced that there should be a shadow under his neck. The elevation of the Sun was 39 degrees so if the top of the window is 7 feet then the shadow would land on the floor about 8 feet back. That means Oswald could stand 2 feet back from the window and the Sun would still directly hit his entire face. Others have verified that his height of 5'9" seems correct in the window. He has to be right behind the window for it to appear that way. As soon as he moved back his height relative to the window would quickly decrease. The Azimuth at 12:30 was between 9 and 13 degrees. I knew that before but sort of forgot and was surprised because the photo makes it look like a steeper angle. But it would allow for the light to hit his face. The extra light on the right side of his face looks to me like glare off the window. I can't see anything that resembles his face in that bit of extra light. The shadow under his nose is a bit weird too. Looking at the two guys in the window below you can see the nose shadow is much shorter. Also you can see the guy on the left is looking to his right which brings his left ear into the Sun. The other guy is looking almost straight ahead like the Oswald image but his ear is hidden in shadow while Oswald's left ear is fully lit. So if we know Oswald was getting direct Sunlight on the front of his face yet his neck and left ear appear to be just as bright as face, that is a problem. No glare from the window is going to match direct sunlight in intensity. So the Sun would have definitely cast a shadow down his neck, the only judgement call is how much did the dirty window block and how much did it reflect light up under his chin. Personally I don't think the dirty window would obscure or prevent the neck shadow or cast enough diffuse light on his neck to illuminate it. I know there are people who would say dissecting this image is stupid because we know it is a fake. But when we debate things like this it gives insight into how a fake can be spotted.

Both of the guys in this photo have very dark shadows on their necks but the fake image of Oswald shows his neck clearly. The lighting on his neck looks like the same intensity as on his face.

I agree putting the limo back into service like that is the strangest part of the scenario. So completely morbid I can't accept that they would really even consider it except to cover up evidence. The other thing is the story of the ford manger who saw the limo in Detroit on Sunday or Monday. It can't be true if Ferguson is truthful. Ferguson made one mistake when he put the crack in the wrong place. "Examination of the windshield disclosed no perforation, but substantial cracks radiating a couple of inches from the CENTER of the windshield at a point DIRECTLY BENEATH the mirror". I also find it weird that he offered up the fact that there was no perforation instead of just noting the crack. He was not an investigator and his plan was just to pop out the window and replace it. He also documented the lengthening of the cracks as they removed it. When Cter's say the windshield in the archives has different cracks the story of the lengthening cracks is offered up as part of the explanation. That is fine and expected but a strange coincidence that Ferguson decided to document it when he was just the guy directing repairs. Ferguson is completely at odds with the Detroit managers story. The detailed accounts can't be just bad memory, The limo had the windshield removed in D.C. or Detroit not both. Someone is lying. The Detroit manager only has his word, no other witness came forward. On the other hand the CIA is known for changing/faking documents and getting people to keep their mouths shut. Note: the CT theory that the archive windshield has a different set of cracks(different angles) than the Garage photos is not valid. I reproduce the angles on glass with tape and found when you match the different camera angle of each, they change exactly as the archive and garage photos do.

I just can't remember any witnesses who implied that the whole assassination happened in front of the TSBD. Do you have a list or partial list? As far as who to believe and who to throw out I am trying to rely on reports with lots of other collaborating witnesses.

https://youtu.be/q0Ta8PsYJfU?list=WL Jeremy, I think the qualifier "consistently and unambiguously" is too strict and does not allow for slight variations in the accounts. Many witnesses said it "stopped or almost stopped". This would imply it went so slow that many could not tell if it was fully stopped or almost stopped. slightly ambiguous but consistently stated that way by many witnesses. I believe I have read close to all the witness statements from multiple law enforcement agencies that day to the WC and later interviews. Having read those I found that some skeptics bend the truth a bit and some add those 'qualifiers" that skew the results. If the limo did stop I would expect some witnesses to miss the stop entirely due to the intense drama of the event. Also witnesses in front and behind would not recognize the motion of the limo as well as those watching from the sides. If it didn't stop I would not expect to see a lot of reports that it did stop, unless you can find a reason. For instance maybe the car behind rushed up so quickly and closed the gap that people mistook that for the limo slowing way down. There was a witness right there at the head shot that did not see it stop. Because of their proximity I would be inclined to make a snap judgement. But Nellie Connally said Jfk never said a word, yet an SS agent in the follow up car said he clearly heard JFK say "I been shot". He remembers that "damn Boston accent". Both Witnesses are credible and both were just feet away from JFK. Both can't be right so we have to discount one of those reports. My point is even highly credible close up accounts can be wrong. Hargis was the closest to the limo and he has said it stopped, but later said "slowed way down" and I think at least once said it happened just the way we see it in the Z film. How do we make sense of that? Well in the video clip of Hargis below(I think from the eighties) he says something very telling. Before he admits the limo "Slowed" and seconds later elaborates "That it slowed down almost to a stop", he says "Now this is not to be shown publicly but". So consider this. The Z film had been made public maybe 10 years before so why does he not want his retelling shown publicly? The answer is because his story does not match the Z film! The second thing you can take from it is some witnesses contradict the Z film and they are not willing to go public with it. Maybe Hargis was wrong, maybe all the witnesses were wrong and it did not stop. but if we take an honest look at the witness statements there are closer to 30 who saw it slow to almost a stop or completely stop. That is compelling. https://youtu.be/q0Ta8PsYJfU?list=WL

Newman was not the only one to say JFK stood up. And many said they were in front of the TSBD but were making general statements. You may be 100 feet to the side and 100 feet to the front of a building but I could see them calling that being "In front of" the TSBD. I give those statements some latitude. Maybe an hour after the event Brehm said he and his son were standing on Commerce. They were on Elm of course, but had walked across Commerce just a few minutes before. We often mix up our memory by combing events that did not happen together. I think placing the shots heard with the location of the limo will have many wrong accounts. The whole thing happening in a matter of seconds and makes it even more unreliable. I think the best testimony is that with lots of corroborating witnesses. You said the shot on the corner had 50 witnesses. I thought that was an early missed shot, not the neck or head shot and that they mostly stated that there were additional shots afterwards. So I am not sure what it shows other than many did not hear that 1st shot and took the 2nd shot as the first. Connally's wife said JFK never spoke a word. An SS agent in the Cadillac said he yelled "I been shot". (that would have to be the shallow back wound before the neck shot cause how could he yell after the throat shot), point is they both should be credible but one has to be 100% wrong. I think we should expect every witness to get some stuff wrong.

Thanks for the answer.

John, witnesses like the Newman's who said the head shot happened right in front of them are, imo, a good source and give us good idea of the location. They do not dispute the representations of their locations in Nix or the film taken right afterwards when they are still laying in the spot they dropped to. I measured Connally from the center of his tie to the end of his left shoulder then doubled it. That measurement is way wider than Jackie. Off topic but it is funny how Connally said he was hit then looked down to see he was covered with blood. I don't see any blood in 223. As far as faking things with the timing and location of the limo the problems are huge and the entire film would have to be a cut and paste recreation if they are doing more than just taking a limo stop out. You can measure the angle of the limo as it changes relative to Zapruder every few frames. All the reflections on the limo change frame by frame and the shadows change as they wind down Elm. To match it to the Nix film you have the problem that the limo is partly obscured by people on the grass in Nix so you can't just reposition it, you have to patch it together from other images in the film Even if they just took the limo stop out they would have to reanimate people like Foster because if you took out 2 seconds of limo stop her image would jump. If you literally cut and pasted original elements of the film you would not have to worry about matching grain or color temperature but if you start adding things it might be impossible to perfect. The issue has many rabbit holes and requires experts in several different fields to really evaluate how they could fake it. That said too many witnesses saw the limo stop for me to think the Z film is unaltered.

That is interesting but I have to ask, what would an armor piercing round due to JFK's neck? And with your experience I would like to ask if there is anything in the Altgens 6 image comparison that I posted above that strikes you as significant pro or con?

I have considered Greer and Kellerman and the lack of reaction. It could be convincing evidence of no shot. On the other hand it could be due to complicity in a conspiracy. Greer did not seem to react to the shot at all. At Z255 Connally is alarmed and turning around. Kennedy is in obvious distress but 5 seconds after Greer is moving at 8mph! It is possible that Greer and Kellerman were part of the conspiracy to kill JFK. If not for that possibility I would say there is a 99% chance that the shot never happened. But personally I am convinced by the Parkland doctors that a shot came from the front or at the very least a big hole in his head was covered up. I am not here to debate that issue but because it convinces me I have to consider the involvement of our intelligence community and the SS. Regarding a shot from the top of the overpass that went over the windshield I am not promoting that idea The line of sight may be there, as I think I said somewhere, but I am considering the problem of the South Knoll as it relates to the windshield hole. Not sure about a "One in a million" shot. Snipers talk about making specific calculations for firing through a windshield. The largest deflection would be in the vertical and would just hit JFK lower not miss him. If the sniper knows the type of vehicle and the angles beforehand it would be very beneficial and a JFK assassin would have had that info. ""PS. how did they fake the white house garage photos taken of the limo by SS and FBI within the first 18 hours of arriving back in Washington DC.....How did they get false testimony from white house garage staff, Secret Service agents and FBI agents during that first 18 to 24 hours in the White House Garage. Windshield damage YES thru and thru front to back,"" You don't have to fake photos in the 1st 18 hours. You have to alter them before they become public or as evidence in a trial. ""How did they get false testimony from white house garage staff"" Maybe they covered the windshield when not inspecting it themselves. Maybe they told the staff to stay away from the limo. Maybe they swore them to secrecy(That has been proven to be effective as many witnesses kept their silence till the HSCA happened and they were relieved of their commitment to silence). The idea that because the ford guys saw the limo many hours later does not make their testimony "moot" that is absurd. If they saw a hole in the limo windshield as they replaced it then where that hole came from is a valid question. Do I even need to say that? This "Never happened" opinion is just that, an opinion, not a fact. Arguing opinions as facts is more of a pissing contest than an enlightening discussion of the facts and theories. I am not interested in debating opinions like it never happened or definitely happened.

I think you are right, CE844 may be correct and Google Earth has a problem. Your numbers match the West Breneman map at Z210. At Z313 the WB map is 418 and CE844 shows 421, so they diverge a bit, while Google Earth is about 10 feet off in many places. I don't know why that is but none of those maps are fully consistent with CE844. The WB map shows the manhole by the West end of the picket fence is 1 foot higher than than street level at Z210. That appears correct and If that is true then the South parking lot is at about the same elevation as Z210 because that manhole, the overpass, and the parking lot in the South corner are all within one foot elevation of each other according to Google Earth. CE844 does not give the elevation for any of those points so I don't have one map that shows Z210 and the parking lot. It looks like it still is close to a level shot.

By first shot do you mean the throat shot or the possible missed shot closer to Houston? I am talking about the throat shot around Z210. Google Earth shows an elevation of 415 ft at the 1st x in the road and 414ft in the South parking lot.

Interesting idea. I found that a fragment from the head shot could have gone under the cross bar and over the windshield. His head at 313 was at about the height of his neck at 209 so it seems like it could work.

Lots of good information there, thanks. The Dal Tex photo is a view I have never seen. I agree that the head shot scenarios have merit. There are definitely some problems with the windshield anomaly being a bullet hole. It would have to pass very close to Connally and maybe pelt him with glass. Not to mention the shock wave inches from his ear that he never mentioned or the lack of an exit wound. On the other hand I can't explain multiple witnesses who saw a "Through and and through" bullet hole as they stood right in front of the limo. As you may know Dr Glanges stood right in front of the limo and saw the hole. She was a women who shot rifles since she was very young. She reloaded ammo with her father all his life and she knew the difference between high and low velocity impacts. Then George Whitaker, a manger at the Ford factory in Michigan said the limo arrived Monday for a new windshield. He recounts a bullet hole below. ""After knocking on the locked door (which he found most unusual), he was let in by two of his subordinates and discovered that they were in possession of the windshield that had been removed from the JFK limousine. They had been told to use it as a template, and to make a new windshield identical to it in shape — and to then get the new windshield back to the building for installation in the Presidential limousine that was quickly being rebuilt. Whitaker told Weldon (quoting from the audiotape of the 1993 interview): “And the windshield had a bullet hole in it, coming from the outside through…it was a good, clean bullet hole, right straight through, from the front."" It is hard to write off those consistent statements. I have recently considered that maybe there was a windshield shot that missed. If that was the case I could place the shooter in a different location. The parking lot in the South corner next to the RR tracks is a great place for a sniper because the shot would be almost level and the limo would be heading toward the shooter(Or the closest it would come to driving straight towards the shooter). The Sun is at the shooters back and he could shoot from the back of an enclosed truck that has backed into a parking space. That gives perfect cover and maybe some room for the gunsmoke to be contained inside the truck if the shooter stood back from the rear end. That also means a very quick exit as the truck could just drive straight away. That shot would could hit low and left and miss JFK. Here is another bit I find compelling. Look at the bullet holes on the right. You see a heart shape or maybe Mickey Mouse ears shaped hole in black. The middle image of the Altgens 6 hole has the same feature. It's size is also similar. notice the image on the left has that angled crack that seems to happen when you hit an angled windshield from the right. Altgens 6 shares that feature too.. I finally found a good image of Altgens 7 and the same angled line is present in the same place as Altgens 6. So I don't know what went on. There are interesting pros and cons but nothing that convinces me, yet.

Yes if it happened earlier the shot gets moved to the middle of Commerce or maybe the divider between Main and Commerce(Very rough guess). Maybe it raises the shot enough to come from the top of the triple. The Z film could be faked but the witness accounts put the reaction to the neck/back shot around Z209 to 215. so that is what I am testing.

Ron, do you mean on top of the triple? To correct for deflection you have to move to a lower location than the sidewalk on Commerce under the triple. The bullet has to take more of an upward angle through the windshield hole in altgens 6 to correct for deflection. But how do you get lower than that sidewalk?

I never considered that location for the throat shot. It is an almost level shot from 300 feet, and it does not have to pass through the windshield. But the bullet would cross the sidewalk at around 4 feet high.

I would say it is very unlikely that a shot came from that position mostly because there was no cover, but that is just an opinion. The deflection of the bullet may prove it was impossible.

The theory about the bullet hole in the windshield in Altgens 6 places the shooter at Commerce St and the overpass. A shot from there lines up the hole in the windshield with JFK's neck. I mapped it out and came up with the same results as others have. But now I find that military snipers say even high velocity rounds will deflect downward by an inch or more from the windshield to the target in the (front) seat. This is due to the 45 degree backward angle of the windshield. For a bullet to pass through the location of the Altgens 6 hole then deflect downward 2 inches and hit JFk's neck the shooter would have to be at least 8 feet lower than the junction of the triple overpass and the Commerce St. sidewalk. I don't see how you could get any lower! The only solution is to move the shooter closer which allows for the round to hit at a more upward angle and account for the deflection. To maintain the angle and still have cover the only option is the manhole on the South West side of Elm. The manhole is 200 feet from the front of the limo and the hood is about 3 feet high. That means the angle from the manhole would allow you to see JFK's head but I am not keen about a manhole theory. Anyone have an insight?

Joe, I have heard that the separation bar had a window separating the front seat from the passengers but it was not installed that day. If it had been the FBI would have had to document the holes in it. Just yesterday I was trying to test the theory that a fragment caused the Tague injury and curb strike. I found that there is room for fragments to go under the bar and either escape over the top of the windshield or maybe hit the visor. Going over the separation bar would require a 5 degree upward angle.

Recently I read about the investigation onto the cause of the sinking of the Titanic. Many witnesses recounted how the ship nosed down and the stern lifted up out of the water before breaking in two. The investigators decided that sounded a bit too fantastic. They concluded the stress and drama of the event caused people to embellish their story. They ignored the consistency of the reports and their own personal bias took over. They wrote those stories off. It sounds like a cheap excuse when skeptics say witnesses must have talked among themselves or seen similar news artciles. It can happen but I think it has also become an excuse to explain away difficult evidence.

Yes, oh boy. It is very simple to do multiple lines of sight in Altgens 6 which shows the exact location of the limo at Z 255. Even if A6 or Z is claimed to be fake it is faked to put the limo at Z255. There is not a single thing in that photo that supports the idea that the limo is East of the Stemmona sign. The sign is just outside the field of view in A6. That can also be verified by adding the cameras field of view to Altgens lines of sight . If a researcher wants to be taken seriously they have to learn to check their claims before presenting. Make a few mistakes or ignore the basic rules of perspective and optics and you will not be taken seriously after that.

The unreliable Carcano ammo was known to misfire. That could cause a shallow wound. Multiple witness reports of people hearing firecrackers as opposed to a shockwave and muzzle blast could also be due to a misfire. I have noticed from witness statements that folks in Dallas are especially knowledgeable about guns in general. Many knew the difference between shock wave and muzzle blast. I have always wondered how so many described hearing firecrackers, I think it must be around 30 people. I think it was McClain who said all the pigeons around the TSB flew away when the headshot occurred. Why didn't the first shots startle the birds? Maybe they were misfires.