Chris Bristow

Sandy, I was looking over the shadows of the rifle and newspaper and noticed something. While the newspaper looks to be pointing straight up, the rifle is leaning towards the camera and slightly to the right. To the degree it is leaning at the camera the shadow will move toward a horizontal position. Holding a pen upright on a table under a close light source and rocking it from straight up to 30 degrees forward changed the direction of the shadow by almost 90 degrees. Just how far forward the rifle leans is hard to confirm but it may be a plausible answer for the direction of the shadow.

I took these images from the Dartmouth study assuming they were already sized. The ear tips match well, the mug shot is about 3% larger than the backyard photo. But the face front is an additional 12% larger than the backyard photo. Even though the horizontal measurements of the faces are only off by 3%, the horizontal measurements of the pupillary distances are over 10% larger in the mug shot. The height vs width dimensions are way off, but even the width of the ears vs the eyes are way off. And they are on the same horizontal plane! Makes difficult to compare the Pupillary distance when nothing else matches. I can't find any good reason for these large differences Note: the pupillary measurement on the backyard photo.is taken from a high contrast image of his left eye. The slight rotation of the backyard face was taken into account for the PD measurement.

In the comparison above I have removed the shadow below the tire(On the left) and used an inverted image from Alrgens6(On the right to compare it with. That is followed by a gif of the original image contrasted against the 'shadow removed' image. It looks like the shadow is creating the cut out notch effect. The line of the tire after the photoshop looks a bit too straight but overall it looks pretty convincing, the shadow is the cause of the notch. Here is a single photo to compare tire tread size. The image on the right is again from Altgens 6 inverted.

According to statements made by two of the motor cops they saw the incident happen over their shoulders. Lumpkin said they had come to a stop before the underpass, that he saw the commotion and heard Curry say "Lets go boys". Ellis said Chaney rode up to him and informed him the president's head was blown off. Very strange accounts, all different than the Z film. I was looking at the photo because of the 'missing freight train' theory and became curious about how slow and casually the cops seem to be moving. I am promoting no theory regarding it. It is just weird they were about to get run over unless they hit the throttle bigtime. Diverging a bit I can accept a witness may mistakenly think they see a puff of smoke after hearing a gunshot. But for Officer J.C. White do they have to conclude he only thought he saw a FREIGHT TRAIN pass 20 feet in front of him during the head shot? I just mention it for humors sake.

Thanks David very cool.

Well that might explain why he looks like he is smiling!

Thanks David, the Stemmons was taken down in 1964 so anything added to the Thornton, I assume, would have occurred in 64'. I really don't know what that image above the Thornton is the result of. Anybody got an idea?

Something bothers me about this picture. It looks like the motor cops are putting along at 25mph based on the lean and slight wheel turn Ellis shows. The limo must be doing 50 plus? If so it is less than 2 seconds behind the escort at approx 130 feet back. By their statements they are fully aware they are rushing to Parkland at this point but are riding 3 abreast into a turn they should be rushing through. Lumpkin has his left hand in his lap! I swear Lumpkin and Ellis look like they are smiling. I would expect them to be falling into single file at 40+ mph and not riding with one hand. The slideshow is just that one photo, no need to click on it.

Thanks to Robin for the date and statements about the sign removal. My other question is about the Thornton sign. It has an extra portion added to the top. Is this maybe a Stemmons sign added to it after removing the original? Or is this a kind of photographic artifact?

The Thornton sign is visible but the Stemmons sign is missing. I know about the conspiracy rumors but was it ever taken down officially, and does anyone know the date of this photo? The Stemmons should have it's left pole lined up behind(or close to) the lamppost on the far left and the rest of the sign should protrude to the right. The Thornton sign is exactly where it should be based on the position of the 3 lampposts in front of the TSBD. The other strange thing is on top of the Thornton sign there appears to be another image of the sign starting a couple inches above it. It is about 1/3 the height of the sign. The second video has a close up enhanced view after 10 seconds but the friggin start icon sits right over the subject matter in the thumbnail so you will have to click on it to see the double image.

John, the flat head and see through factor can easily be due to motion blur . The man is very close to the camera and so will move through the frame very quickly and cause blur. Notice the bald spot has straight lines that run at about a 17 degree angle upwards to the right. That is the direction of travel the head took in that 50th? of a second. It created a straight line out of a curved surface and appears flat. In that moment he moved in a straight line and so dragged the image through the frame causing a straight line of blurred image which appears as flat. The see through effect happens because in that 50th of a second he moves forward a bit. In the first 100th of as second(half the total exposure time) his image lands on the film. In the next 100th sec he moves left and now an image of the limo falls on the film right were the back of his coat was. That means two images have fallen on that spot and we see a ghost of the 1st image(the coat) and also the second image of the limo layed over each other. This happens in reverse for the front image of his coat. We might be able to test this because the limo image overlaid within the ghost of his coat should be from different moments in the front compared to the back. The limo image in the back of his coat was made just after the front image. But until we have something to indicate it is not motion blur I have to assume that is what it is.

John, did you find a significant difference between the keystoned face in 133 and non keyed 133b? I think the width difference between backyard and mug shot may be too large to be caused by KS. Note: I just tested it at about 12 degrees and found 9% reduction in width. So my guess was wrong, the keystoning causes enough of a change but wouldn't it narrow the face rather than widen it? The original discrepancy I saw was the backyard face is the wider of the one. Regarding the reversing of the keystone effect by tilting it the other way, I think it would return the vanishing point to its original perspective. But once the width is shortened by the first keystone it would not be recovered by tilting the other side. It seems to me it would further reduce the width. So the register of height to width would be off. I'm thinking if you add KY to the vertical it would correct the height/width ratio but not the vanishing point. And if you add a reverse KY in the width it will fix the vanishing point but further distort the height/width ratio. General info for the group: I don't remember who mentioned the shadow under the nose but I have tested the angle and the skeptics are correct. If you tilt your head to line up with the sun the shadow straightens out. So the strange angle is just due to his tilted head. John, wow that sure is a fat neck on the chubby Oswald photo

Tom Hume, Thanks for the reply, The keystone effect may be the reason Oswald seems to be looking about one degree to the left. I have compared a photo were Oswald is looking 2 degrees left taken my own photos to conclude that if the face is rotated 2 degrees it has little effect. Question: I thought the keystone effect in this case was due to a horizontal tilt of the photo which would narrow the face instead of widen it? John Butler, thanks for the reply, the photo you posted does look chubby. The problem for me is so many folks look very different after boot camp I expect them to beef up in the neck and face too. The other problem is fat makes it hard to find bone structure to measure. The eye position looks correct to me but it can't be measured to the mm. I will take a closer look. One thing you can see from his collar is that the camera was not straight in front of Oswald it was maybe one foot to the left of center. That will cause dimensional differences between his left and right side.

John, regarding the level of the eyes I have to tell you there are a few mistakes. As an Optician I have measured over 20,000 patients pupillary distance as well as the difference in relative height between the eyes. When a patient has one eye that is 3mm or more lower than the other we may compensate by lowering the bifocal in that eye. People do have uneven eyes. A persons ears do not always line up relative to the eyes, they can be unequal. In this case though his left ear will rise up to closely match the other side if you rotate your photo about 3+ degrees to the left. Here is the mug shot photo and backyard photo rotated to vertical for comparison. The uneven eyes in the passport photo are also due to his tilted head. If you rotate your photo it will correct the uneven eye and ears. My best measurement shows his right eye sits 1mm farther out and 1mm or less down. His pupillary distance should be about 34/33 If you want a related puzzle to consider, the mug shot and backyard photos cannot be matched in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions at the same time without distorting one of the photos. The backyard image has a much wider face. You will notice in the photos below the distance between the ears matches within 3% but the vertical dimension is way off.

One more comp.

The 'NORTH' sign below the Stemmons sign appears to have a much larger vertical dimension on the day of the assassination than when the Nuns were there to pray, the next day?. Comparing just the vertical dimensions of the North sign with the vertical dimension of the 77 sign or with the "S" in the word Stemmons, there is a large difference. In the Rickerby photos the 77 sign is about 2.25 times larger than the North sign while in the Nuns photo it is 3 times larger. In the 'Nuns' photo the 77 sign is mounted higher up, closer to the Stemmons sign to compensate for the smaller north sign. In later photos the north sign has returned to the original size. I have a comp photo here.

Paul I know there are lots of fake proofs around using incorrect optical principles and such, but some like John Costella's theory about pincushion distortion in the Stemmons sign are pretty solid. I can't see any valid debunking of his theory. The only counter theory that I know of states that because the poles were leaning there is a swinging motion that you see as the camera panned right. This is the explanation for the change in the poles lean from frame 193 to 228. The problem with that explanation is a pole leaning away from the camera would exhibit a 'with the motion swing.' (I.E. camera pans right, pole also swings right) conversely a pole leaning toward the camera exhibits an against the motion swing. Since the right pole on the Stemmons sign leaned away and Zapruder panned to the right, the direction of the pole swing has to be to the right. But from 193 to 228 the right pole swings to the left. This means the lean of the pole does not explain Costella's anomaly. Not to mention Zapruder panned about one third of one degree but it would take about 11 degrees of movement to cause the 2 degree change seen in the right pole from frame 193 to 228. So if the lean of the pole is not the answer what is the reason for Costella's anomaly? Put a different way the images that have not been corrected for pincushion distortion show the right pole leaning 1 1/2 degrees in both frames 193 and 228. Pincushion should cause a very obvious 2 degree shift but there appears to be no change. There should also be an additional approx 1/4 degree shift to the right due to the poles leaning which I do not see. So at this point I think Mr Costella's observations still raise valid questions about fakery.

Chris Newton, "Has anyone isolated (and maybe flipped for clarity) the reflections on the trunk of the limo? It would be interesting to see if there are any defects in the skyline it shows." Yes I have looked very closely at the trunk reflections and in the end it all seemed correct. The buildings, sky, people, everything. The only thing I found is what appears to be a reflection of the white piece of trash on the grass is actually a pillar directly behind the trash on the South side of the plaza.

Steven, you said "The possibility that a Lincoln Continental would have an exposed "indented screw" as part of the upholstery and that the driver's and passenger's doors would be so obviously asymmetrical as to this feature is inconceivable to me." What seems inconceivable is installing a rivet on the passenger side but not on the drivers side. If your mark is a bullet hole where is the rivet on for the driver side?

The non symmetry of the rivets is a bit strange but if the mark on the driver door is from a bullet then there is no corresponding rivet on the driver door at all!

One mistake Files made was he said the Stemmons sign was about to cut of his field of view and so he "had to take the shot". Of course the headshot came 5 seconds after Kennedy passed the sign, even earlier from Files position. It could not be any other sign as the Ft Worth sign blocked his view several seconds after the headshot. It could only have been the tree on his right. Surprising that such a crucial part of his decision involved that last chance to shoot but he remembers it wrong. He exchanged a cordial letter with a member of the 'family' while in jail, that tells me he did not make it all up. I would think if he falsely implicated Roselli and others he would not be in good favor with the family. I think the basic story could be true but when it comes to filling in for Roselli as a shooter, he may have added that so he could be billed as the guy who shot Kennedy. It is possible he had someone plant the shell casing with the tooth mark. One other thing bothers me. Don't mob hits use professional hit men? People who can not be directly tied to the family. People who come in just to be the gunman, then disappear with no connections? In this case the gunman were also the front team, the same people who were driving around the town days before, visiting the plaza. I thought big hits like the president would not be played so loose. Maybe that is just Hollywood? One more question. I heard a discussion about whether Oswald drove or had a license but Files said Oswald drove a Blue Falcon to his motel room. Has anyone found a Blue Ford Falcon connected to Oswald.

Many of the witnesses said the limo stopped 'or almost stopped'. they were fairly consistent with that caveat which I think adds to their credibility. When you see a car moving very slowly from a distance it takes a second to recognize the motion. So at first we might think it is stopped, then after a second we see motion. if it is barely moving we might be unsure of our perception. Did my head shake or maybe background movement made it look like the limo moved. the fact so many witnesses were not sure if it was going very slow or if it stopped is consistent with seeing a slow moving car from a distance.

I wanted to make comparisons between Oswald's pupillary distance in his mug shot vs the backyard photos. So I thought I could skip matching the size of the two by using the photos from the last Dartmouth study of Oswald's chin. Well those two photos have some problems. You can match the height or the width but not both. There is a mismatch of about 15% to 18%. Here is a short slideshow comparing Oswald facial dimensions. Comparing Oswald height and width and pupillary distance in his mug shot shows it is inconsistent with the backyard image. While the width of the mug shot (ear to ear) is within a 6% of the backyard image, the mug shot face is 15% taller. The structure of the backyard image with its narrow P.D. and wide face looks very similar to the photo of the Oswald impersonator from the Mexico consulate. The shape of the narrow brow and the wide cheeks looks very similar to me. https://youtu.be/4IYlhF5vjiI

Did the SS ever make an attempt to identify those two agents? The explanation for their presence is that a call went out to off duty agents of many agencies to provide extra security that day. So there was no official SS presence on the ground in Dealey Plaza just unnamed volunteers. The SS could have determined which of their agents was there simply by asking all of them so why do we not have witness statements from these two. First hand accounts of the assassination and closest to the knoll. Two people claim to be SS you would think the agency would want to verify who they were.