Bill Fite

Yes, I agree w you... sorry. I was just trying to say that LHO was not a professional assassin so would have had lower probability of success as you said.

Yeah..... we're not talking about an anti-Castro Cuban trained to assassinate Fidel, or a mafia hit man, or an assassin for hire from Marseille, or a military trained assassin, etc. but a hypothesized guy with a junk weapon and no experience or training other than Marine basic training (assumption). So, I agree his probability was probably lower, but the above is a conservative estimate w/o that assumption. btw - the prob(success) on the deformed bullets should have been total successes, likewise on the prob(failure) .... sorry about that.

Maybe this should be looked at in terms of probability models. If we take a simple Bayesian coin-tossing model we could start from the unbiased position that the odds are 50:50 on making the shot in the allotted time. This is modeled as 1 Success and 1 Failure. The probability of success = 1 / (1+1) = 0.5. If I am understanding correctly: Taking the results of the experiment described above and starting with S=1 & F=1 we would get probability of success = (3+1) / (3 + 34 + 1 + 1) = 0.1025 or about a 10% chance of success. However, that only looks at one of the experiments that have been run. For the lone nut hypothesis to be true all would have to occur so the probabilities of success have to be multiplied together to get the probability of lone nut success. Another experimental result that is known is shown in the WC exhibit of MC bullets fired into goat carcasses and human cadaver wrists. I believe there were 3 shown all of which were deformed. So following the same logic as above prob(success) = 1 + 0 bullets tested that were not deformed prob failure = 1 + 3 bullets that were deformed prob of success = 1 / 5 = 0.2 So after just those 2 experiments the probability of a lone assassin is now prob(make shot = success) * prob(bullet will not be deformed) = 0.0205 or 1 in 50 successes The list of other evidence that could be estimated by experiments might include but not be limited to: * how many times in a number of trials an object (for example a watermelon) suspended from above by strings or below by a spring goes back in the direction of the shooter when shot by a MC rifle & ammo. * how many times in a shot from the angles between the TSBD window & JFK exits the side of the skull instead of the right front face * other experiments Another experimental result that could be included is the Neutron Activation Analysis on the paraffin test from LHO's cheek. The paraffin test was negative for gunpowder residues. So the FBI went to the next step and ran a chemical spectroscopy test. It was also negative. The FBI then sent it off to Oak Ridge Labs for NAA. It turned out negative again. (Note this is a test for any presence and not to be confused with the test for distribution of chemicals that failed to show statistical significance that the bullet fragments all came from the same bullet batch) The FBI then had 7 agents fire the MC rifle, took their paraffin tests and had NAA tests done. All 7 were positive for gunpowder chemicals. So that would be a prob(lone nut) = 1 / (1+1+7) = 0.1111 again factoring in the 1:1 50:50 starting probability. Multiplying that by the previous result gives approximately a 0.002 probability of a lone assassin passing all 3 tests successfully. Of course any evidence that would make the hypothesis of a loan assassin impossible would reduce the final probability to 0. Back and to the left and the larger bullet fragments being in the back of the skull and smaller in the front in the autopsy x-rays accomplish this for some based on the law of conservation of momentum.

I had some emergency training years ago -- airplane crashes / flight attendant training. We were told that until the crash landing one would not know what people would do in such a stressful situation: * positive panic - move to help others and save as many as possible * freeze - self explanatory * negative panic - panic and get in the way, possibly negatively panicking others. I have no idea if this is valid or not.... but that is what they told us.

Interesting video. Just as "experiments can prove a theory" they can also disprove one as the video demonstrates.

So did Jimmy Buffet

Oh... sorry - that was from:

I started reading about the murder of JFK leading up to its 50th anniversary. Like the account in the Dallas Morning News of the man who tried to warn the motorcade just before it reached Dealey Plaza and was tackled by the Secret Service, this was the other item I read that most surprised me. It refers to the morning of the 22nd in Ft Worth outside the hotel when JFK addressed the crowds. Has anyone ever run across any other information concerning / corroborating this?

I was living in Denver when the huge forest fire south of the city struck. I got up the morning it hit not knowing what it was and thought that the orange hazy sky was an indication that the world was ending. Strangely I didn't feel fear, just curiosity. Hope it rains.

I think this is it, it was one of the most surprising things I've read when I started reading books on the murder of JFK. "The Dallas Morning News reported that a man had run alongside Kennedy’s limousine a few minutes before the assassination, shouting a warning before being tackled by Secret Service agents from the followup car to Vice President Johnson’s vehicle, three car lengths behind the president." McBride, Joseph. Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit (p. 524). Hightower Press. Kindle Edition.