Keven Hofeling

Yes, @John Costella is a member of this forum, but hasn't posted for a number of years, and he did post a review critical of Doug Horne's Inside the Assassination Records Review Board which seemed to focus primarily upon issues related to the fact that the five volumes were self-published, but as you will see below, Costella continued to agree with Horne on certain matters concerning the alteration of the Zapruder film. But you are really setting up an enormous straw man fallacy when you insinuate that anyone who suspects that photographic evidence related to the JFKA is doing so just to support "Horne's theories." For example, I had serious suspicions about the autopsy photographs and the Zapruder film in the early 80's before I had ever heard of Doug Horne, and when Horne started putting out information to the research community in the 1990's about the work of the ARRB, and especially after he published his books in 2009, he filled in many gaps in my understanding about the medical evidence and Zapruder film photographic forgery, but it was not because he had presented me with theories that he had made up, but because he brought to my attention new evidence that had been heretofore unknown to me, such as the Tom Robinson and Ed Reed interviews, and the interviews of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter. Horne did not make up these interviews and associated evidence, and his interpretations of same, though imperfect in some minor instances, do not constitute deviations from the evidence he is interpreting. Horne has done a great service to the research community, and it is perhaps for that reason that he has become such a lightning rod for lone nutters and hybrid lone nutters like yourself. Having said that, I can't recall ever seeing Denise post accolades for Doug Horne, and that your lens translates any mention of any researcher who has concluded that some of the JFKA photographic evidence is fraudulent as meaning that they are doing nothing other but supporting "Horne's theories" just serves to further reveal formidable bias and resentment on your part (perhaps best exemplified by your very recent ridiculous musings that anybody who disagrees with your methods and interpretations is engaged in a conspiracy against you on behalf of Doug Horne and/or Dr. David Mantik). You wear your resentments like a scarlet letter, and that is plain for all to see. As for when the LIFE computation notes were made, that's a complete mystery, as there is nothing in that page or the couple of pages with similar data that provides us with a date. But what we do know is that McMahon and Hunter both said they did not produce and had never seen those pages before when asked by the ARRB. When this same controversy was being discussed on this forum over fourteen years ago, John Costella weighed in with his belief that the LIFE computations were made some time after Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 article in LIFE in an effort to try to figure out how Mandel came to the conclusions that he did (recall that the 12/6/1963 article was a propaganda piece apparently calculated to sell the Oswald scenario, blatantly misrepresenting the Parkland evidence, and claiming that Kennedy had been shot in the throat while turned around and waiving to the crowd). Costella, in my view, has the most plausible explanation. https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15387-arrb-interview-homer-mcmahon/?do=findComment&comment=183378 Except that McMahon and Hunter specifically disclaimed producing or having ever seen the three pages of notes you wish to rely upon for setting the date of the second briefing board session beyond 12/6/1963, as shown in the following: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A. NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him. [Emphasis not in original] From pages 18-20 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon, with images of the documents being discussed: Horne (22:39): OK, we're back on the record. And from Record Group 233, Flat 90A, at the Archives, I have pulled out, ah, document ID number 1993.07.22.08:41:07:620600, titled "Analysis of Zapruder Film." Ah, the document date on the RIF [Record Identification Form] is 5-22-1975; and I'm now going to hand these, ah, notes to Mr. McMahon and let him read them and tell us whether he's seen them before. Please take your time. McMahon (24:35): [Witness examines documents for a considerable period of time --- a total of five pages, with one page a half-sheet, having writing on both sides.] Some of the writing is mine; I don't know whose this is. Horne: And by "this" --- ah, this page here, sir? McMahon: I don't know whose that is. Horne: OK, the page that we're not sure about is the page with 3 shot scenarios --- ah, one, one [shot scenario] is labeled: "LIFE magazine," and then the [other] two [are labeled] "other possibilities," OK. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: OK, the one that Mr. McMahon has identified as his writing is on the back side of a half- - 18 - page, and the back side reads: "shoot internegatives, one-and-a-half hours; process and dry internegatives, two hours; print test, one hour; make three prints," [it] looks like, the 'each' sign [that is, the symbol "@" follows the phrase "make three prints," and precedes the time duration of "one hour; process and dry prints, one-and-a-half hours;" for a total of "seven hours." McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Below that, there are some --- that's in pencil /meaning the time duration for the creation of internegatives and prints discussed above] --- below that there are some blue ink, ah, long divisions and additions. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: And those [the arithmetic calculations in blue ink] are also your writing? McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Also the pencil? McMahon: Yes. Horne: OK, could you explain what that --- well, what are the long divisions and additions, do you recall what those are? McMahon: [Sighing] Idiot marks --- I don't know what they --- it's my writing, I think. Horne: OK McMahon: No, wait --- wait a minute --- I think it's my --- it's either mine or Ben's. Horne: OK McMahon: And, have you got Ben's handwriting? Horne: I, I can show you one section on these notes that he recalled was his handwriting, ah, if you'd like, and then I can ask you that --- McMahon: This --- this looks like Ben's handwriting, here. Horne: OK, and now you are looking at the other side of the half-sheet --- McMahon: This looks like my writing here --- Horne: --- OK, the other side of the half-sheet, which is a description of the four (4) briefing board panels, and when you said it looked like Ben's writing you were pointing at the, the pencil: "Panel I, Panel II, Panel III, Panel IV." [Transcriber's note: these are column headers on the short half-sheet; and below each column header there are two sub-columns, listing print numbers, and corresponding frame numbers, for the prints mounted on each briefing board panel.] McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Ben identified for us, right below that, ah, the printing: "print #" and "frame #" --- these, these two marks here are the only two that he thought were his writing, right here, in [pointing] --- which are underneath the column labeled "Panel I." McMahon (27:01): Mmm-hmmm. This is in --- this looks like Ben's writing, to what I ... [now, suddenly focusing on the bottom of the half-sheet] this looks like my writing. Horne: And your writing, ah, would be, ah, at the bottom of the half page, where we're, we're talking about frame numbers and time between shots. [Transcriber's note: the writing referred to here is found at the bottom of the front of the half-sheet, the side containing the content descriptions for the four briefing board panels.] - 19 - McMahon: This is --- yeah --- and, I'm not sure about this --- this looks like mine, and this looks like mine.Horne: OK, so the, ah --- McMahon: Ah --- Horne (27:33): --- just for the record, the descriptions of how long it took to make internegatives and prints are Mr. McMahon's writing. McMahon (27:54): This is not mine. Horne: OK, Mr. McMahon is now looking at the page, ah, [wherein] the top half says, "at 18 frames per second;" the bottom half [reads] "at 16 frames per second;" and he has just said that --- McMahon: This is not mine. Horne: --- that is not his writing. McMahon: OK, and, this is not my writing --- and now, that might have been Ben Hunter's writing. Horne: This next page that is not Mr. McMahon's writing is a page which, in the upper right-hand corner, reads: "Questions from the 8 mm film --- how do they know exact frames of first and second shot?" Question --- McMahon: OK, we didn't know --- we were told what they thought they were; and this is what we were told they thought they were; and this is what we concluded they were; and this is what we set the photography team [unclear]. Ah [that's the] best I can do for ya. Gunn (28:57): Do you remember when you prepared the notes that we just examined? McMahon: Yeah, we were in a briefing room, ah, in building 213 in the Navy Yard. And, it was --- we were viewing it there because of the equipment. Gunn: So they --- these were made on the day then that you --- [were] processing --- McMahon: Yes, this is when we --- these are fairly accurate timing shots --- tim -- -the way that, that it, that we timed it. The 16 frames per second --- I, I don't know whether I agree on the 18 --- it might have been 18 frames per second. This might have been a further analysis. Gunn: Do you know whether somebody else was preparing other notes that you don't recognize, at that time, or were they made later [unclear]? McMahon: Ah, they, they conform to my best recollection of, of what we wrote on, that's all I know. I don't know why I remembered that. Horne: By that you mean the yellow, legal-sized paper? McMahon: Yeah. It's the tortured and implausible interpretations of you and your lone-nutter and hybrid-lone-nutter confederates that are problematic, not Horne's straightforward interpretation of the NPIC evidence. But you wouldn't know that because, as you have elsewhere confessed, you are absolutely unfamiliar with this evidence which you are so opinionated about. It wouldn't add up if there was any truth to your claim, made elsewhere, that Brugioni claimed there was an explosion at the top of JFK's head. That claim, of course, is just as valid and sound as the claims you make about others, such as Dr. Robert McClelland, Nurse Audrey Bell and James Jenkins... Here at 1:02 is that hand gesture of Brugioni's that you claim indicates he had seen an explosion at the top of JFK's head:

@Pat Speer If you are talking about your notion that Dino Brugioni claimed that the head shot plume that he remembers is somehow associated with the top of JFK's head, the answer is that you are getting that from a very brief and ambiguous upward gesture Brugioni made with his hand above his head during his interview by Horne. At the time of the gesture, Brugioni was saying that there was more to the plume than can be seen today, and that it went higher in the air. Somehow your mind has twisted this into meaning that Brugioni was talking about an explosion on the top of JFK's head, but other than the ambiguous hand gesture, Brugioni never communicated what you keep asserting that he did. The following is the abbreviated version of Horne's take on the two events at NPIC, and on Dino Brugioni. It is long and comprehensive, but much shorter than the chapters he devotes to the matter in Volume IV of his book... "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration" by Douglas P. Horne https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/

The issue with regard to the briefing board session conducted by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, it seems to me, is whether or not the timing analysis sheets based upon Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 LIFE article were produced during their briefing board session or were produced by others unknown during some subsequent NPIC analysis of some kind. You seem to be assuming that if any type of timing analysis was performed during McMahon and Hunter's NPIC briefing board session that such timing analysis accounts for the creation of the three full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes containing three possible 3-shot scenarios and a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis ("the LIFE computations"), and I think this assumption is unwarranted, based upon the available evidence. The following are the references that Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter made to the analysis of the film they were involved in, and not only did neither of them mention anything even suggestive of any analysis of Paul Mandel's 12/6/1963 LIFE article, but they both denied producing or ever having seen the LIFE computations when the three full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes containing three possible 3-shot scenarios and a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis were shown to them by the ARRB. Thus, it appears certain that a timing analysis was conducted by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter but I see nothing in the documented record to serve as justification for your conflation of the two events, and solid documented justifications for concluding that the analysis conducted by McMahon and Hunter (and apparently unnamed others) was not the same event that produced the LIFE computations, namely that they both specifically indicated they had no knowledge of the LIFE computations when asked: From the 6/12/1997 ARRB Call Report of a telephonic interview of Homer McMahon: -McMahon did recall the Zapruder film analysis in some detail, and confirmed ARRB's understanding that the analysis (of which frames in which shots struck occupants of the limousine) was performed at the request of the Secret Service. [Emphasis not in original] -Prior to the production of intemegatives and color prints for briefing boards, he said he recalled an analysis "to determine where the 3 shots hit." He said he would not share the results of the analysis with us on the telephone. The film was projected as a motion picture 4 or 5 times during the analysis phase, for purposes of determining "where the 3 shots hit." [Emphasis not in original] From the 6/17/1997 ARRB Meeting Report of the in-person interview of Ben Hunter: ...He said that the assigned task was to analyze (i.e., locate on the film) where occupants of the limousine were wounded, including "studying frames leading up to shots," and then produce color prints from appropriate frames just prior to shots, and also frames showing shots impacting limousine occupants. He recalled laying the home movie out on a light table and using a loupe to examine individual frames. [Emphasis not in original] From the 7/14/1997 ARRB Meeting Report of the in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Although the process of selecting which frames depicted events surrounding the wounding of limousine occupants (Kennedy and Connally) was a "joint process," McMahon said his opinion, which was that President Kennedy was shot 6 to 8 times from at least three directions, was ultimately ignored, and the opinion of USSS agent Smith, that there were 3 shots from behind from the Book Depository, ultimately was employed in selecting frames in the movie for reproduction. At one point he said "you can't fight city hall," and then reminded us that his job was to produce intemnegatives and photographs, not to do analysis. He said that it was clear that the Secret Service agent had previously viewed the film and already had opinions about which frames depicted woundings. [Emphasis not in original] From page 4 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: McMahon (12:04): Well --- ah --- heh, heh --- well, Eastman Kodak had, had contracts with the U.S. government, and if you want to know, you can go through the CIA, they'll tell you [unclear]. OK, but he, he got the film processed, and he brought it to us, and he, and three other people, ah, timed the film, for the --- through observation you could tell where the gunshots actually caused the hits and the slumps. We didn't know anything about any audio --- ah, it was just visual. And we timed it and determined, where the, the time between the, ah --- physically timed it, with a stopwatch --- ah, where the gunshot "hits" hit. And we, we, we, we went from, I think, maybe two frames before the first hit, and then we hit every single frame --- through, and we only, he only counted three hits, possibly four --- ah, couldn't tell, I think, when, when Connally got hit. It was obvious when, when he [JFK] got hit the first time, and then the second time, as his head [was] going off into the angle, up, and --- [Emphasis not in original] From page 9 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: McMahon (35:33): Ah --- now, the, the mounting on the briefing boards, and the, the photointerpretation, so to speak --- I was not involved in, OK --- Horne: OK 16 McMahon: --- and, I think I went home. Heh, but Smith probably went to another --- it's not even a vaulted area, it's a finishing room upstairs. Horne: Ah, did you and Mr. Hunter stop work at about the same time, or do you recall? McMahon: Well, he might have stayed on and helped, but, ah, there was another chap that probably was involved in that work, and it probably was done by the other chap, not --- and I'm sure Bill Smith.... [Emphasis not in original] From page 10 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Horne (37:13): Ah, you just mentioned another chap who may have been involved with briefing boards and photoanalysis --- McMahon: --- and I can't recall his name --- Horne: --- can't recall his name --- McMahon: --- even if I could, I couldn't tell you, because he was young. [Transcriber's note: the witness meant that because this person was a young employee in November of 1963, he might still be "current" or active, in 1997 at the time of the interview, and for that reason he would not divulge his name, even if he remembered it. The CIA culture is very protective of the names of its employees, particularly if they are operating under cover.] [Emphasis not in original] From page 11 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Horne (40:01): Did you create, or do you recall anyone else creating, any records or notes during your work? McMahon: I think, ah, Hunter and I did the only records of the work, and I think it was on, a, either a yellow, or a ah, a ah --- [chuckling] add something to this --- Horne: You, you just put your hand on a yellow legal pad --- McMahon: Yeah, it was on a legal type pad, unless it was recorded on --- we made our own, ah, marks on some of the --- to keep the --- but I did not put any classification or any[thing] of that nature--- I didn't put any control, no classification or control on any of the documents. Normally that's required before you could leave the vault; it has to be controlled with a Top Secret cover sheet. I did not do that. Now, after the briefing board is made from the material, then that classification precedes the classification of, in the [unclear] cover sheets. We made briefing boards, teleprompters, and view graphs, as --- for dissemination to the Intelligence Community. Horne: For other types of work --- ah, routine --- but for this job you, you recall that you may have made notes on a yellow legal pad --- McMahon (41:35): Now, I 'm sure that this did --- I'm sure that this did not go to the Intelligence Community --- it was not part of the CIA --- it was not --- this was [done on] a, a "need-to know" basis, and it was used by whoever brought it in [chuckling] for, for either the Warren Commission, or to brief somebody else. From page 12 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Gunn: Ah, yes. Ah, this goes back to something you said, ah, early on in the interview, where, ah, a couple of things, where you said, as I recall, ah: "He had --- he took three hits, possibly four." And it wasn't clear to me whether the "he" was Kennedy, or included Connally. Did, did you reach a conclusion as to the number of hits 20 that you thought President Kennedy had [unclear --- several words too indistinct to be made out]? McMahon (45:13): Ah, my guess was 6 or 8, but the, the consensus of opinion was 2 or 3. Gunn: Hits on Kennedy? McMahon: Yeah. Connally, they said it hit Kennedy and then went into Connally --- ricocheted. Horne: Did they say that that night? Or is this --- McMahon: That, that, that was the --- we, we were just trying to, to get where all the shots of action ---and covered frames from both ends of it.... From page 16 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Gunn (13:18): So, what was it that you observed on the film of the assassination? 26 Horne: Your opinion. McMahon: About eight (8) shots. Gunn: And where did they come from? McMahon: Three different directions, at least. Gunn: Do you remember where --- what the directions were? McMahon: No; but if you have the film --- you can plot vectors. Because you, you can go out --- I'm a photogrammetrist, as well [chuckling] --- [you] go out --- with a --- OK, there's a way to do it, believe me. Gunn: Were you ever asked to do any of that kind of analysis on the --- McMahon: No, no. Gunn: Did you say this at the time that you were looking at the film with the others? McMahon: I wasn't a photogrammatrist at that time [chuckling]. Gunn: No, I understand, but if --- when --- when you --- McMahon: I later, I later worked for Photoscience. This was a photogrammetry [job] --- I was a, a, a [sic] aerial photographer, and I, I did aerial photography for, ah, whatever you want to call it, for mapping, for first, second, [and] third order, ah, survey; and I did that for about twelve years. McMahon (14:38): And --- now, I was a shooter, and that's the only reason I can tell you what I saw, and thought I saw; and it wasn't stereo-vision, it was just intuition. No, I did not agree with the analysis at the time that I was doing the work; but that --- I didn't have to, because I wasn't a photogrammetrist [chuckling], I wasn't, I wasn't asked to do that. Yes, the following is suggestive that there were issues involving the involvement in the analysis of individuals whose identities were still classified at the time of the ARRB in-person interview of McMahon. Something that goes with the landscape involved, the CIA, and spooks, and all that... From page 10 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Horne (37:13): Ah, you just mentioned another chap who may have been involved with briefing boards and photoanalysis --- McMahon: --- and I can't recall his name --- Horne: --- can't recall his name --- McMahon: --- even if I could, I couldn't tell you, because he was young. [Transcriber's note: the witness meant that because this person was a young employee in November of 1963, he might still be "current" or active, in 1997 at the time of the interview, and for that reason he would not divulge his name, even if he remembered it. The CIA culture is very protective of the names of its employees, particularly if they are operating under cover.] [Emphasis not in original] I've seen no indication that the ARRB ever learned the identities of the three NPIC employees you've referenced, and Ben Hunter in fact did indicate that he was assigned to "analyze (i.e., locate on the film) where occupants of the limousine were wounded, including "studying frames leading up to shots," and then produce color prints from appropriate frames just prior to shots, and also frames showing shots impacting limousine occupants," and Homer McMahon told the ARRB that he left the facility earlier than Hunter, that Hunter "might have stayed on and helped" with the analysis, and that both he and Hunter recorded calculations on a yellow legal pad (though McMahon and Hunter both denied having any knowledge of the pages containing the LIFE computations): From the 6/17/1997 ARRB Meeting Report of the in-person interview of Ben Hunter: ...He said that the assigned task was to analyze (i.e., locate on the film) where occupants of the limousine were wounded, including "studying frames leading up to shots," and then produce color prints from appropriate frames just prior to shots, and also frames showing shots impacting limousine occupants. He recalled laying the home movie out on a light table and using a loupe to examine individual frames. [Emphasis not in original] From page 9 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: McMahon (35:33): Ah --- now, the, the mounting on the briefing boards, and the, the photointerpretation, so to speak --- I was not involved in, OK --- Horne: OK 16 McMahon: --- and, I think I went home. Heh, but Smith probably went to another --- it's not even a vaulted area, it's a finishing room upstairs. Horne: Ah, did you and Mr. Hunter stop work at about the same time, or do you recall? McMahon: Well, he might have stayed on and helped, but, ah, there was another chap that probably was involved in that work, and it probably was done by the other chap, not --- and I'm sure Bill Smith.... [Emphasis not in original] But when asked, Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon both did not recognize the three legal pad pages of timing analysis data that are arguably associated with the 12/6/1963 LIFE article. I don't see how you can justify just ignoring this fact: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A. NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him. [Emphasis not in original] From pages 18-20 of the transcript of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon, with images of the documents being discussed: Horne (22:39): OK, we're back on the record. And from Record Group 233, Flat 90A, at the Archives, I have pulled out, ah, document ID number 1993.07.22.08:41:07:620600, titled "Analysis of Zapruder Film." Ah, the document date on the RIF [Record Identification Form] is 5-22-1975; and I'm now going to hand these, ah, notes to Mr. McMahon and let him read them and tell us whether he's seen them before. Please take your time. McMahon (24:35): [Witness examines documents for a considerable period of time --- a total of five pages, with one page a half-sheet, having writing on both sides.] Some of the writing is mine; I don't know whose this is. Horne: And by "this" --- ah, this page here, sir? McMahon: I don't know whose that is. Horne: OK, the page that we're not sure about is the page with 3 shot scenarios --- ah, one, one [shot scenario] is labeled: "LIFE magazine," and then the [other] two [are labeled] "other possibilities," OK. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: OK, the one that Mr. McMahon has identified as his writing is on the back side of a half- - 18 - page, and the back side reads: "shoot internegatives, one-and-a-half hours; process and dry internegatives, two hours; print test, one hour; make three prints," [it] looks like, the 'each' sign [that is, the symbol "@" follows the phrase "make three prints," and precedes the time duration of "one hour; process and dry prints, one-and-a-half hours;" for a total of "seven hours." McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Below that, there are some --- that's in pencil /meaning the time duration for the creation of internegatives and prints discussed above] --- below that there are some blue ink, ah, long divisions and additions. McMahon: This is my writing. Horne: And those [the arithmetic calculations in blue ink] are also your writing? McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Also the pencil? McMahon: Yes. Horne: OK, could you explain what that --- well, what are the long divisions and additions, do you recall what those are? McMahon: [Sighing] Idiot marks --- I don't know what they --- it's my writing, I think. Horne: OK McMahon: No, wait --- wait a minute --- I think it's my --- it's either mine or Ben's. Horne: OK McMahon: And, have you got Ben's handwriting? Horne: I, I can show you one section on these notes that he recalled was his handwriting, ah, if you'd like, and then I can ask you that --- McMahon: This --- this looks like Ben's handwriting, here. Horne: OK, and now you are looking at the other side of the half-sheet --- McMahon: This looks like my writing here --- Horne: --- OK, the other side of the half-sheet, which is a description of the four (4) briefing board panels, and when you said it looked like Ben's writing you were pointing at the, the pencil: "Panel I, Panel II, Panel III, Panel IV." [Transcriber's note: these are column headers on the short half-sheet; and below each column header there are two sub-columns, listing print numbers, and corresponding frame numbers, for the prints mounted on each briefing board panel.] McMahon: Yeah. Horne: Ben identified for us, right below that, ah, the printing: "print #" and "frame #" --- these, these two marks here are the only two that he thought were his writing, right here, in [pointing] --- which are underneath the column labeled "Panel I." McMahon (27:01): Mmm-hmmm. This is in --- this looks like Ben's writing, to what I ... [now, suddenly focusing on the bottom of the half-sheet] this looks like my writing. Horne: And your writing, ah, would be, ah, at the bottom of the half page, where we're, we're talking about frame numbers and time between shots. [Transcriber's note: the writing referred to here is found at the bottom of the front of the half-sheet, the side containing the content descriptions for the four briefing board panels.] - 19 - McMahon: This is --- yeah --- and, I'm not sure about this --- this looks like mine, and this looks like mine. Horne: OK, so the, ah --- McMahon: Ah --- Horne (27:33): --- just for the record, the descriptions of how long it took to make internegatives and prints are Mr. McMahon's writing. McMahon (27:54): This is not mine. Horne: OK, Mr. McMahon is now looking at the page, ah, [wherein] the top half says, "at 18 frames per second;" the bottom half [reads] "at 16 frames per second;" and he has just said that --- McMahon: This is not mine. Horne: --- that is not his writing. McMahon: OK, and, this is not my writing --- and now, that might have been Ben Hunter's writing. Horne: This next page that is not Mr. McMahon's writing is a page which, in the upper right-hand corner, reads: "Questions from the 8 mm film --- how do they know exact frames of first and second shot?" Question --- McMahon: OK, we didn't know --- we were told what they thought they were; and this is what we were told they thought they were; and this is what we concluded they were; and this is what we set the photography team [unclear]. Ah [that's the] best I can do for ya. Gunn (28:57): Do you remember when you prepared the notes that we just examined? McMahon: Yeah, we were in a briefing room, ah, in building 213 in the Navy Yard. And, it was --- we were viewing it there because of the equipment. Gunn: So they --- these were made on the day then that you --- [were] processing --- McMahon: Yes, this is when we --- these are fairly accurate timing shots --- tim -- -the way that, that it, that we timed it. The 16 frames per second --- I, I don't know whether I agree on the 18 --- it might have been 18 frames per second. This might have been a further analysis. Gunn: Do you know whether somebody else was preparing other notes that you don't recognize, at that time, or were they made later [unclear]? McMahon: Ah, they, they conform to my best recollection of, of what we wrote on, that's all I know. I don't know why I remembered that. Horne: By that you mean the yellow, legal-sized paper? McMahon: Yeah. See above. There were three sheets that McMahon did not recognize. The LIFE computations sheet, the sheet with 18 FPS at the top and 16 FPS in the middle, and the sheet directly above that mentions LIFE magazine on the top left side. These are all of the sheets that have anything to do with the 12/6/1963 LIFE article, and this combined with the other disclaimers of McMahon and Hunter has great probative value and is entitled to significant evidentiary weight. Hunter's opinion that McMahon had a good memory is one of the reasons why I suspect that after his first ARRB telephonic interview, McMahon was either advised or decided himself to throw a poison pill into the mix, deliberately sabotaging the credibility of his account. I'd like further substantiation of his dementia/alcoholism claims... You are grasping at straws, Mr. Gram. There is zero evidence that the LIFE computations have anything to do with McMahon and Hunter's briefing board session, and a good deal of affirmative evidence that they don't. I'm aware of no transcript of Ben Hunter's ARRB interview, and I'd be interested in seeing specific examples from you in support of your contention that "McMahon’s actual transcript, which you provided, reveals a lot of relevant information that was not reported by Horne in the summary report."

Mr. Gram, you seem to be placing an enormous amount of emphasis on Doug Horne's speculation about the significance of the sheet of timing analysis data that appears to rely upon the 12/6/1963 LIFE article of Paul Mandel that was turned over to the Rockefeller Commission by the CIA in 1975, characterizing it as "documentary evidence" cited by "Doug Horne, himself" that the second NPIC briefing board session could not have taken place until after Paul Mandel's article was published by LIFE on 12/6/1963. The speculation of Doug Horne you are relying upon was made in memos written by Horne prior to the ARRB's discovery of the NPIC employees who conducted the second briefing board session, Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, and the subsequent interviews of the two men which resulted in Horne reassessing and amending his earlier speculation because both McMahon and Hunter attested that the NPIC briefing board session had taken place the weekend of the assassination prior to the funeral of the President AND both men, after having been shown the timing analysis in question, had specifically disclaimed producing it, and stated they had never seen it before. The timing analysis in question is as follows: And as Doug Horne would point out again in 2009, on page 1208 of his Inside the Records Review Board, the significance of the timing analysis in relation to the 12/6/1963 Paul Mandel LIFE article is as follows: But the problem with using the above as "documentary evidence" that the second briefing board session at NPIC did not take place until after 12/6/1963 is that when asked, Ben Hunter and Homer McMahon both did not recognize that particular sheet of timing analysis data: From page 3 of the Meeting Report of the 6/17/1997 in-person interview of Ben Hunter: -He did not recognize any of the other pages in the NPIC working notes, nor did he think that such activity (e.g., 3 different shot scenarios, and calculation of seconds between shots at two different camera speeds) took place during the night he and Mr. McMahon performed their work. He was of the belief that the activity described in the NPIC working notes occurred during a second event at NPIC, one which occurred after the work done by he and Mr. McMahon. [Emphasis not in original] From page 2 of the Meeting Report of the 7/14/1997 in-person interview of Homer McMahon: Toward the end of the interview, McMahon was shown the NPIC working notes and the surviving briefing board (there are four panels), which are both in the JFK Collection in flat # 90A. NPIC Working Notes: McMahon recognized the half-sized sheet of yellow legal paper containing a handwritten description of briefing board panel contents, and on its reverse side containing a description of the work performed that night and how long each step took, as being written in his own handwriting (and partially in Ben Hunter's). He said that three other full-length yellow legal pad pages of notes (containing three possible 3-shot scenarios, a 16 FPS and 18 FPS timing analysis, and additional timing computations) were not in his handwriting, and were not made by him or previously seen by him. [Emphasis not in original] Below, please find the original ARRB Meeting Reports for Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, containing the above referenced passages (and with indications highlighted that they were working with what they believed to be the camera-original Zapruder film under the supervision of the Secret Service during the weekend of the assassination at NPIC):

The following file contains the ARRB Homer McMahon interviews of 6/12/1997 and 7/14/1997, and the ARRB Ben Hunter interviews of 6/17/1997 and 6/26/1997 (I was unable to locate the ARRB joint interview of McMahon and Hunter dated 8/14/1997): https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2022/104-10336-10024.pdf Transcript of ARRB Staff Interview of Homer A. McMahon (Former CIA/NPIC Employee) conducted on July 14, 1997 at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. Interviewers: Douglas P. Horne and T. Jeremy Gunn. (Transcribed by Douglas Horne in May 2012): https://dickatlee.com/issues/assassinations/jfk/homer_mcmahon_transcript_reformat.pdf Pages 1220-1226 of Volume IV of Doug Horne's self-published book, Inside the Records Review Board (2009), containing summaries and analysis of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter ARRB interviews follows:

Mr. Bojczuk, you state that David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003) is the "definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film, but in light of the issues Doug Horne raises with the book in pages 1226-1230 of Volume IV of his self-published book, Inside the Records Review Board (2009), it is difficult to take this claim seriously. Horne documents a series of misrepresentations and omissions made by Wrone concerning the critical subject of the evidence of a broken chain of custody of the camera-original Zapruder film the weekend of the assassination, and even demonstrates that Wrone's criticisms of the ARRB interviews of NPIC's Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter (which Wrone misrepresents as instead being the claims of Doug Horne himself) contradicted evidence Wrone presented earlier in his book concerning his (Wrone's) interview of Dino Brugioni which, unbeknownst to Wrone, had established that Brugioni had made briefing boards using the camera-original Zapruder film at NPIC during the weekend of the assassination. Starting at the top of page 1229 (see below), Horne points out that Wrone, on page 125 of The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination, recited the findings of an interview he had conducted of Dino Brugioni on May 12, 2003, duringh which Brugioni had recounted that the Secret Service had presented the Zapruder film to him in 8mm format, and that Brugioni had to wake a local merchant to requisition an 8mm projector, because NPIC did not possess one to show the film. Wrone evidently did not realize the significance of this: The copies of the Zapruder film were in 16mm format, and it was only the camera-original film that was in 8mm format. When Doug Horne would himself interview Dino Brugioni on film six years later, Brugioni would tell him the same story about getting a local merchant to open his store late at night so that NPIC could requisition an 8mm projector, as follows: When Peter Janney and Doug Horne conducted their interviews of Dino Brugioni six years later, they discovered that Brugioni had led an entirely different briefing board session than the one described by Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter that had been so completely compartmentalized that the two separate crews had no knowledge of the other briefing board session, and David Wrone completely missed this, and simply conflated the two briefing board sessions into one. David Wrone had stumbled across the definitive evidence that the Zapruder film that was at the NPIC the evening of Saturday, November 23, 1963, was in fact the camera original Zapruder film, and yet he completely failed to realize its implications. David Wrone's The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003) is therefore anything but the "definitive account of the history of the Zapruder film." That this article is extremely biased and one sided is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that it provides links to every significant anti-alteration article and website available, but fails to mention or provide a link to the best source of information about the two NPIC events available on the web: "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration" by Douglas P. Horne https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/ And that, for example, it includes a link to Rollie Zavada's response to Doug Horne, and fails to include a link to Doug Horne's reply to Zavada's response: DOUG HORNE'S 5/29/2010 RESPONSE TO ROLLIE ZAVADA'S CRITIQUE OF 'CHAPTER 14: THE ZAPRUDER FILM MYSTERY' OF "INSIDE THE ASSASSINATION RECORDS REVIEW BOARD" https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/4900.html

They've both forgotten more than you will ever know...

I don't have the lone nutter predilection for the battle cry of the Ostrich that you have with regard to such serious issues, Mr. Cohen; and though I have not directly screened the film at the Wilkinson/Whitehead home myself, I have seen the film; have read all of the available information about it and the issues involved; I trust the accounts given by researchers who did attend those screenings such as Jim DiEugenio, Dr. David Mantik Doug Horne and others; and I find same to be completely credible. That you know nothing about any of this tells me that you yourself -- who constantly posts claims about what a world-renowned researcher you think you are -- have never even had the slightest clue about the existence of the highly significant work that Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead have contributed to JFKA research concerning the Zapruder film. It's high time that you pull your head out of the sand and hit the books, don't you think, Mr. Cohen?

Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead on many occasions opened their home for JFKA researchers for screenings of the film and to share their data over a decade ago when their journey first began, and in more recent years they have taken their documentary to JFKA conferences and shown it to audiences. I think the snap judgments you are making about them and a supposed lack of transparency are completely unwarranted, and drawn from a state of ignorance more than anything else. This is a Facebook address at which Thom Whitehead can be reached: https://www.facebook.com/thom.whitehead.3 Before you continue on with your disparagement of Sydney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead, I suggest you contact them and express interest in screening the film and seeing their data. I have no reason to believe that they wouldn't be perfectly happy to do so, and neither do you. And that goes for you too @Benjamin Cole.

The analyses will become available once Wilkinson and Whitehead have surmounted the hurdles your friends at the Sixth Floor Museum are deploying in an effort to prevent them from publishing their documentary, Alteration, which I am confident they eventually will. And as for "blather," the blather that seems to be repeated so often by the two finger wonders who can do no better than type a few critical lines on this forum, without ever providing any evidence, is to throw around the name Zavada, a Kodak chemist who was neither qualified nor commissioned by the ARRB to perform content analysis of the Zapruder film. All that Zavada was qualified to do was confirm that the extant "original" Zapruder film used Kodak film product, which of course it does, as Hawkeyeworks was a joint CIA/Kodak facility. Zavada would later go beyond his ARRB mandate and privately attempted to perform content analysis of the Zapruder film, but he simply never had the needed expertise and qualifications to do so. With regard to frame 317 of the Zapruder film, even Rollie Zavada has acknowledged the black patch and conceded that "...it certainly looks like a patch; it looks like it could be an alteration...." Again, note that Rollie Zavada is not and never claimed to be an expert on film alteration or cinematography. Zavada was a Kodak employee with expertise in Kodachrome II film, and thus is not qualified to evaluate the Zapruder film for content falsification, and the ARRB mandate that Zavada presented to Zavada did not include "content analysis" for which he is not qualified. Zavada authenticated that the extant Zapruder film is on Kodak Kodachrome II film -- which is no surprise given that Hawkeyeworks was a joint CIA/Kodak facility -- and then went beyond his expertise to claim that the film had not been altered. But as you can see below, even Rollie Zavada, viewing an inferior copy of Z-317, admitted that the black patch looks like an alteration, but not being an expert in film alteration, simply said he refused to believe it because he hadn't seen evidence of how it could have been done.... "It certainly looks like a patch; it looks like it could be an alteration. But I haven't seen evidence of how it was done, so I refuse to believe it." Having no expertise in film alteration whatsoever he resorted to blind faith in a sacred cow instead of following the evidence wherever it leads -- even though the Heavens may fall... But the Hollywood professionals enlisted by Wilkenson and Whitehead, who are genuinely true and tried experts in cinematography, are qualified to perform content analysis, and their conclusions are that the extant "original" Zapruder film is not authentic: -------------------------------------------------------------- DOUG HORNE TAKES ROLLIE ZAVADA TO TASK OVER ZAPRUDER FRAME 317 [THE BLACK PATCH SUPERIMPOSED OVER JFK'S OCCIPITAL BLOW OUT WOUND]: https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10709.html "...In the breakout session, when Josiah Thompson asked him to display the controversial frame 317 and comment on whether the black object covering the rear of JFK's head was a natural shadow or evidence of alteration, Rollie [Zavada] put up the slide (a very dark, muddy image of 317 with much contrast present---an image greatly inferior to the Hollywood scans of the forensic copy), and then said words to the effect: "It certainly looks like a patch; it looks like it could be an alteration. But I haven't seen evidence of how it was done, so I refuse to believe it." [This is very close to a verbatim quote---guaranteed to be accurate in its substance.] I and several others, including Leo Zahn of Hollywood, then suggested---demanded, actually---that Rollie display ALL of frame 317---not just the portion showing JFK's head. When this slide was finally displayed, I asked everyone present in the room what explanation those who were against alteration had for the extreme difference in density between the shadow on Governor Connally's head, and the extremely dense and dark (almost D-max) "anomaly" on JFK's head in that same frame. The two so-called "shadows" have absolutely no relation or similarity to each other, yet both men were photographed in the same frame, at the same instant in time, on the same planet, with the same light source (i.e., the sun). The ensuing silence was more profound than that inside the whale that swallowed Jonah. Rollie and Tink had no explanation for this. Nor does anyone else, who believes that the Zapruder film is an unaltered film. The most reasonable, and currently the only known explanation for this paradox in frame 317, is alteration---the blacking out of the true exit wound on the back of JFK's head in that frame, and in many others, with crude animation...." 'JOSIAH THOMPSON AND ROLLIE ZAVADA AT JFK LANCER: A CRITICAL REPORT' by Douglas P. Horne, author of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10709.html

As I predicted, Mr. Cohen, you don't understand or agree with the method that our civilization has designated as the means by which questions of fact and authenticity are ultimately decided. Authentication relies upon the testimony of expert witnesses, and if you don't like that, you can take it up with the legislature. I also predict that you will not understand, and will not agree with the fact that Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead's 6k scans of the Forensic Copy of the Zapruder film that they purchased from the National Archives have resolution that is superior even to the 1998 MPI "Images of an Assassination" film (struck directly from the extant "original" Zapruder film) because of the differences between logarithmic vs. linear color: And why are Wilkinson and Whitehead's 6k scans superior even to the 1998 MPI "Images of an Assassination" stills? The answer has to do with the distinction between and utility of logarithmic color versus standard colorization. The scratches and mold that you can see on the film are because the 6k scans were made in log color. Sydney Wilkinson explained this to Doug Horne in a letter that he read while being interviewed on the 1/7/2019 Midnight Writer News, Episode 107, https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-107-douglas-horne-on-the-zapruder-film-alteration-debate/ , as follows: ---------------------------------------------------- SYDNEY WILKINSON WROTE: "Our scans show everything in the frame, the good, the bad, and the ugly." By that they mean the scratches and the mold on the film. They wrote "There is so much detail that individual grains of 8mm film stock are evident in the 6k logarithmic scans. It's hardly pretty, but the images are glaringly sharp. That is why we see all the scratches, mold, dirt, stains, and other film anomalies. Linear color is what we view on our TVs and computers, the color looks right to us. The versions of the Zapruder film we see on television documentaries or DVDs like "Images of an Assassination" sold in 1998 or on YouTube have been cleaned up and color corrected. Much of the scratches, dirt, mold, etc., have been removed along with color correcting each scene to create a much richer looking element. The processes used to do this can be grueling and take a long time depending upon how much money and how much time the producers want to spend on it. But we did not want to make our images look prettier. We did not want to touch anything because our goal was to conduct a forensic scientific study of the film. We wanted to see what was really there in every frame not what might have been hidden or obscured by cleaning or color correcting. So logarithmic color, or log color for short, is what professionals use when coming from or going to film because it brings out much more detail in blacks and mid-blacks by stretching the blacks into grays. However, without color correction, which we have not done, the image looks a little washed out, but the amount of information in the blacks is substantially increased. The primary reason we want log color space was to see all the information in the shadows, and what we saw was astounding. If our transfer was linear color we never would have seen the patch on the back of the head in frame 317 or it would have looked like a shadow. Most importantly, log shadow space does not make a shadow look like a patch." ---------------------------------------------------- And here are some additional technical details from Sydney Wilkinson which others who are genuinely interested in this subject may find useful: "...A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR 35MM DUPLICATE NEGATIVE OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM (SW) In 2008, my partner (and husband), Thom Whitehead, sold our startup editing company to Deluxe Film Labs. Thom was hired to oversee their newly created editorial department in Burbank, and I chose a new path. After spending over twenty years in sales and development in the post-production industry, I was ready for a new challenge. I have been interested in the JFK assassination history for decades. In 1978, I spent a memorable college semester in Washington, D.C., working as a congressional intern and studying the activities of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). One of the key subjects that piqued my interest was the iconic Zapruder film. In 2008, I rekindled my interest and began to read about the film with a renewed vigor. I was surprised to discover there were serious concerns about its authenticity. Most notably, there had never been a truly independent, forensic, imaging study---one that was not connected to a government or private entity. It suddenly dawned on me that I might have a golden opportunity to delve deeper into the film imagery by utilizing the resources of Deluxe Labs92--one of the largest and most prestigious professional film labs in history. We knew they would allow us to use any/all of their state-of-the-art film and digital technology. Additionally, considering that Thom and I had spent years working with the top film restoration and post-production experts in the world, I felt confident we would be able to solicit their professional, unbiased guidance. With the absolute best technology and talent available at the time, all we needed was the best possible film element to study. In November 2008, we purchased a 35mm duplicate negative (dupe neg) of the "forensic version' of the Zapruder "camera original" 8 mm film housed at NARA. It is a US government authorized and certified, third generation film copy. To our surprise, and to the best of our knowledge (as of 2018), it is the only third generation 35mm dupe neg acquired for the purpose of an independent, expert evaluation since NARA made such elements available to the public in 2003. The following is a brief timeline of the steps I had to take to acquire our 35 mm dupe neg from NARA. It took eight months, and they certainly did not make it convenient, or cost effective in 2008. I hope they have simplified the process since then. According to NARA, the film element used to complete my transfer was their 35mm Intermediate (or "reproduction") copy, which is an interpositive,97 silent, color film descended from the direct blow-up 35mm Internegative. NARA considered it to be a "preservation master." At that time, they offered two versions to the public: (1) a "forensic” version--a 35mm, direct optical blow-up Internegative (without any image improvement) from Zapruder's 8mm camera "original,"98 and (2) a “de-scratched" version--a 35mm film element that has been "cleaned up" to look visually appealing. The latter effectively removes dirt and scratches via "a diffused light source in analog printing instead of using a traditional wet-gate method.99 We chose the forensic version because we wanted to work with unadulterated images--as close to the "original" as possible--where nothing had been done to enhance or improve them in any way. TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF OUR 6K SCANS (SW) We scanned our 35mm dupe neg directly to 6k files using a Northlight film scanner. At the time, the Northlight scanner was instrumental in the production of Hollywood films and was considered state-of-the-art technology in post­ production.100 It created digital files from the optical image of a film. Great care was accorded to this process in a post-production environment because the introduction of any artifacts or discontinuities could ruin the day for a film director or director of photography. The digital file that is created must replicate exactly the image on the film and reveal all the information present on each film frame. Due to the relatively small size of the original 8mm Zapruder film (when viewing the entire 35 mm frame on the dupe neg) we decided to scan at Northlight’s maximum available scan size of 6k. The 6k refers to a size of 6144 x 4668 pixels with an effective size of 114.7 Mb of digital data per frame. To put this into perspective, a home HDTV only presents 1920 x 1080 pixels with about 9.7 Mb per frame. Therefore, our scans have more than ten times the resolution and data size as an HD television image. This additional resolution allowed us to electronically zoom into the image without any apparent loss of detail or fidelity. Finally, we could see down to the grain of the 8mm film with complete sharpness and detail--including all of the inter-sprocket and edge areas. As far as we know, the Zapruder film had never been reproduced or studied at this level of digital resolution. Another important aspect of our scanning process was the use of logarithmic color space, rather than linear color space. This is critical because the use of logarithmic color allows all the color information of the image to be present in the scans, preserving all of the highlight and shadow information. Linear color is what we are accustomed to seeing on TV and computer screens. Although linear color looks correct/normal and lifelike to our eyes, very bright and dark areas of the image must be "clipped" in order to make the majority of the image appear correctly. Logarithmic color, although looking to the untrained eye as "muddy" or "flat," is actually the best way to retain all of the color information in the film. Finally we used the film industry standard "DPX" (Digital Picture eXchange)101 format to allow easy transfers between various professional workstations. One of the state-of-the-art workstations we continue to use is an Autodesk product called Smoke.102..." https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30150-the-logic-of-zapruder-film-alteration/page/7/#comment-528713

Actually, there is the expert testimony and analyses that your friends over at the Sixth Floor Museum are working so hard to keep concealed from the American people... You may not understand this, and obviously you will not agree with it, but it is through exactly this type of expert testimony that the chief arbitrers of our civilization decide such issues of fact and authentication, courts of law, and in that context your particular point of view is utterly meaningless, and means absolutely nothing. These experts are telling you that the D-max black hexagon shaped patch with sharp edges that you are so convinced is a natural shadow wouldn't even fool a 12-year-old. Let that sink in... https://www.fff.org/2023/08/16/the-evidence-that-convicts-the-cia-of-the-jfk-assassination-part-4/ "...In my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, I include a partial transcript of an interview of Rutan and Smith, both of whom closely examined a high-quality copy of the extant Zapruder film — that is, the film that is in the National Archives that is purported to be the original film but that is actually the altered, fraudulent copy of the film that the CIA secretly produced at its top-secret Hawkeyeworks facility in Rochester, New York. I was fortunate to be able to include a portion of that interview in my book. The interview was conducted by Thom Whitehead, a Hollywood television and feature-film mastering editor specializing in motion pictures. The interview was conducted as part of a documentary on the Zapruder film that is being produced by Whitehead and his colleague Sydney Wilkinson. Douglas Horne, the author of the watershed book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board and who served on the staff of the ARRB, requested permission from Whitehead and Wilkinson to include a portion of the interview in my book, and they graciously agreed. As far as I know, my book is the first and only place where that portion of the interview has been published. Rutan and Smith The following are excerpts from the partial transcript of that interview that I included in my book: Smith: .…Now, as to my credibility, thirty-seven years in the movie business, I’m not sure how much lower you can go than that; and [I] just got done with nearly twenty-five years at Paramount, where I basically ran their mastering for most of those years and spent the last few years investigating new digital production technology. Rutan: [I’ve] been doing this since 1968, I was delivering film in New York City; and then full time from ’74 I got hired to work for my Dad, and I worked for him for 12 years — started out as janitor, and then shipping, and then film cleaning, and then film repair, and then optical lineup, and then optical printing. So, ever since then I’ve worked for a couple of companies, set up a department at COMPAC video, and I had my own company for 14 years doing restoration. Whitehead: Do you see any signs of alteration? Rutan: Yes. Whitehead: Where do you see them? Rutan: Well [speaking while pointing at frame 313 on a large HD monitor], in the — this explosion right here doesn’t look, it’s, see [pointing] — it’s got defects on it — but it just doesn’t look real, it doesn’t look like blood, it just doesn’t look real…. Rutan: I think you’re looking at a patch, at a photographic patch that they put on the back of his [JFK’s] head. It’s crude, but if you run the film you’ll see that it moves — differently than his head does, as well. So, it’s an optical, some sort of an optical [effect] that they put on there, to not show the back of his head. Whitehead: In your opinion, what do you think would have been the most likely way this would have been accomplished? Rutan: With an optical printer, with an aerial optical printer…. Rutan: Well, the only thing I can see really is how predominant the black patch is in this particular frame [pointing]. I mean, it’s clear to me that that is not the back of his head, that that is some kind of a [sic] optical effect, that has been laid on the back of his head by an optical house. And this [pointing at the large pink “blob” on the right side of JFK’s head] is also an optical effect. But the back of his head is what always — what I’m always drawn to, because you — it’s almost like he’s wearing a toupee, because there’s the top of his head [pointing at JFK’s auburn hair on the very top of his head] and that’s basically the color it should be, and then it’s black, it’s just solid black. Smith: You know, the density doesn’t match — the shoulders don’t match that [meaning that the shadow on the back of JFK’s shoulders does not match the black patch on the back of his head] and [the black patch] doesn’t match the top of his head [pointing to JFK’s auburn colored hair on top]…. Smith: It just seems really obvious that the frames where they’ve matted out the back of the head, and added in the pink splash, the pink water-balloon — whatever it is that’s supposed to be the blood — it’s just not even believable … maybe fifty years ago that might have passed muster, but for anybody — I mean — my impression is if I showed it to a 12-year old kid, they would say it was a cartoon…."

In the context of the JFK assassination and other crimes perpetrated by the United States Government, absolutely yes, we should be skeptical of what is claimed to be "hard evidence," such as in the cases of photographic and autopsy report evidence in particular, and even just as skeptical when there is an absence of evidence as the result of government concealment. If all is on the up and up with the involvement of the CIA's NPIC and Hawkeyeworks with the Zapruder film on the weekend of the assassination then there should be absolutely no problem with releasing each and every item of evidence that pertains to those particular sojourns of the film, right? Dr. David Mantik puts it much more aptly in the following abstract of his article entitled JFK Assassination Paradoxes: A Primer for Beginners: "In the 54 years since November 22, 1963, numerous paradoxes in the JFK assassination have been exposed. Many of these relate to the autopsy, which was performed that same evening. Because of my life in medicine, this review focuses mostly on the medical evidence. These paradoxes are so profound (and remain officially unanswered) that the chief conclusion is inescapable: Critical primary evidence items cannot be authentic. This review identifies specific altered evidence. Most supporters of the Warren Commission (WC) fail to acknowledge this corruption of the data base. The disingenuous acceptance of this evidence has led to the misperception that the case is still a mystery. However, once specific items are recognized as fraudulent, it becomes clear that the corrupted evidence was not accidental—and the overall features of the case (for conspiracy) emerge with surprising clarity." 'JFK ASSASSINATION PARADOXES: A PRIMER FOR BEGINNERS' Journal of Health Science & Education | David W. Mantik, MD https://escires.com/articles/Health-1-126.pdf Mantik DW (2018) JFK Assassination Paradoxes: A Primer for Beginners. J Health Sci Educ 2: 126.

Hard evidence like this, Mr. Cohen? In the event you are too young to remember this, the CIA had armed the administration of Bush the younger with all kinds of "hard evidence" of WMD's in Iraq and had suppressed all the evidence that there were none. Or are you one of those people who still contends that there were WMD's in Iraq?

Roger, that's excellent summation of the disrupted chain of custody, and the initial suppression efforts of CIA/LIFE. For the naysayers who pretend that the absence of a CIA memo outlining the inner-workings of the work that NPIC and Hawkeyeworks performed on the camea-original Zapruder film is tantamount to there being no evidence of alteration, I pose the following question: If the chain of custody and the work performed on the camera Zapruder film by CIA/LIFE on the weekend of the assassination was so innocent, then why did the CIA release only a few of the documents that were surely generated at every phase of the process from the Rockefeller Commission in 1975, fail to turn over any of those documents to the ARRB in the 1990's (claiming that no relevant documents could be located), and deny the freedom of information requests made by Doug Horne in 2009 for those documents on the basis that they are excluded from FOI requests on the basis that they involved a CIA operation? As recited in the history you provided, the existence of Hawkeyeworks was in such a shroud of secrecy even in 1997, that when NPIC photoanalyst Homer McMahon named the facility while being interviewed by the ARRB, the CIA immediately intervened and ordered that the tape of the interview should be segregated and suppressed from the public. This PDF file (the link to which is below) contains the internal correspondence concerning the ARRB's investigation of the Zapruder film events at the NPIC on the weekend of the assassination, about contacting and interviewing Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter, and includes copies of CIA documents about same provided to the Rockefeller Commission in 1975, and copies of the working notes from the second NPIC session itself: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10336-10024.pdf All that had been released to the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 were some copies of notes made during the second briefing board session which Homer McMahon presided over consisting of Zapruder film frame timing calculations (See pages 21 through 26 of above PDF file), and NONE of the official documents that had to have been generated by the NPIC, CIA and Secret Service to document the activities of those agencies involving the film on the weekend of the assassination. And Doug Horne wrote the following about the CIA denials of his FOIA requests for the documents: "...The CIA refused to provide me with any information about “Hawkeyeworks” when the Agency finally responded to my September 12, 2009 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on February 7, 2011. But that was hardly surprising, since over one year earlier, on January 27, 2010, the CIA wrote to me, cautioning: “The CIA Information Act, 50 U.S.C. Section 431, as amended, exempts CIA operational files from the search, review, publication, and disclosure requirements of the FOIA.” What this meant, in rather blunt language, was that if the CIA was running an “op,” such as the alteration of the Zapruder film immediately after JFK’s assassination, then they didn’t have to search for those records or tell me about it, in any way. So the failure by the CIA to answer any of my many questions about “Hawkeyeworks” means literally—nothing...." http://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/ The same legacy of secrecy initiated by the CIA through LIFE in 1963 continues today as the result of the Zapruder family having signed over their rights to all of the Zapruder film materials (except for the extant "original" film which the U.S. Government seized, paying the family 13 million dollars in compensation) to the Sixth Floor Museum which aggressively opposes any public dissemination and/or research of the film using threats of litigation. There is also the episode whereby it appears that the 5 x 7 transparencies of the 1998 MPI first generation copy of the extant "original" Zapruder film were altered to eliminate evidence of the infamous black patch on the back of JFK's head which appears during the headshot sequence of the extant Zapruder film, as well as "disappearing" the 5 x 7 TIME-LIFE transparencies of the Zapruder film -- which the museum’s Archivist, Gary Mack, acknowledged receiving in a well-publicized article in 2000 -- when Sydney Wilkinson and Doug Horne sought access to those materials in 2012. The Sixth Floor Museum is at this point quite successfully obstructing the release of Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead's documentary (entitled "Alteration") which presents the analyses of at least 3 Hollywood cinematographers -- familiar with the film alteration technology that existed in 1963 -- who have concluded that the Zapruder film has been altered. For information about the above recited encounters with the Sixth Floor Museum see "MASQUERADE AT THE MUSEUM" by David Mantik via the following link: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30150-the-logic-of-zapruder-film-alteration/?do=findComment&comment=528713 It is my belief that the release of this documentary, if ever the obstacles imposed by the Sixth Floor Museum are surmounted, will be a game changer with regard to the argument that the extant Zapruder film was altered during the weekend of the assassination, and the naysayers who currently side with the CIA cover-up of the evidence of alteration will be forced to contend with the conclusions of bona-fide Hollywood professionals. The following is an excerpt of a recent interview of two of these experts, Paul Rutan, Jr., and Garret Smith, in an article by Jacob Hornberger that was published on August 16, 2023, which in relevant part provides as follows: https://www.fff.org/2023/08/16/the-evidence-that-convicts-the-cia-of-the-jfk-assassination-part-4/ "...In my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, I include a partial transcript of an interview of Rutan and Smith, both of whom closely examined a high-quality copy of the extant Zapruder film — that is, the film that is in the National Archives that is purported to be the original film but that is actually the altered, fraudulent copy of the film that the CIA secretly produced at its top-secret Hawkeyeworks facility in Rochester, New York. I was fortunate to be able to include a portion of that interview in my book. The interview was conducted by Thom Whitehead, a Hollywood television and feature-film mastering editor specializing in motion pictures. The interview was conducted as part of a documentary on the Zapruder film that is being produced by Whitehead and his colleague Sydney Wilkinson. Douglas Horne, the author of the watershed book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board and who served on the staff of the ARRB, requested permission from Whitehead and Wilkinson to include a portion of the interview in my book, and they graciously agreed. As far as I know, my book is the first and only place where that portion of the interview has been published. Rutan and Smith The following are excerpts from the partial transcript of that interview that I included in my book: Smith: .…Now, as to my credibility, thirty-seven years in the movie business, I’m not sure how much lower you can go than that; and [I] just got done with nearly twenty-five years at Paramount, where I basically ran their mastering for most of those years and spent the last few years investigating new digital production technology. Rutan: [I’ve] been doing this since 1968, I was delivering film in New York City; and then full time from ’74 I got hired to work for my Dad, and I worked for him for 12 years — started out as janitor, and then shipping, and then film cleaning, and then film repair, and then optical lineup, and then optical printing. So, ever since then I’ve worked for a couple of companies, set up a department at COMPAC video, and I had my own company for 14 years doing restoration. Whitehead: Do you see any signs of alteration? Rutan: Yes. Whitehead: Where do you see them? Rutan: Well [speaking while pointing at frame 313 on a large HD monitor], in the — this explosion right here doesn’t look, it’s, see [pointing] — it’s got defects on it — but it just doesn’t look real, it doesn’t look like blood, it just doesn’t look real…. Rutan: I think you’re looking at a patch, at a photographic patch that they put on the back of his [JFK’s] head. It’s crude, but if you run the film you’ll see that it moves — differently than his head does, as well. So, it’s an optical, some sort of an optical [effect] that they put on there, to not show the back of his head. Whitehead: In your opinion, what do you think would have been the most likely way this would have been accomplished? Rutan: With an optical printer, with an aerial optical printer…. Rutan: Well, the only thing I can see really is how predominant the black patch is in this particular frame [pointing]. I mean, it’s clear to me that that is not the back of his head, that that is some kind of a [sic] optical effect, that has been laid on the back of his head by an optical house. And this [pointing at the large pink “blob” on the right side of JFK’s head] is also an optical effect. But the back of his head is what always — what I’m always drawn to, because you — it’s almost like he’s wearing a toupee, because there’s the top of his head [pointing at JFK’s auburn hair on the very top of his head] and that’s basically the color it should be, and then it’s black, it’s just solid black. Smith: You know, the density doesn’t match — the shoulders don’t match that [meaning that the shadow on the back of JFK’s shoulders does not match the black patch on the back of his head] and [the black patch] doesn’t match the top of his head [pointing to JFK’s auburn colored hair on top]…. Smith: It just seems really obvious that the frames where they’ve matted out the back of the head, and added in the pink splash, the pink water-balloon — whatever it is that’s supposed to be the blood — it’s just not even believable … maybe fifty years ago that might have passed muster, but for anybody — I mean — my impression is if I showed it to a 12-year old kid, they would say it was a cartoon…."

Wow! You definitely did some heavy lifting writing this post. Very impressive analysis of the photos of James Jenkins from the videotaped interview, three screenshots of which appear in William Matson Law's book, which you have analyzed in depth. The following is from a post in another thread which I believe to be relevant to the analysis of those photographs, so I republish same for you as follows: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30511-why-does-james-jenkins-say-the-gaping-wound-was-on-the-back-of-the-head-to-everybody-except-for-pat-speer/?do=findComment&comment=538293 Pat Speer wrote: You've stated that the following screenshot which you darkened and presented on your website as showing James Jenkins pointing to a HOLE on the TOP of JFK's "comes from a taped interview by Law, and the image you say I cherry-picked is one Law picked out and put in his book to demonstrate where Jenkins pointed when he described the open hole he first observed": The following are the series of images in William Law's book from which you selected the particular screenshot that you darkened (evidently to obscure that Jenkins is actually touching the top of the back of his head) and put on your website: When looking at this series of photos the question that came immediately to mind is whether the captions were carefully selected to accompany each picture, so I asked William Law that question and he told me that it was not him but the editor of his book who paired the photos with the captions. The following are my questions to William Law as well as his answers: So while you are heavily relying upon the notion that William Law carefully paired the "open hole" caption with the photo in which Jenkins is placing his fingers on the upper part of the back of his head, the truth is we don't even know if the photos and the captions are precisely paired or are even in the correct order, and we don't know whether Law's editor had a good working knowledge of the issues in order to pair them correctly. What we do know is that Jenkins when demonstrating the location of what he calls the "OCCIPITAL-PARIETAL wound" moves his hand all around the area, and that renders these photographs as being taken somewhat randomly, and even William Law states that in the photo you have seized upon for your top of the head theory, Jenkins is "CLEARLY" touching the back of his head. And what does James Jenkins himself think of your interpretation of the photo? James Jenkins said it is so "ludicrous" it doesn't even deserve a comment. Pat Spear wrote: NO, the photo and associated caption DOES NOT prove your point. Nobody thinks that but you, and even more importantly, William Law and James Jenkins say that you are wrong. And that can easily be demonstrated with the following video and GIF of James Jenkins demonstrating where the hole in JFK's head was when he was directly asked this very question (and NOTE that when he demonstrates the location of the hole he specifically says "it was mostly parietal-occipital": Now, Mr. Speer, does this look like James Jenkins is demonstrating a hole on the TOP of JFK's head? And no, this isn't the result of Jenkins changing his story. You've made up the "changing his story" allegation out of whole cloth for which you owe James Jenkins, William Law, and the JFKA research community at large a public apology. Here is James Jenkins in 1998 demonstrating the occipital-parietal wound in exactly the same way: And Mr. Speer, we are still waiting for you to produce just one quote or other piece of evidence from James Jenkins showing that he has ever once claimed that there was a HOLE in the top of JFK's head. Just ONE, Mr. Speer, can you produce that?

Pat Speer wrote: You state that the following screenshot which you darkened and presented on your website as showing James Jenkins pointing to a HOLE on the TOP of JFK's "comes from a taped interview by Law, and the image you say I cherry-picked is one Law picked out and put in his book to demonstrate where Jenkins pointed when he described the open hole he first observed": The following are the series of images in William Law's book from which you selected the particular screenshot that you darkened (evidently to obscure that Jenkins is actually touching the top of the back of his head) and put on your website: When looking at this series of photos the question that came immediately to mind is whether the captions were carefully selected to accompany each picture, so I asked William Law that question and he told me that it was not him but the editor of his book who paired the photos with the captions. The following are my questions to William Law as well as his answers: So while you are heavily relying upon the notion that William Law carefully paired the "open hole" caption with the photo in which Jenkins is placing his fingers on the upper part of the back of his head, the truth is we don't even know if the photos and the captions are precisely paired or are even in the correct order, and we don't know whether Law's editor had a good working knowledge of the issues in order to pair them correctly. What we do know is that Jenkins when demonstrating the location of what he calls the "OCCIPITAL-PARIETAL wound" moves his hand all around the area, and that renders these photographs as being taken somewhat randomly, and even William Law states that in the photo you have seized upon for your top of the head theory, Jenkins is "CLEARLY" touching the back of his head. And what does James Jenkins himself think of your interpretation of the photo? James Jenkins said it is so "ludicrous" it doesn't even deserve a comment. Pat Spear wrote: NO, the photo and associated caption DOES NOT prove your point. Nobody thinks that but you, and even more importantly, William Law and James Jenkins say that you are wrong. And that can easily be demonstrated with the following video and GIF of James Jenkins demonstrating where the hole in JFK's head was when he was directly asked this very question (and NOTE that when he demonstrates the location of the hole he specifically says "it was mostly parietal-occipital"😞 Now, Mr. Speer, does this look like James Jenkins is demonstrating a hole on the TOP of JFK's head? And no, this isn't the result of Jenkins changing his story. You've made up the "changing his story" allegation out of whole cloth for which you owe James Jenkins, William Law, and the JFKA research community at large a public apology. Here is James Jenkins in 1998 demonstrating the occipital-parietal wound in exactly the same way: And Mr. Speer, we are still waiting for you to produce just one quote or other piece of evidence from James Jenkins showing that he has ever once claimed that there was a HOLE in the top of JFK's head. Just ONE, Mr. Speer, can you produce that?

I disagree with the suppressed premise of your statement: That disputing your demonstrably false factual claims and mischaracterizations is uncivil. Secondly, I don't know what you mean by Doug Horne's "theory." Would you please kindly elaborate?

I think that there is remarkable similarity between the occipital-parietal wound that Dr. Robert McClelland drew with his own hand on TMWKK in 1988 and the occipital-parietal wound that James Jenkins drew on a skull model in 2018, as follows: And in the following from the 1991 Dallas Medical Witnesses Conference, James Jenkins tells us that the wound was like Dr. McClelland's drawing (the one in Six Seconds in Dallas), but a little higher:

And why are Wilkinson and Whitehead's 6k scans superior even to the 1998 MPI "Images of an Assassination" stills? The answer has to do with the distinction between and utility of logarithmic color versus standard colorization. The scratches and mold that you can see on the film are because the 6k scans were made in log color. Sydney Wilkinson explained this to Doug Horne in a letter that he read while being interviewed on the 1/7/2019 Midnight Writer News, Episode 107, https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-107-douglas-horne-on-the-zapruder-film-alteration-debate/ , as follows: ---------------------------------------------------- SYDNEY WILKINSON WROTE: "Our scans show everything in the frame, the good, the bad, and the ugly." By that they mean the scratches and the mold on the film. They wrote "There is so much detail that individual grains of 8mm film stock are evident in the 6k logarithmic scans. It's hardly pretty, but the images are glaringly sharp. That is why we see all the scratches, mold, dirt, stains, and other film anomalies. Linear color is what we view on our TVs and computers, the color looks right to us. The versions of the Zapruder film we see on television documentaries or DVDs like "Images of an Assassination" sold in 1998 or on YouTube have been cleaned up and color corrected. Much of the scratches, dirt, mold, etc., have been removed along with color correcting each scene to create a much richer looking element. The processes used to do this can be grueling and take a long time depending upon how much money and how much time the producers want to spend on it. But we did not want to make our images look prettier. We did not want to touch anything because our goal was to conduct a forensic scientific study of the film. We wanted to see what was really there in every frame not what might have been hidden or obscured by cleaning or color correcting. So logarithmic color, or log color for short, is what professionals use when coming from or going to film because it brings out much more detail in blacks and mid-blacks by stretching the blacks into grays. However, without color correction, which we have not done, the image looks a little washed out, but the amount of information in the blacks is substantially increased. The primary reason we want log color space was to see all the information in the shadows, and what we saw was astounding. If our transfer was linear color we never would have seen the patch on the back of the head in frame 317 or it would have looked like a shadow. Most importantly, log shadow space does not make a shadow look like a patch." Doug Horne told the story of how Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead became involved in Zapruder film research in his "Addendum: The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood," of his 2009 "Inside the ARRB," Chapter 14, Vol. IV, as follows: "...On June 3, 2009 I exchanged introductory e-mails with one Sydney Wilkinson, an accomplished professional in film and video post-production in Hollywood—specifically, in the marketing of post production services within the motion picture film industry. She has decades of experience under her belt in dealing with editors, experts in film restoration, and film studio executives. She lives and breathes the professional culture of the motion picture film industry, and has working relationships with many of the major players involved in post-production in Hollywood. When she first introduced herself to me she insisted that she was neither a researcher, author, nor a historian; and in spite of her continued self-deprecation, I have explained to her on numerous occasions since that day that she is now indeed a JFK assassination researcher, by simple virtue of what she is doing, whether she ever publishes a word or not! We are what we do, and what Sydney Wilkinson has done is truly extraordinary. Sydney revealed to me in short order that she had purchased a dupe negative on 35 mm film of the Forensic Copy of the Zapruder film created by the National Archives. She did so purely for research purposes, to satisfy her own curiosity about whether or not the extant film in the Archives was the authentic out-of-camera original, or whether it was an altered film masquerading as the original. She had already purchased a copy of the Zavada report from the National Archives and knew its contents backwards and forwards, and was also familiar with the interviews of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter of NPIC conducted by the ARRB staff in 1997. She was aware of my former role as the ARRB’s liaison with Kodak and Rollie Zavada, and was also very familiar with the existing literature about the film’s possible alteration. In short, she was simply a very curious American citizen who, out of both natural curiosity and a sense of patriotism, wanted to know the truth about this famous film. She had literally “put her money where her mouth was” by forking out $ 795.90 for a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from a source whose honesty and integrity could not be challenged by any future researchers: the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Counting the extant film as zero, she had obtained a fifth generation copy (as explained earlier in this chapter). If she had requested a projection print (i.e., a positive) she would have purchased a fourth generation copy; but the preferred medium for studying film characteristics in Hollywood is a motion picture negative, so she settled for a dupe negative of a fourth generation projection print. She wanted a dupe negative because her intent from the beginning was to subject the Zapruder film to the serious, professional scrutiny of Hollywood film professionals in an attempt to resolve the ongoing debate about its authenticity. Sydney’s attitude going into this effort was similar to my own attitude about the Zapruder film when I began working for the ARRB in 1995; she was very curious about the issues that had been raised about the Zapruder film’s authenticity, and simply wanted to know the answer, one way or the other. I was stunned by the simplicity and power of the concept behind her ongoing research effort: only Hollywood visual effects technicians or other film professionals familiar with the optical effects techniques of the 1960s would be truly qualified to say whether or not there was evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film’s image content! While Rollie Zavada was a film chemist and a Kodak project manager (and was eminently qualified to study film density and edge print), he had no practical experience with the creation of motion picture visual effects, and I therefore viewed him as unqualified to make a final determination as to whether or not the Zapruder film was an altered film. (The ARRB’s senior management understood this also, which was why he was not asked to comment upon the film’s image content in his limited authenticity study.) I immediately wondered: Why hadn’t anyone ever attempted this before? If anyone had attempted it before 2003 (the year that Monaco in San Francisco made the Forensic Copy of the extant film for NARA), the only tool available for study in Hollywood would have been a multi-generation bootleg copy of one of the Moses Weitzman blowups (from 8 mm to 35 mm) made circa 1968; because the provenance of the bootleg copy would have been suspect, so would any results obtained from such a study. If anyone had attempted this subsequent to 2003, neither Sydney nor I was aware of such an effort. Intuitively, I felt that this was a “first.” A big first. For about thirty years, from 1963 to 1993, the Zapruder film’s authenticity was assumed, and went largely unquestioned, and the principal arguments about the film had been about what its image content depicted. For about the past fifteen years, most of the arguments pertaining to the film had been about its authenticity, not about its image content. The beauty of Syd Wilkinson’s research effort was not only that qualified Hollywood professionals would now be assessing the extant film’s image content to determine whether any frames showed evidence of alteration, but that the provenance of the film being studied could not be questioned! She was not going to be asking Hollywood to study a bootleg copy: she had a bonafide, genuine, guaranteed, unaltered copy of the extant film in the Archives. Truth is often the daughter of time. Conducting this kind of study was an idea whose time had come, and such a study was now overdue. I could hardly believe my good fortune at being included in her research effort. Sydney then stunned me by saying that someone close to her who was an editor had arranged for an HD (high-definition) digital scan of each frame on her dupe negative, and that the HD scan was already completed. The HD scan of each 35 mm frame contained 1080 pixels in the vertical dimension and 1920 pixels in the horizontal direction, literally a wealth of information. Furthermore, the HD scan performed of each frame was a so-called “flat” or “exposure neutral” scan, in which the film’s images were NOT manipulated to make them more pleasing to the eye (as MPI did with its Ektachrome transparencies taken of each frame in 1997). Wilkinson and her editor friend instructed the person who performed the HD scan not to “clip the whites” or “crush the blacks” when conducting the scan. Such practices are commonly employed by video editors during post-production to make films more visually appealing, but when this occurs detail and valuable information is lost. The HD scan created of the dupe negative of the Zapruder film was neutral, meaning that it was not shaded or manipulated for artistic or aesthetic purposes, and that there was a maximum of detail to study from each film frame. And in two frames in particular, those details were apparently stunning, and quite damning. Sydney e-mailed to me JPEG images of two of the HD scans—frames 220 and 317. What I saw was electrifying, and certainly appeared to me at first blush (as they had to Sydney and a close associate of hers who is a video editor) to be evidence that the extant Zapruder film was an altered film, something I had just concluded, for a host of reasons, earlier in this chapter...." And Doug Horne provided a synopsis with additional details in his online essay entitled "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration" "...Altered Head Wound Imagery: California resident Sydney Wilkinson purchased a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from the National Archives in 2008—a third generation rendition, according to the Archives—and with the assistance of her husband, who is a video editor at a major post-production film house in Hollywood, commissioned both “HD” scans (1920 x 1080 pixels per scan) of each frame of the dupe negative, as well as “6K” scans of each frame. Because the Zapruder film’s image, from edge to edge, only partially fills each 35 mm film frame obtained from the Archives, the so-called “6K” scan of each frame is therefore ‘only’ the equivalent of a “4K” image, i.e., 4096 x 3112 pixels, for each Zapruder frame imaged. Each Zapruder frame scan still constitutes an enormous amount of information: 72.9 MB, or 12.7 million pixels per frame. These “4K equivalent” scans of the Zapruder film used by this couple to conduct their forensic, scientific study of the assassination images are 10-bit log color DPX scans, otherwise known in common parlance as “flat scans.” These logarithmic color scans bring out much more information in the shadows than would the linear color normally viewed on our television screens and computers. Therefore, much more information in each Zapruder film frame is revealed by these logarithmic scans, than would be revealed in a linear color scan of the same frame. As reported in the author’s book, numerous Hollywood film industry editors, colorists, and restoration experts have viewed the “6K” scans of the Zapruder film as part of the couple’s ongoing forensic investigation. In the logarithmic color scans there are many frames (notably 317, 321, and 323) which show what appear to be “black patches,” or crude animation, obscuring the hair on the back of JFK’s head. The blacked-out areas just happen to coincide precisely with the location of the avulsed, baseball-sized exit wound in the right rear of JFK’s head seen by the Parkland Hospital treatment staff, in Dallas, on the day he was assassinated. In the opinion of virtually all of the dozens of motion picture film professionals who have viewed the Zapruder film “6K” scans, the dark patches do not look like natural shadows, and appear quite anomalous. Some of these film industry professionals—in particular, two film restoration experts accustomed to looking at visual effects in hundreds of 1950s and 1960s era films—have declared that the aforementioned frames are proof that the Zapruder film has been altered, and that it was crudely done.[35]If true, this explains LIFE’s decision to suppress the film as a motion picture for twelve years, lest its alteration be discovered by any professionals using it in a broadcast. The extant Zapruder film also depicts a large head wound in the top and right side of President Kennedy’s skull—most notably in frames 335 and 337—that was not seen by any of the treatment staff at Parkland Hospital. The implication here is that if the true exit wound on President Kennedy’s head can be obscured in the Zapruder film through use of aerial imaging (i.e., self-matting animation, applied to each frame’s image via an animation stand married to an optical printer)—as revealed by the “6K” scans of the 35 mm dupe negative—then the same technique could be used to add a desired exit wound, one consistent with the cover story of a lone shooter firing from behind. The apparent alteration of the Zapruder film seen in the area of the rear of JFK’s head in the “6K” scans is consistent with the capabilities believed to have been in place at “Hawkeyeworks” in 1963. In a recent critique of the author’s Zapruder film alteration hypothesis, retired Kodak film chemist (and former ARRB consultant, from 1997-1998), Roland Zavada, quoted professor Raymond Fielding, author of the famous 1965 textbook mentioned above on visual special effects, as saying that it would be impossible for anyone to have altered an 8 mm film in 1963 without leaving artifacts that could be easily detected. I completely agree with this assessment attributed to professor Fielding, and I firmly believe that the logarithmic color, “6K,” 10-bit, DPX scans made of each frame of the 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film have discovered just that: blatant and unmistakable artifacts of the film’s alteration. Critics of this ongoing forensic investigation in California have tried to dismiss the interim findings by displaying other, dissimilar images from the Zapruder film that have been processed in linear color (not logarithmic color), and in some cases are also using inferior images of the Zapruder film of much poorer resolution than the 6K scans, or images from the film in which the linear color contrast has been adjusted and manipulated (i.e., darkened). Saying that “it just isn’t so” is not an adequate defense for those who desperately cling to belief in the Zapruder film’s authenticity, when the empirical proof (the untainted and raw imagery) exists to back up the fact that it is so. Anyone else who purchases a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from the National Archives for $795.00, and who expends the time and money to run “6K” scans of each frame, will end up with the same imagery Sydney Wilkinson has today, for her scans simply record what is present on the extant film in the National Archives; she and her husband have done nothing to alter the images in any way. Their scans simply record what is present on the extant film...." https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/

______________ https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30487-a-comprehensive-history-of-pat-speers-false-claims-about-former-bethesda-autopsy-tech-james-jenkins-on-the-education-forum/?do=findComment&comment=538049 ______________ Denise, directly above you are responding to an excerpt from the "COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF PAT SPEER'S FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT FORMER BETHESDA AUTOPSY TECH JAMES JENKINS ON THE EDUCATION FORUM" which initiated this thread (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30487-a-comprehensive-history-of-pat-speers-false-claims-about-former-bethesda-autopsy-tech-james-jenkins-on-the-education-forum/), and it should be pointed out that my commentary about that excerpt in this particular instance (see below in bold red) was not that Mr. Speer was making a false claim about the Harper fragment. Rather, it was to point out that in 2012 Speer was treating James Jenkins's claim that he saw discoloration at JFK's tight temple -- which according to Jenkins indicated to him the existence of a wound of entrance at JFK's right temple -- as credible (something that Speer has more recently vigorously disputed). It is interesting, however, that Speer was using Jenkins's claim in this regard to support HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel member Dr. Lawrence Angel's placement of the Harper fragment at the right anterior region of JFK's head. But for the sake of clarification, this wasn't listed as an example of one of Speer's factual misrepresentations about the claims of James Jenkins about the JFKA medical evidence. ______________ 1-14-2012 ED FORUM POST https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/18602-the-law-of-unintended-consequences/?do=findComment&comment=243833 Out of respect to you, Jim, I've been holding back on this, but since you bring it up... OfABCsandxrays.jpg When properly placed on the skull, the metal fragment on the Harper fragment is just forward and above Kennedy's right ear. James Curtis Jenkins, we should recall, told writer Harrison Livingstone that "just above the right ear there was some discoloration of the skull cavity with the bone area being gray and there was some speculation that it might be lead." That's no coincidence, IMO. A bullet broke up at that location. Speer again asserting Jenkins's account of seeing an entrance wound at JFK's right temple(something about which in later years Speer will take the opposite position in the context of questioning Jenkins's credibility). ______________ But with regard to the identification of the Harper fragment as occipital bone, I completely agree with you that the evidence that it is in fact occipital bone rather than parietal bone (as claimed by Dr. Lawrence Angel) is of much greater probative value and evidentiary weight, and that this is primarily because of the initial identification of the actual fragment (which thereafter disappeared) by the Dallas pathologists. It is on this point that Mr. Speer disagrees, and attempts to spin the notion that those pathologists were less qualified than Dr. Angel to determine that the fragment was occipital bone, which you may recall, as it was, in pertinent part, in response to a post of yours dated May 5, 2024: ______________ https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30206-the-significance-of-the-forward-moving-fragment/?do=findComment&comment=530123 ______________ Note that in my March 10, 2024 response, which follows, I did not contend that Mr. Speer was making a factual misrepresentation. Rather, I demonstrated that the analysis on which he was basing his opinion about the supposed inferior qualifications of the Dallas Pathologists was flawed: ______________ https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30206-the-significance-of-the-forward-moving-fragment/?do=findComment&comment=530656 This is a prime example of the issue acute confirmation bias poses to fundamental logic: Let’s analyze the important issues relevant to the comparison of evidentiary weight between a hospital chief pathologist’s identification of a bone fragment as occipital bone and a contrary identification made by a forensic anthropologist or a neuroanatomist based on x-rays of the fragment without having the fragment itself: Expertise and Background: Hospital Chief Pathologist: Typically a medical doctor with expertise in pathology. Familiar with human anatomy, including bone structures. May have practical experience handling and examining human remains. Forensic Anthropologist / Neuroanatomist: Forensic Anthropologist: Specializes in the study of human skeletal remains. Trained to analyze bones from an anthropological perspective. May not have direct experience with clinical pathology or handling fresh specimens. Neuroanatomist: Specializes in the study of the nervous system and brain anatomy. May have expertise in interpreting radiographic images related to neuroanatomy. May not have direct experience with handling skeletal remains. Identification Methods: Hospital Chief Pathologist: Likely examined the actual bone fragment visually and manually. Could assess texture, color, shape, and other physical characteristics. May have considered context (where the fragment was found). Forensic Anthropologist / Neuroanatomist: Relying solely on x-rays (radiographs) lacks the full context. Analyzed bone density, structure, and any visible features. Did not physically handle the fragment. Limitations and Considerations: Hospital Chief Pathologist: Direct examination provides tactile information. May be influenced by contextual factors (e.g., location of discovery). Subjective interpretation possible. Forensic Anthropologist / Neuroanatomist: X-rays provide objective evidence but lack the complete picture. Missing information about the fragment’s physical condition. Interpretation based on radiographic features alone. Weight of Evidence: Hospital Chief Pathologist: Direct examination carries significant weight. Personal handling and visual assessment enhance credibility. Contextual factors strengthen the identification. Forensic Anthropologist / Neuroanatomist: X-rays provide objective evidence but are indirect. Weight depends on the quality of x-ray analysis. Lack of tactile information may weaken the identification. Conclusion: Both identifications contribute to the overall assessment. Combining direct examination and radiographic analysis provides a more robust evaluation. The missing fragment complicates the comparison, emphasizing the need for comprehensive evidence. In summary, while both experts play crucial roles, the hospital chief pathologist’s direct examination holds greater evidentiary weight due to physical interaction with the bone fragment. An essential part of the analysis is that Dr. Angel's work was done within the context of the documented cover-up by the HSCA of the large wound in the back of President Kennedy's head. Dr. Angel faced a challenging and literally unsolvable puzzle due to the altered photographic and X-ray evidence that eliminated the most obvious solution, erasing the occipital-parietal wound from consideration. The Senate Select Committee's dedication to this task led to the suppression of interviews with Dr. Cairns and Dr. Harper, classifying the information as "top secret" for fifty years. The implications of this state of affairs were outlined in a Staff Memorandum of the Assassination Records Review Board, as follows: STAFF MEMORANDUM May 4, 1998 (Draft #5) TO: JFK Research Community and Interested Citizens FROM: Douglas P. Horne, Supervisory Analyst, ARRB T. Jeremy Gunn, General Counsel and Executive Director, ARRB SUBJECT: ARRB Efforts to “Clarify the Record” Regarding the Medical Evidence in the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy ...(5) On Saturday, November 23, 1963, Billy A. Harper, a premedical student, found a piece of bone in the grass in the middle of Dealey Plaza (just south of Elm Street), and took it to his uncle, Jack C. Harper, M.D., who subsequently delivered it to A. B. Cairns, M.D., chief pathologist at the Methodist Hospital in Dallas, for examination. Two each color positive transparencies of both the convex and concave surfaces of the fragment, shown next to an inch ruler for scale, were exposed by M. Wayne Balleter, chief medical photographer at that hospital (and later picked up from Mrs. Jack Harper by the FBI on July 10, 1964).11 This piece of bone was subsequently delivered to Military Physician to the President, RADM George Burkley, MC, USN, on November 27, 1963.12 Dr. J. Lawrence Angel, an eminent physical anthropologist who served as a consultant to the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel of 9 pathologists, determined from examination of the photographic images alone (since the Harper fragment was by then missing), along with JFK autopsy cranial fragment x-rays 4, 5 and 6 (of four other skull fragments--also missing by the time of the HSCA’s investigation) that it was a portion of the right parietal bone of President Kennedy’s skull.13 However, nowhere in HSCA, volume 7 is it mentioned that an HSCA staff member interviewed Dr. Jack C. Harper and Dr. A. B. Cairns, who both personally examined and handled the piece of skull bone on the weekend following the assassination, and that Dr. Harper told staff interviewer Andy Purdy on August 8, 1977 that “...the consensus of the doctors who viewed the skull fragment was that it was part of the occipital region;” 14 nor is it mentioned anywhere in HSCA volume 7 that Dr. Cairns told HSCA staff member Andy Purdy that “...the piece of skull fragment came from an area approximately 2.5 to 3 inches above the spine area...it had the markings of a piece of skull fragment from the lower occipital area, specifically: suture and inner markings where blood vessels run around the base of the skull.” 15 Andy Purdy’s staff interview report summarizing his discussions with Drs. Harper and Cairns did not become public until 1993, following passage of the JFK Act. Failure by the HSCA to publish this interview report, or to mention in any way in its final report or accompanying volumes, this dissenting opinion of the head of the pathology department at a local hospital (that was contrary to Dr. Angel’s opinion), raised new doubts about the conclusions reached by the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel. Furthermore, given the location of the occipital bone (in the posterior skull), Dr. Cairns’ professional opinion (that the “Harper” bone fragment was occipital) seems to provide corroboration for the generally consistent Parkland Hospital Trauma Room One testimony that President Kennedy’s head wound was posterior (in the back of the head), vice superior and lateral (in the top and right side of the head), as shown in the autopsy photographs--making more problematic the disparity between Parkland and Bethesda descriptions of the large (exit) wound in President Kennedy’s head...." ________________________ 11. HSCA volume 7, page 122. 12. Receipt for two bone fragments signed by RADM Burkley on 11/27/63, HSCA Record Number 10910385, Agency File No. 002631. 13. HSCA volume 7, pgs. 123 and 228-230. 14. Andy Purdy staff interview report dated August 17, 1977, page 1. 15. Ibid., page 2 FIFTEEN INDICATORS OF AN OCCIPITAL ORIGIN FOR THE HARPER FRAGMENT BY DR. DAVID MANTIK ______________ Just as often as he misrepresents the testimony of occipital-parietal wound witnesses, if not more often, Speer simply conducts flawed analyses which appear to me to be primarily calculated to support his own confirmation bias that all of the Parkland Hospital and Bethesda autopsy witnesses were wrong about their reported observations of a large gaping posterior wound on the right side of the back of JFK's head.

This is where James Jenkins himself sketched the location of what he believes to be an entrance wound in JFK's right temple...

You've suddenly elucidated the correct point -- that one thing has nothing to do with the other -- but you don't appear to understand how it applies to the point that you yourself seemed to be attempting to make in your initial post. Why might that be, Mr. Cohen?

Mr. Cohen, are you claiming that Dr. Thompson's current opinion that the extant "original" Zapruder film is authentic somehow invalidates the fact that LIFE magazine made every conceivable effort to suppress his use of the film to demonstrate that there were at least three shooters executing a crossfire ambush of President Kennedy? The following highlighted passages from "Bernard Geis's "A Note From The Publisher" appear to me to conclusively make the case that LIFE, targeting Dr. Thompson, attempted to sequester all information pertaining to the Zapruder film from the American public: And then, after Six Seconds in Dallas was published, Time, Inc. even sued Dr. Thompson and his publisher for infringement of copyright merely because of the charcoal sketches of the Zapruder frames in the book. A federal court granted summary judgment to Thompson and his publisher ten months later in a landmark decision stressing fair use rights. "Time Inc. v. Bernard Geis Assoc., 293 F. Supp. 130 (S.D.N.Y. 1968)" https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/293/130/1982339/ Well Mr. Cohen, would you please kindly elaborate about your apparent position that Dr. Thompson's current views about Zapruder film authenticity somehow invalidate the above account of LIFE's efforts to suppress the Zapruder film from the American public? And while you are at it, perhaps as an exercise of your Lone Nutter bona fides you could explain to us in the spirit of cover-up and suppression that is so inherent to the Warren Report why the efforts of the CIA through its proxies, TIME/LIFE and the Sixth Floor Museum, are warranted, and a good thing for the American people?

And with regard to the current efforts to suppress the Zapruder film from research and analyses we have the following conduct of the Sixth Floor Museum -- the successor to Time/Life as the deep state guardian of the Zapruder film: ____________ In November 2010, Sidney Wilkinson encountered a problem with the Sixth Floor Museum -- that should raise some eyebrows -- which derailed her production plan for her documentary. The short version of that story is told by Dr. David Mantik in the following video: VIDEO IS QUEUED TO 27:46 WHERE DR. DAVID MANTIK TELLS THE STORY OF SYDNEY WILKINSON AND THEIR VISITS TO THE SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM TO EXAMINE THE 5 x 7 TRANSPARENCIES FROM THE ORIGINAL ZAPRUDER FILM https://youtu.be/hlGaFMvZEI8?t=1666 ____________ Doug Horne, Dr. David Mantik, and Sydney Wilkinson on apparent fraud in Zapruder film transparencies committed while in the custody of the Sixth Floor Museum: 'MASQUERADE AT THE MUSEUM' Excerpt from 'THE JFK ASSASSINATION DECODED: Criminal Forgery in the Autopsy Photographs and X-rays' by David Mantik, MD, PhD. April 15, 2013 Revised November 2021 David W. Mantik (DM) and Sydney Wilkinson (SW) INTRODUCTION (DM) Within several years of the JFK assassination, David Lifton had been captivated by the Zapruder images81 following frame Z-313 " ...because the back of the head seemed all blacked out."82 Curiously, this was several years before he began to suspect that the entire film had been (illegally) edited. He recalls that when Wesley Liebeler (in 1967) had ordered the 4x5 inch transparencies from LIFE magazine for his class (see further discussion of these below) the back of the head still lacked detail.83 In June 1970, under the ruse of a possible purchase, Time-Life permitted Lifton and colleagues to examine multiple film items at their Beverly Hills office. These included 4x5 inch transparencies, an 8 mm film, a 16 mm film and a 35 mm film.84 The back of the head still seemed blacked out to Lifton, which was also consistent with the LIFE magazine images. On that occasion, Lifton viewed the frames after Z-334 (the last one published by the Warren Commission) and discovered that the supposed right facial wound of JFK (not seen by anyone at Parkland) was enormous-and that it appeared merely to be artwork. Provoked by this, Lifton then studied "Insert Matte Photography" and suggested that the "blacking out" effect might also be artwork. The blacked-out posterior skull was radically inconsistent with the recollections of the Parkland physicians. More to the point, though, it was also thoroughly inconsistent with their contemporaneous notes, which are included in the Warren Report. These professionals uniformly recalled a right posterior skull defect about the size of an orange. These doctors also (uniformly) disagreed with the autopsy photographs, which, like the Zapruder film, showed no posterior skull defect. In fact, this disagreement (about the hole in the back of the head) was so scandalous that I listed sixteen Parkland physicians85 who stated that the autopsy photographs86) were distinctly different from what they recalled. On the contrary, no physician who saw the autopsy photographs (of the back of the head) immediately recognized them. Based on my own viewing of the autopsy photographs and X-rays on multiple occasions at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and greatly assisted by optical density measurements made directly on JFK's X­ rays at NARA, I proposed a skull reconstruction87 with a large upper occipital defect. In addition, an adjoining site just to the right of this defect) appeared to be a bone flap that could swing open or closed, which was consistent with the recollections of Dr. Robert McClelland. In fact, McClelland had approved a sketch for Josiah Thompson, which was accompanied by his own pertinent quotation about the bone flap.88 Based on these considerations, even if one accepted an intact (or nearly intact) posterior scalp (i.e., just the soft tissue), a fairly large posterior skull defect could no longer be denied. Curiously enough, such a bony defect was in fact, also consistent with the drawings by autopsy pathologist J. Thornton Boswell.89 So now the question became obvious: How could the scalp appear so intact in the Zapruder film (and in the autopsy photographs), while an obvious defect was seen at Parkland Hospital (at least in the bone, but probably also in the scalp)? Actually, the problem lay even deeper than that: The ancillary autopsy personnel (at Bethesda) agreed with the Parkland witnesses-they also recalled a large hole in the posterior skull.90 Photographs of these witnesses--from both Parkland and Bethesda--consistently illustrated the hole and were compiled by Robert Groden.91 The issue of a posterior skull defect is not a mere curiosity--on the contrary, it goes to the very heart of the JFK assassination case. Such a defect clearly implies a frontal shot, and therefore unavoidably means conspiracy. If the forensic evidence had to be altered (to cover-up a conspiracy), then this posterior defect was an indispensable target for alteration. The remainder of this essay is a first-person account of our mutual attempts to decipher this paradox of JFK s posterior skull especially as seen in the Zapruder film. A BRIEF HISTORY OF OUR 35MM DUPLICATE NEGATIVE OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM (SW) In 2008, my partner (and husband), Thom Whitehead, sold our startup editing company to Deluxe Film Labs. Thom was hired to oversee their newly created editorial department in Burbank, and I chose a new path. After spending over twenty years in sales and development in the post-production industry, I was ready for a new challenge. I have been interested in the JFK assassination history for decades. In 1978, I spent a memorable college semester in Washington, D.C., working as a congressional intern and studying the activities of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). One of the key subjects that piqued my interest was the iconic Zapruder film. In 2008, I rekindled my interest and began to read about the film with a renewed vigor. I was surprised to discover there were serious concerns about its authenticity. Most notably, there had never been a truly independent, forensic, imaging study---one that was not connected to a government or private entity. It suddenly dawned on me that I might have a golden opportunity to delve deeper into the film imagery by utilizing the resources of Deluxe Labs92--one of the largest and most prestigious professional film labs in history. We knew they would allow us to use any/all of their state-of-the-art film and digital technology. Additionally, considering that Thom and I had spent years working with the top film restoration and post-production experts in the world, I felt confident we would be able to solicit their professional, unbiased guidance. With the absolute best technology and talent available at the time, all we needed was the best possible film element to study. In November 2008, we purchased a 35mm duplicate negative (dupe neg) of the "forensic version' of the Zapruder "camera original" 8 mm film housed at NARA. It is a US government authorized and certified, third generation film copy. To our surprise, and to the best of our knowledge (as of 2018), it is the only third generation 35mm dupe neg acquired for the purpose of an independent, expert evaluation since NARA made such elements available to the public in 2003. The following is a brief timeline of the steps I had to take to acquire our 35 mm dupe neg from NARA. It took eight months, and they certainly did not make it convenient, or cost effective in 2008. I hope they have simplified the process since then. According to NARA, the film element used to complete my transfer was their 35mm Intermediate (or "reproduction") copy, which is an interpositive,97 silent, color film descended from the direct blow-up 35mm Internegative. NARA considered it to be a "preservation master." At that time, they offered two versions to the public: (1) a "forensic” version--a 35mm, direct optical blow-up Internegative (without any image improvement) from Zapruder's 8mm camera "original,"98 and (2) a “de-scratched" version--a 35mm film element that has been "cleaned up" to look visually appealing. The latter effectively removes dirt and scratches via "a diffused light source in analog printing instead of using a traditional wet-gate method.99 We chose the forensic version because we wanted to work with unadulterated images--as close to the "original" as possible--where nothing had been done to enhance or improve them in any way. TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF OUR 6K SCANS (SW) We scanned our 35mm dupe neg directly to 6k files using a Northlight film scanner. At the time, the Northlight scanner was instrumental in the production of Hollywood films and was considered state-of-the-art technology in post­ production.100 It created digital files from the optical image of a film. Great care was accorded to this process in a post-production environment because the introduction of any artifacts or discontinuities could ruin the day for a film director or director of photography. The digital file that is created must replicate exactly the image on the film and reveal all the information present on each film frame. Due to the relatively small size of the original 8mm Zapruder film (when viewing the entire 35 mm frame on the dupe neg) we decided to scan at Northlight’s maximum available scan size of 6k. The 6k refers to a size of 6144 x 4668 pixels with an effective size of 114.7 Mb of digital data per frame. To put this into perspective, a home HDTV only presents 1920 x 1080 pixels with about 9.7 Mb per frame. Therefore, our scans have more than ten times the resolution and data size as an HD television image. This additional resolution allowed us to electronically zoom into the image without any apparent loss of detail or fidelity. Finally, we could see down to the grain of the 8mm film with complete sharpness and detail--including all of the inter-sprocket and edge areas. As far as we know, the Zapruder film had never been reproduced or studied at this level of digital resolution. Another important aspect of our scanning process was the use of logarithmic color space, rather than linear color space. This is critical because the use of logarithmic color allows all the color information of the image to be present in the scans, preserving all of the highlight and shadow information. Linear color is what we are accustomed to seeing on TV and computer screens. Although linear color looks correct/normal and lifelike to our eyes, very bright and dark areas of the image must be "clipped" in order to make the majority of the image appear correctly. Logarithmic color, although looking to the untrained eye as "muddy" or "flat," is actually the best way to retain all of the color information in the film. Finally we used the film industry standard "DPX" (Digital Picture eXchange)101 format to allow easy transfers between various professional workstations. One of the state-of-the-art workstations we continue to use is an Autodesk product called Smoke.102 THE MPI IMAGES (DM)103 In 1997 with Douglas Home of the ARRB staff serving as a neutral observer, MPI's designated film contractor, Mccrone Associates, photographed each frame of the extant Zapruder film at the NARA, using large format (4 x 5 inch) Kodak 6121 color positive transparency duplicating film. Those MPI transparencies constituted first generation copies of each frame in the extant film. The extant film is considered to be generation zero. This MPI process had its own shortcomings104 but following their creation these images should have been the best available to the public. (Later, MPI digitized, manipulated, and reassembled the in1ages as a motion picture, creating a product titled "Image of an Assassination" on both VHS tape and DVD, which has been available for purchase by the public since 1998.) The so-called “MPI transparencies" created by McCrone associates were physically transferred to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas in January of 2000. This followed the donation and legal transfer of the film's copyright, and the LMH Company's film elements, from LMH Co. to the Museum in December of 1999. From 2000 through 2009, upon appropriate request, these MPI transparencies--true first-generation copies (of the extant film), in large format-were available for public viewing at the Museum. INSIDE THE ARRB, A 5-VOLUME MASTERPIECE BY DOUGLAS HORNE (DM) Appearing in late November 2009, this five-volume encyclopedic work by a former staff member of the ARRB contained images of several Zapruder frames--based on Wilkinson's 6k scans. In particular, Figure 88 in Volume I (an image of Z-317) showed a black geometric patch over the back of JFK's head. (See the image below.) Even in the low-resolution format of a paperback, its borders were preternaturally sharp and well defined, far more than would be expected of a normal shadow. Several months before publication of his book, Home advised me that he planned to visit Thom and Sydney in Los Angeles, so in August 2009, he invited me to their joint viewing.105 While in the film laboratory for several hours, they explained their 6k scans to us. Horne had also viewed them on a prior occasion with three Hollywood professionals. I was particularly fascinated by how unnatural the black patch looked: • After frame Z-313, this area was clearly darker than before Z-313; before Z-313, JFK's hair looked auburn. • The edges of the patch were unnaturally sharp. • Before and after frame Z-313, the back of Connally's head (in a similar shadow as JFK's head) did not show anything like a black patch. SYDNEY SEES THE MPI TRANSPARENCIES AT THE SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM (SW) On Friday, November 20 2009, during the weekend of the annual JFK symposium meetings, David Mantik and I met for an appointment at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. I was very excited because we were going to view the first generation Ektachrome transparencies created by MPI in 1997. We were told they were made directly from Zapruder's 8mm camera "original," which meant they were first generation and should have been sharper than our 35mm dupe neg (third generation). According to the Museum, these MPI transparencies were included in a deed of gift from the Zapruder family in December of 1999, along with the copyright to the Zapruder film (and other important Zapruder film elements) from Time-Life, Inc. My primary goal was to determine if the MPI transparencies showed the same anomalies seen on our scans. I was prepared for either outcome. David and I were given a loupe and light box to carefully look at each transparency. Words cannot describe how stunned I was when I viewed the head shot, frame Z-313, and the frames immediately following. The resolution was beyond anything I expected. Especially, in frames Z-317, Z-321, Z-323, Z-335 and Z-337, the solid, black' patch" that is clearly seen on our 6k scans--covering the right rear area of JFK's head--was even more egregious on the MPI transparencies. It was all I could do to muzzle my emotions. There was no doubt the MPI transparencies corroborated the obvious anomalies seen on our scans. Most importantly, they clearly depicted what should be on the extant Zapruder film housed at NARA. DAVID REPORTS ON THE SAME VISIT (WITH SYDNEY) IN 2009 (DM) While Gary Mack sat nearby, my first impression was the same as Sydney's--the resolution and color were so incredible that I felt as if I were seeing these frames for the very first time. But the greatest emotional impact came on seeing the black patch in Z-317. It was so blatant, so childishly done, that I almost laughed aloud. Whether I did or not is in some doubt, but I retain an image of clapping my hand over my mouth to prevent such a laugh.106 I was also easily able to verify the other abnormalities that Home had reported in his book, published just a week later in November 2009. SYDNEY RETURNS TO THE MUSEUM IN 2010 (SW) The following year, in November 2010, I returned to the newly finished Sixth Floor Museum reading room in order to view the same MPI transparencies. Thom was able to join me and I was excited to show him the stunning clarity of the back of JFK's head i.e., the "black patch," on the frames we had been studying for months. This time, I was definitely not prepared for what I saw when I looked through the loupe. Not only were the transparencies much larger in size physically, than the ones I had viewed the previous year with David, but none of them were as clear and sharp. Not even close. Most importantly, and suspiciously, the flagrant image of the black "patch" was gone. Instead, the back of JFK s head appeared to show a natural shadow--what Thom called "fuzzied up"--without the straight and well-demarcated edges I had seen in 2009. We were both stunned. Furthermore the black patch was not nearly so obvious in this supposed first generation copy as it was in our third generation 6k copy. That made no sense whatever to me. Despite being assured by the museum they were the same transparencies that David and I saw the previous year, there is absolutely no doubt that they were not. To this day, Thom and I wonder if those transparencies had been altered. INTO THE FRAY: DAVID RETURNS TO THE MUSEUM IN 2012 (DM) Shortly after her 2010 visit to the Museum, Sydney telephoned me, sounding anguished and upset. She described the overwhelming shock caused by her most recent visit. I assured her that I stood by the impressions we had both received in 2009, particularly of the black patch. I promised to visit again--to assess her most recent impressions. During this several-year hiatus (2009-2012) at least two other individuals visited the Museum and saw no black patch. The Museum will not disclose the names of any visitors, but Sydney had met retired Kodak film chemist Roland Zavada outside the viewing room on that same day in 2010. (Zavada had lectured at a JFK symposium that day.107) And author Josiah Thompson reported on his visit, which occurred at about that same time--if not the same day. My second opportunity finally arrived during the annual JFK symposia meetings in November 2012. On the chance that the black patch might re-appear I asked author Peter Jaruley to accompany me on November 16, so that he could serve as another witness. (Sydney was not in Dallas at the time.) The verdict came quickly-the patch in Z-317, and conspicuously present in other frames such as Z- 321 and Z-323, had vanished. Neither Peter nor I saw it. The back of JFK's head appeared little different from all those images I had seen before (excepting for Sydney's 6k images). The powerful emotional response of 2009 did not recur. Furthermore, the back of JFK's head did not show the patently obvious patch I had seen on Sydney's 6k scans. Unlike Sydney, I did not perceive the transparencies I viewed in 2012 to be larger in size than those I viewed in 2009; my impression is that they were simply displayed differently, i.e., in different mountings. The important thing is that we both noted that the anomalies present in 2009 had disappeared in the MPI transparencies we viewed in 2010 and 2012. Before leaving the Museum, I pointedly asked Megan Bryant (Gary Mack was absent) if these were the same images that she had shown me in 2009. She claimed they were. MPI SUMMARY (SW and DM) It is most likely that the images shown to Josiah Thompson and Roland Zavada were the same ones that Sydney and Thom saw in 2010 and that David saw in 2012. If so, then neither of these men has ever viewed the images that Sydney and David saw together at the Museum in 2009. It would have been most enlightening if either Thompson or Zavada could have joined us in 2009. Of course, the relationship between the release date of Horne's book (late November 2009), and our Museum visit in late November 2009 is most peculiar. Our 2009 visit had occurred about one week before the release of Horne's book! In retrospect, this timing appears noteworthy (if not ominous): Was the Museum caught off guard by our visit? Was the Museum's staff oblivious to the purpose of our visit-possibly because they were still unacquainted with Sydney and Thom's research and because they had not yet seen Figure 88 (Z-317) in Horne's book? Even more to the point: It is our impression that we were the first to see these MPI images at the Museum. What strikes both of us as most anomalous is the wonderful clarity of Sydney's 6k scans--which are only a third generation--versus the (currently) less impressive "first generation" MPI images now housed at the Museum (but present only after our 2009 visit). This discrepancy makes no sense to either of us. It would be most useful if Sydney's 6k scans could be taken into the Museum viewing room to be compared side by side with the MPI images, but that is not allowed. Nor were we permitted to record any images of the MPI transparencies, either via camera or scanner--so we have only our memories. A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE -- THE TIME/LIFE TRANSPARENCIES (DM) The Time-Life transparencies might resolve this paradox. Josiah Thompson had worked with these images and had photographed them while working for LIFE magazine. He used them as models for the sketches in his book, Six Seconds in Dallas. He was kind enough to loan these negatives to me, which I converted into prints. Oddly, Z-317 is missing from my set,108 although Thompson has posted an image of Z-317 online, presumably from his own set. The other images in my Thompson set do not show an obvious black patch. On January 26, 2000, the Dallas Morning News published an article, "Zapruders Donate JFK Film, Rights," written by reporter Mark Wrolstad, who stated: The article notes that Mack was actually (contemporaneously) examining these images--not that he expected to do so at a later time. Mack also stated: Now, however, we are left to wonder: Had Wrolstad merely invented this story?109 We are confronted with this bizarre question because the Museum (see e­ mail below) explains what supposedly happened: "From [a] misunderstanding, the Museum issued an inaccurate press release on January 25, 2000." Curiously, Mark Wrolstad has not responded to Doug Horne's two written attempts in 2011 to clarify this critical misunderstanding. So here is the problem: the Museum now claims that they never received the 1963/1964 Time/Life transparencies--and also that they don't know where they are now. Here are responses that I received from Megan Bryant (at the Museum). It is my impression that the following statements are for public consumption. DM: So today no one knows where these Time/Life transparencies are located. On April 10, 1997, Doug Home saw a large stack of 4 x 5-inch color positive transparencies of the Zapruder film (with each frame surrounded by a black border) in the office of Jamie Silverberg,110 while working for the ARRB. The transparencies sighted by Doug Home in 1997 were not on Silverberg's typed inventory list of film elements and were only produced after persistent inquiries by Home about their possible existence. But now none of these men--not Home, not Zavada, not Thompson, nor even Gary Mack--can point to their location. 111 Before surrendering, I wanted to ascertain whether or not the Time/Life transparencies had, after all, been donated to the Museum. So, I asked the Museum one last question: Could I see the Deed of Gift (circa December 30, 1999) or the complete inventory (or catalog), which was probably prepared in 2000-or any copies of these two items? The Museum, however, responded that these were private documents and were therefore not available for my review-nor could I see copies! CONCLUSIONS (DM and SW) Even if both of us had suddenly lost our senses (oddly at the same moment) in 2009 Sydney's 6k scans still exist--and so does the quite obvious "Mask of Death" in Z-317. Furthermore, anyone can still purchase their own copy via NARA. To our knowledge, at least two other documentarians have done so. Sydney has graciously shown her 6k scans to friend and foe alike. Alarmingly some foes have unexpectedly declined to view them saying that they already know what they will see! This reminds us of Galileo's enemies, who likewise refused to look through his telescope,112 but instead chose to believe that theological reasoning, based on texts of Scripture (a la the Warren Report), was the only road to reality. In effect, the truth was out there, but they preferred blindfolds. In short, this mindset persists today--even though we oxymoronically (and self­ referentially) label ourselves as Homo sapiens. ------------------------------------------------------- WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT? Douglas Horne 113 What is at stake here is nothing less than historical truth. When an institution that presents itself as a museum--purportedly a guardian of history-­ replaces vital film evidence of President Kennedy's assassination (which apparently contained prima facie evidence of that film's blatant alteration) with substitute evidence (in which the blatant alterations have disappeared), a willful attempt has been made to alter history. The authentic MPI transparencies were available to the public from 2000 until late 2009, a long interval during which the museum's staff was apparently oblivious to what they owned. Following the publication of my five-volume set, Inside the ARRB, in late November of 2009, just one week after David Mantik and Sydney Wilkinson examined the MPI transparencies, the public (and presumably key members of the Museum's staff) awoke to what was at stake here. Here is what likely triggered this aggressive Museum response: Just prior to publication, I had added an addendum to my Zapruder film chapter about the anomalies discovered in Sydney Wilkinson's scans and had actually included an image of Z-317 in my book, as well. (See this image below.) Was the Sixth Floor Museum, the unapologetic and ardent defender of the Warren Commission's conclusions (that a lone malcontent murdered President Kennedy), going to keep on display powerful evidence of the alteration of the single most important assassination record, the Zapruder film? This was the operative question after my book was published. The implications of the obvious alterations found in the 6k scans, and in the MPI transparencies in 2009 were clear: the true exit wound on President Kennedy's head (in the right rear, just where the Parkland Hospital treatment staff had reported it) had been intentionally obscured in the Zapruder film (likely during 1963), in an attempt to hide evidence of crossfire in Dealey Plaza and therefore of conspiracy. (An exit wound in the rear of JFK's head pointed to a fatal shot from the front and therefore multiple shooters, i.e., conspiracy.) Powerful evidence that the Zapruder film had been altered for the purpose of hiding this exit wound-anomalies in the film that provided virtual proof of the Zapruder film's alteration-would also constitute evidence of a cover-up of major proportions soon after the assassination occurred, something almost as disturbing as the assassination itself. Restating the question above, “Was this institution, the Sixth Floor Museum, willing to display powerful evidence that would invalidate the Museum's own conclusions about the assassination, or would they instead abandon the interests of historical truth and pursue their own longstanding bias?" In 2010 and in 2012 Sydney Wilkinson and David Mantik received the answer to this question. The events described in this essay call into serious question the true purpose of the Museum, and cause us to ask "Is the Museum a repository of truth, or an agent of political and historical spin, i.e., a mere disseminator of propaganda?" Two specific Museum employees (Gary Mack114 and Megan Bryant) were in charge of the Museum's film holdings and were in responsible positions when the MPI transparencies and other film elements from the LMH Co. were received in January of 2000 (as evidenced by the Mark Wrolstad article in the Dallas Morning News). Those same two employees were present in 2009 when Sydney and David both observed the same anomalies in the MPI transparencies that were present in the 6k scans. In 2010 and 2012, while Gary Mack apparently no longer felt a need to be present, after what I shall call the "big switch," Megan Bryant was again present. Is it truly plausible that Gary Mack 'misunderstood' the contents of the Deed of Gift to the Sixth Floor Museum from the LMH Company, in addition to "misinterpreting" a verbal comment from Zapruder lawyer, Jamie Silverberg and then carelessly released an inaccurate press release? Sadly, it's unlikely we will ever know. This release had been exhibited on the Sixth Floor Museum website until Doug Home began questioning Mark Wrolstad in 2011 and David Mantik began corresponding with Megan Bryant about it in 2012. What do the events described above say about these two Sixth Floor Museum employees and their integrity? As each reader answers to this question for himself, keep in mind that the best evidence outside of NARA that corroborated the stunning image content in the 6k scans has now disappeared. It has been switched out. We don't know who switched if out, but we certainly know where the switch took place. Meanwhile, this substitute evidence has been shown to two of the foremost defenders of the Zapruder films authenticity: Roland Zavada and Josiah Thompson. And the sanitized images in the substitute MPI transparencies have reinforced the longstanding opinions of these two men-namely, that the film has not been altered. Now both Thompson and Zavada are more certain than ever, based on their viewing of the altered MPI transparencies, that nothing is amiss with the Zapruder film. A former high-level official at Archives II in College Park, Maryland (Leslie Waffen) informed Sydney Wilkinson (circa 2008) that the extant film in cold storage "would never be removed from the freezer again" and there it sits today, further deteriorating with the passage of time. In view of the events described above this policy must change. There is only one way to definitively determine the authenticity of the 6k scans commissioned by Sydney Wilkinson and studied by so many in the Hollywood film industry: compare the 6k scans with the extant film at NARA. A travesty has occurred in Dallas, and it has historical repercussions. The extant 8mm Zapruder film at NARA must be compared to both the 6k scans of the 35mm dupe negative in Hollywood and with the MPI transparencies (currently available for viewing) at the Sixth Floor Museum. Sydney and David and I are not afraid to conduct this test--in fact, we insist on it. The American people should insist on it. Let's do the three-way comparison, with ample witnesses present, movie cameras running, and let the chips fall where they may. The American people deserve to know their true history not a falsified story. END