Moorman-in-the-street? The logic of the paper Pt. II

Josiah Thompson · March 7, 2009

(3) What do the various Moorman copies show?

Since the core issue of the dispute is whether the White LOS is or is not found in the Moorman photo, the various copies of the Moorman photo soon took center stage. With no evidence, Professor Fetzer asserted that I had altered one particular copy of the Moorman photo, the socalled “drum scan.” When it became apparent that all copies showed the same thing, Fetzer raised his sights and declared all copies of the Moorman photo had been altered especially in the region of the pedestal and the pergola. Given such an extravagant increase in the Fetzer/White claim, it became important to do exhaustive research on the actual provenance of the various copies of the Moorman photo. That research took up many pages of our a paper and showed the silliness of the alteration claim. The following GIF put together by Bill Miller shows dramatically that all copies of the Moorman show the same thing and that the White LOS is not in the Moorman photo:

(4) Is there other internal evidence in the photo showing it was taken from the grass?

Claiming mistakenly that the White LOS was in the photo and that this LOS was too low to match the camera’s position in the Zapruder film, White and Fetzer quickly moved on to claim that the Moorman photo was actually taken from Elm Street, 8" lower than the grass along the curb. Two debunkings of this claim have appeared both based upon internal evidence in the photo itself.

Bill Miller produced a test of supreme simplicity. First, by contacting the Harley-Davidson museum and an owner of one of the cycles actually used in the Kennedy motorcade, he determined that the height from the pavement to the top of the motorcycle’s windscreen was 58"

The Moorman photo is looking down from above on the top of Hargis’s windscreen. Hence, the Moorman camera has to be higher than 58" above the ground. Since the roadway is 8" lower than the grass, this would be the camera’s likely position if the photo were taken from the grass. Only if Mary Moorman jumped into the street and then raised the camera high above her head to take her picture could the Moorman photo have been taken from the street. Six or seven years ago, Miller and Robert Groden set up yellow staffs 58" high in the roadway at the position of the two motorcycle riders windscreens. They then photographed the yellow staffs from Moorman’s position in the grass as shown in the Zapruder film. Miller prepared this GIF that alternates between the Moorman photo and the 58" high staffs.

John Costella recently described a further test of which I was unaware. According to Costella, Rick Janowitz carried out an experiment suggested by Marcel Dehaeseleer. This happened in 2003. Costella described the experiment as a simple comparison of the field of view in the Moorman photo with the field of view produced by the same camera lens when placed in the street or placed in the grass. “If Mary were in the street,” wrote Costella on December 14, 2008, “you would not see as much background as if she were in the grass, simply because she was closer to everything in the background. Janowitz and Marcel (if their research was done as well as it seemed) proved that the field of view of the extant Moorman [photo] corresponds to that of a grass position, not a street position.”

(5) What do other photos and films say of Moorman’s position when she took her photo?

The Zapruder, Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films all show Moorman taking her photo standing in the grass by the south curb of Elm Street as the limousine and motorcyclists cruise past. The Zapruder and Muchmore films can be synchronized to give a second-by-second account of Moorman taking her picture:

The Bronson still photo shows Hill and Moorman standing in the grass seconds before Moorman was to take her photo. The James Altgens photo taken three seconds before the Moorman photo shows the shadows of Hill and Moorman standing in the grass at this time.

(6) Did other eyewitnesses report seeing Mary Moorman jump into the street to take her photo?

If we are to believe that Mary Moorman jumped into the street to take her famous photo, we also have to believe that the two officers riding to the left rear of the limousine officers veered their cycles suddenly to the right to miss her. Furthermore, this happened right in the middle of the assassination when spectators’ attention was riveted on the motorcade. Not a single witness later reported anything like this. Not a single witness reported seeing a spectator leap into street and almost get run down by two motorcyclists. Both officers made reports and were later interviewed several times. Neither one said a thing about some crazy woman jumping into their path in the middle of the shooting and their having to veer around her.

(7) What did Mary Moorman say about taking her photo?

Over the last forty-five years, Mary Moorman has said conflicting things about where she was when she took her famous photograph. Fetzer and White have based much of their claim on the fact that Mary Moorman said she took her photo from the street. That is true. But it is also true that on many other occasions (including testifying at the Shaw trial and executing an affidavit on the afternoon of November 22nd) she appears to be saying the opposite. We made an exhaustive effort to find and publish everything Moorman said about this. The result of that effort is the showing of a clear conflict in her statements over time. It is also the case that she took two earlier photos that afternoon of police motorcyclists that she knew. In one or both cases, she was in the street to take the photo. Hence, she may well be confusing her position while taking the earlier two photos with her position in taking her famous photo. We can only speculate about this.Moorman

Josiah Thompson

David G. Healy · March 7, 2009

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...tion=pages;sa=2

this guy has Moorman (in the Moorman 3) in the street by 9" or so..... so appears there's a new kid on the block, so Miller it's time for you to tighten up your act and present in a more professional way. Can the Moorman 5 be far behind?

Get ABC Dale and his EMMY award in here to do a bit of Lightwave work (if your side can afford him).

Bill Miller · March 7, 2009

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...tion=pages;sa=2
this guy has Moorman (in the Moorman 3) in the street by 9" or so..... so appears there's a new kid on the block, so Miller it's time for you to tighten up your act and present in a more professional way. Can the Moorman 5 be far behind?

Get ABC Dale and his EMMY award in here to do a bit of Lightwave work (if your side can afford him).

Huh? I don't know about light-wave work, but it appears that someone didn't get their shock treatment today, David.

Edited March 7, 2009 by Bill Miller

Craig Lamson · March 7, 2009

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...tion=pages;sa=2
this guy has Moorman (in the Moorman 3) in the street by 9" or so..... so appears there's a new kid on the block, so Miller it's time for you to tighten up your act and present in a more professional way. Can the Moorman 5 be far behind?

Get ABC Dale and his EMMY award in here to do a bit of Lightwave work (if your side can afford him).

I always located Mary in the street for number 3, just based on my opinion and looking at the image. I think thats why she has confused her story.

Just curious David, do YOU think Moorman 5 was altered?

Bill Miller · March 8, 2009

Just curious David, do YOU think Moorman 5 was altered?

I think David is on record as saying that he has seen no proof of alteration. Even David wouldn't think that someone had altered Moorman's photo within the first 35 minutes of the assassination, but of course that may depend on whether he is taking his medication.

David G. Healy · March 8, 2009

Just curious David, do YOU think Moorman 5 was altered?

I think David is on record as saying that he has seen no proof of alteration. Even David wouldn't think that someone had altered Moorman's photo within the first 35 minutes of the assassination, but of course that may depend on whether he is taking his medication.

I think you should show a bit of restraint William, allow the one to who the question was directed me in this case to answer. Without you're obnoxious interruption. However, knowing full well your ego runs wild, and is completely out of control, we do understand, you can't help yourself..... sigh and, as usual, you're wrong, AGAIN.... but I'll let you dangle for a bit longer.....

Thorazine chum, a full or half tab -- which do you prefer?

Edited March 8, 2009 by David G. Healy

David G. Healy · March 8, 2009

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...tion=pages;sa=2
this guy has Moorman (in the Moorman 3) in the street by 9" or so..... so appears there's a new kid on the block, so Miller it's time for you to tighten up your act and present in a more professional way. Can the Moorman 5 be far behind?

Get ABC Dale and his EMMY award in here to do a bit of Lightwave work (if your side can afford him).

I always located Mary in the street for number 3, just based on my opinion and looking at the image. I think thats why she has confused her story.

Just curious David, do YOU think Moorman 5 was altered?

yep, it's a no-brainer #3 is in the street... it's a shame Gary (when he had the chance on-camera) didn't clarify the #3 & #5 possible mix up in Mary's mind.....

For the record, I think your Polaroid tripod setup for duplicating the Moorman 5 of yesteryear would go a long way (with the addition of a $10 dollar laser) today in clarifying a ridiculous argument over the edge. The Moorman 5 is such a horrible photo (texture wise), after all you can't recognize the gender(s) of whomever is standing on the pedestal. Ya want to tout a reverse angle to the Z-film ya got the Nix film --- IMHO the debate over the Moorman grass/street issue is a canard... So, why edit the damn thing, the original quality is so poor. What does it prove? Mary Moorman was in Dealey Plaza that day.....

(Possible) Z-film alteration (circa. 1963-1964) doesn't depend on a Mary Moorman in the street, or the grass!

March 8, 2009

Here is the first of four posts I posted about "Part I" of this charade,

which I repost here for the sake of orienting readers to my position.

I shall add another that responds to the other points he raises here.

________________

This guy is shameless. He is blatantly misrepresenting our position.

Notice he does not actually offer pages or posts for citations so

anyone could check our actual positions. While there is a "lower right

corner" of the window thirty five feet behind the pedestal, there is

no "upper left corner" of the pedestal, because there is a one-inch

indentation around the top of the pedestal. The proper alignment of

the cross "+" requires using the left side of the pedestal and the top

of the pedestal as parts of two lines that intersect in space. What

this means is that, in order to make the alignment required by the

line of sight, a "gap" will be created by necessity, since aligning

them properly allows for the one-inch indentation (or "notch"). I

have explained this in Parts I and II of "Moorman/Zapruder Revisited",

JFKresearch.com/Moorman/, which was composed after weeks of discussion

and debate on jfk-research@yahoogroups.com. Everyone who participated

in this knows that Josiah Thompson is distorting the most basic aspects

of our proof. The matter of the "red cross" is also a charade, since

the same features exist with or without the red lines, which Jack used

to highlight the location of the cross. If you take a look at

"Moorman/Zapruder Revisited", you will find an extensive and, in my

opinion, decisive refutation of the claims made in this ridiculous

post. If David Healy has actually posted the reply attributed to him

here, then he has been taken in. No one should fall for this stunt,

which is one of the most dishonest distortions possible. No doubt

Josiah wanted to shift the discussion to this forum from the other

because it would be virtually impossible to dupe members there, who

have been living through this for months. I therefore urge Healy and

others who are being played for suckers to read our study, which is

supported by no less than fifteen photographic attachments, which were

prepared by Jack for this purpose.

The existence of a modest distance between the pedestal top and the

bottom inside of the window has also been a subject of extensive

discussion. You will find the key paragraph below Attachment 7 as

follows:

The second alleged "gap" is one of vertical displacement. Tink has

insisted that we missed a difference of close to 2" at the pergola,

which would have translated into as much as a 7" difference over the

grass. Such a modest gap is almost too small to be seen on a small,

blurry copy of the Moorman. Jack has candidly acknowledged that there

may be a 1" gap at the pedestal, which Joe Durnavich measured (using a

method John first proposed of counting pixels) to be 1.88". I do not

know if he did this correctly by using an image consistent with our

41.5" estimate, but let us assume that he did. Since even a 2"

difference only adds 8" to the line of sight over the grass, adding it

to our figure of 41.5" would yield 49.5". Since Mary was 5'2" (5'3"

with shoes) and the camera at lens should have been about 5" lower,

the line of sight should have been closer to 57" (or 58"). This is

still far too low by 8" (or 9") for Mary to be standing on the grass.

So even Tink's strongest argument is still unavailing.

Indeed, anyone who studied the exchange between us would be struck by

the duplicity of his side during the debate, where a private

investigator, familiar with court procedures, is not even willing to

acknowledge that eyewitness verification of photos and films is

required for their admissibility as evidence in courts of law, which

means that witnesss testimony takes precedence as has the greater

weight, contrary to his position, in a desperate but corrupt attempt

to blunt the evidential impact of Mary's testimony about taking her

Polaroid.

Let me highlight some of the measures they have employed in arguing

their case against us. Mary Moorman herself has, from her first

recorded interview three hours after the event, consistently

maintained that she stepped into the street to take her famous

photograph. Sometimes she is more detailed about stepping into the

street, taking her photo, stepping back onto the grass and "getting

down" while tugging at the leg of her friend, Jean Hill, so she would

get down, too, and they would avoid being shot. One astute member of

the forum even noticed there is a YouTube video, "Moorman in the

Street",

, where you can

watch Mary speak for herself. Indeed, when Gary Mack confirmed that,

in her first interview, she stated, "I stepped into the street", it

confirmed for him that Mary had indeed been in the street, even though

he disagrees with Jack and me about the internal features of the

video, which in his opinion support that it was taken from the grass.

If Mary was in the street, yet the photo has features that indicate it

was taken from the grass, then it can't be the photo that Mary took

or, at the very least, it must have been subject to alteration. Josiah

insists that John is on his side about Mary having been on the grass

when the photo was taken, suffering from some apparent intellectual

incapacity to separate the photo that Mary is alleged to have taken

from where the photo she actually took and where she was standing. I

don't know how to account for his unwillingness to acknowledge John's

position, which he continues to distort.

And this is far from the only misrepresentation at the heart of Josiah's

position. In the crucial paragraph of his "Moorman-in-the-street?", he

commits logical blunders that I would not expect a freshman to commit:

[Hide Quoted Text]

> Because of the persistent but failing efforts of Fetzer, White and others,

> I can say with considerable confidence that the photo record from Dealey

> Plaza forms a seamless tapestry of what happened on November 22nd. If

> you want to know what happened there, then study the photo record. It is

> a self-authenticating whole that can stand as bedrock in the case. It can be

> used to evaluate both eyewitness testimony and physical evidence. Only by

> the sheerest luck did Abraham Zapruder climb up on that pedestal with his

> camera and Mary Moorman take her Polaroid along that day. Zapruder’s film

> and Moorman’s Polaroid (plus many other films and photos) give us the raw

> material to reconstruct the event insofar as it is possible. Without them,

> we in the research community would have gotten nowhere

Notice how he pretends that, if Jack and I are wrong about the

Moorman, then that permits him to assert--"with considrable

confidence"--that the photo record from the plaza "forms a seamless

tapestry", which can "stand as bedrock in the case", as though other

indications of alteration do not even exist! Indeed, I have offered

several inventories of them in "Moorman/Zapruder Revisited" and in

"Tink rolls the dice", not to mention John's new discovery, which I

reported in "New Proof of JFK Video Fakery" (OpEdNews, February 5,

2008) and those presented in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003). He

asserts again and again that the consistency of the Zapruder,

Muchmore, and Nix films establishes their authenticity, when

consistency is necessary but not sufficient for truth. Motion pictures

are almost always consistent, but very seldom are the events they

portrayed true and accurate representations of events that actually

occurred in the world, as endless action films, romances and comedies,

and science fiction thrillers attest. If Tink were right, then the

events portrayed in the "Star Wars" sequence and in the Indiana Jones

series must have actually occurred! His position here is so absurd

that it has to be a charade. No American, immersed in the cinema,

could not appreciate the difference between the consistency of a film

and its true. Not all films are documentaries!

Josiah has adopted the pose that there is a simple choice between

accepting Mary's testimony that she was really in the street as though

we did not already have massive proof that the Zapruder has been

altered. In his enthusiasm over Costella's agreement that the photo

was taken from the grass, he seems to forget that Costella has proven

the Zapruder is a fake. It is as though he had never read, "A

Scientist's Verdict: The Film is a Fabrication"! And he simply ignores

the obvious consequence, namely: that if the assassination films are

consistent with one another, when one of them is a fake, the others

must--in relevant respects--have been altered, too. He is unwilling to

acknowledge any proof of fakery. Indeed, none of what I have said here

even reaches to the mutually reinforcing deceptions of (a) the blow

out to the right-front in the Zapruder film, ( the missing right-front

in the anterior-posterior X-ray, and © the publication of 313 in LIFE

magazine with a caption saying that the right-front of his head had

been blown out (which was rewritten after twice breaking the plates).

And it implicates Zapruder in the deception, when (d) he described a

blow-out to the right-front during a televised interview that night

(HOAX, page 435)! In fact, none of it is true. Jackie herself reported

that, from the front, he looked just fine but that she had had a hard

time holding his skull and brains together at the back of his head.

Not one of the witnesses or doctors reported it. Not even the

mortician! It's not just that Tink’slittle boat has sprung a leak. It

has sunk like a sieve into the ocean of truth!

I have composed a second study, briefer than the first, discussing

Thompson's methodology in pursuing this here, which is entitled "Tink

rolls the dice: 'Moorman-in-the-street?'" I really had no expected

that he would be so daring as to perform such fakery in this forum.

But then I should not underestimate him. He has been lying and

cheating on forums in attacking me and Jack about the Moorman for

years. He has gone far out of his way to distort and mislead

audiences, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that he would

continue, true to form, here on this forum. Having been defeated "fair

and square" over months of excruciating and meticulous debate, he had

no other choice but to look for an new audience to contaminate my

manipulating the evidence. For a Ph.D. from Yale, his indulgence in

fallacies is astounding. It has to be deliberate, which is why I have

been forced to the conclusion that his objective is to obfuscate new

discoveries that advance our understanding of the true causes of the

death of JFK. And that, of course, includes using every trick of the

trade when the going gets tough. He has tried to take advantage of the

fact that Jack and I are simply worn out by the massive, ongoing, and

deceitful attacks that have come, not just from him but from others

who are allied with him, including Lamson, Miller, and Junk. Leonard

and Shackelford occasions make their debuts, but the burden has been

carried by Josiah, Lamson, and Miller. This appears to be a

psychological mechanism with several purposes, including (a) social

reinforcement of misleading claims, ( attempting to make it appear

that everyone agrees that we are wrong, and © tacitly substituting

popularity for truth. But then again, when logic and the evidence are

against you, desperate situations require desperate measures.

(3) What do the various Moorman copies show?
Since the core issue of the dispute is whether the White LOS is or is not found in the Moorman photo, the various copies of the Moorman photo soon took center stage. With no evidence, Professor Fetzer asserted that I had altered one particular copy of the Moorman photo, the socalled “drum scan.” When it became apparent that all copies showed the same thing, Fetzer raised his sights and declared all copies of the Moorman photo had been altered especially in the region of the pedestal and the pergola. Given such an extravagant increase in the Fetzer/White claim, it became important to do exhaustive research on the actual provenance of the various copies of the Moorman photo. That research took up many pages of our a paper and showed the silliness of the alteration claim. The following GIF put together by Bill Miller shows dramatically that all copies of the Moorman show the same thing and that the White LOS is not in the Moorman photo:

(4) Is there other internal evidence in the photo showing it was taken from the grass?

Claiming mistakenly that the White LOS was in the photo and that this LOS was too low to match the camera’s position in the Zapruder film, White and Fetzer quickly moved on to claim that the Moorman photo was actually taken from Elm Street, 8" lower than the grass along the curb. Two debunkings of this claim have appeared both based upon internal evidence in the photo itself.

Bill Miller produced a test of supreme simplicity. First, by contacting the Harley-Davidson museum and an owner of one of the cycles actually used in the Kennedy motorcade, he determined that the height from the pavement to the top of the motorcycle’s windscreen was 58"

The Moorman photo is looking down from above on the top of Hargis’s windscreen. Hence, the Moorman camera has to be higher than 58" above the ground. Since the roadway is 8" lower than the grass, this would be the camera’s likely position if the photo were taken from the grass. Only if Mary Moorman jumped into the street and then raised the camera high above her head to take her picture could the Moorman photo have been taken from the street. Six or seven years ago, Miller and Robert Groden set up yellow staffs 58" high in the roadway at the position of the two motorcycle riders windscreens. They then photographed the yellow staffs from Moorman’s position in the grass as shown in the Zapruder film. Miller prepared this GIF that alternates between the Moorman photo and the 58" high staffs.

John Costella recently described a further test of which I was unaware. According to Costella, Rick Janowitz carried out an experiment suggested by Marcel Dehaeseleer. This happened in 2003. Costella described the experiment as a simple comparison of the field of view in the Moorman photo with the field of view produced by the same camera lens when placed in the street or placed in the grass. “If Mary were in the street,” wrote Costella on December 14, 2008, “you would not see as much background as if she were in the grass, simply because she was closer to everything in the background. Janowitz and Marcel (if their research was done as well as it seemed) proved that the field of view of the extant Moorman [photo] corresponds to that of a grass position, not a street position.”

(5) What do other photos and films say of Moorman’s position when she took her photo?

The Zapruder, Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films all show Moorman taking her photo standing in the grass by the south curb of Elm Street as the limousine and motorcyclists cruise past. The Zapruder and Muchmore films can be synchronized to give a second-by-second account of Moorman taking her picture:

The Bronson still photo shows Hill and Moorman standing in the grass seconds before Moorman was to take her photo. The James Altgens photo taken three seconds before the Moorman photo shows the shadows of Hill and Moorman standing in the grass at this time.

(6) Did other eyewitnesses report seeing Mary Moorman jump into the street to take her photo?

If we are to believe that Mary Moorman jumped into the street to take her famous photo, we also have to believe that the two officers riding to the left rear of the limousine officers veered their cycles suddenly to the right to miss her. Furthermore, this happened right in the middle of the assassination when spectators’ attention was riveted on the motorcade. Not a single witness later reported anything like this. Not a single witness reported seeing a spectator leap into street and almost get run down by two motorcyclists. Both officers made reports and were later interviewed several times. Neither one said a thing about some crazy woman jumping into their path in the middle of the shooting and their having to veer around her.

(7) What did Mary Moorman say about taking her photo?

Over the last forty-five years, Mary Moorman has said conflicting things about where she was when she took her famous photograph. Fetzer and White have based much of their claim on the fact that Mary Moorman said she took her photo from the street. That is true. But it is also true that on many other occasions (including testifying at the Shaw trial and executing an affidavit on the afternoon of November 22nd) she appears to be saying the opposite. We made an exhaustive effort to find and publish everything Moorman said about this. The result of that effort is the showing of a clear conflict in her statements over time. It is also the case that she took two earlier photos that afternoon of police motorcyclists that she knew. In one or both cases, she was in the street to take the photo. Hence, she may well be confusing her position while taking the earlier two photos with her position in taking her famous photo. We can only speculate about this.Moorman

Josiah Thompson

Edited March 8, 2009 by James H. Fetzer

Craig Lamson · March 8, 2009

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...tion=pages;sa=2
this guy has Moorman (in the Moorman 3) in the street by 9" or so..... so appears there's a new kid on the block, so Miller it's time for you to tighten up your act and present in a more professional way. Can the Moorman 5 be far behind?

Get ABC Dale and his EMMY award in here to do a bit of Lightwave work (if your side can afford him).

I always located Mary in the street for number 3, just based on my opinion and looking at the image. I think thats why she has confused her story.

Just curious David, do YOU think Moorman 5 was altered?

yep, it's a no-brainer #3 is in the street... it's a shame Gary (when he had the chance on-camera) didn't clarify the #3 & #5 possible mix up in Mary's mind.....

For the record, I think your Polaroid tripod setup for duplicating the Moorman 5 of yesteryear would go a long way (with the addition of a $10 dollar laser) today in clarifying a ridiculous argument over the edge. The Moorman 5 is such a horrible photo (texture wise), after all you can't recognize the gender(s) of whomever is standing on the pedestal. Ya want to tout a reverse angle to the Z-film ya got the Nix film --- IMHO the debate over the Moorman grass/street issue is a canard... So, why edit the damn thing, the original quality is so poor. What does it prove? Mary Moorman was in Dealey Plaza that day.....

(Possible) Z-film alteration (circa. 1963-1964) doesn't depend on a Mary Moorman in the street, or the grass!

It appears you have been played for a sucker David, at least according to Fetzer.

I created the view camera/polaroid lens combo to provide some out of the box thinking in regards otthe Moorman 5, and recreation photos. I found it simply amazing that all of the so called photo experts who have worked on this for years continued to stumble along trying to adapt all manners of film to an old polaroid camera, when all they really needed to do was adapt the lens to a different camera that could take many differernt types of film or digital backs. I had once planned on taking it to Dallas but that never happened. And since I sold all of my old film cameras, including the lensboard with the polaroid lens attached when I closed my studio, I don't see it happening in the future. But I sure don't have a problem with someone else taking the idea and running with it. All they would need is a view camara, a lensboard, the lens from a Model 80a camera and some double sided foam tape.

Edited March 8, 2009 by Craig Lamson

Jack White · March 8, 2009

(3) What do the various Moorman copies show?
Since the core issue of the dispute is whether the White LOS is or is not found in the Moorman photo, the various copies of the Moorman photo soon took center stage. With no evidence, Professor Fetzer asserted that I had altered one particular copy of the Moorman photo, the socalled “drum scan.” When it became apparent that all copies showed the same thing, Fetzer raised his sights and declared all copies of the Moorman photo had been altered especially in the region of the pedestal and the pergola. Given such an extravagant increase in the Fetzer/White claim, it became important to do exhaustive research on the actual provenance of the various copies of the Moorman photo. That research took up many pages of our a paper and showed the silliness of the alteration claim. The following GIF put together by Bill Miller shows dramatically that all copies of the Moorman show the same thing and that the White LOS is not in the Moorman photo:

(4) Is there other internal evidence in the photo showing it was taken from the grass?

Claiming mistakenly that the White LOS was in the photo and that this LOS was too low to match the camera’s position in the Zapruder film, White and Fetzer quickly moved on to claim that the Moorman photo was actually taken from Elm Street, 8" lower than the grass along the curb. Two debunkings of this claim have appeared both based upon internal evidence in the photo itself.

Bill Miller produced a test of supreme simplicity. First, by contacting the Harley-Davidson museum and an owner of one of the cycles actually used in the Kennedy motorcade, he determined that the height from the pavement to the top of the motorcycle’s windscreen was 58"

The Moorman photo is looking down from above on the top of Hargis’s windscreen. Hence, the Moorman camera has to be higher than 58" above the ground. Since the roadway is 8" lower than the grass, this would be the camera’s likely position if the photo were taken from the grass. Only if Mary Moorman jumped into the street and then raised the camera high above her head to take her picture could the Moorman photo have been taken from the street. Six or seven years ago, Miller and Robert Groden set up yellow staffs 58" high in the roadway at the position of the two motorcycle riders windscreens. They then photographed the yellow staffs from Moorman’s position in the grass as shown in the Zapruder film. Miller prepared this GIF that alternates between the Moorman photo and the 58" high staffs.

John Costella recently described a further test of which I was unaware. According to Costella, Rick Janowitz carried out an experiment suggested by Marcel Dehaeseleer. This happened in 2003. Costella described the experiment as a simple comparison of the field of view in the Moorman photo with the field of view produced by the same camera lens when placed in the street or placed in the grass. “If Mary were in the street,” wrote Costella on December 14, 2008, “you would not see as much background as if she were in the grass, simply because she was closer to everything in the background. Janowitz and Marcel (if their research was done as well as it seemed) proved that the field of view of the extant Moorman [photo] corresponds to that of a grass position, not a street position.”

(5) What do other photos and films say of Moorman’s position when she took her photo?

The Zapruder, Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films all show Moorman taking her photo standing in the grass by the south curb of Elm Street as the limousine and motorcyclists cruise past. The Zapruder and Muchmore films can be synchronized to give a second-by-second account of Moorman taking her picture:

The Bronson still photo shows Hill and Moorman standing in the grass seconds before Moorman was to take her photo. The James Altgens photo taken three seconds before the Moorman photo shows the shadows of Hill and Moorman standing in the grass at this time.

(6) Did other eyewitnesses report seeing Mary Moorman jump into the street to take her photo?

If we are to believe that Mary Moorman jumped into the street to take her famous photo, we also have to believe that the two officers riding to the left rear of the limousine officers veered their cycles suddenly to the right to miss her. Furthermore, this happened right in the middle of the assassination when spectators’ attention was riveted on the motorcade. Not a single witness later reported anything like this. Not a single witness reported seeing a spectator leap into street and almost get run down by two motorcyclists. Both officers made reports and were later interviewed several times. Neither one said a thing about some crazy woman jumping into their path in the middle of the shooting and their having to veer around her.

(7) What did Mary Moorman say about taking her photo?

Over the last forty-five years, Mary Moorman has said conflicting things about where she was when she took her famous photograph. Fetzer and White have based much of their claim on the fact that Mary Moorman said she took her photo from the street. That is true. But it is also true that on many other occasions (including testifying at the Shaw trial and executing an affidavit on the afternoon of November 22nd) she appears to be saying the opposite. We made an exhaustive effort to find and publish everything Moorman said about this. The result of that effort is the showing of a clear conflict in her statements over time. It is also the case that she took two earlier photos that afternoon of police motorcyclists that she knew. In one or both cases, she was in the street to take the photo. Hence, she may well be confusing her position while taking the earlier two photos with her position in taking her famous photo. We can only speculate about this.Moorman

Josiah Thompson

I request that the graphic headed JACK WHITE, WHITE LOS be removed. It is false that it represents

my opinion regarding the Moorman line of sight. I have NEVER represented that graphic as expressing

my belief, so it is a lie to say that I have. I did take the photo, but I took dozens of OTHERS to demonstrate

lines of sight AT VARIOUS HEIGHTS. To choose one of many and say it represents MY BELIEF is totally

false, and I ask that it be removed at once and an apology be rendered for the deliberately misleading

implication.

Jack

Craig Lamson · March 8, 2009

(3) What do the various Moorman copies show?
Since the core issue of the dispute is whether the White LOS is or is not found in the Moorman photo, the various copies of the Moorman photo soon took center stage. With no evidence, Professor Fetzer asserted that I had altered one particular copy of the Moorman photo, the socalled “drum scan.” When it became apparent that all copies showed the same thing, Fetzer raised his sights and declared all copies of the Moorman photo had been altered especially in the region of the pedestal and the pergola. Given such an extravagant increase in the Fetzer/White claim, it became important to do exhaustive research on the actual provenance of the various copies of the Moorman photo. That research took up many pages of our a paper and showed the silliness of the alteration claim. The following GIF put together by Bill Miller shows dramatically that all copies of the Moorman show the same thing and that the White LOS is not in the Moorman photo:

(4) Is there other internal evidence in the photo showing it was taken from the grass?

Claiming mistakenly that the White LOS was in the photo and that this LOS was too low to match the camera’s position in the Zapruder film, White and Fetzer quickly moved on to claim that the Moorman photo was actually taken from Elm Street, 8" lower than the grass along the curb. Two debunkings of this claim have appeared both based upon internal evidence in the photo itself.

Bill Miller produced a test of supreme simplicity. First, by contacting the Harley-Davidson museum and an owner of one of the cycles actually used in the Kennedy motorcade, he determined that the height from the pavement to the top of the motorcycle’s windscreen was 58"

The Moorman photo is looking down from above on the top of Hargis’s windscreen. Hence, the Moorman camera has to be higher than 58" above the ground. Since the roadway is 8" lower than the grass, this would be the camera’s likely position if the photo were taken from the grass. Only if Mary Moorman jumped into the street and then raised the camera high above her head to take her picture could the Moorman photo have been taken from the street. Six or seven years ago, Miller and Robert Groden set up yellow staffs 58" high in the roadway at the position of the two motorcycle riders windscreens. They then photographed the yellow staffs from Moorman’s position in the grass as shown in the Zapruder film. Miller prepared this GIF that alternates between the Moorman photo and the 58" high staffs.

John Costella recently described a further test of which I was unaware. According to Costella, Rick Janowitz carried out an experiment suggested by Marcel Dehaeseleer. This happened in 2003. Costella described the experiment as a simple comparison of the field of view in the Moorman photo with the field of view produced by the same camera lens when placed in the street or placed in the grass. “If Mary were in the street,” wrote Costella on December 14, 2008, “you would not see as much background as if she were in the grass, simply because she was closer to everything in the background. Janowitz and Marcel (if their research was done as well as it seemed) proved that the field of view of the extant Moorman [photo] corresponds to that of a grass position, not a street position.”

(5) What do other photos and films say of Moorman’s position when she took her photo?

The Zapruder, Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films all show Moorman taking her photo standing in the grass by the south curb of Elm Street as the limousine and motorcyclists cruise past. The Zapruder and Muchmore films can be synchronized to give a second-by-second account of Moorman taking her picture:

The Bronson still photo shows Hill and Moorman standing in the grass seconds before Moorman was to take her photo. The James Altgens photo taken three seconds before the Moorman photo shows the shadows of Hill and Moorman standing in the grass at this time.

(6) Did other eyewitnesses report seeing Mary Moorman jump into the street to take her photo?

If we are to believe that Mary Moorman jumped into the street to take her famous photo, we also have to believe that the two officers riding to the left rear of the limousine officers veered their cycles suddenly to the right to miss her. Furthermore, this happened right in the middle of the assassination when spectators’ attention was riveted on the motorcade. Not a single witness later reported anything like this. Not a single witness reported seeing a spectator leap into street and almost get run down by two motorcyclists. Both officers made reports and were later interviewed several times. Neither one said a thing about some crazy woman jumping into their path in the middle of the shooting and their having to veer around her.

(7) What did Mary Moorman say about taking her photo?

Over the last forty-five years, Mary Moorman has said conflicting things about where she was when she took her famous photograph. Fetzer and White have based much of their claim on the fact that Mary Moorman said she took her photo from the street. That is true. But it is also true that on many other occasions (including testifying at the Shaw trial and executing an affidavit on the afternoon of November 22nd) she appears to be saying the opposite. We made an exhaustive effort to find and publish everything Moorman said about this. The result of that effort is the showing of a clear conflict in her statements over time. It is also the case that she took two earlier photos that afternoon of police motorcyclists that she knew. In one or both cases, she was in the street to take the photo. Hence, she may well be confusing her position while taking the earlier two photos with her position in taking her famous photo. We can only speculate about this.Moorman

Josiah Thompson

I request that the graphic headed JACK WHITE, WHITE LOS be removed. It is false that it represents

my opinion regarding the Moorman line of sight. I have NEVER represented that graphic as expressing

my belief, so it is a lie to say that I have. I did take the photo, but I took dozens of OTHERS to demonstrate

lines of sight AT VARIOUS HEIGHTS. To choose one of many and say it represents MY BELIEF is totally

false, and I ask that it be removed at once and an apology be rendered for the deliberately misleading

implication.

Jack

So why don't you show us the photos that illustrates what you saw through the transit during your "scientific" experiment.

Edited March 8, 2009 by Craig Lamson

March 8, 2009

Bear in mind that, not only is Josiah Thompson persisting in the

gross misrepresentation of the line of sight, which is defined by

four lateral edges, as I have explained time and time again--

only to have Josiah reiterate his deception, especially for the

benefit of a new target audience (which may be less knowing

and therefore easier to deceive)--where the "point" he talks

about (and I myself before engaging in this latest, protracted

debate, sometimes used to describe it myself) created by the

intersection of the top of the pedestal and its left-hand side

exists only in space! It is not a physical point, which puts the

lie to the succession of photographs that are alleged to show

"Jack's line of sight" but actually do no such thing. I find it

simply disgusting that he would so blatantly attempt to pull

the rug over anyone's eyes at this point in time, but then, I

suppose, nothing should surprise me any more. So in reply

to his question, "What do the various Moorman photographs

show?", the answer is, "Not what you are showing here!" I

strongly recommend viewing the supporting attachments to

"Moorman/Zapruder Revisited" for additional confirmation.

He then asks, "Is there other internal evidence that it was

taken from the grass?", again misrepresenting the line of

sight but adding an argument from Bill Miller based upon

the height of the windshields and another based upon an

experiment by Rick Janowitz and Marcel Dehaeseleer. We

--Jack and I--discussed this, especially in Attachment (10),

which will appear with this post, if I have added it properly.

Their photo matched the pergola with the Moorman, but

they did not measure the height of their lens above the

grass. Jack was there, however, and photographed them

standing with their camera. Since their own heights were

about 5'8' to 5'10" and the camera was about waist level,

their lens appears to have been about 42" above ground,

a result in close accord with the 41.5" result that David

Mantik and I obtained when we conducted our experiment.

So Thompson appears to be misrepresenting the results

the Janowitz/Dehaeseleer experiment, which, of course,

is par for the course in these exchanges. Indeed, from

his discussion, you would never know that many other

studies have confirmed the result of our experiment. I

addressed this in the context of explaining that Jack's

own research has sometimes supported 44.5", but, on

other occasions, the same result David and I obtained:

An ambiguity in measurement requires clarification. In (2), the height of the line of sight over the grass, which is about two feet back from the curb, has been given the value of 44.5" but then has been "corrected" to 41.5". The 44.5" figure is for Jack's estimate, which can be found, for example, in MURDER on page 7 of Jack's color photo section. His use of 44.5" is also found in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003) on page 249 as well as in the fifth and sixth attachments to this study. Jack on occasion has come up with a lower number, including 41.5" using a Leica with a telephoto lens (on page 249). That is the result of the Mantik/Fetzer experiment, which has also been found by others. Rick Janowitz and Scott Myers, using a rifle scope equipped with a laser (on page 251), came up with 42", and Tom Fohne arrived at the same 41.5" line of sight (on page 254). While Tink likes to discuss a comparison photo Jack took for 41.5" (below), we were using Mary's photo as the basis of our experiment, not Jack's. Our 41.5" finding will be discussed in the text, Jack's 44.5" in the attachments.

The most stunning example of misrepresentation, I suspect, is in

relation to Costella's own work. Josiah and his followers often claim

John has no opinion about where Mary was standing, even though

he CHANGED HIS MIND and concluded that Mary was probably in the

street. Even if you set aside the question of what internal features

of the photograph suggest, Mary's consistent testimony over time,

even including a YouTube video, "Moorman in the Street", where her

report--three hours after the events!--that she said, "I stepped into

the street", has even been verified by Gary Mack, Curator of The

Sixth Floor Museum, affected his thinking about this matter. Let me

therefore recommend that, as you think this matter thorough, take

the Costella example to heart, because you are not being exposed

to both sides of the issue as a deliberated decision by Josiah. Thus,

one of Tink's numerous followers has posted the following remark:

[Hide Quoted Text]

>

> Costella went on to say, "But since we have no corroborating

> evidence for Mary being in the street, other than her own say-so,

> then I don't tie myself down to either conclusion." Here Costella is

> saying that he has no opinion either way. For you to tell me that

> Costella is saying otherwise and believes Moorman to have been in

> the street is utter fraud on your part and I say shame on you!

>

But he CHANGED HIS MIND after Gary Mack confirmed that, within three

hours of the events, she had stepped into the street! He must have missed

his response when Josiah, with great fanfare!, announce what Mary Moorman

actually said based upon Mack's review of her interview following the event:

Quoting John Costella jpcostella@hotmail.com

[Hide Quoted Text]

>> Josiah,

>

> I didn't dump any baseless charges and insults onto Gary and you.

>

> I did say, with smiley face, that I hoped the impeccable secret

> source wasn't Gary Mack. But at that time I thought you were going

> to reveal that she didn't say she stepped into the street at all.

>

> As it turns out, Gary has confirmed that just three hours after the

> assassination, she said she stepped into the street. Given that this

> is damaging to your case (and his), I now agree that his authority

> is impeccable.

>

> Let me summarise, from MY point of view, where we are now:

>

> 1. It has been established, without any doubt, that the extant

> Moorman Polaroid could NOT have been taken from the street by

> someone of Mary's height. It is, in fact, completely consistent with

> the Zapruder film's location of her lens.

>

> 2. Mary said, just three hours after the assassination, and has

> repeated to this day, that she stepped out into the street. IGNORE

> THE QUESTION OF WHETHER SHE TOOK THE PHOTO FROM THE STREET.

>

> 3. Both Mary and Jean describe Jean waving and trying to get the

> President's or Jackie's attention.

>

> 4. The Zapruder film shows the two of them stuck on the grass like

> frozen turkeys:

>

> http://www.assassinationscience.com/johnco.../jfk/clip_C.mov

>

> 5. The Nix and Muchmore films are consistent with the Zapruder film.

>

> 6. To my knowledge, no one else described Mary stepping into the street.

>

> The net results are:

>

> A. The Moorman Polaroid joins the Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore films

> as presenting a consistent depiction of the assassination.

>

> B. Mary Moorman either was and is a complete xxxx, or the

> photographic evidence is fraudulent.

>

> C. If in B the former is the case, then the Moorman Polaroid is

> impeached as evidence -- its admissibility relies on the testimony of

> the photographer.

>

> D. If the latter is the case, then the only possible explanation I

> can see for no one else seeing her step into the street is that she

> did it AFTER THE LIMO STOPPED AND THE MOTORCYCLES DISPERSED.

>

> As I've said plenty of times, I don't like relying on the Moorman Polaroid

> as telling us anything at all. What surprises me the most is that

> Gary's revelation shows that the issue of WHETHER SHE STEPPED INTO

> THE STREET, regardless of where the photo was taken from, is the key

> issue here. THAT's the event that does not appear in the Zapruder

> film. The Polaroid is irrelevant in all this.

>

> My apologies to David Lifton, who has understood this all along, and

> has tried to make me understand. I recommend that anyone who hasn't

> read his section in "Pig on a Leash" should do so. [see the Appendix- Fetzer]

>

> (And let me also say that I haven't communicated with Lifton on this

> issue since 2006, when he dug out his transcript.)

>

> I also give my apologies to Gary and Tink. Although I didn't state

> it as vehemently as Jim, past behaviour didn't prepare me for them

> giving us this explosive and unequivocal evidence confirming

> Lifton's transcript, and filling in the missing pronoun.

>

> I think we've all learned a lot in the past week.

>

> John

Indeed, not only was this development a crucial turning point in discussing

the Moorman photograph, but John later reaffirmed his take on Mary. When I

asked him what we would see if we actually had an authentic film, he replied:

[Hide Quoted Text]

> I've already said here that I'd give better than even money odds

> that a genuine film of the assassination would show Mary stepping

> into the street. But it would also show her taking a photo of JFK

> slumping after the FIRST shot (there being no previous ridiculous

> "chicken dance" reaction of JFK as shown in the Z-toon; the throat

> entry shot most likely occurred later, when the limo was stopped and

> there was a barrage of bullets); it would show Jean Hill reacting

> more like an excited girl than a frozen turkey; it would show the

> limo stopping and the motorcycles scattering, Chaney going forward

> to the lead car; it would show Clint Hill actually push Jackie back

> down in the seat and cover her and the President with his body (not

> get stuck on the back foothold as the limo speeds out of the Plaza,

> as the Z-toon also shows); and, most importantly (and gruesomely),

> it would show the blood and brain matter of the President flying

> through the air and over the shiny trunk of the limo, over

> Hargis?-indeed, over everything in its path?-instead of disappearing

> into nothingness, as the Z-toon shows, leaving Hargis and the limo

> as pristinely clean as Senator Specter's magic bullet was undamaged.

I raise this because it affords one line of reasoning that leads to

the conclusion that the photo has been faked. If Mary was in the

street--as all the testimonial evidence, including her interview on

YouTube, "Moorman in the Street", indicates, especially given the

precedence of testimonial over photographic evidence--then the

very internal indications that Josiah and his followers cite to show

it was taken on the grass also offer proof that the photo is a fake!

This appears to be highly relevant to Bill Miller's observations in

relation to the heights of the windshields. I have not completed

my study of this matter, which would have been preoccupying me

now were it not for having to deal with these issues here, but I am

struck that a complementary argument can be advanced relative

to the windshield height. Based on my preliminary study, I think

the issue is not quite so "cut and dry" as it might appear, in part

because of the camber of the roadway, which can render visual

comparisons more problematical than if, say, these motorcycles

were on a basketball floor. But I know that John believes this is

a powerful argument, so let me assume that it is. Jack, David,

and I are still committed to the results of our experiment and to

the conclusion that it supports having been taken from the street.

If the windshield argument is sound, then it supports having been

taken from the grass. But it cannot have been taken both from

the street and from the grass. If this is the case, then the photo

displays inconsistent properties and cannot be authentic. So the

same evidence Tink cites to show it was taken on the grass has

the ironic consequence of impeaching its authenticity. John used

a similar line of argument to impeach frame 232 published in LIFE,

which likewise displays physically inconsistent properties. Such a

result therefore has precursors and this outcome is also consistent

with Costella's concurrence that Mary was in the street. Just as

the inconsistency in 232 appears to have resulted from a mistake,

I would bet the LOS Jack identified also resulted from a mistake.

When it comes to whether other witnesses reported seeing Mary in

the street, John has suggested the possibility that it happened after

the limo stopped and the motorcycles dispersed, as he observed:

> B. Mary Moorman either was and is a complete xxxx, or the

> photographic evidence is fraudulent.

>

> C. If in B the former is the case, then the Moorman Polaroid is

> impeached as evidence -- its admissibility relies on the testimony of

> the photographer.

>

> D. If the latter is the case, then the only possible explanation I

> can see for no one else seeing her step into the street is that she

> did it AFTER THE LIMO STOPPED AND THE MOTORCYCLES DISPERSED.

>

> As I've said plenty of times, I don't like relying on the Moorman Polaroid

> as telling us anything at all. What surprises me the most is that

> Gary's revelation shows that the issue of WHETHER SHE STEPPED INTO

> THE STREET, regardless of where the photo was taken from, is the key

> issue here. THAT's the event that does not appear in the Zapruder

> film. The Polaroid is irrelevant in all this.

No doubt, this explanation will be disputed since the photo incudes the

images of the motorcycles. But something like this--the sounds of the

shots, the intensity of the moment, the fixation on JFK, and the like--

would have made the behavior of a spectator relatively unimportant in

the minds of most witnesses. Remember, too, that the ten who were

the closest to the limo were never called to testify before the Warren

Commission. Remember, too, that the Zapruder timeline is completely

unreliable because it is based upon a fabricated film. Since the others

are consistent with the Zapruder, according to Josiah--and John seems

to agree about this--the integrity of the other films is impeached by the

lack of integrity of the Zapruder. It is stunning how blatantly Thompson

begs the question by taking for granted that the Zapruder is authentic,

in spite of massive evidence to the contrary, including all the following:

What happened to the unresponsive spectators? the Greer head turns? the "blob" and the blood spray painted in? the absence of brains and debris being blown out the back of his head? the absence of brains and debris on the trunk of the limo? the publication of 232 in LIFE with physically impossible features? the rapid dissipation of the blood spray? mistakes inserting the Simmons Freeway sign into the film? mistakes in introducing the lamppost into the film? the removal of Connally’s turn to his left? Irwin Schwartz’ report of seeing JFK;s brains blown out to the left rear? the visible blow-out to the back of his head seen in frames around 374? the report of Homer McMahon of observing 6-8 impacts on bodies? reports from William Reymond, Rich DellaRosa and others of having seen viewed the film with features that we had predicted based on medical evidence and eyewitness accounts? the absence of any witnesses reporting the back-and-to-the-left motion that is the most conspicuous feature of the extant film? the missing limo stop? the absence of Chaney's motoring forward to notify Chief Curry JFK had been shot?

Tink adopts the pose that there is a simple choice between accepting

Mary's testimony and the alleged consistency of all of the films and

photographs, when their consistency is not enough to establish their

authenticity. That would dictate, for example, discounting the massive

and detailed proof that the Zapruder is a recreation! He writes as though

Costella were on his side, when he is actually Tink’s greatest nightmare.

It is still as though Josiah hasn’t read "New Proof of JFK Film Fakery"

presenting John's latest proof, much less THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM

HOAX. None of what I have said here even reaches to the mutually

reinforcing deceptions of (a) the blow out to the right-front in the

Zapruder film, ( the missing right-front in the anterior-posterior

X-ray, and © the publication of 313 in LIFE magazine with a caption

saying that the right-front of his head had been blown out (which was

rewritten twice after twice breaking the plates). And it implicates

Zapruder in the deception, when (d) he described a blow-out to the

right-front during an interview on television that night (HOAX, page

435)! None of it was true. Jackie herself reported that, from the front,

he looked just fine but that she had a hard time holding his skull and

brains together at the back of his head. None of the witnesses or

doctors reported it. Not even the mortician! It's not just that Tink’s

little boat has sprung a leak. It has sunk like a sieve into the ocean of truth!

(3) What do the various Moorman copies show?
Since the core issue of the dispute is whether the White LOS is or is not found in the Moorman photo, the various copies of the Moorman photo soon took center stage. With no evidence, Professor Fetzer asserted that I had altered one particular copy of the Moorman photo, the socalled “drum scan.” When it became apparent that all copies showed the same thing, Fetzer raised his sights and declared all copies of the Moorman photo had been altered especially in the region of the pedestal and the pergola. Given such an extravagant increase in the Fetzer/White claim, it became important to do exhaustive research on the actual provenance of the various copies of the Moorman photo. That research took up many pages of our a paper and showed the silliness of the alteration claim. The following GIF put together by Bill Miller shows dramatically that all copies of the Moorman show the same thing and that the White LOS is not in the Moorman photo:

(4) Is there other internal evidence in the photo showing it was taken from the grass?

Claiming mistakenly that the White LOS was in the photo and that this LOS was too low to match the camera’s position in the Zapruder film, White and Fetzer quickly moved on to claim that the Moorman photo was actually taken from Elm Street, 8" lower than the grass along the curb. Two debunkings of this claim have appeared both based upon internal evidence in the photo itself.

Bill Miller produced a test of supreme simplicity. First, by contacting the Harley-Davidson museum and an owner of one of the cycles actually used in the Kennedy motorcade, he determined that the height from the pavement to the top of the motorcycle’s windscreen was 58"

The Moorman photo is looking down from above on the top of Hargis’s windscreen. Hence, the Moorman camera has to be higher than 58" above the ground. Since the roadway is 8" lower than the grass, this would be the camera’s likely position if the photo were taken from the grass. Only if Mary Moorman jumped into the street and then raised the camera high above her head to take her picture could the Moorman photo have been taken from the street. Six or seven years ago, Miller and Robert Groden set up yellow staffs 58" high in the roadway at the position of the two motorcycle riders windscreens. They then photographed the yellow staffs from Moorman’s position in the grass as shown in the Zapruder film. Miller prepared this GIF that alternates between the Moorman photo and the 58" high staffs.

John Costella recently described a further test of which I was unaware. According to Costella, Rick Janowitz carried out an experiment suggested by Marcel Dehaeseleer. This happened in 2003. Costella described the experiment as a simple comparison of the field of view in the Moorman photo with the field of view produced by the same camera lens when placed in the street or placed in the grass. “If Mary were in the street,” wrote Costella on December 14, 2008, “you would not see as much background as if she were in the grass, simply because she was closer to everything in the background. Janowitz and Marcel (if their research was done as well as it seemed) proved that the field of view of the extant Moorman [photo] corresponds to that of a grass position, not a street position.”

(5) What do other photos and films say of Moorman’s position when she took her photo?

The Zapruder, Muchmore, Nix and Bronson films all show Moorman taking her photo standing in the grass by the south curb of Elm Street as the limousine and motorcyclists cruise past. The Zapruder and Muchmore films can be synchronized to give a second-by-second account of Moorman taking her picture:

The Bronson still photo shows Hill and Moorman standing in the grass seconds before Moorman was to take her photo. The James Altgens photo taken three seconds before the Moorman photo shows the shadows of Hill and Moorman standing in the grass at this time.

(6) Did other eyewitnesses report seeing Mary Moorman jump into the street to take her photo?

If we are to believe that Mary Moorman jumped into the street to take her famous photo, we also have to believe that the two officers riding to the left rear of the limousine officers veered their cycles suddenly to the right to miss her. Furthermore, this happened right in the middle of the assassination when spectators’ attention was riveted on the motorcade. Not a single witness later reported anything like this. Not a single witness reported seeing a spectator leap into street and almost get run down by two motorcyclists. Both officers made reports and were later interviewed several times. Neither one said a thing about some crazy woman jumping into their path in the middle of the shooting and their having to veer around her.

(7) What did Mary Moorman say about taking her photo?

Over the last forty-five years, Mary Moorman has said conflicting things about where she was when she took her famous photograph. Fetzer and White have based much of their claim on the fact that Mary Moorman said she took her photo from the street. That is true. But it is also true that on many other occasions (including testifying at the Shaw trial and executing an affidavit on the afternoon of November 22nd) she appears to be saying the opposite. We made an exhaustive effort to find and publish everything Moorman said about this. The result of that effort is the showing of a clear conflict in her statements over time. It is also the case that she took two earlier photos that afternoon of police motorcyclists that she knew. In one or both cases, she was in the street to take the photo. Hence, she may well be confusing her position while taking the earlier two photos with her position in taking her famous photo. We can only speculate about this.Moorman

Josiah Thompson

Edited March 8, 2009 by James H. Fetzer

Josiah Thompson · March 8, 2009

I will take apart Fetzer’s incredibly long and jumbled post piece by piece. His claims will come first in ordinary print followed by my reply in boldface.

(1) “This guy is shameless. He is blatantly misrepresenting our position. Notice he does not actually offer pages or post for citations so anyone could check our actual positions.”

Citations to Fetzer, White, Mantik and Costella’s actual words as printed in MIDP, TGZFH and in various postings were all given with exactitude in the publication of this paper on this board. Their “actual positions” could be confirmed by checking those citations. Why repeat all that in my summary? I didn’t.

(2) “While there is a ‘lower right corner’ of the window thirty five feet behind the pedestal, there is no "upper left corner" of the pedestal, because there is a one-inch indentation around the top of the pedestal. The proper alignment of the cross "+" requires using the left side of the pedestal and the top of the pedestal as parts of two lines that intersect in space. What this means is that, in order to make the alignment required by the line of sight, a "gap" will be created by necessity, since aligning them properly allows for the one-inch indentation (or "knotch")”

This was all handled in the following paragraph from Part I of the paper: *NOTE: Fetzer then adds to his introductory remarks the following caveat: “A minor structural indentation at the top of the pedestal has misled some to think that the intersection of these lines is indeterminate, but that is a mistake.” Fetzer is correct that the left edge of the pedestal has a setback of approximately one inch around its top. Since this setback only affects Moorman’s lateral position by a few inches and not the height of her lens above the ground, no one has been “misled” by its presence. John Costella has called this caveat by Fetzer “irrelevant.”

(3) “The matter of the ‘red cross’ is also a charade, since the same features exist with or without the red lines which Jack used to highlight the location of the cross.”

I couldn’t agree with you more. The features are there no matter how successful the ‘red cross’ is in covering them up. Take a look at them:

Fetzer and White have given no explanation whatsoever as to why the photo that they used to illustrate their claim was overlaid with a wide red cross. Had they simply put up the photograph, no one would have ever believed their claim since it was false by inspection.

(4) “The second alleged ‘gap’ is one of vertical displacement. Tink has insisted that we missed a difference of close to 2" at the pergola, which would have translated into as much as a 7" difference over the grass. Such a modest gap is almost too small to be seen on a small, blurry copy of the Moorman. Jack has candidly acknowledged that there may be a 1" gap at the pedestal, which Joe Durnavich measured (using a method John first proposed of counting pixels) to be 1.88". I do not know if he did this correctly by using an image consistent with our 41.5" estimate, but let us assume that he did. Since even a 2" difference only adds 8" to the line of sight over the grass, adding it to our figure of 41.5" would yield 49.5". Since Mary was 5'2" (5'3" with shoes) and the camera at lens should have been about 5" lower, the line of sight should have been closer to 57" (or 58"). This is still far too low by 8" (or 9") for Mary to be standing on the grass. So even Tink's strongest argument is still unavailing.”

At one point, Jack White said his LOS was 44.5" above the turf at Moorman’s position. At another point, White and Fetzer said their LOS was 41.5" above the turf at Moorman’s position. Since they took no photos, these measurements are useless. In addition, the turf is often “squishy” and we know it has been replaced since 1963. As Costella has pointed out, a scientifically preferable place for measurements of the LOS is the top of the south curb along Elm Street. Gary Mack and I made measurements from the center of my Canon camera’s lens to the top of the Elm Street curb. The first, taken 48" above the curb, shows what we have called the “White LOS.” The second, taken at 55.75" above the curb, shows what we have called the “Moorman LOS” — that is, the actual LOS present in the Moorman photo. Note that the difference is a fraction over 7" which is what the Durnavich calculations predicted.

(5) “Indeed, anyone who studied the exchange between us would be struck by the duplicity of his side during the debate, where a private investigator, familiar with court procedures, is not even willing to acknowledge that eyewitness verification of photos and films is required for their admissibility as evidence in courts of law, which means that witness testimony takes precedence as has the greater weight, contrary to his position, in a desperate but corrupt attempt to blunt the evidential impact of Mary's testimony about taking her Polaroid.”

Fetzer continues to recycle his mistaken interpretation of a paragraph in McCormick on Evidence. The point McCormick is making is about the admissibility of evidence not its probative value. For a photo to be admitted into evidence, it has to be authenticated as a photo of a particular scene. Right now, Barry Bonds is about to get off because his friend and personal trainer will not testify about a document’s relevance to Bond. Without the trainer coming in and authenticating the document and saying it was Bond’s calendar for steroid injections, the document cannot come into evidence. Without the personal trainer’s testimony, the document is subject to the hearsay objection. The same goes for photos. That’s why Zapruder had to testify at the Shaw trial that the film in evidence was the one he took. Likewise, Mary Moorman had to testify in the Shaw trial that the Moorman photo was the one she took. That was why she was asked to place herself on a map of Dealey Plaza and why she was asked to identify herself in frames from the Zapruder film standing in the grass taking her photo. All of this has to do with the legal requirements for the admission of a photo into evidence and has nothing to do with the probitive value of a photo. The probative value is largely left up to the good sense of a jury with instructions from judge. Any lawyer could have explained this to Fetzer but he keeps on falsely claiming the opposite.

(6) “One astute member of the forum even noticed there is a YouTube video, "Moorman in the Street",

where you can watch Mary speak for herself. Indeed, when Gary Mack confirmed that, in her first interview, she stated, "I stepped into the street," it confirmed for him [John Costella] that Mary had indeed been in the street, even though he disagrees with Jack and me about the internal features of the video, which in his opinion support that it was taken from the grass. If Mary was in the street, yet the photo has features that indicate it was taken from the grass, then it can't be the photo that Mary took or, at the very least, it must have been subject to alteration. Josiah insists that John is on his side about Mary having been on the grass when the photo was taken, suffering from some apparent intellectual incapacity to separate the photo that Mary is alleged to have taken from where the photo she actually took and where she was standing. I don't know how to account for his unwillingness to acknowledge John's position, which he continues to distort.”

Fetzer talks as if the YouTube video was a new discovery of his. On the contrary, in Part V we give the transcript of what Moorman said in that video and provide a link to the video. Way to go, Professor? You’re really on top of things.

As to John Costella’s position on all this... don’t take Fetzer’s word for it, don’t permit me to “distort it” (as Fetzer charges), just look at what Costella says. He recently lectured Fetzer on Fetzer’s mistakes of interpretation pointing out on 12/17/08 that “it has been established, without any doubt, that the extant Moorman Polaroid could NOT have been taken from the street... It is, in fact, completely consistent with the Zapruder film’s location of her lens.” [NOTE: Emphasis is Costella’s; see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jfk-research/message/6147] A week earlier, Costella posted, “Just to bring everyone up to speed: I do NOT believe that the extant Moorman Polaroid places her on the street. In other words, I am on the Thompson et al. side of this argument, not Jim’s .” [NOTE: Emphasis is Costella’s; see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jfk-research/message/5999.]

****************************

Fetzer waxes on and on, bloviating at will, on and on... and then finally he sums up with this paragraph:

“I have composed a second study, briefer than the first, discussing Thompson's methodology in pursuing this here, which is entitled "Tink rolls the dice: 'Moorman-in-the-street?'" I really had no expected that he would be so daring as to perform such fakery in this forum. But then I should not underestimate him. He has been lying and cheating on forums in attacking me and Jack about the Moorman for years. He has gone far out of his way to distort and mislead audiences, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that he would continue, true to form, here on this forum. Having been defeated "fair and square" over months of excruciating and meticulous debate, he had no other choice but to look for an new audience to contaminate my manipulating the evidence. For a Ph.D. from Yale, his indulgence in fallacies is astounding. It has to be deliberate, which is why I have been forced to the conclusion that his objective is to obfuscate new discoveries that advance our understanding of the true causes of the death of JFK. And that, of course, includes using every trick of the trade when the going gets tough. He has tried to take advantage of the fact that Jack and I are simply worn out by the massive, ongoing, and deceitful attacks that have come, not just from him but from others who are allied with him, including Lamson, Miller, and Junk. Leonard and Shackelford occasions make their debuts, but the burden has been carried by Josiah, Lamson, and Miller. This appears to be a psychological mechanism with several purposes, including (a) social reinforcement of misleading claims, ( attempting to make it appear that everyone agrees that we are wrong, and © tacitly substituting popularity for truth. But then again, when logic and the evidence are against you, desperate situations require desperate measures.”

It’s difficult to know what to say with respect to a blast like this. It can’t be refuted because it’s all a product ego inflation. However, it can be laughed at. And if one starts to laugh at it, surely one’s laughter becomes a broad belly laugh when one considers a recent posting by Fetzer concerning his position in the world and his scholarly credentials. On the JFK-research board last week, Fetzer was berating some poor soul for not being “qualified” to hold an opinion opposed to Fetzer’s. Fetzer ended his peroration with:

"Presumably, unlike Zachary Luing, I am qualified to make an assessment of this kind. If Zachary wants scholarly credentials, then he can study mine at length (http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/) and swoon."

I’m not making it up. That’s what the man actually said. To which I would reply: "Oh, Professor, forgive us if we don't swoon! And spare us another hit from your CV.”

Josiah Thompson

quote name='James H. Fetzer' date='Mar 8 2009, 06:22 PM' post='163782']