The Hollywood 7

[Jack White]

I think it is appropriate at this time to start a new thread on Horne's reporting of the

work of the Hollywood 7 (H7). It has been mentioned in a number of other threads,

but enough is known about it for it to be discussed separately.

I would first like to point out that the H7 work has been disparaged because of what

they discovered on an alleged "fifth generation" copy of the film. (see my previous

discussions regarding copy generations).

IF they discovered gross fakery on a "FIFTH" generation copy (I doubt "fifth"), just

think how much STRONGER THE FAKERY WOULD SHOW UP ON AN EARLIER GENERATION!

This demonstrates how little non-photo-experts understand about film generations and

duplication.

I am hoping that Doug will elaborate on the H7 work in this new thread.

Jack

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

And, when you take into account Roderick Ryan, a special effects expert who told

Noel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1997), that the "blob" and the blood spray had

been painted in more than a decade ago, it is actually at least "the Hollywood 8".

And, lest Tink & Jerry attempt one of their patented dismissals of real cinematic

expertise, I would observe that Roderick Ryan received the Academy Award for

his contributions to cinematography during the Oscar presentations of 2000! It

looks as though their only opinion now is to create a new set of 4x5 Zapruder

film transparencies, which should be easy to detect. If these gross anomalies

have shown up with less perfect copies, imagine what we have in store for us?

Jerry's argument, in fact, is quite absurd, because the closer and closer we get

to first generation, the more and more conspicuous all of the artifacts become!

I think it is appropriate at this time to start a new thread on Horne's reporting of the

work of the Hollywood 7 (H7). It has been mentioned in a number of other threads,

but enough is known about it for it to be discussed separately.

I would first like to point out that the H7 work has been disparaged because of what

they discovered on an alleged "fifth generation" copy of the film. (see my previous

discussions regarding copy generations).

IF they discovered gross fakery on a "FIFTH" generation copy (I doubt "fifth"), just

think how much STRONGER THE FAKERY WOULD SHOW UP ON AN EARLIER GENERATION!

This demonstrates how little non-photo-experts understand about film generations and

duplication.

I am hoping that Doug will elaborate on the H7 work in this new thread.

Jack

[Jack White]

Jim...I used the Hollywood 7 because they are discussed in HORNE IV.

I am sure it could swell to 77 when all the other film experts join in.

Thanks.

Jack

[William Kelly]

Hollywood ‘visual effects’ experts experienced in 27 early 1960s optical effects need to examine the extant Zapruder film for evidence of possible frame excision, traveling mattes,and aerial imaging. Based upon their findings, we will then have a much better idea of howmuch minimum time was required to alter the images of the head wound prior to NPIC’sproduction of prints of these frames on Sunday night, November 24th, 1963. The printing byNPIC on Sunday night (and the subsequent publication by LIFE two days later) of framesshowing the large anterior head wound indicate that at least this one critical alteration wasaccomplished at Rochester on Sunday. If a car stop was later removed through frameexcision, and the backgrounds behind the limousine in numerous frames (i.e., the grass inDealey Plaza and the position of bystanders), and the Stemmons Freeway sign, were alteredusing traveling mattes, then a considerable amount of time—likely several weeks—wouldhave been required to complete this work, and alterations of this magnitude could certainlynot have been conducted in one working day, regardless of the facilities available. We simplydo not yet know enough about which aspects of the film have been altered—or how they werealtered—to assess exactly what was done at “Hawkeyeworks” on Sunday, November 24th,1963. All we can say for sure is that some alterations were conducted at that highly classifiedfacility in Rochester, and that the revised product was delivered to the CIA’s NPIC Sundaynight for the production of briefing boards from selected frames—from frames selected by thefilm’s courier, not by photo analysts at NPIC. There can be little doubt that if the alterationsof the film were not complete by Sunday night, “Bill Smith” of the ‘Secret Service’ wasextremely careful, and selective, about which frames he identified for reproduction at NPIC.He would only have selected those frames that were considered fit for public consumption.Since NPIC did not retain the film as a motion picture, Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter would not have known whether additional alterations continued after Sunday night.

Addendum: The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood

It is misleading to claim that scientific advances and scholarly experiments can cause all photo fakes to be unmasked. Questions about authenticity remain. Many photos that once were considered genuine have recently been determined to be faked. —Dino Brugioni of NPIC, the author of Photofakery: The History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and Manipulation (1999).

Synchronicity sometimes plays an important role in human affairs; things occasionally come together in such a way, and with such timing, that the circumstances could not be more fortuitous, or morebeneficial. Some would call it fate; others would call it luck; and I prefer to call it synchronicity,which falls somewhere in-between fate (or destiny) and pure luck. Consider the events describedbelow, and you will see what I mean.

At precisely the time when I was 99% finished with my Zapruder film chapter, and thought there wasnothing remaining to do but a bit of word smithing and fact checking, Good Fortune descended uponme in a way that was almost too good to be true; and yet, if not for my earlier involvement withZapruder film issues while a member of the ARRB staff, none of this would have happened to me,and someone else would be writing about these experiences today.

On June 2, 2009 I was notified by researcher and author Dick Russell (author of The Man Who KnewToo Much and On the Trail of the JFK Assassins) that Jim Marrs (author of Crossfire: The Plot ThatKilled Kennedy) was trying to contact me on behalf of a personal friend of his who was involved ina Zapruder film research effort. I subsequently found out through both Dick Russell and Jim Marrsthat researcher Ed Sherry in Florida (Meeting Coordinator for the South Florida Research Group) had put out an “all points bulletin” for me in his blog on behalf of Jim Marrs’ friend in the Los Angelesgreater metropolitan area.

Because I am a semi-recluse, and was also industriously trying to finishmy manuscript, normally I would not have been interested, but there were two reasons why thisoccasion was different: (1) Jim Marrs personally vouched for the character of the person seeking meout, and (2) she was conducting Zapruder film research. Having been deeply immersed in Zapruderfilm issues for the preceding three months, I was amazed at how fortuitous the timing was. I decidedto contact Jim Marrs’ friend in Los Angeles at the e-mail address he provided to me.

On June 3, 2009 I exchanged introductory e-mails with one Sydney Wilkinson, an accomplishedprofessional in film and video post-production in Hollywood—specifically, in the marketing of postproductionservices within the motion picture film industry. She has decades of experience underher belt in dealing with editors, experts in film restoration, and film studio executives. She lives andbreathes the professional culture of the motion picture film industry, and has working relationshipswith 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

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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.

Frame 220 depicts JFK’s limousine emerging from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign. In the HD scan of this frame the upper right corner of the sign looks as though it has been cut off by a razor blade (i.e., it does not have a rounded edge as it does in other frames), and the right-hand vertical edge of the sign is “scalloped” inward—it is not depicted as a straight vertical edge, as it was, of course, in reality. (Frame 219 serves as the ideal control frame.) Later, I discovered the same two problems in frame 218. They are much more visible in frame 220, however, because Jackie Kennedy’s pink Chanel suit ‘frames’ these glaring errors: the pink color in her clothing serves as the background against which these startling anomalies are made visible. In fact, at first glance, it actually appears as if the First Lady’s pink hat and shoulder are in front of the Stemmons Freeway sign (a physical impossibility, of course) in frame 220! A video editor Sydney is acquainted with wondered if the anomalies in frame 220 were “single frame matte error,” i.e., evidence of poor rotoscoping by an individual matte artist in a very badly executed traveling matte, in which the dimensions of the sign were altered. (President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet either just prior to going behind the sign, or while he was behind the sign, and in any case, is already reacting to being shot when he emerges from behind the freeway sign in the extant film; for these reasons, conspirators may have had ample reason to alter the sign’s dimensions.) I eventually discovered additional “scalloping” in the vertical edge of the sign in frame 224 (opposite the emerging JFK) and in frame 229 (where the anomaly is so egregious that the rounded corner on the sign is completely absent).

[Craig Lamson]

Thanks for posting this Bill, it does a wonderful job of fully destroying Horne and his Hollywood buddies. Ignorance run amuck.

They can't even deal correctly with blur, and they use a 5TH generation copy...neophytes...

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Not too make too subtle a point of it, but from 314 to 339, we have the blow out to the right front (known as "the blob"), where the back of the head is intact. The Hollywood experts have discovered that the back of the head was painted over in black, which was truly amateurish. Following Josiah's lead, Lamson isn't telling you that, in HOAX, I pointed out that, in frame 374--and, it turns out, in frame 372 as well--you can see the blow out to the back of the head. YOU CAN SEE IT! This means that, unless the blow out occurred between, say, frames 339 and 372, there is an internal inconsistency in the film itself! And David Mantik visited The 6th Floor Museum and confirmed that these are in the MPI 4x5 slides as well! The issue has been settled!

The medical evidence, of course, the McClelland diagram and the Crenshaw diagram all support the blow-out to the back of the head, which was witnessed by more than 40 observers, including the physicians at Parkland, as Gary Aguilar, a buddy of Tink, explained in his chapter in MURDER. But this means that frames 314 through 339 HAVE TO HAVE BEEN ALTERED TO CONCEAL THE BLOW OUT TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD. I explained all of this in "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid", but dispositive evidence of this kind is inconvenient to Tink and Lamson, so they simply disregard it.

Thanks for posting this Bill, it does a wonderful job of fully destroying Horne and his Hollywood buddies. Ignorance run amuck.

They can't even deal correctly with blur, and they use a 5TH generation copy...neophytes...

Edited January 29, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Craig Lamson]

Not too make too subtle a point of it, but from 314 to 339, we have the blow out to the right front (known as "the blob"), where the back of the head is intact. The Hollywood experts have discovered that the back of the head was painted over in black, which was truly amateurish. Following Josiah's lead, Lamson isn't telling you that, in HOAX, I pointed out that, in frame 374--and, it turns out, in frame 372 as well--you can see the blow out to the back of the head. YOU CAN SEE IT! This means that, unless the blow out occurred between, say, frames 339 and 372, there is an internal inconsistency in the film itself! And David Mantik visited The 6th Floor Museum and confirmed that these are in the MPI 4x5 slides as well! The issue has been settled!

They have DISCOVERED? How do you know? Have you seen theactual scan? Have you seen the detailed technical data of the areas in question? Have you proven that the 5TH generation copy actually has the same level of shadow detail as the original film?

Of course you have not. You are just blowing smoke, in a fantasy attempt to make speculation into a technical proof.

The issue settled? What a joke! You have not even PRESENTED it yet.

BTW, are you ever going to post 372 and 374 and point out for all of us the blowout to the back of the head?

Surely you have this ability. Why the delay? Afraid?

[Don Jeffries]

Once again, thanks to Bill Kelly for continuing to post these excerpts for us. We truly appreciate it.

There are many on this forum who are self-proclaimed experts in analyzing film. I am decidedly not an expert in this area, but it just seems logical that if people who do this for a living in Hollywood state the Zapruder film is an amateurish forgery, then we probably ought to listen to them.

I know- the debate will rage on, about fifth generation copies and the like, but it seems to me that the case is pretty convincing that the Zapruder film we know is not completely legitimate.

[William Kelly]

From Doug Horne's IARRB Chapter 14, Vol. IV

Questions: Are these anomalies benign, naturally occurring phenomena caused by

• rapid panning by the camera operator?

• an internal camera error involving the mechanical operation of the shutterand the transport of the film through the gate?

• a processing, or developing error involving the film dyes, during theKodachrome II developing process?

Or are they evidence of a poorly executed series of visual effects involving the Stemmons Freeway sign? (Specifically, were the dimensions of the sign altered—enlarged—to hide the initial reactions of President Kennedy after he was first shot?) If the anomalies are evidence of film alteration, two possibilities are either: (1) single frame matte errors caused by imprecise rotoscoping work, or (2)poorly executed “self-matting” airbrush artwork during an aerial imaging process.Camera tests with a Bell and Howell 414 camera, using film to photograph a replica of the Stemmons Freeway sign, while panning from left to right, may be instrumental in attempting to answer these questions. Sydney has purchased a Bell and Howell camera of the same make and model as Abraham Zapruder’s, and film tests (while the operator pans the camera from left to right) of asimulated Stemmons sign with a rounded corner and a straight vertical edge are planned, simply to see whether such anomalies appear on film exposed in a same-model camera. If such anomalies do ppear on film exposed in the camera she purchased on E-bay, then we will be able to safely onclude that they do not constitute evidence of alteration. If they do not appear in film tests, however, then further study of the anomalies in the frames cited above will be warranted.

I am personally skeptical that the Stemmons Freeway sign anomalies are benign ‘in-camera artifacts,’or ‘processing errors’ involving the film dyes, since we have not found scalloping anywhere else in the Zapruder film where there are vertical edges on objects. In other words, the edges of trees and of lamp posts in the extant film do not appear “scalloped out,” nor could I find any “clipped corners” on the rounded front of the limousine, or on the rounded sides of the heads of bystanders, in the extant film. (See Figures 84, 85, and 86 for images of frames 219 and 220.)

The gross anomalies in frame 220 can even be seen in the MPI video product sold on DVD in 1998, Image of An Assassination. Check it out for yourself in the Medium Frame playback mode, using the ‘frame-by-frame advance’ on your DVD player’s remote control. Then compare what you see in frame 220 with the preceding frame, number 219. [The other anomalies cited above in the data table are clearly visible only on the digital scans commissioned by Sydney Wilkinson, and are not readily apparent (or apparent at all) on the MPI product, which features severely manipulated images of the Ektachrome transparencies taken of each Z-frame in 1997.]

A friend of Sydney’s who is a video editor also discovered “scalloping” or “image intrusion” on the left-hand vertical edge of the Stemmons Freeway sign (in frames 190, 191, 195, and 197) in which the head of a woman wearing a light-colored scarf appears to be superimposed over the edge of the sign. (The control frames in this case are frames 193 and 194.) Fortunately, these anomalies are so apparent that they can also be seen in the MPI DVD, this time in the Wide Frame version.

But frame 317 provides the most damning evidence of apparent film alteration.31 As David Lifton pointed out in his article in Fetzer’s anthology The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, when he first saw a Moses Weitzman 35 mm blowup of the Zapruder film in 1970 (a positive projection print), and again when he was using an Oxberry optical printer in 1990 to copy the Moses Weitzman high-quality 35 mm internegative of the Zapruder film loaned to him by documentary producer Robert Richter, he noticed that the back of JFK’s head in the frames following the head shot seemed unusually dark, and wondered if it had been ‘blacked out’ somehow during the film’s alteration. He was left with a very strong visual impression resulting from many, many hours of work with the film in 1990, during which he was often looking at magnified images of President Kennedy’s head. He talked about this repeatedly with me, and no doubt with others over the years, but no oral conversation could adequately impart the subjective impact of his visual experience. More than once I asked Lifton if his impression that the head had been blacked out could have been caused by looking at deep shadow on the back of JFK’s head, and each time he impatiently insisted: “No way! It was a patch! The back of the head is blacked out in the Zapruder film.” As the old adage says, “seeing is believing,” and in June of 2009, when Sydney Wilkinson forwarded to me a JPEG image of the HD scan of frame 317, I had my own epiphany. (See Figures 87 and 88.)

The image of the limousine’s occupants in the HD scan of frame 317 forwarded to me by Wilkinson was not nearly as dark, or rich in color, as versions I had seen on television over the years, in documentaries. My initial impression (as a non-film person) was that the HD scan image of Z-317 was somehow washed out, or underexposed. As it turns out, I was incorrect; I was looking at a “flat” or “exposure neutral” scan of frame 317 from Sydney’s dupe negative of the extant film in the Archives. It had simply not been adjusted for purposes of aesthetics to make it more pleasing to the eye. What I saw was stunning. The lower half of the back of JFK’s head—hair that was very light brown, or perhaps a cross between auburn and light gray in the HD scan—was covered up by a jetblack patch with very straight, artificial looking edges that appeared to be artwork to me, like opaque black paint placed on top of the natural image of his hair. It was as if a trapezoid (the black patch) with impossibly straight edges had been wrapped around the back of JFK’s head, in exactly the area where the Parkland medical staff had seen the exit wound behind the right ear in the posterior skull. My subjective reaction was that frame 317 was so obviously a composite image of artwork superimposed on top of a real film image that I literally expostulated “Holy xxxx!” when Sydney Wilkinson first brought it to my attention. Furthermore, when compared to the part of Governor Connally’s head that was in shadow in the same frame, the portions of the images of the two men’s heads that were supposedly in shadow were totally dissimilar. The portion of Connally’s head in shadow looked gray, and you could still see details inside the shadow; the black “patch” over JFK’s head was jet-black, with no details visible whatsoever.

And guess what? You can actually see this patch with artificially straight edges on the MPI product sold in 1998, Image of an Assassination. It is best seen in the Close-up Frame view, using the ‘frame-by-frame advance’ feature on your remote. Even though the contrast of the image has been adjusted by MPI and the overall image appears much darker, with brighter and more vivid colors than the exposure neutral scan of Sydney’s, the curved trapezoid with improbably straight edges wrapped around the back of JFK’s head can still be seen! Take a look for yourself at home.

In the surrounding frames on the MPI product, however—frames 313-337—the back of the head is so muddy and dark that the viewer cannot detect whether there is any overt, or blatant evidence of artificiality (i.e., straight edges associated with the black region on the back of the head) or not. The same is not true of the HD scans of the frames beginning with 313 (the ‘head explosion’), and continuing well past frame 337. The back of JFK’s head in all of these HD frames, beginning with 313, looks impossibly dark compared with the remainder of the image. The “black patch” on the HD frames, when viewed in extreme closeup on a high resolution video screen or monitor, appears to ‘hang in space,’ an impossibly dark mask supported by...NOTHING. Words are inadequate to convey how artificial this area of his head looks from frames 313 to 337 in particular, and even beyond that, until Jackie Kennedy pushes her husband’s head down out of view of the camera’s lens as she crawls out on the back of the limousine to retrieve part of his brain from thetrunk lid of the car. Frame 317 is just the most obvious of all of these frames, probably the one frame where the aerial imaging artist forgot to ‘fuzz up’ the edges of the black patch with his airbrush. The HD scan of frame 313 (the ‘head explosion’) also looks particularly bad when viewed in extreme closeup on a high-resolution video monitor: the ‘black patch’ actually comes down over the top of, and covers, the back of JFK’s shirt collar—and the so-called ‘head explosion’ seems to be coming from an area in space that is actually in front of President Kennedy’s head, rather than on his head. In other words, the aerial imaging artist who altered this frame screwed up twice, and in both respects depicted things that cannot be.

One reason I am confident, even at this early stage in this investigation, that I am looking at the result of aerial imaging on an animation stand (such as described by Professor Fielding in his 1965 textbook), and not at a traveling matte, is that upon extreme magnification on a high-resolution screen, I believe I can see the real exit wound in the right rear of JFK’s head bleeding through the black patch in frame 313. This is a subjective impression that most (but not all) people see when I show the extreme close-up of the HD scan of Z-313 to them on the high-resolution screen (1200 x 1920 pixels) on my laptop computer. I believe I am correct because the darker ovoid shape that I see “coming through the black mask” is in exactly the location where the exit wound was described by the Parkland treatment staff, and is also the same size they described—about the size of a baseball (or slightly smaller). For any part of an original image at all to be seen through a patch of black artwork means that we are looking at a composite created by aerial imaging, in which the black paint used by the animator was not completely opaque, and where the light projecting the original film frame up through the condensers onto the animation stand was a bit too bright—so bright that part of the original image could be seen through the non-opaque black paint employed by the visual effects artist on his animation cell. A matte insertion could not, by its very nature, allow any of the original image to “bleed through” the matte, since when a matte is inserted into a film frame that portion of the original image has already been optically excised.

Aerial imaging seems the likely method employed to alter all frames of the head wound for two other reasons, as well. First, the area being covered up (the back of the head) is so small—it would even be small on a 7.5 x 10 inch animation stand in an aerial imaging set-up on an optical printer—that registration problems would surely have occurred if a 35 mm traveling matte had been employed to cover up the real exit defect. (No such registration errors are seen in the HD frames.) Second, aerial imaging artwork is ‘self-matting’ by its very nature, since the animation cell is superimposed over the top of the image being projected through the condensers in the optical printer—which means that the new, composite image can be captured on the first pass by the process camera, resulting in less contrast buildup than would be the case in a traveling matte, which would be two generations farther down the line. This aerial imaging hypothesis is the most likely explanation for the altered frames of the head wounds that will be tested throughout the Los Angeles investigation as it proceeds.

And if the back of the head has been blacked out, it necessarily follows that the so-called massive head wound, seen most vividly in frames 335 and 337, is artwork also. (See Figures 89 and 90.) If one wound has been covered up, a substitute wound must be created to take its place. In her Warren Commission testimony—testimony that was deleted from the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits published in 1964, and only released by the U.S. government circa 1975—Jackie Kennedy said to J. Lee Rankin: “...from the front there was nothing...” when describing the head wound under oath.

The full quotation of this section of her suppressed testimony is provided below: I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been, but from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on. [author’s emphasis]

It should be no surprise to my readers that this testimony was suppressed! At a time when the Warren Commission, using the frames carefully selected by the CIA’s assets at LIFE magazine, was attempting to persuade the American public that JFK had an exit wound in the right-front of his head, our citizenry couldn’t be allowed to read graphic testimony like this that cast doubt upon the official cover story, or upon images from the Zapruder film published by LIFE. Jackie’s testimony, of course, was consistent with that of the Parkland medical staff in Trauma Room One, who overwhelmingly testified that the exit wound they saw was in the right rear of his skull, and consistently mentioned no damage to the right-front of JFK’s head. In later years, as pointed out elsewhere in this book, Dr. Peters, Dr. Crenshaw, Dr. Jones, and Nurse Bell all specifically stated that the right-front of President Kennedy’s head was undamaged when they saw him at Parkland hospital.

The congruent denials of any frontal exit wound by both the President’s widow, and by key members of the medical staff who treated him at Parkland hospital, are the surest indications that the gross damage depicted in frames 335 and 337 (as well as in earlier frames between 313 and 335) is nothing but artwork, most likely painted onto animation cells on an aerial imaging animation stand in a modified optical printer, at the same time that the back of the head was blacked out in each frame.

Remember, the late Dr. Roderick Ryan of Kodak (who was based in Hollywood) expressed theopinion that the head wounds seen in the Zapruder film are not a traveling matte, but a painting.

Corroborating evidence that the large ‘wound’ seen in frames 335 and 337 is artwork can be found in the digital scans commissioned by Sydney Wilkinson of frames 456 and 466. Jackie Kennedy apparently propped her husband upright in the corner of the back seat for about 2 seconds (to briefly

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examine him) right after she returned to the back seat of the limousine. This is clearly apparent in the HD scans of the Zapruder film, but is something that I do not believe has ever been noticed by researchers before because the bootleg analog copies of the film suffer from contrast buildup and are too dark and indistinct in these frames to pick out this kind of detail. Sydney Wilkinson made this discovery, and in my view it turned out to be a significant one. In greatly magnified close-ups of frames 456 and 466, JFK can not only be seen propped up briefly in a ‘sitting’ position in the right rear of the back seat bench, but in these two frames—those in which his image is in the best focus— there is no longer any large wound visible on the right side of his head—and while there is a black spot on the right rear quadrant of his head, we do not see the entire bottom portion of the back of his head blacked out as we did immediately after frame 313! I believe that in these two frames—in frames 456 and 466—we are looking at unaltered frames of JFK’s head. The image was too small, even on the aerial imaging animation stand, for anyone to bother. The type of detail we can see now in these two frames in high resolution after a digital scan was of no concern—was not even deemed possible—back in 1963 when the Zapruder film was only expected to be viewed as a motion picture on a shaky, wobbly, silvered movie screen by a few government investigators.

A study of the colors present in the black spot on the back of JFK’s head in these two frames should be conducted to see if any of the pixels reveal the color red inside this ‘black spot’ in frames 456 and 466. If the color of blood is detected in this area, then the descriptions of the exit wound in the posterior skull made by the Parkland medical staff will have been vindicated, once and for all.

[David G. Healy]

Not too make too subtle a point of it, but from 314 to 339, we have the blow out to the right front (known as "the blob"), where the back of the head is intact. The Hollywood experts have discovered that the back of the head was painted over in black, which was truly amateurish. Following Josiah's lead, Lamson isn't telling you that, in HOAX, I pointed out that, in frame 374--and, it turns out, in frame 372 as well--you can see the blow out to the back of the head. YOU CAN SEE IT! This means that, unless the blow out occurred between, say, frames 339 and 372, there is an internal inconsistency in the film itself! And David Mantik visited The 6th Floor Museum and confirmed that these are in the MPI 4x5 slides as well! The issue has been settled!

They have DISCOVERED? How do you know? Have you seen theactual scan? Have you seen the detailed technical data of the areas in question? Have you proven that the 5TH generation copy actually has the same level of shadow detail as the original film?

Of course you have not. You are just blowing smoke, in a fantasy attempt to make speculation into a technical proof.

The issue settled? What a joke! You have not even PRESENTED it yet.

BTW, are you ever going to post 372 and 374 and point out for all of us the blowout to the back of the head?

Surely you have this ability. Why the delay? Afraid?

let me be short and sweet, the Zapruder film has not been officially authenticated and verified as ORIGINAL (the current film housed at NARA as the in-camera original Zapruder film) and to the best of my knowledge, it NEVER has! So, why should anyone care what the Craig Lamson opinion about ANY film is?

Now we understand your afraid of film forensic testing, so Craister nothing, NOTHING is settled. Yet, its so simple to settle the film issue... and yet you run on endlessly (ye who makes the most noise does not necessarily win)..... so who is it that's afraid, praytell?

Kinda makes many wonder, just WHO or what side needs the film alteration debate, eh?

Edited January 29, 2010 by David G. Healy

[Craig Lamson]

let me be short and sweet, the Zapruder film has not been officially authenticated and verified as ORIGINAL (the current film housed at NARA as the in-camera original Zapruder film) and to the best of my knowledge, it NEVER has! So, why should anyone care what the Craig Lamson opinion about ANY film is?

Now we understand your afraid of film forensic testing, so Craister nothing, NOTHING is settled. Yet, its so simple to settle the film issue... and yet you run on endlessly (ye who makes the most noise does not necessarily win)..... so who is it that's afraid, praytell?

Kinda makes many wonder, just WHO or what side needs the film alteration debate, eh?

Uh Dave, its FETZER who claims the matter is settled.

I'm not the least bit afraid of ANY testing David, in fact I WELCOME it.

And who really does need for the film to be altered and why the continued and failed attempts to prove that point over the last how many years?

I don't really care if anyone listens to my opinions I present facts, and these wil lstand regardless of who presents them.

What do YOU present Dave?

Edited January 29, 2010 by Craig Lamson

[William Kelly]

From Doug Horne's IARRB Chapter 14, Vol. IV

Questions: Are these anomalies benign, naturally occurring phenomena caused by

• rapid panning by the camera operator?

• an internal camera error involving the mechanical operation of the shutterand the transport of the film through the gate?

• a processing, or developing error involving the film dyes, during theKodachrome II developing process?

Or are they evidence of a poorly executed series of visual effects involving the Stemmons Freeway sign? (Specifically, were the dimensions of the sign altered—enlarged—to hide the initial reactions of President Kennedy after he was first shot?) If the anomalies are evidence of film alteration, two possibilities are either: (1) single frame matte errors caused by imprecise rotoscoping work, or (2)poorly executed "self-matting" airbrush artwork during an aerial imaging process.Camera tests with a Bell and Howell 414 camera, using film to photograph a replica of the Stemmons Freeway sign, while panning from left to right, may be instrumental in attempting to answer these questions. Sydney has purchased a Bell and Howell camera of the same make and model as Abraham Zapruder's, and film tests (while the operator pans the camera from left to right) of asimulated Stemmons sign with a rounded corner and a straight vertical edge are planned, simply to see whether such anomalies appear on film exposed in a same-model camera. If such anomalies do ppear on film exposed in the camera she purchased on E-bay, then we will be able to safely onclude that they do not constitute evidence of alteration. If they do not appear in film tests, however, then further study of the anomalies in the frames cited above will be warranted.

I am personally skeptical that the Stemmons Freeway sign anomalies are benign 'in-camera artifacts,'or 'processing errors' involving the film dyes, since we have not found scalloping anywhere else in the Zapruder film where there are vertical edges on objects. In other words, the edges of trees and of lamp posts in the extant film do not appear "scalloped out," nor could I find any "clipped corners" on the rounded front of the limousine, or on the rounded sides of the heads of bystanders, in the extant film. (See Figures 84, 85, and 86 for images of frames 219 and 220.)

The gross anomalies in frame 220 can even be seen in the MPI video product sold on DVD in 1998, Image of An Assassination. Check it out for yourself in the Medium Frame playback mode, using the 'frame-by-frame advance' on your DVD player's remote control. Then compare what you see in frame 220 with the preceding frame, number 219. [The other anomalies cited above in the data table are clearly visible only on the digital scans commissioned by Sydney Wilkinson, and are not readily apparent (or apparent at all) on the MPI product, which features severely manipulated images of the Ektachrome transparencies taken of each Z-frame in 1997.]

A friend of Sydney's who is a video editor also discovered "scalloping" or "image intrusion" on the left-hand vertical edge of the Stemmons Freeway sign (in frames 190, 191, 195, and 197) in which the head of a woman wearing a light-colored scarf appears to be superimposed over the edge of the sign. (The control frames in this case are frames 193 and 194.) Fortunately, these anomalies are so apparent that they can also be seen in the MPI DVD, this time in the Wide Frame version.

But frame 317 provides the most damning evidence of apparent film alteration.31 As David Lifton pointed out in his article in Fetzer's anthology The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, when he first saw a Moses Weitzman 35 mm blowup of the Zapruder film in 1970 (a positive projection print), and again when he was using an Oxberry optical printer in 1990 to copy the Moses Weitzman high-quality 35 mm internegative of the Zapruder film loaned to him by documentary producer Robert Richter, he noticed that the back of JFK's head in the frames following the head shot seemed unusually dark, and wondered if it had been 'blacked out' somehow during the film's alteration. He was left with a very strong visual impression resulting from many, many hours of work with the film in 1990, during which he was often looking at magnified images of President Kennedy's head. He talked about this repeatedly with me, and no doubt with others over the years, but no oral conversation could adequately impart the subjective impact of his visual experience. More than once I asked Lifton if his impression that the head had been blacked out could have been caused by looking at deep shadow on the back of JFK's head, and each time he impatiently insisted: "No way! It was a patch! The back of the head is blacked out in the Zapruder film." As the old adage says, "seeing is believing," and in June of 2009, when Sydney Wilkinson forwarded to me a JPEG image of the HD scan of frame 317, I had my own epiphany. (See Figures 87 and 88.)

The image of the limousine's occupants in the HD scan of frame 317 forwarded to me by Wilkinson was not nearly as dark, or rich in color, as versions I had seen on television over the years, in documentaries. My initial impression (as a non-film person) was that the HD scan image of Z-317 was somehow washed out, or underexposed. As it turns out, I was incorrect; I was looking at a "flat" or "exposure neutral" scan of frame 317 from Sydney's dupe negative of the extant film in the Archives. It had simply not been adjusted for purposes of aesthetics to make it more pleasing to the eye. What I saw was stunning. The lower half of the back of JFK's head—hair that was very light brown, or perhaps a cross between auburn and light gray in the HD scan—was covered up by a jetblack patch with very straight, artificial looking edges that appeared to be artwork to me, like opaque black paint placed on top of the natural image of his hair. It was as if a trapezoid (the black patch) with impossibly straight edges had been wrapped around the back of JFK's head, in exactly the area where the Parkland medical staff had seen the exit wound behind the right ear in the posterior skull. My subjective reaction was that frame 317 was so obviously a composite image of artwork superimposed on top of a real film image that I literally expostulated "Holy xxxx!" when Sydney Wilkinson first brought it to my attention. Furthermore, when compared to the part of Governor Connally's head that was in shadow in the same frame, the portions of the images of the two men's heads that were supposedly in shadow were totally dissimilar. The portion of Connally's head in shadow looked gray, and you could still see details inside the shadow; the black "patch" over JFK's head was jet-black, with no details visible whatsoever.

And guess what? You can actually see this patch with artificially straight edges on the MPI product sold in 1998, Image of an Assassination. It is best seen in the Close-up Frame view, using the 'frame-by-frame advance' feature on your remote. Even though the contrast of the image has been adjusted by MPI and the overall image appears much darker, with brighter and more vivid colors than the exposure neutral scan of Sydney's, the curved trapezoid with improbably straight edges wrapped around the back of JFK's head can still be seen! Take a look for yourself at home.

In the surrounding frames on the MPI product, however—frames 313-337—the back of the head is so muddy and dark that the viewer cannot detect whether there is any overt, or blatant evidence of artificiality (i.e., straight edges associated with the black region on the back of the head) or not. The same is not true of the HD scans of the frames beginning with 313 (the 'head explosion'), and continuing well past frame 337. The back of JFK's head in all of these HD frames, beginning with 313, looks impossibly dark compared with the remainder of the image. The "black patch" on the HD frames, when viewed in extreme closeup on a high resolution video screen or monitor, appears to 'hang in space,' an impossibly dark mask supported by...NOTHING. Words are inadequate to convey how artificial this area of his head looks from frames 313 to 337 in particular, and even beyond that, until Jackie Kennedy pushes her husband's head down out of view of the camera's lens as she crawls out on the back of the limousine to retrieve part of his brain from thetrunk lid of the car. Frame 317 is just the most obvious of all of these frames, probably the one frame where the aerial imaging artist forgot to 'fuzz up' the edges of the black patch with his airbrush. The HD scan of frame 313 (the 'head explosion') also looks particularly bad when viewed in extreme closeup on a high-resolution video monitor: the 'black patch' actually comes down over the top of, and covers, the back of JFK's shirt collar—and the so-called 'head explosion' seems to be coming from an area in space that is actually in front of President Kennedy's head, rather than on his head. In other words, the aerial imaging artist who altered this frame screwed up twice, and in both respects depicted things that cannot be.

One reason I am confident, even at this early stage in this investigation, that I am looking at the result of aerial imaging on an animation stand (such as described by Professor Fielding in his 1965 textbook), and not at a traveling matte, is that upon extreme magnification on a high-resolution screen, I believe I can see the real exit wound in the right rear of JFK's head bleeding through the black patch in frame 313. This is a subjective impression that most (but not all) people see when I show the extreme close-up of the HD scan of Z-313 to them on the high-resolution screen (1200 x 1920 pixels) on my laptop computer. I believe I am correct because the darker ovoid shape that I see "coming through the black mask" is in exactly the location where the exit wound was described by the Parkland treatment staff, and is also the same size they described—about the size of a baseball (or slightly smaller). For any part of an original image at all to be seen through a patch of black artwork means that we are looking at a composite created by aerial imaging, in which the black paint used by the animator was not completely opaque, and where the light projecting the original film frame up through the condensers onto the animation stand was a bit too bright—so bright that part of the original image could be seen through the non-opaque black paint employed by the visual effects artist on his animation cell. A matte insertion could not, by its very nature, allow any of the original image to "bleed through" the matte, since when a matte is inserted into a film frame that portion of the original image has already been optically excised.

Aerial imaging seems the likely method employed to alter all frames of the head wound for two other reasons, as well. First, the area being covered up (the back of the head) is so small—it would even be small on a 7.5 x 10 inch animation stand in an aerial imaging set-up on an optical printer—that registration problems would surely have occurred if a 35 mm traveling matte had been employed to cover up the real exit defect. (No such registration errors are seen in the HD frames.) Second, aerial imaging artwork is 'self-matting' by its very nature, since the animation cell is superimposed over the top of the image being projected through the condensers in the optical printer—which means that the new, composite image can be captured on the first pass by the process camera, resulting in less contrast buildup than would be the case in a traveling matte, which would be two generations farther down the line. This aerial imaging hypothesis is the most likely explanation for the altered frames of the head wounds that will be tested throughout the Los Angeles investigation as it proceeds.

And if the back of the head has been blacked out, it necessarily follows that the so-called massive head wound, seen most vividly in frames 335 and 337, is artwork also. (See Figures 89 and 90.) If one wound has been covered up, a substitute wound must be created to take its place. In her Warren Commission testimony—testimony that was deleted from the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits published in 1964, and only released by the U.S. government circa 1975—Jackie Kennedy said to J. Lee Rankin: "...from the front there was nothing..." when describing the head wound under oath.

The full quotation of this section of her suppressed testimony is provided below: I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been, but from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on. [author's emphasis]

It should be no surprise to my readers that this testimony was suppressed! At a time when the Warren Commission, using the frames carefully selected by the CIA's assets at LIFE magazine, was attempting to persuade the American public that JFK had an exit wound in the right-front of his head, our citizenry couldn't be allowed to read graphic testimony like this that cast doubt upon the official cover story, or upon images from the Zapruder film published by LIFE. Jackie's testimony, of course, was consistent with that of the Parkland medical staff in Trauma Room One, who overwhelmingly testified that the exit wound they saw was in the right rear of his skull, and consistently mentioned no damage to the right-front of JFK's head. In later years, as pointed out elsewhere in this book, Dr. Peters, Dr. Crenshaw, Dr. Jones, and Nurse Bell all specifically stated that the right-front of President Kennedy's head was undamaged when they saw him at Parkland hospital.

The congruent denials of any frontal exit wound by both the President's widow, and by key members of the medical staff who treated him at Parkland hospital, are the surest indications that the gross damage depicted in frames 335 and 337 (as well as in earlier frames between 313 and 335) is nothing but artwork, most likely painted onto animation cells on an aerial imaging animation stand in a modified optical printer, at the same time that the back of the head was blacked out in each frame.

Remember, the late Dr. Roderick Ryan of Kodak (who was based in Hollywood) expressed theopinion that the head wounds seen in the Zapruder film are not a traveling matte, but a painting.

Corroborating evidence that the large 'wound' seen in frames 335 and 337 is artwork can be found in the digital scans commissioned by Sydney Wilkinson of frames 456 and 466. Jackie Kennedy apparently propped her husband upright in the corner of the back seat for about 2 seconds (to briefly

1360

examine him) right after she returned to the back seat of the limousine. This is clearly apparent in the HD scans of the Zapruder film, but is something that I do not believe has ever been noticed by researchers before because the bootleg analog copies of the film suffer from contrast buildup and are too dark and indistinct in these frames to pick out this kind of detail. Sydney Wilkinson made this discovery, and in my view it turned out to be a significant one. In greatly magnified close-ups of frames 456 and 466, JFK can not only be seen propped up briefly in a 'sitting' position in the right rear of the back seat bench, but in these two frames—those in which his image is in the best focus— there is no longer any large wound visible on the right side of his head—and while there is a black spot on the right rear quadrant of his head, we do not see the entire bottom portion of the back of his head blacked out as we did immediately after frame 313! I believe that in these two frames—in frames 456 and 466—we are looking at unaltered frames of JFK's head. The image was too small, even on the aerial imaging animation stand, for anyone to bother. The type of detail we can see now in these two frames in high resolution after a digital scan was of no concern—was not even deemed possible—back in 1963 when the Zapruder film was only expected to be viewed as a motion picture on a shaky, wobbly, silvered movie screen by a few government investigators.

A study of the colors present in the black spot on the back of JFK's head in these two frames should be conducted to see if any of the pixels reveal the color red inside this 'black spot' in frames 456 and 466. If the color of blood is detected in this area, then the descriptions of the exit wound in the posterior skull made by the Parkland medical staff will have been vindicated, once and for all.

[David G. Healy]

let me be short and sweet, the Zapruder film has not been officially authenticated and verified as ORIGINAL (the current film housed at NARA as the in-camera original Zapruder film) and to the best of my knowledge, it NEVER has! So, why should anyone care what the Craig Lamson opinion about ANY film is?

Now we understand your afraid of film forensic testing, so Craister nothing, NOTHING is settled. Yet, its so simple to settle the film issue... and yet you run on endlessly (ye who makes the most noise does not necessarily win)..... so who is it that's afraid, praytell?

Kinda makes many wonder, just WHO or what side needs the film alteration debate, eh?

Uh Dave, its FETZER who claims the matter is settled.

I'm not the least bit afraid of ANY testing David, in fact I WELCOME it.

And who really does need for the film to be altered and why the continued and failed attempts to prove that point over the last how many years?

I don't really care if anyone listens to my opinions I present facts, and these wil lstand regardless of who presents them.

What do YOU present Dave?

O-P-I-N-I-O-N (which of course we're ALL entitled) not PROOF,Craig! One canNOT presents facts concerning a authenticated with unverified contents piece of celluloid. Till the film contents are verified we're wasting bandwidth...

I will cede one point, Zavada did verify that the Zapruder film is indeed Kodak film, the best he could do concerning the film. He certainly wasn't charged with verifying film content, he simply wasn't qualified.

While you guys have been playing the Z-film alteration gig... Doug Horne has done a fabulous job (and you didn't see his V volume expose coming?)... case MEDICAL evidence trumps all DP films... perhaps the reason for the current DP, 6th Floor Museum film-photo purist and their diversion(s)?

p.s. YOU need the film alteration argument, not I. In the totality of things, just a blip on the radar screen.... The Zapruder film is simply another credibility problem for LBJ's 1964 Warren Commission Report

Edited January 29, 2010 by David G. Healy

[Craig Lamson]

O-P-I-N-I-O-N (which of course we're ALL entitled) not PROOF,Craig! One canNOT presents facts concerning a authenticated with unverified contents piece of celluloid. Till the film contents are verified we're wasting bandwidth...

I will cede one point, Zavada did verify that the Zapruder film is indeed Kodak film, the best he could do concerning the film. He certainly wasn't charged with verifying film content, he simply wasn't qualified.

While you guys have been playing the Z-film alteration gig... Doug Horne has done a fabulous job (and you didn't see his V volume expose coming?)... case MEDICAL evidence trumps all DP films... perhaps the reason for the current DP, 6th Floor Museum film-photo purist and their diversion(s)?

p.s. YOU need the film alteration argument, not I. In the totality of things, just a blip on the radar screen.... The Zapruder film is simply another credibility problem for LBJ's 1964 Warren Commission Report

Na David, you can't understand what is fact and what is opinion.

Why do I need the alteration argument? I've got no dog in the hunt. Who killed JFK? Who cares. Is the film rear or altered? Who cares. In both cases, not me.

I'm simply having a very good time puncturing the photographic ignorance balloons...CT or LN...no matter to me.

Of course it is also a hoot watching those wedded to a worldview come unhinged when their sacred ox gets skewered by truth.

Contrary to the stated opinion of most here. they really DON'T want the truth, rather they want their PERSONAL truth. They can't handle the real truth. BTW, that would be an opinion.

It is however very funny to watch you attempt to change the subject to the Medical. Talk about a subject with little true fact and massive piles of opinion....

Edited January 29, 2010 by Craig Lamson

[Len Colby]

And, when you take into account Roderick Ryan, a special effects expert who told

Noel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1997), that the "blob" and the blood spray had

been painted in more than a decade ago, it is actually at least "the Hollywood 8".

And, lest Tink & Jerry attempt one of their patented dismissals of real cinematic

expertise, I would observe that Roderick Ryan received the Academy Award for

his contributions to cinematography during the Oscar presentations of 2000! It

looks as though their only opinion now is to create a new set of 4x5 Zapruder

film transparencies, which should be easy to detect. If these gross anomalies

have shown up with less perfect copies, imagine what we have in store for us?

Jerry's argument, in fact, is quite absurd, because the closer and closer we get

to first generation, the more and more conspicuous all of the artifacts become!

Except of course as already pointed out on this forum Ryan later recanted what he told Twyman saying the alterations would have been easily detectable and would have taken months to perform. In any case, like Zavada, he was a film scientist not a special effect expert.

On one hand the former had a PhD and worked in Hollywood and the latter worked in Rochester and "only" has a BS plus a degree in photo science. On the other hand Zavada never recanted his position, was a specialist in 8mm and led the team that invented Kodachrome II while Ryan's expertise was professional 35mm film used by b the film industry.

Zavada's view is backed by Oliver Stone, Raymond Fielding, Mark Sobel (director of "The Commission"), Robert Groden and eventually Dr. Ryan. Groden and Zavada examined the original film. On the other hand the Hollywood 7's credentials and identities are unknown and they have yet to make any public statements. They examined 5th generation copies that have yet to been made public.

So sorry alterationists until:

1) we see copies of the files they looked at

2) we know who they are

3) they made statements

The supposed views of these supposed experts aren't worth squat.

Edited January 30, 2010 by Len Colby