A shot fired through the front of the windshield- To Barb and Jerry

[Robin Unger]

Robin, on further thought. I think you are very on target.

It could also be the bag/shadow of the tall lady with a white blouse and blue skirt. Either way, I think you're looking at it right. Also the front of her bag seems to have a chquerboard emboss, which I suppose from the side, in the resolution available gives hints of lines which could become the spiral nebula.

edit:typo

Thanks John

I can't say that the "dark shadow" below lady seven's left arm is definately a big handbag.

but that is what it appears like to me.

and looking at the handbag / dark shadow it would appear to line up with lady eight's apron pocket when viewed from Altgen's location.

Keeping in mind that lady eight is standing closer to the limo then lady seven !

That would put the apron pocket / Spiral nebular just to the right of lady sevens black bag / shadow

when seen from Altgen's position.

Edited March 17, 2010 by Robin Unger

[Antti Hynonen]

I haven't been part of these photo debates too often, however, today I just stopped to look at Zap 256 and the Altgens photo and noticed that Kennedy's left index finger seems to be pointing towards his neck, roughly at the location of his throat wound. I haven't noticed this detail before.

Has this pointing index finger and the possible meaning of it been discussed before?

Am I the ONLY one who thinks JFK's face did not look like this?

The folks at Duncan's forum thought the area in red was the President's right hand.

If so, you're not seeing much of his face, just his forehead.

Can someone post a copy of Z255 next to the Altgen's closeup above? I believe it is the fingers of his left hand too, but in the Z film, I don't think the hands were touching yet at Z255 .... though from Altgen's angle, I reckon it could look like they are.

Bests,

Barb :-)

Barb,

255 is a little blurred - will you accept 256?

I'm writing from memory and don't want to speak for others so you can check the thread for yourself at:

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...opic,964.0.html

[John Dolva]

I think Tom Purvis has adressed it some years ago, an attempt by JFK to get at what is discomfiting him, ie a wound.

edit add: re nebula etc. The lady is in front (from altgens) of the man by the TSBD building entrance, the object in question about where her bag might be. Note shadow it casts on apron and its front chequerboard pattern.

Edited March 17, 2010 by John Dolva

[Robin Unger]

Z-Frames

On Duncan's forum Martin Hindrichs, Rick Needham and myself were comparing the folds and shape of the flag on the left side of the image as seen in Altgens 6, with Zapruder Frames Z-254 / Z-255

we also compared Connallys head, the sunlight on his nose, his left ear etc and also Kennedy and jackies hand positions.

I came to the conclusion, that Altgens 6 may actually equate closer to frame Z-254 then Z-255 as generally exepted. ?

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index...ic,1615.75.html

Edited March 17, 2010 by Robin Unger

[John Dolva]

I think that's a very astute and important observation, Robin and co. It explains a number of things and gives a good timestamp benchmark. (still working on the synching of the photos and films, one can step from there to other events and look at numerous things, but a work in progress that I see a long way off from being completed)

[Chris Davidson]

Towner frames.

Bottom frames are original.

Above them, somewhat enhanced.

chris

[Josiah Thompson]

I think that's a very astute and important observation, Robin and co. It explains a number of things and gives a good timestamp benchmark. (still working on the synching of the photos and films, one can step from there to other events and look at numerous things, but a work in progress that I see a long way off from being completed)

Yes. I think the work that you, Robin, Duncan and Jerry are carrying out with the Dealey Plaza photos shows how good analysis can grow incrementally and produce significant results. For example, if we can definitively show that the socalled "spiral nebula" is a pocket or purse or something on Lady #8's front at hip level we can get rid of distractions like the purported bullet hole in the windshield. This, in turn, suggests JFK was hit in the head from the rear. If that hit did not occur at Z 312/313 it had to happen at some later time... for example, like Z 327/328. Such a conclusion would be another example of visual evidence from the Zapruder film matching up with audio evidence from the acoustics. It seems to me that this is how responsible research can find the right path to advance along.

Once one throws out the "National Enquirer" style of research via sensationalistic pronouncement, one finds that everything is just as it was. The films and photos from Dealey Plaza form a self-authenticating body of evidence that takes precedence over eyewitness testimony (inherently unreliable under the circumstances) and physical evidence (perhaps planted, perhaps altered). This is really the way things have always been anyway.

Josiah Thompson

[John Dolva]

And I always have to remind myself that it is from Kennedy's head rear. Exactly how his head was orientated at that moment has always eluded me.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Josiah has it right: Select the evidence that supports a predetermined conclusion and eliminate the rest, no matter what it might show, including that small spiral nebulae arise when high-velocity bullets are fired through the windshields of junked cars and the sound made is like that of a firecracker, that JFK had small shrapnel wounds to his face (which Tom Robinson had to pack with wax) apparently caused by slivers of glass from the windshield when the bullet entered his neck (for which we have a mountain of evidence). Palm it off and suggest that what we are seeing is actually the pattern of some obscure object in the background, even though Martin has shown that the damage to Altgen7 is in the same location as the damage to Altgens6. Act like you know what you are talking about, endlessly reiterate the same drivel, and play the forum for saps. Rubbish!

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Zapruder-...-090324-48.html

March 28, 2009

Zapruder JFK Film Impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid

By Jim Fetzer

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't need to worry about answers". -- Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW (1973).

Madison, WI (OpEdNews) March 27, 2009 -- A debate has been raging just off the radar of the main stream media over the significance of a Polaroid photograph by Mary Moorman, which appears to impeach the famous Zapruder film of the assassination. Although most attention has focused on an argument initiated by legendary photo-analyst Jack White--that the photo reflects a line-of-sight that places Mary in the street, while the film shows her on the grass--a more serious threat emerges from its photographic content, which shows JFK's head tilted downward and slightly to the left. Surprisingly, this removes the final resistance to impeaching the film based upon the medical evidence.

The features of the film that are the center of this latest controversy have been explored by an Australian physicist, John P. Costella, Ph.D., who has a specialty in electromagnetism, including the properties of light and the physics of moving bodies, who is the leading expert on the Zapruder film in the world today. Some of his studies may be found on my public issue web site at http://assassinationscience.com and are archived there as "The JFK Assassination Film Hoax: An Introduction". Indeed, Roderick Ryan, an expert on cinematic special effects, told Noel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1997), p. 160, that the bulging brains (sometimes called "the blob") had been painted in. Ryan would receive a 2000 Academy Award for lifetime achievement. But Costella's studies and Ryan's observations have not brought an end to the controversy for those dedicated to Zapruder authenticity.

The principal protagonists in the debate occurring on several of the leading JFK research forums has pitted Josiah Thompson, author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), an early study largely based upon the Zapruder film, against me, editor of ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), and of THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003). Most of our arguments in the past have been directed to the line of sight argument advanced by Jack White and to the validity of an experiment conducted by David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., the leading expert on the medical evidence in the world today, and me, using a transit in Dealey Plaza, which I summarized in an recent article, "Moorman/Zapruder Revisited", at http://JFKresearch.com/Moorman which has as now appeared in a British journal, THE DEALEY PLAZA ECHO 13/1 (March 2009), pp. 6-33.

In that article, I observed that, while there are many indications that the film is a fabrication, the most important proof is the inconsistency between the impact damage to the cranium, which is the film's most stunning feature, showing brains and gore bulging out to JFK's right-front, and the medical evidence, which shows a massive defect at the back of his head just to the right of center. Indeed, Escort Motorcycle Officer Bobby Hargis, who was riding to the left-rear, was hit so hard by the blown-out brains and debris that he though he himself had been shot. Thus, the question has become how such a massive blow-out of brains and gore at the back of the head could appear to be to the right-front in the film.

In an earlier article, "New Proof of JFK Film Fakery" that appeared in OpEdNews (February 5, 2008), I laid out multiple indications that the Zapruder film is a fabrication. But none of those proofs 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 bullet had entered the back of his head and blown out the right-front--a caption rewritten twice after breaking the plates. And it implicates Abraham Zapruder in the deception, when (d) he described a blow-out to the right-front during a televised interview that 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! Indeed, the massive defect can even be seen in late frames of the film, including 374. During a phone interview with Joe West, a private investigator, the man who had prepared the body for burial, Thomas Evan Robinson, described the wounds on May 26, 1992, as follows (MURDER, p. 116; HOAX, p. 9):

* large gaping hole in back of head patched by stretching piece of rubber over it. Thinks skull full of Plaster of Paris.

* smaller wound in right temple. Crescent shape, flapped down (3")

* (approx 2) small shrapnel wounds in face. Packed with wax.

* wound in back (5 to six inches) below shoulder. To the right of back bone.

* adrenal gland and brain removed.

* other organs removed and then put back.

* no swelling or discoloration to face. (died instantly)

Those who want to persist in defense of the film, however, observe that Bill and Gayle Newman, Abraham Zapruder and his secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, had reported wounds to the right side of JFK's head. These observations are consistent with the entry wound to the right temple, which caused the massive defect to the back of his skull, but probably also resulted from observing the brains when the flap that the mortician describes was briefly opened when the frangible (or exploding) bullet entered his right temple, creating the flap (which promptly closed) and apparently damaging his right ear.

Indeed, according to E. Z. Friedel, M.D., THE JFK CONSPIRACY (2007), his ear was so badly destroyed that those who wanted to conceal the truth causes of his death brought in an expert to perform a reconstruction. Friedel characterizes his book as a work of “fiction”, but what he has to tell us about these wounds appears to coincide with what witnesses have had to say in describing them. Rich DellaRosa, who founded and moderates JFKresearch.com, has been communicating with him for over a year and believes he has had access to inside information.

Barb Junkkarinen, arguing the other side of the question, recently observed on the JFK forum, jfk-research@yahoogroups.com, that the Newmans, a couple who were on the knoll side of Elm Street at the time of the shooting, had described damage to the right side of his head. Bill, for example, reported,

"By this time he was directly in front of us and I was looking directly at him when he was hit in the side of the head" [Affidavit 11-22-63] and

"At that time he heard the bullet strike the President and saw flesh fly from the President's head." .... "He said the president was hit on the right side of the head with the third shot ..." [FBI report 11-23-63]

Similarly, his wife, Gayle, reported,

"Just about the time President Kennedy was right in front of us, I heard another shot ring out, and the President put his hands up to his head. I saw blood all over the side of his head." [Affidavit 11-22-63]

During the trial of Clay Shaw by Jim Garrison in New Orleans, they both reported seeing him hit in the right temple, but she elaborated in the following way:

"Q: Now what was the effect of this shot upon the President's head if you were able to observe?

A: The President, his head just seemed to explode, just bits of his skull flew in the air and he fell to the side."

Her husband offered additional observations that were also dramatic:

"I caught a glimpse of his eyes, just looked like a cold stare, he just looked through me, and then when the car was directly in front of me, well, that is when the third shot was fired and it hit him in the side of the head right above the ear and his ear came off. "

None of this, of course, could salvage the authenticity of the film unless it could explain how a blow out of brains and gore from the back of his skull could appear to have been blown out to the right-front in the Zapruder film. I was so puzzled by the argument that the Newmans, Sitzman and Zapruder had observed such effects that I wrote to leading experts with whom I have collaborated in the past.

Mantik confirmed that, "Of course!", the medical evidence falsifies the film, which I found highly reassuring. Costella, who has demonstrated that the Zapruder is a fabrication at http://assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro had a telling observation about why there may have been so much controversy over the Moorman from scratch. Ironically, Costella had been in agreement with Thompson ("Tink") about the line of sight argument, which placed him on Tink's side on that question against Mantik, White, and me. So what he had to add on March 19, 2009, was especially striking:

Jim,

I still sit on Tink's side when it comes to the extant Moorman and what camera position it implies, so make sure that the issues are disentangled.

Re the head wound being inconsistent with the Z film, I think it's beyond doubt. The explanation I like best is David Lifton's in BEST EVIDENCE about the time they got hold of the clear frames in the early '70s. The GIF sequences of deblurred frames on my website make it clear for the newcomer, but it really goes back to DSL.

The only argument that Tink and Miller and the others put forward against this is that somehow JFK's head is massively rotated to the left in 313 and 314, and that we are seeing the part of his head above his right ear. Ironically, the Moorman polaroid itself dismisses this idea (if these were all genuine), as it lines up at about Z-315 or Z-316, and shows that JFK's head is tilted but not spun around as would be required-as you can see from Clip G on my website, his head starts to lift from 314 through to 318 but does not rotate left or right.

Indeed, maybe that's the point of all this Moorman guff. Forget about the pedestal for the moment, and look at JFK. Place the Moorman next to Zapruder frame 315 or 316, and you have two (allegedly genuine) different views of the same instant of time. That shows you that the "red blob" that explodes out the front of his head in the Z-toon is indeed supposed to be coming out of his right temple. If his head had been rotated massively to the left, we'd be able to see his face in the Moorman-but we don't.

John

John's observation--that the Moorman contradicts that explanation and exposes it as a sham, because JFK's head was not dramatically turned to the left--means that the blow out of brains and gore to the right front cannot be attributed to JFK's having turned his head to the left, which means the authenticity of the film has indeed been impeached by the medical evidence. Such a claim was implausible to begin with, but it still left the smallest degree of uncertainty. So the indirect proof provided by the medical evidence combined with the Moorman turns out to be at least as powerful as the direct proof. And this refutation of the film appears definitive, because there is no remaining line of defense.

Author's Website: www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/

Author's Bio: McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth; Editor, Assassination Research.

And I always have to remind myself that it is from Kennedy's head rear. Exactly how his head was orientated at that moment has always eluded me.

Edited March 17, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Since you still appear to be unable to read anything I have written, here are three key points for your consideration:

(1) Josiah has gone so far as to suggest that the throat wound--which was described by Malcolm Perry, M.D., three times as a wound of entry during the Parkland Press Conference, which I published in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998); drawn in diagrams by Charles Crenshaw, M.D., which I also published there; and included in his front-page story in The New York Times by Tom Wicker in the most important story of his career--was actually an exit wound caused by a bone fragment caused by a hit to the back of the head fired from above and behind just as THE WARREN REPORT (1964) proposed. This guy thereby disqualifies himself not only as a student of the death of JFK but as a competent PI, since no competent PI would even confound the features of this wound (as a clean, small puncture wound) with those of an exit would (irregular, with ragged edges and skin pushed outward).

(2) Now Josiah suggests that the spiral nebula with a dark hole in the center is actually a feature of a purse or a dress or some other item belonging to a woman in the background, after Martin has explained that the damage is in the same location in Altgens7 as it is in Altgens6. The situation must be desperate for this man to make himself look like an idiot by advancing these completely ad hoc hypotheses for which there is no evidence. There are many witnesses, including the official at Ford who was responsible for replacing the windshield, who confirmed that it had a through-and-through hole. Since we already know that JFK was hit in the throat by a bullet that was "coming at him", as Malcolm Perry, M.D., who had performed the incision through the wound at Parkland explained during the press conference--and the conjecture that this was instead a wound of exit cannot be sustained--precisely where is that bullet suppose to have come "at him" if it was not through the windshield?

(3) As thought that were not sufficient proof of his incompetence, now he produces the windshield of a car that has obviously been hit by low velocity rounds. He has systematically ignored the results that Jim Lewis has obtained by firing high-velocity rounds through junked cars from about 200 yards range, even though the relevant page from HOAX was posted long ago. In addition to the entry wound to the throat, moreover, we have small shrapnel wounds to the face, which Tom Robinson reported to Joe West during their interview. David Mantik has drawn the inference that they were probably caused by small shards of glass when the bullet passed through the windshield. A copy of Joe West's notes can be found on page 9 of HOAX. Sure, I can attempt to track him down to ask for more data, but it appears to be rather trivial given the explanatory power of what we already know. Precisely what alternative can tie together the wound trajectory (of a wound to the neck), the more subtle shrapnel wounds to his face (which Tom Robinson has described), the photographic images (see especially posts #62 and #143), and the acoustical evidence (of reports that the first shot sounded "like a firecracker")?

When no alternative explanation is reasonable, an hypothesis has been established beyond reasonable doubt, which is the case here. No other explanation can account for the data that I have identified here, which is why Josiah has to resort to a host of ad hoc explanations (the wound was not of entry but of exit, the spiral nebula is in the background, the Parkland witnesses were mistaken, even the reporter got it wrong, and the windshield removed at Ford did not have a through-and-through hole in it). No matter how powerful or how extensive or how convergent the evidence--even when it ties together the medical evidence, the photographic evidence, the ballistic evidence, and even the acoustical evidence--nothing matters when you resort to the practice of selection and elimination, as Josiah has done through this thread. What, after all, is more probable? That all these witnesses and all this evidence is wrong or that there actually was a through-and-through hole in the windshield? This is not a trick question. This guy would have made a terrific used-car salesman, but he has discredited himself as a student of JFK or as a professional PI, neither of whom would have resorted to obfuscations or deceptions like (1)-(3) above.

Meanwhile, back to the ridiculous charade being conducted by Josiah Thompson....

Same old... same old. I won’t take much time to reply.

You keep trotting out the same old insults: I’m “a disgrace to my Yale Ph.D.” I’m “unreliable... untrustworthy... and an incompetent student of the death of JFK.” And how do we know all this? Because in 1967 I offered an hypothesis that the throat wound was caused by a skull fragment being driven downward and out the front of the neck. What is the truth of the matter? I don’t know. There are enormous difficulties in accounting for the throat wound as an entry wound from the front. Likewise, there are severe difficulties in accounting for the throat wound as coming from a fragment of skull being driven down and out the throat just as there are severe difficulties in accounting for the throat wound as the exit wound of a bullet that entered Kennedy’s back. Anyone who has studied the case more than superficially knows this.

You have said that someone in Texas named Lewis shot windshields and obtained a bullet hole through a windshield that looks just like the “spiral nebula.” Cool. Show it to us instead of bloviating. If you produced what you are talking about we could then compare it with the socalled “spiral nebula” and make up our own minds. Asking us to trust you just doesn’t cut the mustard.

And what is this about Altgens #5 being altered? Pamela and I produced photos made many decades apart from the same original Altgens #5 negative. They show the same thing with respect to the socalled “spiral nebula.” Sure, if you screw around with Altgens #5 (for example as you did for one of your papers) you can crank the contrast sufficiently to make the nebula look ambiguous. Or you can use printed copies and get the same effect. But this proves nothing since only the original negative counts. Do you really want to argue that that negative has been altered? Or do you just want to say that and have people believe you?

Post a photo of a bullet hole through a windshield that looks like what we have in Altgens #5 and maybe then there will be something to talk about. Otherwise, you’re just, as usual, bloviatinng.

Josiah Thompson

[Jerry Logan]

....now he produces the windshield of a car that has obviously been hit by low velocity rounds. He has systematically ignored the results that Jim Lewis has obtained by firing high-velocity rounds through junked cars from about 200 yards range, even though the relevant page from HOAX was posted long ago....

So Jim, how about posting some photos of the high-velocity "spiral nebula"? Every ballistics and forensics text I've read indicates that that the size of windshield bullet holes is a function of slug caliber and angle of incidence. Don't be shy! Let's see those high-velocity holes.

Jerry

[Jack White]

I think that's a very astute and important observation, Robin and co. It explains a number of things and gives a good timestamp benchmark. (still working on the synching of the photos and films, one can step from there to other events and look at numerous things, but a work in progress that I see a long way off from being completed)

Yes. I think the work that you, Robin, Duncan and Jerry are carrying out with the Dealey Plaza photos shows how good analysis can grow incrementally and produce significant results. For example, if we can definitively show that the socalled "spiral nebula" is a pocket or purse or something on Lady #8's front at hip level we can get rid of distractions like the purported bullet hole in the windshield. This, in turn, suggests JFK was hit in the head from the rear. If that hit did not occur at Z 312/313 it had to happen at some later time... for example, like Z 327/328. Such a conclusion would be another example of visual evidence from the Zapruder film matching up with audio evidence from the acoustics. It seems to me that this is how responsible research can find the right path to advance along.

Once one throws out the "National Enquirer" style of research via sensationalistic pronouncement, one finds that everything is just as it was. The films and photos from Dealey Plaza form a self-authenticating body of evidence that takes precedence over eyewitness testimony (inherently unreliable under the circumstances) and physical evidence (perhaps planted, perhaps altered). This is really the way things have always been anyway.

Josiah Thompson

Photos do NOT take precedence over eyewitness testimony. Every photo must

be authenticated by the person who took the photo, who must testify that the

photo image is a true record of what the witness saw and photographed.

[Craig Lamson]

(2) Now Josiah suggests that the spiral nebula with a dark hole in the center is actually a feature of a purse or a dress or some other item belonging to a woman in the background, after Martin has explained that the damage is in the same location in Altgens7 as it is in Altgens6.

No, actually Martin is SPECULATING that that two artifacts are in the same location. All he offers as proof is his wildly waving hands, and that is proof of nothing.

In fact his speculation does not even take into account the size difference between the artifact in A6 and A7. How does he explain this away? Oh yes, he does not.

[Josiah Thompson]

I think that's a very astute and important observation, Robin and co. It explains a number of things and gives a good timestamp benchmark. (still working on the synching of the photos and films, one can step from there to other events and look at numerous things, but a work in progress that I see a long way off from being completed)

Yes. I think the work that you, Robin, Duncan and Jerry are carrying out with the Dealey Plaza photos shows how good analysis can grow incrementally and produce significant results. For example, if we can definitively show that the socalled "spiral nebula" is a pocket or purse or something on Lady #8's front at hip level we can get rid of distractions like the purported bullet hole in the windshield. This, in turn, suggests JFK was hit in the head from the rear. If that hit did not occur at Z 312/313 it had to happen at some later time... for example, like Z 327/328. Such a conclusion would be another example of visual evidence from the Zapruder film matching up with audio evidence from the acoustics. It seems to me that this is how responsible research can find the right path to advance along.

Once one throws out the "National Enquirer" style of research via sensationalistic pronouncement, one finds that everything is just as it was. The films and photos from Dealey Plaza form a self-authenticating body of evidence that takes precedence over eyewitness testimony (inherently unreliable under the circumstances) and physical evidence (perhaps planted, perhaps altered). This is really the way things have always been anyway.

Josiah Thompson

Photos do NOT take precedence over eyewitness testimony. Every photo must

be authenticated by the person who took the photo, who must testify that the

photo image is a true record of what the witness saw and photographed.

This is exactly what Abraham Zapruder did at the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans. Yet you insist on not believing him.

The real test of the authenticity of a film or photo from Dealey Plaza is its ability or inability to fit into the seamless tapestry of other films and photos taken in Dealey Plaza. If it's authentic, it will fit into this tapestry. If not, it will stand out like a sore thumb. For fifteen years, you've been pointing to what you believed were sore thumbs. They all turned out to be just mistakes in photo interpretation.

So right now we're left with this body of films and photos from Dealey Plaza that all match. You and Fetzer keep making National Enquirer-like claims and, like other National Enquirer-like claims (I'm thinking hear of the three-headed-sheep), they all go up in smoke once looked at.

Care to give us a new one to look at?

Josiah Thompson

[Josiah Thompson]

Since you still appear to be unable to read anything I have written, here are three key points for your consideration:

Post a photo of a bullet hole through a windshield that looks like what we have in Altgens #5 and maybe then there will be something to talk about. Otherwise, you’re just, as usual, bloviatinng.

Josiah Thompson

So. Are you going to just continue bloviating? Cool.

Josiah Thompson