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Prayer Man is a Man


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righthand-study-e1559389908403.jpg

 

This is a 3D detail of Prayer Man's right hand in different views. There is a small irregularity in the wrist area which may be the styloid process of ulnar (or radial) bone. Some fingers can be recognised which is something difficult to achieve just by looking at the picture as it is. 

 

 

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A detail of the right hand and forearm revealing that the dorsum of the right hand was indeed the brightest spot in Prayer Man's figure. The yellow lines in the left-hand panel delineate the region of interest which was then processed in ImageJ program. The right-bottom panel shows the brightest areas as the tallest and orange.

 

rightforearm-e1559390484154.jpg

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I have made a few new arms and left leg postures to accommodate the sequencing of bright-dark tones shown in my previous post. For Prayer Man to have his left hand in the shadow, he would need to have his whole chest rotated a few degrees toward the wall. The initial step is always to model the posture in Poser 11.1 and overlay it onto Darnell still to see if all body parts would fit. The new posture with the left arm slightly back due to the rotation of the chest appears to match Prayer Man's figure well. The top right-hand panel shows an overhead view of the new posture in which the sequence of the brightest spots would be represented in Prayer Man's mannequin. The bottom right-hand panel shows the posture I used so far. This Poser-Darnell analysis needs to be repeated over a few days because small details can only be spotted after giving it some rest. Only then is the pose exported from Poser as *.obj file, converted into a Collada *.dae file in AT3D, and imported into Sketchup. The Artisan sculpting toolbox is then used to sculpt the face and hair according to Lee Oswald's photographs and to modify the Poser mannequin's clothes. So, you better are sure that the model which will be used for the final analysis holds. There are a few other tests applied before I start sculpting. I have a mini-doorway with only basic features and first test if the imported 3D figure can actually stand as we see it in Darnell. It takes about 2-3 weeks to create an Oswald' mannequin posing in a new posture. The black line separates Prayer Man from the contour of the lady in white.

 

studyposture-e1559412702583.jpg

 

 

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10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Chris,

If we pretend your wife is up (or down) by one step, will that make your gifs valid? If so, then we can continue to study them.

One other question... you say your wife is 5' 10" and 6' without and with shoes. Are those measurement taken at the top of her head or the top of her hat?  (Or is the hat pulled down tight on her head?)

 

Sandy,

That would seem somewhat logical, but in this instance I would not.

The lens' focal length was not correct compared to the info I provided earlier about the lens I believe was used originally.

I will try to remedy this and retake the photos with a comparable lens.

The end result might be the same, but I would wait to draw any conclusions.

Yes, that hat is tight fitting so it did not add but a minimal difference, if any, to her height.

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17 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

Sandy,

That would seem somewhat logical, but in this instance I would not.

The lens' focal length was not correct compared to the info I provided earlier about the lens I believe was used originally.

I will try to remedy this and retake the photos with a comparable lens.

The end result might be the same, but I would wait to draw any conclusions.

Yes, that hat is tight fitting so it did not add but a minimal difference, if any, to her height.

 

Thanks Chris. I found what you were attempting to do very informative. I appreciate the fact that you will be redoing the photo with the correct lens. I look forward to seeing it.

Hopefully you will take the photo from the same height above ground level as Darnell was, and from about the same distance away from the steps.

 

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1 hour ago, Adam Johnson said:

Hi Andrej,

Do you think that the right wrist area of prayer man is covered by a watch/leather band or some type of jewellery or is it just shaded/out of sunlight????

Adam:

I see no evidence of an object such as wristwatch on Prayer Man's right wrist. The bright blob, in my opinion, is the protrusion of the lateral of the two elbow bones, the ulnar bone. The protrusion, the styloid process, creates a bump just before the narrowing of the wrist. This man appeared to have a quite distinct protrusion at the distal part of ulnar bone, and this could have created a brighter spot in Prayer Man's wrist area.

I have extracted, for comparison purposes, the forearm and hand of Lee Oswald posing in the backyard photograph. It is obvious that this photograph shows a number of features which point to photographic manipulation. Without wishing any discussion about the origin of backyard photographs, I assume that some of the backyard photographs were both genuine and manipulated. The obvious manipulation may have been implemented to offer plausible deniability in any trial.

Anyway, the man posing as Lee Oswald had the styloid process of the ulnar bone very well expressed and a bit far from the dorsum of the hand. Here is a composite showing the backyard photo with the region of interest (forearm and hand) delineated with a yellow line, and Prayer Man's colour-coded brightness of his forearm and hand (right-top) and the colour-coded forearm and hand in the man in the backyard picture (right-bottom). The arrow points to the extruded styloid process on the ulnar bone.

 

byp_pm-e1559641642270.jpg

 

 

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Andrej,

Don't know whether you have this or not.  But, I ran across some interesting information working on something else:

"Based on their measurements, the average shoulder width for American women was 14.4 inches (36.7 cm). Based on the shoulder measurements of 7,476 men aged 20 years and older taken during the same time period, the average shoulder width of men in the United States was 16.1 inches (41.1 cm).Oct 26, 2018"

If you don't have this it might be a handy way to separate men and women.  Or, at least give an indication of gender that can be used with other characteristics.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Coming back to the issue of CE151, the reddish shirt which Lee Oswald most likely wore on the Friday morning, November 22, 1963, I have placed a request to the National Archives to send me the original photograph of the shirt as appearing in the Warren Commission Hearings, vol. XVI. I have received a message from NARA that the access to the photograph was in the remits of the Special Access unit and I was provided with an email address. About a week after my email to the Special Access unit, I received a message with the photograph of the shirt CE151 in the attachment with a note that the photograph is faded due to the age. NARA sent this image as a courtesy.

Here is the coloured photograph of CE151 which has been known so far as a rather poor-quality black-and-white photograph copied from a scan of the Commission Hearings, vol. XVI, page 515.

ce-151-oswald-shirt-attachment-19-39876-

 

 

Edited by Andrej Stancak
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In have applied "Fade correction" in CorelPaintshopPro program with a very small correcting factor, and lightened up the yellow tones. The photograph of CE151 after applying tools to mitigate the ageing process looks as follows:

ce151_wc_enhanced-e1560624831143.jpg

 

And here is a comparison of the CE151-WC and the CE151-2016 (the one which NARA photographed anew in 2016 and sent to Pat Speer):

composite_newshirt-e1560625019976.jpg

 

 

 

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The image below gives a good idea about Prayer Man's left leg. It is important to understand whether Prayer Man's left leg was bent or not. If the left leg were bent, Prayer Man could only stand by placing the weight of his body on his right foot, in line with the "one-foot-down-one-foot-up" hypothesis.. This composite picture refers to frame #003267 which is one of the earlier frames in Darnell film depicting the doorway; the lady in white had not ascended too far yet and therefore, the view of Prayer Man's left leg is not obstructed. 

The top row shows the cut of the original frame (left), and the brightness coded (unprocessed) images of the same image, one in grey (middle) and one colour-coded (right). The bottom image shows Prayer Man rotated 90 degrees and from his left. Thus,  Prayer Man's head would be on the right-hand side and feet on the left-hand side, and Prayer Man is in supine position. I have highlighted the course of the left leg with a purple line. The left thigh gradually rises toward the brighter tones and the maximum, possibly the knee, approaches the brightness of the right arm. There is a bulky bright (white) object next to Mrs. Reese, below Mrs. Reese's right hand. This object, (radiator?), is clearly separated from Prayer Man's body and should not be confused with Prayer Man's left leg. Notably, the shin is clearly bent inward and this is the reason for a slightly darker spot in the region below Prayer Man's left knee in the original picture.

 

frame003627-e1561149345383.jpg

Edited by Andrej Stancak
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In the process of retrieving as much information from Darnell film as possible to be able to model correctly Prayer Man's figure but also other features of the doorway (e.g., radiator), I decided to upload into ImageJ one by one all Darnell stills showing the doorway. I stumbled on two frames which appear to carry some information about Prayer Man's facial features. The frames are #003520 and #003704_1_2_1. The former frame is one of the first frames showing the doorway and it looks quite beaten up. The latter is one of 11 frames starting with 003704 which I previously considered to be identical and therefore, I have always used the first of these frames. 

2framesselected-e1561314918127.jpg

 

The orientations of Prayer Man's head and left arm differ between these two frames; in frame #003520, Prayer Man has his head turned more toward his right, and his posture resembles Prayer Man's posture in Wiegman film.

The figure below shows the cropped Prayer Man's head in #003520 processed with ImageJ. In spite of a blurred blob to the right of Prayer Man's head, at least some faint facial features are visible.

frame_3520_single-e1561315080133.jpg

 

The next figure shows this head under different contrasts (upper panel) and some selected photographs of Lee Oswald showing his head from a similar angle as Prayer Man's head (lower panel).

frame_3520.jpg

 

 

Please note the course of the hairline in the region of the left temple in Prayer Man's and Lee Oswald's head. The similarity is uncanny. However, the slightly extruded part of Lee's face between the nose and upper lip can also be seen in Prayer Man's face.

Lee Oswald's head in second photograph from the right appears have very similar orientation to Prayer Man's head and therefore, I have tried an overlay of the two pictures. The percent values  above each of six overlays shown below correspond to the amount of blending with zero percent standing for original photograph with no overlay. The 1% and 2% overlays are perhaps the most important ones as they allow to evaluate the similarity between Lee Oswald's head and Prayer Man's head.

bigoverlay-1.jpg

 

As far as the later frame #003704_1_2_1 is concerned, the facial features can hardly be recognised in Prayer Man's head, however, the course of hairline in the right temple region is clear and again shows an unusual similarity with Lee Oswald's hairline. Again, the top row shows Prayer Man's head extracted from #003704_1_2_1 using ImageJ program under different contrasts (upper row) and selected pictures of Lee Oswald head.

frame_3704_1_2_1.jpg

 

Do you find similarities between Prayer Man's head and Lee Oswald's head? Or, is Prayer Man's head more similar to the head of Mrs. Stanton shown below?

sarahstanton_larry_1960tgh.jpg

 

 

 

Edited by Andrej Stancak
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Andrej,

I found this photo in another post, Davidson’s Swan Song- Math Rules, and thought of you.  You have done extensive work on the color of Prayer Man’s clothing.  PM wore a light reddish shirt, and grey trousers that day.  You don’t really see that in this Towner frame that well.

towner-davidson-pm-on-Elm-1.jpg

But, it gives you a place to look for other frames in the Towner film.  Here is a sample in which you will see a light red shirt and grey or tan trousers.  If you think the notion is worth pursuing then this maybe a good confirmation of your work.

You know my notion that PM was on Elm Street prior to being seen in the doorway of the TSBD.  The Towner film, which I consider not much more than a cartoon, has a fairly stable background that matches the Martin film.  There are now two films showing a PM like figure on Elm Street as the presidential limousine passes.

towner-pm-1-a.jpg

And, another:

towner-pm-2-a.jpg

The Martin film shows the shirt as redder than Towner:

marten-couple-seen-dorman-1.jpg

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John:

you are not alone in suggesting that someone standing on street could climb up the depository doorway steps and pose as Prayer Man. You may understand that I see too many positive signs for Lee Oswald being Prayer Man, however, I appreciate your message because one cannot be careful enough to be carried away by an idea which can also be false.

Yet, I am not convinced that Prayer Man would be someone from outside, a bystander who just happened to pose as Prayer Man. First, there is no such person in the doorway in Hughes film. I can see Billy Lovelady in Hughes but not anyone next to him at Prayer Man's location. It is unlikely that someone would suddenly decide for getting to the doorway while the motorcade was already passing in front the Depository because such person had have enough time before the motorcade has arrived to choose a good spot. And people did choose their spots during the minutes preceding the motorcade (there is no such person in the doorway in Hughes, so I reckon nobody was interested). Prayer Man's spot at the western wall was a lousy spot - you could not view the south Elm street, grassy knoll, or Triple Underpass. The whole experience from watching the motorcade would be lost if a person standing on a curb of Elm street would choose to get into the Depository doorway when President's limo turned to Elm because the vanishing limo would not be seen from Prayer Man's spot.

There may be an option that someone got so scared by the shots  that he/she would immediately seek a refuge in the Depository doorway. However, this is not what people did when shots rang out. Once the shot rang out, the ones who were really close to the source of shot(s)  hit the ground immediately. That would be people like Newmans or Gordon Arnold. Other people would just stop and freeze. Willis's little daughter in red skirt is an example. After the shooting, people started to run, and here I can figure out that someone would just run into the doorway without knowing why. However, this would be already too late - Prayer Man was at his spot already in the initial sequence of Wiegman film and that spot at the western wall was not available for anyone to take. It should also be recalled that none of the doorway occupants, those standing on top steps, had ever mentioned a stranger standing with them on top steps.

I have looked into two of three candidate persons in your post, the ones I could see clearly. The figure below shows the two person wearing some reddish clothes in detail. The man in the left-hand panel appears to be a bit too old and severely balded. The person in the right hand-panel appears to me to be an Afro-American lady, however, I may be wrong. 

 

hohnscandidates-e1561400014607.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Andrej Stancak
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Andrej,

Thanks for your correction on the black man in a red shirt.  I'm sorry that you misunderstood what I was saying.  This frame corrects my error on the black man in the red shirt.

towner-pm-and-other-red-shirt-1.jpg

PM / Oswald disappears briefly in this version of the Towner film and leaves the black man in a red shirt as the only one in a red shirt visible for a brief time.  PM / Oswald reappears in this frame.  This matches the Martin film except for a lighter red shirt which I have speculated is a color problem of the Martin film.

marten-couple-seen-dorman-1.jpg

As far as I know these are the only two films that show Oswald on Elm Street as the presidential limousine passes.

The Towner film shows none of the Altgens 6 characters in the doorway of the TSBD as the presidential limousine passes.  You can't see them either in the Hughes film.

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