Prayer Man is a Man

[Larry Hancock]

Ian, at the time of arrest Oswald was wearing a nice shiny metal ID bracelet on his left wrist...might take a look for that. Of course it was nice of him to make sure

to wear a personal ID bracelet when going to kill the President, makes things so much handier for the police. Of course that goes right along with

him immediately surrendering and claiming credit...or say tossing the bracelet and any other personal ID during his escape, something real criminals are

wont to do while on the run...

[Chris Newton]

makes things so much handier for the police

Agree! There are probably a dozen things Ozzy reportedly did that make no sense.

[Robert Howard]

One thing that I recently thought of if, it was applicable to the films showing Prayerman is more or less a substitution of the seemingly? impossible task of computer enhancement of said

footage. I hope someone well versed in the field of video technology reads this, before the idea is summarily dismissed by non-experts. Colorization....I know enough about the technology to realize cinematographers will colorize B&W films, using actual color photos of a certain area or event. Does anyone else think this is a applicable area. If so or even if not, I would be curious to see what people think.

[Andrej Stancak]

This can be a decent Prayer Man thread to continue the debate on one of the most exciting aspects of the JFK assassination case.

This is a 3D surface plot of original Darnell still (left) after resizing it to 300 dpi. The middle panel is the 3D surface plot in which light tones are pulled out and dark tones are deep in the plot. This image was constructed using free ImageJ program. This image analysis method is similar to the one applied to the shroud of Turin. It is refreshing to view Prayer Man from a bit different 3D perspective. Of course, the information which can be extracted still depends on the quality of the original image. Yet, the volume of Prayer Man's body can be appreciated better. In the right panel, I have emphasised with yellow line something which could be the bottom of the bottle, however, it is tentative. In contrast, the area over what I believe is Prayer Man's left thigh is clearly extruded (meaning it is brighter than the rest of Prayer Man's body) which suggests that Prayer Man had his left leg bent.

 

[Andrej Stancak]

This is a 3D surface plot from a section of original Darnell still. It is a bit coarse due to poor resolution of the original image, however, it provides a bit better view in the region of Prayer Man's left leg. 

[Andrej Stancak]

A better view of Prayer Man's left leg is offered in frames in which the lady in white is still not on steps. The stills from that portion of Darnell film are blurry, yet they offer a view of both Prayer Man's body and a piece of the white radiator next to Prayer Man's bent left leg. The figure below shows the still chosen for the surface analysis, the section of the doorway with Prayer Man and a white cubic object next to his left leg, and the 3D surface reconstruction. The left leg is clearly bent and the shape of the contour of the left leg is depicted with the purple line below. If you would struggle to identify Prayer Man in the surface plot, he is in the supine position with legs pointing rightwards.

The importance of this finding is obvious: if Prayer Man stood with his right leg on the second step, the left leg had to be bent in the knee joint which is what the 3D surface analysis shows.

[Andrej Stancak]

On 9/24/2015 at 5:00 PM, Robert Howard said:

Colorization....I know enough about the technology to realize cinematographers will colorize B&W films, using actual color photos of a certain area or event. Does anyone else think this is a applicable area. If so or even if not, I would be curious to see what people think.

This one is for Robert because he was genuinely interested. It shows the relief based on 3D contours - things that are bright are pulled out and those which are dark are deep in the picture. The relief has been colourised using a spectrum heat map for a better view of what was forward and/or bright. The part which could be the left knee is on the bright side - I assume that this was because Prayer Man had his left leg ben in the knee joint.

As a bonus, it is possible to identify the contours of Prayer Man's torso which was difficult to do just by viewing the original picture because the boundaries between the body contours and the background are smeared. Prayer Man certainly was not obese - he was actually a lean person given that he was 5'9''. I wonder why then some researchers see Prayer Man as an obese person having thick grey hair. The hair in the picture below would be extruded substantially if this person had light grey hair.

 

Edited May 11, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Andrej Stancak]

In the coloured relief of Prayer Man showed in my last post, his shirt shows distinct spots which are deeper (darker) than the neighboring areas. Any aspect of this man's shirt which is dark will be as if pressed into the shirt and any aspects which is light, e.g. a button, will be pulled out. 

If this man in the doorway was Lee Oswald, he would wear a reddish shirt CE151. CE151 was Lee's work shirt. He had it on himself while working in the Depository on Thursday, November 21, and since he traveled with Buell Wesley Frazier to Irving without stopping at his rooming house to change his shirt, he also wore that same reddish shirt on Friday morning, November 22. So, Lee had a shirt on him in which he was lifting book boxes, placed them on a trolley, and moved the trolleys for packing to the first floor. As he has been lifting dusty boxes with black print on them very often, the book boxes have left dirty spots on his shirt. The dirty spots on CE151 were not distributed randomly, rather they were distributed diagonally along an approximate axis running from the left hip to the right chest. Here is how a dusty box would leave a diagonally distributed spots on a shirt.

 

The next figure shows the reddish shirt CE151 which was obtained from the NARA by Pat Speer in 2016 (top left). The picture is of very good quality and it is, therefore, possible to inspect the distribution of dirty spots on the front facing of the shirt. The right-hand top panel shows the enhanced shirt with the dark spots clearly visible. The dirty spots were arranged in a diagonal fashion as expected if the shirt was worn by Lee Oswald, the order filler in a book warehouse.

The bottom left panel shows the result of the 3D contour analysis with the shirt CE151. The dark spots are clearly visible and can be compared with the shirt worn by Lee Oswald. The dark spots on Prayer Man's shirt are shown in the bottom right panel. The greenish lines delineate concave (inward) regions on the shirt and the two light circles identify local convexities (outward). A diagonal arrangement of the dark spots on Prayer Man's shirt is present and bears similarity arrangement of dark spots on CE151. CE151 in the NARA photograph is spread differently compared to when it is worn and the flat shirt cannot be exactly matched to the orientation of Prayer Man's torso. 

I would be grateful for any opinion on whether the dark spots seen in Prayer Man's shirt would be similar to the spots seen in CE151. If there was a diagonal arrangement of dark spots on Prayer Man's shirt, it provides an unusually strong circumstantial evidence in favor of Lee being Prayer Man. How on earth could a random person's shirt show dark spots where CE151 shows them just by chance?

 

To check the inwardly and outwardly orientated patches on Prayer Man's shirt, please see the larger plot in my previous post.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Andrej Stancak]

You may wonder why I continue posting if no one joints the debate. There are a few points I would like to share with the Forum, so please bear with me before completing my posting in this thread. Prayer Man's identity is the most important problem of all in the JFK assassination case – there is no clearer and more absolute refutation of the official version of events than Lee Oswald standing in the doorway for a brief period of time just after the last shot. If he was in the doorway during the time of Wiegman and Darnell films, he could not be the President's assassin. If Lee Oswald were Prayer Man, all that happened to him, the whole investigation, the conclusion of two governmental commissions, and the whole 55 years of reporting about JFK assassination by the mainstream media would be questioned without any chance of a comeback. I wish that anyone who in future stumbles on Prayer Man can find data which cannot be found in archives or be copied from books or various forums. There is no height tag on Prayer Man’s forehead which would say how tall this person was. Yet, the doorway is a physical object with known dimensions and therefore, it is possible to determine Prayer Man’s body height very accurately by reconstructing the doorway (in a 3D model) and reading the height to which the top of Prayer Man reaches. There are more delicate problems, such as what was Prayer Man’s posture and where exactly did he stand, what clothes did he wear, when did he enter the doorway and when did he leave it. Whoever is seriously interested in the identity of Prayer Man would need to address at least some of these questions. 

Today I would like to look at the whereabouts of Mrs. Stanton in Darnell film. If we say that Prayer Man was most likely Lee Oswald then we also need to offer a plausible explanation of where the other Prayer Man candidate stood. That other candidate is Mrs. Sarah Stanton.

To recall: Mr. Frazier stood close to the glass door in the western part of the doorway in Altgens6 and this is the reason for not seeing him in this picture. However, his faint figure is visible in Wiegman after giving it some work, and possibly in Hughes, and therefore it can be taken for granted that he indeed stood on the top landing during and after the shooting. Of course, he is in plain sight in Darnell.

Mr. Shelley is the man in a dark suit, wearing a white shirt and a dark tie in Altgens. He stood at a premium post in the centre of the top landing, and he is seen at this spot also in Wiegman. This man remained at his spot also in Darnell. Mr. Shelley confirmed in his Warren Commission testimony that for about a minute after the last shot he did not do anything, he remained at the place where he was during the shooting.

Mrs. Sanders stood in the eastern part of the doorway and close to the glass door. She can be seen in only one frame of Darnell, fortunately, her body height and unique shape of her hair prove that it was her.

And then there was also Mrs. Stanton who stood on the top landing. Mrs. Stanton was a huge lady weighing 300 pounds and measuring 5’6’’, not a minor at all. She also had a thick grey hair which would require us to see a grey strip about at the height of 5’6’’ somewhere in the doorway. As no one has identified Mrs. Stanton in the doorway for more than 55 years, maybe that was the reason to consider Mrs. Stanton to be Prayer Man. While it is easy to refute Mrs. Stanton as Prayer Man (where is the grey strip of her hair on Prayer Man’s head, please?), it also poses a challenge for those who consider Lee Oswald as being Prayer Man to find her. Until there is a human figure in the doorway matching the height of about 5’6’’ and displaying a grey strip at that height, there always be a nagging uncertainty of Sarah Stanton perhaps being Prayer Man.

So, let us find her. Actually, I did some work on Sarah Stanton in my blog http://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com (January 31, 2018), and found a faint shape of a person standing behind Mr. Shelley’s right shoulder.

The figure below shows the critical area of Darnell's doorway where I believe Mrs. Stanton can be found. Well, where else? She is not seen anywhere in the eastern part of the doorway, she is not hidden behind Mr. Frazier, and she is not Prayer Man ("where is the grey strip? question, plus she with her 5'6'' would be too tall to be Prayer Man as the top of his head reaches only to 5'2'' above the top landing). I hope to convince you that there were three people standing in front of each other and that the person in the back was Mrs. Stanton.

 

First, the continuity of some people's locations in the doorway. I reason that if some people were consistently seen at specific locations in Altgens6 and Wiegman and Darnell , had the same clothes and showed the same or similar gestures, they most likely were the same persons who were captured by three different photographers.

The next figure shows the mapping of doorway occupants in Altgens6, Wiegman, and Darnell. The yellow line connects Mr. Shelley's figures, the green line connects Mr. Molina and the purple line is for Mr. Williams.

So, the yellow rectangle of interest in Darnell contains Mr. Williams in the first line, Mr. Shelley behind him, and another person which stands behind Mr. Shelley from whom we only see a grey strip. To recall, Mrs. Stanton was a huge lady (5'6'') with thick grey hair. Mr. Shelley had a dark hair, and his dark hair is seen as a comparatively thin dark band above the bright ellipse of his head. He could not have his dark hair and another strip of grey hair on top.

The figure below is a reconstruction of the three figures using the 3D surface plot in ImageJ program. The program resolves the gradient within the blobs of seemingly equal shades of grey which our eyes are not capable to arrange as depth gradients. Yet, objects in the doorways were spatially arranged and did not receive the same amount of light. Typically, objects in the back of the doorway would be in the shadow while those at the level of e.g., second step would be fully illuminated by sunlight. 

In the figure below, the part of Darnell in the yellow rectangle clearly disentangles three people. The person painted in white is the one shielding his eyes with his left arm. It would be Mr. Williams. His head is not seen because it was wrapped up by the white arm (long sleeve). Below Mr. Williams is the figure in yellow-red with a white spot on his left chest - this would be Mr. Shelley. Please note that there is a hole painted with dark red at the place where are Mr. Shelley's dark hair: anything dark will sink, and anything bright will be extruded in this type of analysis. And here comes the third person, painted in blue and purple. The purple spot represents the front part of this person's hair. This person is taller than Mr. Shelley and stood behind Mr. Shelley.

The next figure is the front view of the region of interest in Darnell still. The separation between the top of Mr. Shelley's head and the brighter blob (the grey strip in Darnell) is clearly visible and proves the presence of another person behind Mr. Shelley. It is possible that the person in the background was looking toward the triple underpass through the space above Mr. Shelley's right shoulder.

 

Question: do you agree that there was a person with grey hair, taller than Mr. Shelley and standing behind him? 

If my analysis convinced you and you can answer affirmatively that there was a person in the back of the doorway from whom we see her grey hair in Darnell, it is maybe easy to answer the follow-up question, namely who was this person. Well, it could only be Mrs. Stanton because there is no other candidate remaining. The doorway scene changed little over about 30 seconds (actually less than 30 seconds) elapsing between Wiegman and Darnell films. Mrs. Stanton, in my opinion, can be evidenced in Altgens6 in the space behind Mr. Lovelady (who stood on the second step) and Mr. Shelley. She was leaning through that space and a part of her face and hair emerged in the space between Mr. Lovelady and Mr. Shelley. The space on the top landing behind Mr. Lovelady was later taken by Buell Wesley Frazier and this was only possible because Mrs. Stanton slid back behind Mr. Shelley. 

Here is the bright oval shape next to Lovelady's left cheek which for some reason remained unnoticed for some 55 years:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Michael Clark]

Thanks, as always, Andrej.

If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that Mrs. Stanton’s hair is being seen over the top of Bill Shelly’s head? I am not seeing, at first glance, how that can be. She is quite short.

[Andrej Stancak]

Michael:

Sarah Stanton was tall, around 5'6'' according to information provided by surviving members of her family. She was also obese (300+ pounds) and had a specific grey hair. The family photograph in my last post, obtained from Mrs. Stanton's family by Mr. Doyle last June, shows her with her son Larry. Larry himself was very tall, at least 6' or 6'1'' which is practically the same height as Buell Wesley Frazier's body height. In that family photograph, the top of Mrs. Stanton's head reaches to about half of Larry's notes. Simple math based on known relationships among face features tells us that Mrs. Stanton was indeed at least 5'6'' as her family members also pointed out.

In the figure below, the rectangle in (A) defines the critical area of Darnell doorway. In B, the grey blob is highlighted with yellow line and Mr. Shelley's face and hair with blue lines.  In (D), if you draw a horizontal line connecting the top of the grey blob and Mr. Frazier's face, you may see that the grey spot which I believe was Mrs. Stanton's hair was about the root of Mr. Frazier's nose. It is a bit uncertain where exactly the line should be drawn given the blurriness of both the grey blob and Mr. Frazier's face, yet it is clear that the grey blob is where it would be expected if it belonged Mrs. Stanton. For instance, the line certainly did not cross Mr. Frazier's chin or mouth which would exclude this grey blob as Mrs. Stanton's hair. The 3D contour plots in my last post illustrate the presence of two people in the spot covered by the orange rectangle in (A) much better than the figure below. Humans understand that there is a gradient in blobs of certain grey level, however, we cannot reconstruct in our minds the spatial information which the grading of grey contains.

 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Ray Mitcham]

Thanks for your work, Andrej. Seems logical to me.

[Andrej Stancak]

As pointed out by several astute researchers before me, Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier commented on the location of a lady who worked in a Depository office in his interview for the Sixth Floor Museum on June 21, 2002. When asked by the interviewer, Mr. Gary Mack, if the lady stood to his left or right, Mr. Frazier replied at an instant that the lady stood to his left. His verbal response was accompanied by turning briefly his gaze leftward and pointing with his left hand toward his left. The frames below were selected from stills starting 53'33'.  To Mr. Frazier's left means in the direction of where Mr. Shelley stood.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Paul Jolliffe]

3 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

As pointed out by several astute researchers before me, Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier commented on the location of a lady who worked in a Depository office in his interview for the Sixth Floor Museum on June 21, 2002. When asked by the interviewer, Mr. Gary Mack, if the lady stood to his left or right, Mr. Frazier replied at an instant that the lady stood to his left. His verbal response was accompanied by turning briefly his gaze leftward and pointing with his left hand toward his left. The frames below were selected from stills starting 53'33'.  To Mr. Frazier's left means in the direction of where Mr. Shelley stood.

Impressive work, Andrej.

So Buell Wesley Frazier said there was a woman (did he know Sarah Stanton by sight?) to his left, not to his right, just where Prayerman is found. If anyone could get Buell Wesley Frazier to confirm that the woman to his left was indeed Sarah Stanton, then that would destroy the idea that Prayerman was Stanton. Is anyone in a position to show the family photo of the gray-haired, heavy-set Sarah Stanton to Frazier, and to record his answer?

Did Bill Shelley ever confirm the existence of an older woman right behind him? How tall, exactly, was Bill Shelley? If the top of Stanton's hair is indeed visible above Shelley's hair, then was he standing on a step, or was he very short?

Thanks for your work on this.

[Andrej Stancak]

Paul:

you raised important questions. Mr. Frazier referred to "Sarah" on a few occasions, so he indeed knew her quite well. However, this clear confirmation of Mrs. Stanton's location to his left is only in this interview.

The body height of Mr. Frazier has never been confirmed unequivocally. However, Robert Prudhomme, the researcher who started this very thread, was able to retrieve information from a newsman who knew Mr. Shelley. There is even a thread on this Forum on Mr. Shelley's body height: 

Bob Prudhomme contacted  Mr. Shelley's son to learn about his father's body height, however, he received no reply. Instead, Mr. Prudhomme received a letter from a journalist who knew Bill Shelley. This letter was posted by Mr. Prudhomme on Deep Politics Forum on February 24, 2017. This is the copy-paste of the letter:

"Dear Mr. Prudhomme:

Your question about Bill Shelley's height is difficult to answer. At the time I met Shelley in the early 1970's, he was perhaps 5-5 or 5-6. However, he told an employee (TSBD employee?) he was once two inches taller. According to the employee, Shelley claimed he broke his back in a car accident sometime after the JFK assassination. Subsequent surgery supposedly left him two inches shorter. Shelley never mentioned the car accident in my presence, but the employee was a reliable source and Shelley's claim would have been plausible. Moreover, I recall Shelley was slightly misshaped as if he had indeed lost a couple of inches of height above the hips.

For the sake of clarity, I met Shelley while he was working at the Scott Foresman school book warehouse in Northwest Dallas. This was the new home of the old Texas School Book Depository. As for Shelley, after reading his Warren Commission testimony years later I realized I had learned little new information about him. Perhaps my biggest takeaway from the experience was a strong suspicion the Texas School Book Depository was a storefront for domestic intelligence. After the assassination, the storefront may have been moved to the new Scott Foresman warehouse in Northwest Dallas.

Hope this information sheds a little light for you. Very best of luck.

Sincerely,

**** *****

Austin, Texas"

 

My estimate of Bill Shelley's body height is 5'5'' or a tiny bit shorter. The body height of 5'5'' would be consistent with the information contained in the letter above. I will post some more data on Shelley's body height shortly. 

 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Andrej Stancak