David Lifton spots a piece of scalp in the Moorman photo.

[Steven Kossor]

The shot that caused the wound at the back of the head must have exhausted material onto the driver's side tail light and onto officer Hargis.  No matter what else may be posited as far as holes in JFK's head is concerned, two facts have to be accounted for:  1) a hole opened in the back of JFK's head in the direction of the driver's side tail light and 2) material exhausted through that hole landed on the driver's side tail light and officer Hargis who was riding in the same vicinity during the shooting spree.  We can say what we want as to what caused the hole at the back of JFK's head but we can't argue about when exactly it was created (i.e., when the center of the hole was "pointing" toward the driver's side tail light; the President's head must have been turned to the right exactly enough to make this alignment possible), or its effect on the driver's side tail light area and officer Hargis (spraying material through that hole onto that specific tail light area and onto officer Hargis).  We shouldn't argue about those facts; they have been incontrovertible facts in the body of physical evidence for more than 50 years.  Moorman's photo had to have been taken a split second before the blow-out at the back of the head occurred and Zfilm editing had to have removed imagery of the head turn to the right and a shot from the Knoll on the right, no matter what else may have happened on 11/22/63.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Steven Kossor
Clarification, greater specificity, sharpening focus.

[David Lifton]

On 5/16/2020 at 7:42 AM, Ron Ecker said:

David,

Thanks. Then all I can say is, if the car stopped it's remarkable that so little was made of it. But I guess that would have been a major reason to alter the Z film, to remove the stop to protect William Greer and the Secret Service. Of course what they couldn't remove was the head snap, so enter - what was it? - a "neuromuscular reaction."

The Zapruder film was altered to hide basic facts about the murder.  The "car stop" was one of those basic facts. Another concerns the parameter of time-- and specifically, the matter of "elapsed time." If the limo stopped, then the assassination was not a "six second" event, or even seven seconds. If the car stopped, the assassination was very likely closer to a 20 second event --which, by the way, is what Sheeriff Decker (who was in lead car,) said was the case.  Why do I estimate 20 seconds? Because (if the car stopped) you can't bring a two-ton vehicle to a halt, and then re-accelerate it (to 12 or 15 mph), without the passage of that length of time (approx). 

Quote

 

 

 

 

 

T

Edited May 18, 2020 by David Lifton

[Andrej Stancak]

On 5/16/2020 at 1:45 PM, David Lifton said:

When I was studying the image, probably using a magnifying glass, the person in charge said something like: "We don't save that stuff, so if you want it you can have it. Its yours."  (Really!  That's what he said.)  Obviously, I accepted the offer, and that's how I came to possess the San Francisco wire-service negative of the AP Wire photo designated "DN-22," a negative created (in San Francisco) when the Moorman photo was first transmitted -- nationally-- on the afternoon of November 22, 1963.  The shoulder patch --which I don't believe I was aware of at the time-- was right there on the negative, but so were the various images of "the men" behind the wall,  which was my main focus.  These were the images that had so excited me and started me down the path of my original research -- as described in Chapter 1 of B.E.

David:

it may be too much to ask, however, many people who are seriously involved in analysis of JFK photographic materials would appreciate very much the possibility to work with a certified copy of Mary Moorman's picture. Unfortunately, this photograph circulates in too many versions on Internet and no one would dare to draw any conclusions from such copies not knowing which version is valid.

If it would be possible, could you please have your negative of Mary Moorman be scanned digitally in colour mode (even if it is a black-and-white picture) with a resolution of at least 1200 dpi and saved in a TIFF format (in no case a jpeg format). One way of granting access to the digital copy of MM picture would be to post a link to Dropbox or a similar sharing service. The file, if prepared this way, may be very large (about 100 Mb) and could hardly be emailed.

Thanks for considering my request.

[Daniel Gallup]

On 5/16/2020 at 7:42 AM, Ron Ecker said:

David,

Thanks. Then all I can say is, if the car stopped it's remarkable that so little was made of it. But I guess that would have been a major reason to alter the Z film, to remove the stop to protect William Greer and the Secret Service. Of course what they couldn't remove was the head snap, so enter - what was it? - a "neuromuscular reaction."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is also the interview of Toni Foster, the "running woman,"  by Debra in the summer 2000 edition of the KAC.  Toni is adamant about the limo-stop.  And I do mean adamant.

[Daniel Gallup]

On 5/16/2020 at 5:45 AM, David Lifton said:

REVISED/EDIGED, 5/16/2020 - 7:15 AM PST

Sandy: I was not aware of your post until now (5/16/20: 430 AM PST)  Best Evidence describes my discovery of the images in the Moorman photo in Chapter 1.  What is not included in the book (first published in Jan 1981) --because I discovered it years later-- is the image located on JFK's right shoulder, and which (for purposes of description) I have described as a "shoulder patch."  In fact, that's a fragment of scalp and bone from the right rear portion of JFK's head, caught in flight by Moorman's camera, as she snapped her photo.  Pulled downward (by gravity), that fragment then fell (or "descended") into the rear seat of the limo, and is (apparently)  the one described by SS Agent Clint Hill when he wrote (in his report, and then later testified  to that same effect): that the "back" of JFK's head was "missing" and that it was "lying in the rear seat of the car." (Approx., from memory).  

Now lets turn to 1965 (approx - date uncertain), and my discovery of important photo corroboration, and what I will now describe is how I came into possession of an important photo negative, which bears on the question of the authenticity (and relevance) of that image (of the "shoulder patch").

Around 1965 (or perhaps July 1966, in connection with my temporary residence in San Francisco, when I drafted "The Case for Three Assassins" [which was punished in January 1967 as a Ramparts Magazine cover story],   I was living in San Francisco, and was working out of Ramparts' offices located at 301 Broadway.  While there-- I decided to visit the office of Associated Press.  My purpose--or at least one purpose--was to see what photos (i.e.,what prints)  they might have (on file)  of the Moorman photo -- because I was aware that her original had been copied (on 11/22, in the afternoon, as I recall) and transmitted via wire by both wire services--i.e., by both AP and UPI.  

To my considerable surprise, the AP office had wire service prints-- and negatives--of lots of photos; and one of them was of the Moorman photo.  (In other words, they had the wire-service negative of the Moorman photograph, as received over the wire-service photo machine).  This wire service negative, having been created by the wire-service telephoto machine, had horizontal scan lines -- that is, it consisted (on magnification) of horizontal scan lines; but, (my reaction was) "so what?"  The scan lines weren't even visible unless you enlarged the photograph to a fairly high magnification.  In any event, the basic content (i.e., the basic image)  was clearly visible--- and there, on JFK's shoulder, was the image of that "shoulder patch."  The person in charge --call him the "supervisor"--noted my intense interest, and said words to the effect that if wanted that negative I could have it. Because (get this) he said that there were a whole bunch of these negatives, they did not save them, and if I didn't want it, they were just going to discard them. 

When I was studying the image, probably using a magnifying glass, the person in charge said something like: "We don't save that stuff, so if you want it you can have it. Its yours."  (Really!  That's what he said.)  Obviously, I accepted the offer, and that's how I came to possess the San Francisco wire-service negative of the AP Wire photo designated "DN-22," a negative created (in San Francisco) when the Moorman photo was first transmitted -- nationally-- on the afternoon of November 22, 1963.  The shoulder patch --which I don't believe I was aware of at the time-- was right there on the negative, but so were the various images of "the men" behind the wall,  which was my main focus.  These were the images that had so excited me and started me down the path of my original research -- as described in Chapter 1 of B.E.

So that's how I came into possession of San Francisco (AP) wire service negative labeled "DN-22" of the Moorman photo.  

Again, I don't (presently) recall what year it was that I first became aware -- on the image of the  Moorman photo  -- of what I (later) came to call the "shoulder patch," but  its significance has only increased with the passage of time.  

WHAT I BELIEVE TODAY:

Today, I believe Kennedy was struck in the head twice from the front-- once in the left temple (per the statement by Dr Robert McClelland, that JFK died "of a gunshot wound of the left temple).  ); and once in the right temple (or on the right side).  (See Chapter 2 of B.E.)  Because the car-stop occurred (and some 30 frames, or more, on the Z film, have been eliminated, to "eliminate" the car stop  (as I discussed in my essay, "Pig on a Leash", published around 2003) its obvious (to me, anyway)  that the Zapruder film has been altered (and thats a whole other subject).  I bring up that subject (of Z film alteration)  because that (doctored) film record is the only one (or at least the most important one) that provides a detailed pictorial record of the Kennedy head wounding during those crucial few seconds (Z-232 on out to 330).  And what does it show? Basically, that the back of the head has been "blacked out"  (rather obvious in frames 309 - 330, approx)--another manifestation of film alteration.  But, setting aside the actual imagery as shown on individual Z frames, and now considering the frames as a sequence,  it also shows the rapid backward movement of the head after the impact of the fatal shot (i.e., the "head snap") --a subject I discussed at length in B.E. (Chapter 2).  Of course, its the (backward) "head-snap" which attracted so much public attention, starting with the 1975 Geraldo Rivera broadcast (on his TV show)  which --IMHO--played such an major role in leading to the several re-investigations of the Kennedy case.

Somewhere in my personal records may be one or more memos I wrote when (years later) I discovered the image of the "shoulder patch."   That discovery looms more and more-- with the passage of time --to any complete and thorough "micro-study" of the JFK assassination.  (DSL, 5/16/20; 5:45 AM PST; Revised, 7 AM PST).

Back in the mid 80s Dr. Bernard Kenton, a good a friend of David Lifton's,  gave me a copy of the Moorman photo of very high quality.  I have long believed from the photo that there is brain/scalp matter at Kennedy's right shoulder, and  part of the back of Kennedy's  head has been blacked out, as is also evident in the extant Z-film.

[Joseph McBride]

I interviewed Senator Ralph Yarborough in 1988. He was riding two cars

behind the presidential limousine, along with LBJ and Lady Bird in the back seat

of a convertible. He told me he had "a lifetime of handling arms" and described his reaction

to the shots fired in Dealey Plaza as well as giving me revealing comments about

LBJ's strange actions and demeanor before, during, and after the shots. Yarborough's description

of the events surrounding the shooting meshed with those of numerous other eyewitnesses but not

with the extant Zapruder film.

Yarborough said, "The first shot I heard I thought was a rifle shot. The second shot, the motorcade

almost came to a halt. They said later that the president's car slowed to something

like five miles an hour. I wondered what the hell they were stopping for when somebody

is shooting. People were jumping out of the car in front of me [the Secret

Service followup car] and running to the president's car. I thought maybe somebody had thrown

a bomb in there. The third shot I heard was a rifle shot." Yarborough scoffed at LBJ's

lie that Rufus Youngblood jumped over the seat and threw his body over LBJ. The senator discussed

how Youngblood and LBJ huddled together over the agent's walkie-talkie, while leaning into the gap in the front seat. I go into all this

and its implications in INTO THE NIGHTMARE.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Joseph McBride

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Daniel Gallup said:

Back in the mid 80s Dr. Bernard Kenton, a good a friend of David Lifton's,  gave me a copy of the Moorman photo of very high quality.  I have long believed from the photo that there is brain/scalp matter at Kennedy's right shoulder, and  part of the back of Kennedy's  head has been blacked out, as is also evident in the extant Z-film.

 

Daniel,

I don't believe the back of Kennedy's head is blacked out in the Moorman photo we are talking about. Because apparently this photo was sent on the wire services to news outlets not long after the assassination. Seems there would not have been time for chicanery.

But then, perhaps this Moorman shot was taken before the gunshot to the head. In which case there would be no need for blacking out.

 

[Daniel Gallup]

8 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Daniel,

I don't believe the back of Kennedy's head is blacked out in the Moorman photo we are talking about. Because apparently this photo was sent on the wire services to news outlets not long after the assassination. Seems there would not have been time for chicanery.

But then, perhaps this Moorman shot was taken before the gunshot to the head. In which case there would be no need for blacking out.

 

Or it might be peculiar to this version.  Why?  I don't know.

[Ron Ecker]

10 hours ago, Daniel Gallup said:

There is also the interview of Toni Foster, the "running woman,"  by Debra in the summer 2000 edition of the KAC.  Toni is adamant about the limo-stop.  And I do mean adamant.

Yes, I remember that. I just went back and looked at Costella's individual frames of the Z film.

Toni Foster is blurred in the film until frames 309 and 310, then blurred again in 311. That definitely indicates a stop though very brief, in 309 and 310, with movement again before the head shot in 313.

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/

 

 

 

 

 

[Daniel Gallup]

7 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

Yes, I remember that. I just went back and looked at Costella's individual frames of the Z film.

Toni Foster is blurred in the film until frames 309 and 310, then blurred again in 311. That definitely indicates a stop though very brief, in 309 and 310, with movement again before the head shot in 313.

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/

 

 

 

 

 

http://jfklancer.com/pdf/toni.pdf  for the interview.  

[Rick McTague]

15 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Daniel,

I don't believe the back of Kennedy's head is blacked out in the Moorman photo we are talking about. Because apparently this photo was sent on the wire services to news outlets not long after the assassination. Seems there would not have been time for chicanery.

But then, perhaps this Moorman shot was taken before the gunshot to the head. In which case there would be no need for blacking out.

 

Sandy,

Wasn't the Moorman photo taken by some authority (FBI?) on the scene and when it was returned it was marred by the thumbprint partially obscuring the motorcycle cops?  Couldn't it have been altered during that time?  What is the actual provenance of the Moorman photo?

Thanks

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Rick McTague said:

Sandy,

Wasn't the Moorman photo taken by some authority (FBI?) on the scene and when it was returned it was marred by the thumbprint partially obscuring the motorcycle cops?  Couldn't it have been altered during that time?  What is the actual provenance of the Moorman photo?

Thanks

 

That's a good point, Rick. But I don't know which happened first, the grab/thumbprint or the AP/UPI wires. I get what little I know from Lifton's posts. 

 

[Ray Mitcham]

This is a copy of Tom Wilson's view of the back of the head, in the Moorman photo. Sorry if it isn't very  clear as it was copied from the  book "A Deeper Darker Truth."

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Ray Mitcham

[Andrej Stancak]

Thanks, Ray, for posting Tom Wilson's findings related to Mary Moorman picture. Tom was even able to prepare a 3D mold fitting the head wound based on extensive analysis of this picture. 

While my work on Tom Wilson's method is still ongoing, I can share some findings which actually do not require Tom Wilson's method and yet support his work.

First, I took a high-quality picture of President Kennedy that was recorded just briefly before the shooting (however, I do not know which film or picture was it). The picture was downloaded from a web site JFK Place (Deannie Richardson) which does not exist any longer but can be still visited via waybackmachine.org. This picture is the lower of the two in the montage below. The top picture is a cropped view of JFK and First Lady in a high-quality FBI version of MM. The bottom picture shows the President from a very similar angle as the MM picture while the head is intact. Therefore, I was able to cut the head from the bottom picture and overlay it onto MM. The purpose of this small exercise was to find out what are the true contours of JFK's head in MM and what would be the tissue loss in Kennedy's head in MM picture.

 

 

The next picture shows overlays of MM and the intact head from the picture above at different rates. 0% means that MM does not penetrate into the picture with intact head and the increasing  percentages point to a stronger propagation of MM from behind the intact head. The blending of 50% and 75% are especially useful for evaluation of the size of damage to President's head. 

In the context of this thread, the light-coloured flap on the right shoulder does not appear to be a part of President's body. I would not speculate at this stage about the origin of this shape.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Andrej Stancak

[Andrej Stancak]

To continue the exploration of President's head wound in Mary Moorman's picture and of course, to see if it would be possible to reproduce Tom Wilson's data, I made own photographic experiments by shooting Mary Moorman's picture under different light conditions (xenon flashes at 5 Hz with background light, produced by halogen lamps, varying in 5-s cycles) and recording video using a machine vision near-infrared camera. The camera has an expanded spectral range for wavelengths above visible light (>780 nm) up to about 1150 nm. I also use different optical band-pass filters.

This is the setup which I currently use. The camera is the small gadget on the massive tripod in the right-hand side part of this picture.

 

 

Here I would show data from plain recordings of Mary Moorman picture (no added lights) taken under a diffuse bright daylight using a slow frame rate of 10 Hz and allowing a long exposition time. These images have very little noise. Further, the recording was made using a 12-bit mono format yielding 4096 levels of grey instead of the standard 256 levels. This high dynamic range and recording images in the whole spectrum (up to about 1150 nm) allows to sample the levels of grey contained in the image with a much finer resolution of grey tones than a human eye can ever offer.

Here is an example of such recording. The top panel is the digital copy of MM picture and the lower panel is a cropped view of the printed MM picture after averaging 20 s of recording (200 images). One can see more signal at the location of the wound compared to the original digital copy and a couple more details which I could show next time.

This image as it is (so, no processing at all, just averaging the video frames) was then analysed using ImageJ program. One of the remarkable features of this program is that it allows to reconstruct the gradations of grey according to the brightness gradient and shows the gradations as a 3D volume. 

Here is a volume-rendered, brightness-coded (inverted), image of JFK's head in MM picture. Please note absence of any structure at a site which I delineated with red line in the lower picture. This is obviously the region where both the scalp and skull are missing. The blue line  tentatively delineates the total damaged area. 

 

I took this volume reconstruction and placed it onto the intact head of President Kennedy to see where approximately the damage would be. The blue line shows the entire damaged area and the red line shows the deep hole spot.

 

It is also possible to explore the detailed topography of the head wound. Here I prepared a coloured texture representation of the wound. In accord with Tom Wilson's data, there appear to be two tunnels expanding toward the rear suggesting exit of the missile. Whether there were two bullets (one entering in the frontal region of the head in the hairline behind and above the right eye and another in the right temporal region above and slightly in front of the right ear) or whether one bullet has split into two with each part causing one tunnel, I do not know. 

 

 

The JFKA pictures are often difficult to interpret. It may be useful to have a look on the natural structure of President's hair and copy some features onto MM picture. The picture below shows two natural paths in Kennedy's hair, traces of which can be recognised in the reconstructed MM picture. It is maybe only a detail but a useful one as it provides some orientation in what otherwise appears a non-structured mess in Mary Moorman's picture. The top pictures offers a full view of Kennedy's hair and the lower pictures contain lines corresponding to the two hair paths.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Andrej Stancak