“The lights all went out,” and the elevators stopped while JFK was murdered. Shelley and Lovelady were near the bottom of the back staircase, by the electrical panel... and Vickie Adams saw them ... until everyone's story changed...

[Sandy Larsen]

15 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Could it have been Oswald, as Mr Campbell said he saw Os just inside the small cupboard in the vestibule, after the shooting?

That seems reasonable to me Ray. If so, that certainly would explain why no questions were asked of the man.

BTW, I have seen a couple of WC depositions indicating that Oswald came down the front elevator or steps on his way out to go home.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

For John Butler....

Thanks very much for your recent work attempting to identify a sixth floor vent for the passenger elevator shaft which extended up to the fifth floor.  John A. did some work the other day studying the photo you used and comparing it to an architectural sketch of the first floor, which, among other things, identifies the six-by-six array of square vertical columns used to support the building.  These columns were directly on top of each other for each floor of the building, and so the positioning of these columns would be the same on the first and the sixth floors.  John ultimately decided that the object you were considering was near the north wall of the building, not above the position of the passenger elevator shaft.

Architect Robert Cutler did some technical drawings of Dealey Plaza and the TSBD.  Below is his sketch of the first floor, that John annotated, using yellow or green lines (different people see them differently) to show what John believes is the camera’s field of view in the sixth floor photo you were studying.

 

 

[Jim Hargrove]

Once more.... from the sixth floor....

[Tony Krome]

Barry Ernest states Sandra Styles "quite emphatically" told him Shelley and Lovelady were NOT on the first floor when they arrived, only a black man. Baker also told him that he did NOT see anyone there except a black man. Same with Adams, she saw a black man and that is the person she spoke to, start at 43:00;

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Tony Krome

[Andrej Stancak]

On 3/2/2019 at 4:10 PM, Andrej Stancak said:

It seems that the emergency trap door on the top of the car is not accessible to people in the lift - it is for rescuers, not for the passengers to rescue themselves. 

This is what I found on the Imminent Threat Solution website:  

"As mentioned previously, the emergency exit hatch at the top of the elevator is more than likely locked from the outside, as required by law. You may not even be able to reach this unless there’s another person in the elevator to help you, or a railing to stand on." https://www.itstactical.com/skillcom/escape-and-evasion-skillcom/elevator-action-how-to-escape-being-trapped-in-an-elevator/

Late edit: The reason why elevator exit hatch can only be open from outside using a special key is that if there is a technical problem then to be inside a car itself is the safest option for the passengers. The hazard of falling or being injured by the lift which can start moving abruptly or by objects in the shaft is extreme.

 

Bumped for Jim.

I am of the view that the whole escape theory is impossible owing to the trap door problem (although there is a number of problems with witness testimonies as well). Contrary to what John Armstrong and you try to suggest, the exit hatch cannot be open from the inside of an elevator. The safety exit door on the top of the lift can only be open from outside using a special key which only firearm staff or lift maintenance have. The inner roof of every lift is neatly covered and usually holds a light. It is a major technical operation to open the roof of a lift and it is meant as the final rescue solution. 

In a way, I feel sorry for John who put a lot of effort into pursuing the vent shaft escape scenario, and I learned a lot from this case - it can happen to everyone strongly believing in something.  My advice would be to withdraw the article describing the escape route using the passenger lift because it damages John's reputation. 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

Barry Ernest states Sandra Styles "quite emphatically" told him Shelley and Lovelady were NOT on the first floor when they arrived, only a black man. Baker also told him that he did NOT see anyone there except a black man. Same with Adams, she saw a black man and that is the person she spoke to, start at 43:00;

 

 

Thanks for posting that, Tony. I didn't realize that Vickie Adam's true story was corroborated to the extent it was, according to Barry Ernest. (Her true story being that she did NOT see Shelley and Lovelady when she exited the stairwell.)

 

[Tony Krome]

Yes, Barry did what the WC did not, talk to Styles.

I think the only white guys there were Truly and Baker .... after Adams and Styles exited the building

Edited March 5, 2019 by Tony Krome

[Jim Hargrove]

The fact that trap doors on many modern elevators are locked from the outside does not mean that the TSBD elevator's was in 1963.  Even if it was, it is only a matter of unlocking it prior to the event(s) to make it accessible.

The other issues, the recollections by Sandra Styles and Baker, are for more serious for our theory, if they are accurately portrayed.  I have received The Girl on the Stairs from John and I'm reading it now. 

[Andrej Stancak]

36 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The fact that trap doors on many modern elevators are locked from the outside does not mean that the TSBD elevator's was in 1963.  Even if it was, it is only a matter of unlocking it prior to the event(s) to make it accessible. 

Jim:

It is for you and John to show that the TSBD passenger elevator (made in 1961) had a trap door open and ready for an easy access. Elevators 1961 were already modern elevators looking similar to many elevators we use in the buildings made 1970-1990. These elevators have neat cabins with trap door locked from the outside and not visible to the passengers, and not accessible from the inside of the car without stepping on something.  What type was this passenger elevator- Otis, Krone, Westinghouse? If we knew, we could find such an elevator in companies archives or they may even be in use somewhere. The onus to know these facts is on you, not on the reader.

Thinking that the trap door was opened prior to assassination is another speculation which would need to be proven. But even if this would be the case, you have not explained how a man standing alone on the platform can squeeze himself without any support through the trap door to ascend to the shaft. The roof on every old lift I saw is well and neatly covered - how would it be possible to open and then close it in the short time and without causing noise? When would it happen? Would it be already 15 minutes before the shooting which was the time when Arnold Rowland saw two men on the sixth floor? Why would employees avoid using the passenger lift such a long time before the motorcade arrival? Was the electricity already off 15 minutes prior to shooting so that the two assassins could work on the top deck to get to the shaft?

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Jim Hargrove]

Andrej,

If this theory has some basis in fact, it is obvious that some preparations had to be made prior to the assassination.  Floorboards had to be cut and repositioned, or a vent discovered and opened, and, if locked, the trap door at the top of the elevator unlocked.  I don’t understand why the locked or unlocked status of that door is so important to you.  If it was locked, it could obviously be unlocked in advance.

What is far more significant to me is the information gathered by Barry Ernest.  I’ve just started reading The Girl on the Stairs.  If evidence gathered from Adams, Styles, and Baker convinces me the Shelley and Lovelady sightings were inventions of the FBI/WC, then I’ll gladly disavow that portion of John’s theory.  (And consider it yet another example of the enormity of the FBI/WC’s treachery.) 

But putting aside the Shelley/Lovelady controversy for the moment, I still believe there was a shooter on the sixth floor, and that the shooter wasn’t the man we know as Lee Harvey Oswald. Through a process of elimination, I see no other way for the real assassin(s) to escape from the sixth floor unseen and unheard except through the elevator shaft.  

[Paul Jolliffe]

Andrej:

You've raised some legitimate objections to the theory that the two 6th floor men (seen by at least five witnesses prior to the assassination) arrived there via the passenger elevator. I agree that it is unlikely that they rode the passenger elevator up to the 4th floor, lifted the trap door - after somehow hoisting themselves up through it - and climbed the interior ladder in the shaft up to the loose floor boards on the sixth floor, pushed their way up and through and then settled in to the business of setting up the sniper's nest for 12:30.

I don't know how those men arrived on the 6th floor, but they were there and seen for fifteen minutes before the assassination.

OK.

But John's theory is most helpful to explain their "escape" - what happened after the assassination. Your objections apply to their entry, not to their descent. After all, the elevator trap door WAS accessible from the outside, especially if it was not locked. And for now, we don't know whether it ever was. Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, unlocking the trap door would not seem to be an insurmountable obstacle for the conspirators.

Also, in my view, this thread has conflated two separate issues: 

1. Was the Vicky Adams version of 1963/64 was factually correct - John Armstrong's theory - (she saw Shelley and Lovelady near the freight elevators and the electrical control panels) OR was her 2002 Barry Ernest version was correct: Shelley and Lovelady were not there, and she did not see them.

There are arguments to be made either way, and it is our job to ferret out the truth.

2. How did the men on the sixth floor escape the sixth floor, apparently unmet by anyone in position to identify a conspirator?

Is John Armstrong's second theory , the "floorboard/passenger elevator escape theory," plausible?

It seems to me that several of us on this thread have rejected Armstrong's second theory because we've rejected the first. Might I propose that Armstrong's second theory - the escape theory - might be correct, even if the 2002 Vicky Adams/Sandra Styles version is true?

Armstrong himself even hinted at that possibility when he asked "if not Shelley and Lovelady, then who?" 

We don't know who was back by the electrical panels and it may not have been Shelley and Lovelady. But I believe we all agree that SOMEONE was there. Some of us on this thread believe that it was Eddie Piper, and perhaps it was.

But Marion Baker really did testify that he saw two white men there - which many of us would like to dismiss as a "mistake." (Really? A Dallas cop in 1963 mistook a black man in Texas for white men?) If Baker was correct, and he was specifically questioned on this point by Allen Dulles, then it wasn't Eddie Piper that Baker saw, hanging around the panels.

I think we ought to be very careful when evaluating anything. We've done a fine job of trying to parse out the truth of Vicky Adams' conflicting versions - we don't know the truth yet, but this kind of discussion is very useful.

However, we have NOT deliberated on the plausibility of the escape theory because (in my view) we've wedded its chances with the Vicky Adams story.

Those men descended from the sixth floor somehow, and no one can show how. Armstrong's "passenger elevator escape theory" is still very much in play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Elevators 1961 were already modern elevators looking similar to many elevators we use in the buildings made 1970-1990.

Andrej,

Did you take into account when the TSBD elevator was installed? Maybe it was much older than a 1961 model.

Here's an old elevator that doesn't seem to have a ceiling at all:
 

 

[Andrej Stancak]

Thanks, Paul, for giving it such thorough thougth. We will know Jim's view on Shelley and Lovelady's presence in the first floor one minute after the shooting when Jim completes his reading of The Girl on the Stairs.

I am not happy to show distrust to John's escape theory as I read his book and learned a lot from it. However, CT researchers have the big responsibility not to let themselves be carried by fancy possibilities which cannot be proven because we can cause a big damage to the whole CT case.

The escape from the sixth floor using the elevator shaft would require an opening on the sixth floor at the area above the lift shaft. I cannot see it on any photograph of the sixth floor. Neiher it is drawn on the map of the sixth floor. There was no such opening, and piles of books covered about the half of the floor area above the passenger lift. I was puzzled by absence of any opening on the fifth floor and thought it would be on the sixth floor, however, it is neither on the sixth nor the fifth floor. It was not needed. The necessary maintenance and checks of the top of the lift or of the top-most part of the shaft (5th floor) is done by parking the car below the level of the floor (e.g., just below the level of the 4th floor) and opening the door. This allows the technician to step on the top of the lift cabin where there can be small motors (e.g., for closing the lift door, or for ventilation of the cabin) and some solid metal beams and hinges with metal ropes which carry the weight of the lift.

As per air pressure wave, a traction lift moves slowly and there are clefts around the car which makes the space above and below the car one continuous volume. There is no strong air pressure wave in the shaft in a four story building in which a traction lift is moving slowly from floor to floor. The empty space above the lift (fifth floor) would accumulate the extra air pushed by the lift, and the rest would flow down through the spaces around the lift.

The traction lifts in a comparatively small building may not even have the trap door on the roof of the cabin, and no vents anywhere above the lift. I work in a building 1970' with two stories. I asked about the trap door in our lift, and the technicians told me there is none in the lift; if I am ever in trouble while in the lift I have to call them.

My point is that there was no opening on the sixth floor which could be open to climb down to the shaft. This is the reason for not seeing it on the sixth floor map or on any photographs. If there were such opening, it would be ring-fenced and signposted to avoid people to step on it, not to mention to place heavy boxes on it. Actually, the top of the shaft is stiffened from below by metal plates to prevent someone to break through the wooden boards and fall down into the shaft.

All this just makes the passenger lift escape theory improbable not only for the access phase but also for the escape phase.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Andrej Stancak

[Sandy Larsen]

52 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

But Marion Baker really did testify that he saw two white men there....

 

Baker also testified that he encountered Oswald in the second floor lunchroom. Which many of us say is hogwash.

Baker may have been coached to say he saw the two white men, in order to match his testimony up with Adam's, Lovelady's, and Shelley's (fake) stories. Though if he *was* coached to say that, it wasn't a well-thought-through thing to do. Because Baker was supposed to have arrived with a minute of the shooting, in contrast to Lovelady and Shelley supposedly arriving after several minutes.

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

Andrej: you wrote

"My point is that there was no opening on the sixth floor which could be open to climb down to the shaft."

Should we assume there really was such an opening on the fifth floor to access the elevator shaft?

If so, and maybe there was, then why do the blueprints for the fifth floor as published by the Warren Commission claim that there was no such opening on the fifth floor?

Exactly where did one access the top of the passenger elevator shaft, and are there any photos of that area, regardless of which floor it was?

Edited March 5, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe