The Motorcade Puzzle

[David Josephs]

1 hour ago, Mark Tyler said:

If she didn't zoom, its hard to think of an innocent explanation for this change in size while the sprocket holes remain the same.

If she did, everything in frame gets larger, even vehicles moving away....  

The spot involves that crazy wide turn Truly said the limo made... and Position A... which FBI states the limo does pass thru, just not on film.

It is also the critical transition from Towner to Zapruder....  

Edited November 27, 2019 by David Josephs

[Ian Lloyd]

Did the SS do a practice run of the motorcade route before the 22nd?

[Mark Tyler]

22 hours ago, David Josephs said:

If she did, everything in frame gets larger, even vehicles moving away....  

Indeed, all other things being equal everything in the frame should get larger.  However a moving object will get smaller if the zooming is not fast enough to compensate for the vehicle moving away from the camera.  The effects of the perspective are especially pronounced in this case because the car was so close to the camera and was therefore very large in the frame at first.

Judging from the animation the limo was accelerating out of the corner at around 8 MPH, which while not especially fast was probably enough to trigger Tina Towner to try and compensate with the zoom to keep the subject in view.  Its just a theory at this stage, but it may be possible to find out if this happened so I shall try and get hold of a copy of her book to find out.

22 hours ago, David Josephs said:

The spot involves that crazy wide turn Truly said the limo made... and Position A... which FBI states the limo does pass thru, just not on film.

There seem to have been a reasonable number of people on that corner, did anyone else mention the wide turn?

Position A as depicted in the re-enactment photo is not consistent with the Towner film, which shows a smooth turn from Houston Street onto Elm Street (except for a brief gap Dale Myers suggests is a 7 frame splice).  Logically this means either that either the film is wrong (as you suggest), or that Truly and the FBI made some kind of mistake in placing the car wider.

For the animation I measured the Limo positions at the beginning and end of the Towner film, as well as after a few seconds of the Zapruder film restarting.  The Limo speed seems to decelerate coming into the corner, and then accelerate out in a logical and smooth pattern, including matching the photos taken by: Phil Willis at Z133; Robert Croft at Z161; Hugh Betzner at Z186; and Phil Willis at Z202.

Of course the smoothness of the animation doesn't itself prove this is what happened in 1963, but the bigger point is that the known films, photos, and eyewitness accounts do all seem to corroborate each other (with the odd minor exception like the Truly statement).  This reflects how I judge "the weight of the evidence", i.e. in total how much evidence supports the animation view, versus how much evidence supports alternative theories of events.

The mistakes that the FBI made are rather unfortunate, and should be filed in a box called "Red Herrings" alongside anything that relies on the work such as the Warren Commission report.  As always in historical or technical research, its best to use the primary evidence and not the flawed secondary analysis such as CE 884.

If I was to be charitable to the Warren Commission and the FBI I could point out that the mathematical and computational tools I use didn't exist in 1963.  As a result their primitive hand made calculations will have more errors than anything done by more sophisticated and automated tools today.

[David Josephs]

Which tools Mark?  Math is math...

The problem here being the SS Queen Mary on the limo’s rear would either also make the turn or cut it more sharply but have to wait...  it’s 81 frames for that motorcycle to traverse that corner and is still not at POS A.

As you mention, Towner “looks” smooth but the anomaly I show might be what accounts for that.... Furthermore, if you search this forum for the MATH RULES thread, we determine quite a few things about that turn, Towner (whose camera had to be set to the ridiculous 22+FPS when it ran at 16 just like zapruder), and Zapruder....

51 minutes ago, Mark Tyler said:

The mistakes that the FBI made are rather unfortunate

Mark, with the original survey we learn Shaneyfelt and the FBI altered the data to make it impossible to place the limo correctly within Zapruder... these were deliberate moves of the limo path to account for 3 and only 3 shots fired....

this suggests they saw shots in 6 different frames, or simply calculated shot frames using reverse engineering and not the visual record. Life’s scenario seems closest to auditory evidence yet the big Q about that is how they determined the first and second shots and why use 18fps instead of the camera’s 16fps natural setting?

...hint: the run/rise of Elm from the Tsbd to the overpass is 1:18.3 iow, Each second of Zapruder moves the limo 1 foot vertically lower.... and that little fib adjustment winds up making CE884 necessary...

Peace...  DJ

[Mark Tyler]

7 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Which tools Mark?  Math is math...

Indeed!  The historical angle of my comment is useful because it reminds us all how primitive the tools were back in the 1960's.  My computer program uses Bézier curves and does millions of calculations to create the final animation frames, which in 1963 would have taken a very long time to do.  Even a cheap smartphone today has more computational power than a supercomputer from that era.  We really are spoilt nowadays.

7 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Mark, with the original survey we learn Shaneyfelt and the FBI altered the data to make it impossible to place the limo correctly within Zapruder... these were deliberate moves of the limo path to account for 3 and only 3 shots fired....

this suggests they saw shots in 6 different frames, or simply calculated shot frames using reverse engineering and not the visual record. Life’s scenario seems closest to auditory evidence yet the big Q about that is how they determined the first and second shots and why use 18fps instead of the camera’s 16fps natural setting?

Thanks for mentioning Life magazine David, this is a useful historical benchmark and gives us an insight into the days following the assassination.  I found an online version of the December 20, 1963 edition here:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZlIEAAAAMBAJ

The Paul Mandel article referenced is near the end of the magazine.  There are also links to the other editions which are also worth reading.  The type written notes from Paul Mandel are here from Dec. 6, 1963:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White Materials/White Assassination Clippings Folders/Oswald Family Folders/Oswald/Osw-03.pdf

These notes are exactly two weeks after the assassination so its a useful reference to the early official theory about the 3 shots:

1. Hits JFK
2. Hits JBC
3. Hits JFK

J. Edgar Hoover mentioned this scenario in a telephone call to LBJ a week after the assassination:

Its also interesting how quickly Life magazine was discussing the 16/18 FPS issues just days after the assassination.  The general observation I am making here is that Life Magazine and the FBI were singing from the same song-sheet (publicly and privately), which I think answers your question about where they got the info about the first shot at Z190 and the second shot at Z242-Z264.

[Mark Tyler]

15 hours ago, Ian Lloyd said:

Did the SS do a practice run of the motorcade route before the 22nd?

That's an interesting question Ian, I'm not sure what the answer is regarding the Secret Service.  I recall reading in the Warren Commission volumes about the Dallas Police Department (DPD) organising the route, and which officers would be responsible for different parts of the escort.  I would assume that the local authorities like the DPD would have the on the ground expertise.

[Mark Tyler]

Here is the latest release of Motorcade 63 (version 1.7):

https://www.marktyler.org/mc63.html

As well as general tweaking to improve the accuracy (thanks to everyone who helped out this time!), I added a yellow triangle for the Dillard 2 photo (just seconds after the final shot was fired).

Perhaps more importantly, I added the Jack Weaver photo which I calculate as happening at the same time as Zapruder frame Z035 based on the triangulated position of the motorbike turning the corner:

If you look closely, you can see JFK's crooked elbow in Muchmore frame 267 as he pushes his hair back:

The full details are in appendix D.2 of the updated handbook.  Crucially this spell of the Zapruder film was recorded while the Hughes and Muchmore films were also being recorded, which means I have been able to calculate the relative speeds that the films were all recorded at.  For example if the Hughes film was recorded at 18 FPS, then the Zapruder and Muchmore film rates were 18.4 FPS.  If the Hughes film was recorded at 19 FPS, then Zapruder and Muchmore were recording at 19.4 FPS.  We can never know the exact rates, only the numerical relationships between them.

This correlation of different films was possible by matching unique events that were recorded in each of the films, and by doing split second comparisons.  For example I was able to calculate the relative speeds of the Muchmore film and the Hughes film using the front blinking lights on the Presidential Limo.  These observations prove that the Muchmore film was recorded fractionally faster than the Hughes film.

As always, if anyone disagrees with the animation, my calculations, or methodology, please let me know as I am keen to make the work as accurate as possible.

[David Josephs]

Nice work Mark... kudos....

how many frames would think are missing between 132 and 133?
 

[Mark Tyler]

On 11/29/2019 at 2:19 AM, David Josephs said:

Nice work Mark... kudos....

Thanks David, its hard work but I think I'm making progress.  The only snag at the moment is that my to do list seems to be growing faster than I am able to tick the items off!

On 11/29/2019 at 2:19 AM, David Josephs said:

how many frames would think are missing between 132 and 133?
 

That's a very interesting composite image between the two Zapruder film sequences.  It reminds me somewhat of the composite images found between the sprocket holes which seem to blend adjacent frames.

The gap between Z132 and Z133 measured by time in the animation is about 22.7 seconds.  At the official 18.3 FPS that's roughly 415 Zapruder film frames.

Dale Myers uses a faster frame rate for the Towner film than I do (22.8 FPS versus ~18 FPS), which could slice off a couple of seconds from my estimate down to about 20.7 secs (or 379 frames).

I haven't had time to fully check Dale's synchronizations so I don't really know whether his 22.8 FPS is correct for the Towner film, or whether the Sixth Floor Museum is correct when they say 18 FPS is the rate.  Another item for my to do list I think!

The key to this comparison is the 4.8 second overlap between a segment of the Hughes film and the Towner film showing the Limo turning from Houston Street onto Elm Street.  I should be able to check this using the same geometric tools as with the previous Muchmore/Hughes/Zapruder film comparison, so this looks like a solvable problem.  Once I have done this we should know whether the Towner film was running at the same speed as the Hughes film, or faster (i.e. ~18 FPS or 22.8 FPS).

[Mark Tyler]

On 10/7/2019 at 6:17 PM, Chris Davidson said:

Mark,

One of the most important elements in a study such as yours is the inclusion of distance traveled. imo

I agree Chris, which is why I added total distance travelled to the latest test version of the program:

You can calculate the distance travelled between two points by subtracting one number from the other to get the distance travelled in feet.  This is especially handy for vehicles going round a corner as calculating that manually would be somewhat cumbersome and error prone.

I put the number of feet travelled after the actor name, which I think is the only way to display things without clogging up the main animation area.  Hopefully this addition to the next version of the animation will enable more detailed analysis of the crime scene.

[Mark Tyler]

On 11/28/2019 at 2:41 PM, David Josephs said:

As you mention, Towner “looks” smooth but the anomaly I show might be what accounts for that.... Furthermore, if you search this forum for the MATH RULES thread, we determine quite a few things about that turn, Towner (whose camera had to be set to the ridiculous 22+FPS when it ran at 16 just like zapruder), and Zapruder....

I got hold of Tina Towner's book, but alas it didn't contain any details about the zoom feature.  Just for reference this is how it would have worked, with the zoom triggered by the buttons on the top:

Hopefully I will get enough time over the next few days to study the Towner and Hughes films in more detail so I can know what speed it was being recorded at.  It has a big impact on the animation so its important I get this done to establish the speed of the Limo turning the bend onto Elm Street.

[Mark Tyler]

Here is the latest release of Motorcade 63 (version 1.8):

https://www.marktyler.org/mc63.html

As well as some fine tuning, I added the paths of: Rosemary Willis; Jay Skaggs; Emmett Hudson; and the man who ran up the knoll steps (I call him "Knoll Runner" in the animation).

Here are the new photos I added:

Bond 1
Grant
Moorman 4
Rickerby 0,1,2
Skaggs 4,5,6
Stoughton

A lot of people have mentioned the dictabelt evidence to me in recent weeks, so I added a large circle to show the time and place that the microphone is calculated to be by the HSCA scientists.  It's quite nice to see in real time where this needs to be.

I had the chance to review Dale Myers work regarding the Towner film frame rate.  Just to recap, in his 2007-2010 paper Myers said that the Towner film was recorded at 22.8 FPS, which is somewhat higher than was to be expected for a camera of that type.  In the end my estimate of the frame rate was very close to his, so I favour his measurements much more than those suggesting that the camera was recording at 18-20 FPS.  The full details of my workings are in appendix C.2 of the handbook:

https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_handbook.pdf

The animation has been adjusted to account for this higher frame rate which speeds up the Presidential limo as it turns the corner onto Elm Street.

As always, thanks to everyone who has contacted me to help improve the animation.  Cheers!

[Eddy Bainbridge]

I would like to make a couple of points. I have watched Mark's video and wonder whether there is a flaw around Z312 and after. We know the presidential limo braked(brake lights), but this is not really perceptible on the animation , firstly there is no clearly noticeable coming together of limo and the following car, and secondly if I try to imagine watching this 'live' from a rear or side vantage point then I fail to see anyone reporting a stop or virtual stop (which significant numbers did).

My second point is that I contend there has been a removal of around 9 frames from Zapruder after Z312 (or around 0.5 seconds of film). I suspect this has masked a deceleration (to a near stop) and a rapid acceleration. The result on the extant film (and the animation) looks like a fairly constant speed over this period. This gives an explanation for the overly rapid head lurch, and the evidence suggesting a missing  rear head blowout (probably whilst Kennedy was facing downwards, causing mainly vertical blowout)

 

 

[Joseph McBride]

From my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE:

In the front seat were the driver from the Texas Highway Patrol, Hurchel Jacks, and the VP’s Secret Service agent, Rufus Youngblood. LBJ sat directly behind Youngblood, and Lady Bird between her husband and [Sen. Ralph] Yarborough. Directly ahead of their car was the Secret Service presidential followup car, the “Queen Mary.”

Senator Yarborough, who had “a lifetime of handling arms,” described for me his reactions to the shots fired in Dealey Plaza, giving an eyewitness and earwitness account that matched that of numerous other witnesses but is, like theirs, at odds over some details with what can now be seen in the altered Zapruder film:

"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."

[Ron Bulman]

Emory Roberts also heard that first shot.  But called back SSA Ready from his attempt to respond.  While Roberts watched JFK die in front of him.   Who told Roberts to back off?