The "Other" Zapruder Film

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Part 2

On the subject of expert analysis, Gil writes:

Quote

the motion picture film experts who have had access to the Zapruder film in the past and pronounced it to be unaltered have all had connections to the suspected forger, the CIA.

It would be interesting to learn exactly what those CIA connections were, and how any such connections invalidate the experts' technical analysis of the film.

Gil is presumably referring to the report for the ARRB by Roland Zavada, who worked for Kodak and was centrally involved in the invention of Kodachrome film, the type used by Zapruder. You can find a link to his report on this very useful page:

http://www.jfk-info.com/moot1.htm

Zavada pointed out that copying one Kodachrome film onto another Kodachrome film will inevitably degrade the image in specific, clearly observable ways: contrast will increase, grain will increase, and colours will be distorted. No such imperfections exist in the Zapruder film that resides in the National Archives, according to Zavada and Prof Raymond Fielding, who also examined the film:

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

Unless another expert examines the actual film and pronounces otherwise, the only rational conclusion is that the film in the Archives is the film that was in Zapruder's camera during the assassination. In that case, no alterations were made that required the film to have been copied. It doesn't rule out minor alterations such as painting over small areas of the film, although the implication is that the experts didn't see any evidence of that, either.

This is an important point, and worth repeating. Anyone who claims that the film in the Archives is a copy, needs to show why Zavada and Fielding were mistaken. If you can't do this, there's no justification for claiming that a copy was made.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Part 3

Gil writes about better-supported claims of alteration:

Quote

it is indisputable that various official documents as well as other key assassination-related materials have been falsified, replaced or destroyed.

There's good evidence that some witness statements were altered before reaching the public record. There's also reason to believe that JFK's brain was made to disappear, along with at least two photographs from the autopsy.

But these were all simple post facto cover ups, the sort of thing that is easy to do and is known to happen in run-of-the-mill criminal cases. They are in a different class from the falsification of an 8mm Kodachrome home movie, for two main reasons in addition to the already mentioned impossibility of doing so without leaving physical traces in the structure of the film:

• Serious alteration of the Zapruder film would be vastly more difficult than destroying a couple of photographs or retyping a few witness statements.
• It would in turn require the falsification of any other home movies and still photographs which depicted a scene that had been altered in the Zapruder film. And even if the conspirators had done that, it would not guarantee that a blatant inconsistency wouldn't come to light in the future that would blow the lid on the falsifications. See the Thompson link in my first comment for a detailed discussion of this point.

Just because some of the evidence was altered, it is not reasonable to assume that the Zapruder film, or any of the other home movies, could also have been altered. If anyone is tempted to believe Douglas Horne's speculations, please read the PDF I linked to in my previous comment, which gives Zavada's response to Horne.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Part 4

On the subject of the supposed limo stop, Gil writes:

Quote

numerous Dealey Plaza witnesses reported that during the time the limousine was under fire it came to a complete but brief stop. Some described it as a pause, a halt or a hesitation.

Only a small number of witnesses claimed consistently that the car actually stopped. Many more claimed that it slowed down, which is exactly what we see in the Zapruder, Muchmore and Nix films.

The following article analyses the legendary 59 witnesses according to their locations, and concludes that "well over 80% of the witnesses who had a clear view of the car did not notice that it had stopped":

http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street

Gil cites ten witnesses who claimed that the car stopped (according to the article I've just mentioned, there were actually 13 such witnesses), and concludes:

Quote

The vagaries of eyewitness testimony are well known. But it's difficult to believe that all of these witnesses could have simply been mistaken about what they observed.

On the contrary, it's extremely easy to believe that they were mistaken, for three reasons:

• Witnesses often make mistakes. We should not be at all surprised if a small proportion of witnesses got some of the details wrong when recalling a brief, unexpected and traumatic event such as seeing the president getting shot.
• Far more witnesses claimed that the car merely slowed down than claimed that the car stopped. Either a small number of witnesses got that detail wrong in one way, or a much larger number got that detail wrong in another way. Why should we believe the minority over the majority? If the car did actually come to a halt, many dozens of people would have seen it. Why did hardly anyone mention it?
• Three home movies show the car at the point in time when the handful of witnesses claimed that it stopped. All three films show that the car did not stop.

Quote

Either: a.) all three of these films were altered, or
b.) all 10 of the witnesses listed above were wrong.

Exactly! Apply Occam's razor, and the problem disappears. Solid physical evidence 1, fallible witnesses 0.

It's worth mentioning that three of Gil's ten car-stop witnesses claimed that the car pulled to the left-hand curb as it stopped. In this case, their accounts are contradicted not only by the three home movies already mentioned but also by two photographs and a fourth home movie:

• Mary Moorman's famous Polaroid, taken immediately after the fatal shot, shows two police motorcycles to the left of the car, between the car and the curb.
• James Altgens' final motorcade photograph, taken a couple of seconds later, shows the car in the middle lane, not the left-hand lane as the witnesses claimed, and nowhere near the curb. In fact, the Altgens photo shows that the car has actually moved to the right, not to the left.
• Depending on exactly when the stop is supposed to have occurred, one might also consider Charles Bronson's film, which shows the car clearly in the middle lane, with two police motorcyclists to its left, at around the instant of the fatal shot.

Those witnesses were mistaken. The car did not move over to the left-hand curb. I pointed all of this out last year:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27114-what-prevented-dulles-angleton-from-destroying-the-zapruder-film/?do=findComment&comment=441219

I'll probably have to point it out again next year, and the year after, and the year after that. The car-stop witnesses are like zombies, forever rising from the dead and attacking our brains. It's like the old fable that all the home movies and photographs were rounded up immediately after the assassination, which I've also had to debunk several times, such as here:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24498-david-lifton-spots-a-piece-of-scalp-in-the-moorman-photo/?do=findComment&comment=442261

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Part 5

To get back to the topic of this thread, I can't believe that anyone still takes seriously the handful of people who claim to have seen 'the other Zapruder film' (I may be mistaken, but I think Pamela Brown can be added to Gil's list). It's like taking seriously people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, or people who claim they saw Bill Gates ritually sacrificing children in the back room of a pizza joint in Washington DC (or whatever the latest crackpot story is).

I mean, I suppose all of these unlikely stories might be true, but personally I'd want a bit more evidence than someone's unsupported assertion. We need to get a few questions answered first:

• How can we be sure that these two or three people accurately remembered and reported the details of what they saw?
• Did these people really see the actual Zapruder film? How do we know this? How did they know this? Are they absolutely sure they weren't recalling an official re-enactment, or a TV re-enactment, or an out-take from Oliver Stone's JFK?
• How can we know that they even saw a film at all, and weren't just making it up, either deliberately or unwittingly?
• Why were they given access to the film? Can anyone turn up and have a look, or do you have to make an appointment?
• If these viewings took place in different parts of the world (France and the USA are implied), how many copies of 'the other Zapruder film' are floating around? Why would any copies at all be floating around, given the political implications of such a significant historical object?
• Were these people shown 'the other Zapruder film' by aliens who had abducted them, or by Bill Gates in a Washington pizza joint?

'The other Zapruder film'! Come on!

[Gil Jesus]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Part 5

To get back to the topic of this thread, I can't believe that anyone still takes seriously the handful of people who claim to have seen 'the other Zapruder film' (I may be mistaken, but I think Pamela Brown can be added to Gil's list). It's like taking seriously people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, or people who claim they saw Bill Gates ritually sacrificing children in the back room of a pizza joint in Washington DC (or whatever the latest crackpot story is).

 

Is it hard to believe that the Dallas Police planned for 4 motorcycles on each side of the limousine and that that plan was changed at the last minute by the Secret Service ?

Is it hard to believe that the Secret Service disapproved a Dallas Police plan to have a closed car behind the SS follow-up car with detectives armed with sub-machine guns ?

Is it hard to believe that at Love Field, the general who sat in the front seat of the limo was moved further back in the motorcade ?

Is it hard to believe that the Dallas motorcycle officers were told at Love Field to hold their positions,"regardless of what happened" ?

Is it hard to believe that the press were relegated to convertibles further back in the motorcade, instead of in front of the limo on a flatbed truck ?

Is it hard to believe that when the shooting started, agents who tried to react were ordered back onto the follow-up car ?

With all of these last-minute changes by the Secret Service that DECREASED the President's protection, why on earth is it so hard to believe that certain members of the Secret Service desired so much to see Kennedy dead that when the shooting started, the limo at least slowed down and may have even stopped ?

Why is it so hard to see that all of these last-minute changes are evidence the Secret Service may even have been complicit in the planning of the assassination ? 

Why is it so hard to believe that the SS was complicit at least in making the assassination a success and that the CIA used its technical facilities at Kodak to cover up that fact ?

Given all of the Secret Service's actions to decrease Kennedy's protection, put him out in the open and move certain people out of the line of fire, why is it so hard to believe the 59 witnesses who said the limo slowed down or stopped ?

Especially after experincing the Trump Presidency, why is it so hard to believe that federal employees can hate a President so much, that they'd do anything to remove him from office ?

I guess we can believe one witness ( Zavada ) or 59 others. The choice is ours.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Gil Jesus

[Eddy Bainbridge]

In response to Jeremy Bojczuk:  You are dancing on a pin with your slowed-stopped distinction. In my view the film does not show firm/hard braking or rapid acceleration. Both seem very highly likely to have occurred in front of Zapruder. You accept document tampering but skirt past the strange events at NPIC pointing to film tampering. What did Rather describe ?( I think three times) It wasn't what we see today and I find it implausible he either misspoke or lied. You have used a common method of rejecting film alteration which is to describe something MASSIVE when I for one believe in frame removal (Can't tell exactly where but in front of Zapruder certainly) and a crude black matte.

I have read a lot of the proposals of researchers who do not believe the film was altered. They get pretty wacky about shot directions and tangential wounds with really minimal evidence to support their claims 

[Jonathan Cohen]

8 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Given all of the Secret Service's actions to decrease Kennedy's protection, put him out in the open and move certain people out of the line of fire, why is it so hard to believe the 59 witnesses who said the limo slowed down or stopped ?

Gil, "slowed down" and "stopped" mean two very different things depending on the context here. Can it be demonstrated that the limousine slowed down during the shooting sequence? Yes, I believe it can. That does not mean the limousine "stopped," although it very clearly may have appeared that way to witnesses at the scene. There is no stoppage in the traditional sense visible in the Zapruder, Nix, Muchmore or Bronson films. Are you claiming that a full limousine stop was deleted from all four of those movies?

[Richard Price]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Gil, "slowed down" and "stopped" mean two very different things depending on the context here.

Jonathan, you sound like the local policeman that stopped me for running a stop sign.  I slowed to a momentary (less than a second pause), but he claimed that I did not stop.  This very well could have been the perception during the assassination.  The limo stopped, almost imperceptibly, and then continued on.  This very small amount of film could have been excised and replaced in order to show continuity of travel.  Just as in my case, I felt and knew that I stopped, but I also knew it was not a FULL stop as required by law.  It was a pause, but other than it happening at a stop sign, most anyone viewing it would say that I stopped while going down the road.  Context does have meaning, but sometimes the words mean essentially the same thing.

[Jonathan Cohen]

4 hours ago, Richard Price said:

Context does have meaning, but sometimes the words mean essentially the same thing.

Agreed. As such, there really is no point arguing whether those who said the limousine "stopped" actually just observed it slowing down. The larger issue is how the alterationists could have made the same "imperceptible" edit to multiple motion picture films taken during the assassination, especially those that weren't discovered until well after Nov. 22, 1963.

[Pat Speer]

 

Egads. If people would stop searching for alterations in the Zapruder film, x-rays and autopsy photos and actually look at what is shown, and then do some research as to what one would expect to see should a shot have actually entered low on the back of JFK's head and exploded from the top of his head, then it would become clear to them that the official evidence is 100% clear-cut evidence for more than one shooter, and that nothing needed to be faked. All that needed to be done was have some friendly doctors and experts spin the evidence towards a lone assassin, and then let those believing there was a conspiracy chase their tails by claiming well then this evidence must have been faked. No one needed to fake anything. All they needed to do was spin, and human nature would take care of the rest.

 

 

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Gil Jesus writes:

Quote

Why is it so hard to see that all of these last-minute changes are evidence the Secret Service may even have been complicit in the planning of the assassination ?

Even though the evidence Gil cites is circumstantial, I don't think it's at all far-fetched to claim that some Secret Service personnel might have been complicit in the assassination.

The uncontroversial fact that the presidential car slowed down during the shooting could be taken as evidence that the driver, a Secret Service agent, was complicit. Although the slowing down may have been accidental, you could certainly argue that it was deliberate. I can't be bothered to check, but I vaguely recall that the Muchmore film shows the brake lights coming on. If that's the case, it wasn't just a matter of the driver inadvertently taking his foot off the accelerator as he turned round.

If Secret Service complicity in the assassination is what you're looking for, you've found it!

But there is no good reason to suppose that any such complicity involved bringing the car to a halt during the shooting. The evidence for that particular action is remarkably feeble: just a small number of witness statements.

As I pointed out earlier, there were far more witnesses who reported that the car slowed down but didn't stop. Why shouldn't we believe those witnesses instead?

Serious question: why does Gil believe a small number of witnesses who claimed that an event happened one way, and reject a much larger number of witnesses who claimed that the event happened another way? The rational thing to do is to believe the larger group of witnesses, surely?

What about the even smaller number of witnesses who claimed that the car not only stopped but also swerved over to the left-hand curb? Does Gil believe them? If so, why? If not, why not?

The problem is that both types of car-stop witnesses are contradicted not only by a larger number of other witnesses but also by several items of photographic evidence. We can be sure that the car slowed down and didn't stop, because three home movies show it slowing down and not stopping:

• the Zapruder film,
• the Muchmore film,
• and the Nix film.

We can also be sure that the car didn't swerve to the left, because four home movies and two photographs show that it stayed in the middle lane:

• the Zapruder film,
• the Muchmore film,
• the Nix film,
• the Bronson film,
• the Moorman photo,
• and the Altgens 7 photo.

As Gil pointed out in his original post, the choice is between a handful of fallible human witnesses and a coherent body of physical evidence. It is vastly more likely that a handful of witnesses got one detail of a fleeting event wrong than that half a dozen films and photos were laboriously altered.

Quote

I guess we can believe one witness ( Zavada ) or 59 others.

We should believe one expert witness (or two, if you include Prof Fielding) who inspected the actual Zapruder film and used his expertise to conclude that it was not a copy. As far as I'm aware, no other experts have examined the film and come to the opposite conclusion.

We should also believe the majority of the 59 witnesses, namely the ones who claimed that the car slowed down but didn't stop. We should believe them for three reasons:

• because they form the majority of the witnesses who commented on the car's movements;
• because their statements are supported by a body of physical evidence that is internally consistent;
• and because their statements are consistent with Zavada's expert opinion of the physical state of the Zapruder film.

Just out of interest, I'm genuinely curious about what the evidence is for a connection between Zavada and the CIA, and exactly how this would have affected his examination of the Zapruder film.

I'd like to repeat that I admire much of Gil's other work, so he shouldn't take these criticisms personally!

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Eddy Bainbridge writes:

Quote

You accept document tampering but skirt past the strange events at NPIC pointing to film tampering.

The "strange events" scenario was the result of a technically incompetent interpretation of recollections made 30 or 40 years after the event. If you check the PDF I linked to earlier, you'll see that Roland Zavada corrects Horne's over-imaginative interpretation:

http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf

Zavada discusses the authenticity of the film on pages 14 to 32 of his document. He concludes:

<quote>
The very interesting twist to your chapter is that it has done more to ensure the Zapruder film at NARA is authentic rather than altered.

Your interviews with Dino Brugioni and Homer McMahon and their handling of what they interpreted [Zavada's underlining] as "original" films, most likely were the Jamieson copies provided to the Secret Service by Zapruder and flown to Washington on successive days. (With the FBI requesting two copies, returned to Dallas, of their viewed double 8 copy.)

Nonetheless, your analysis of those interviews and the conclusions you draw about the briefing boards have provided a tight focus to establish the time frame and possible venue for the purported 'sanitizing' of the Zapruder original. Both reinforce all of the technology and film reproduction constraints to confirm our conclusion that alteration to the 8mm original and its reconstitution as a 'sanitized' KODACHROME II equivalent, was impossible.
</quote>

Eddy continues:

Quote

You have used a common method of rejecting film alteration which is to describe something MASSIVE when I for one believe in frame removal

Apart from the uncontroversial damaged frames, there was no frame removal, certainly not around frame 313 as some people claim, since this would require the film in the National Archives to be a copy, and it isn't, as Zavada and Prof Raymond Fielding explain on page 18 of Zavada's open letter to Horne.

The sort of film alteration claimed here is indeed "MASSIVE". The removal of a few frames might not sound like very much, but it would have been a MASSIVE task to accomplish (well, actually, an impossible task in the time available, with the equipment available, using the raw materials available). It would have required the alteration of not one but at least three home movies, and possibly four home movies plus two photographs. And it would have left open the possibility of other home movies or photographs turning up in the future to expose the deception.

Not only would such alteration have been impossible to achieve in practice, but it would have been unnecessary. As I've just pointed out to Gil, the slowing down of the car by itself suggests exactly what the stopping of the car is claimed to suggest, namely complicity by the driver.

This sort of alteration also implies that the perpetrators of the assassination actually cared what the films and photographs showed, which is a whole other thing that people assume without justification.

As Pat Speer points out, people really should stop claiming that the Zapruder film and all those other films and photos are faked. These claims are not only poorly supported, but they're unnecessary, a waste of time, and very counter-productive.

[Gil Jesus]

23 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Is it hard to believe that the Dallas Police planned for 4 motorcycles on each side of the limousine and that that plan was changed at the last minute by the Secret Service ?

Is it hard to believe that the Secret Service disapproved a Dallas Police plan to have a closed car behind the SS follow-up car with detectives armed with sub-machine guns ?

Is it hard to believe that at Love Field, the general who sat in the front seat of the limo was moved further back in the motorcade ?

Is it hard to believe that the Dallas motorcycle officers were told at Love Field to hold their positions,"regardless of what happened" ?

Is it hard to believe that the press were relegated to convertibles further back in the motorcade, instead of in front of the limo on a flatbed truck ?

Is it hard to believe that when the shooting started, agents who tried to react were ordered back onto the follow-up car ?

With all of these last-minute changes by the Secret Service that DECREASED the President's protection, why on earth is it so hard to believe that certain members of the Secret Service desired so much to see Kennedy dead that when the shooting started, the limo at least slowed down and may have even stopped ?

Why is it so hard to see that all of these last-minute changes are evidence the Secret Service may even have been complicit in the planning of the assassination ? 

Why is it so hard to believe that the SS was complicit at least in making the assassination a success and that the CIA used its technical facilities at Kodak to cover up that fact ?

Given all of the Secret Service's actions to decrease Kennedy's protection, put him out in the open and move certain people out of the line of fire, why is it so hard to believe the 59 witnesses who said the limo slowed down or stopped ?

Especially after experincing the Trump Presidency, why is it so hard to believe that federal employees can hate a President so much, that they'd do anything to remove him from office ?

I guess we can believe one witness ( Zavada ) or 59 others. The choice is ours.

I found this video on the first showing of the Zapruder film at the Dallas Kodak facility. The employees who viewed the original film are interviewed as well as Zapruder's business partner, Irwin Schwartz, who was present at the viewing.

They describe the film and Schwartz comments that the "replicas" and "copies are NOT LIKE THAT FIRST ONE."

Not my words, his.

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/first-showing.mp4

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Apart from the uncontroversial damaged frames, there was no frame removal, certainly not around frame 313 as some people claim, since this would require the film in the National Archives to be a copy, and it isn't, as Zavada and Prof Raymond Fielding explain on page 18 of Zavada's open letter to Horne.

 

I don't understand the logic in the above statement. (I don't know this topic well.)

If the original film in the National Archives is missing damaged frames, can't it also be missing other frames? Ones removed to cover up the slowing down of the limo?

 

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Egads, we have yet to receive a convincing case as to how Kennedy received his wounds and there is a residue of researchers who won't consider the film as potentially inauthentic. No problem, but I hope someone comes up with a shot theory that works with the extant film, and doesn't rely on unsupported tangential wounds or shooter locations without evidential support. 

Some of the criticisms of the 'stop/slowed' witnesses are edging towards McAdams territory. It is almost unchallengeable that the car accelerated rapidly after the shots. I can't see a rapid acceleration,  and extant frame analysis shows a slow acceleration. The car braked before Z313 and I am convinced by analysis showing everyone in the limo reacted to that ...so we have firm deceleration followed shortly afterwards by rapid acceleration. Perhaps the interim was a stop, a crawl, or a brief 'pause'. Not seen in the extant film, and not explained by weak criticism of the wording used by the witnesses. You'll be telling me there wasn't a large hole in the back of JFK's head next.