The Zfilm, The copies and The Geraldo

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy writes:

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A number of guys laughing at me for prior claims I've made ... for [sic] which they have insufficient mental capacity to understand.

There are several reasons why people laugh at Sandy, but that isn't one of them.

A good way to stop people laughing at him might be to convince the world at large that his 'proof' amounts to something, and isn't just an empty debating point on an obscure internet forum.

Does Sandy really believe that, after 30 years of failed attempts by dozens of people, he and he alone has finally proved that the Zapruder film has been altered? I suspect he doesn't. But if he does, he should try to publicise his proof as widely as possible. He must make sure that it reaches people with sufficient mental capacity to understand it.

If Sandy is right, he will have come as close as anyone has in the last 59 years to proving beyond any doubt that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy. Real, absolute proof that the world's most famous home movie was faked would be an important discovery, wouldn't it?

His discovery would be a service to history! Also, it might stop people laughing at him. For these reasons, Sandy must tell the world that he, and he alone, has discovered conclusive proof that the Zapruder film is a fake!

There are plenty of 'alternative' news outlets that would surely be interested in putting it in front of their readers and viewers. Sandy should get in touch with them. Once Sandy's 'proof' builds up a head of steam in the alternative media, the established media won't be able to avoid covering the question. And then ...

Sandy will be famous! He will go down in history as the man who single-handedly cracked the JFK assassination! There will be appearances on chat shows! Documentaries will be made about the discovery of the century! Sandy will take his place in the intellectual pantheon where he knows he belongs! Remember, they used to laugh at Copernicus and Galileo too!

Not only will he be famous, but he will become rich! His memoirs will sell millions! Hollywood studios will battle for the rights to The Sandy Larsen Story, starring George Clooney! There will be million-dollar sponsorship deals from leading hat companies!

Even ignoring all of these personal advantages, Sandy's 'proof' deserves the world's attention. The JFK assassination is an important topic. If Sandy genuinely believes that his 'proof' has any merit, it is his duty to make the world aware of it. He needs to phone and email those news outlets, now!

But does Sandy really, truly believe that his 'proof' has any merit? I suspect that when he thinks about it, doubts appear. Is there something he has overlooked? The fog of uncertainty begins to obscure Sandy's vision. He is no longer convinced that his 'proof' would stand up to scrutiny, and he is wary of attracting any more ridicule. That's why he probably won't try to publicise it. He isn't prepared to be told, "You've got to be kidding! That isn't proof! Stop wasting our time! Go back to playing word games on that internet forum!"

Does Sandy intend to phone and email any of those news outlets? I suspect not, because he isn't really sure that his 'proof' amounts to anything. Does anyone else intend to phone and email them on Sandy's behalf? Again, I suspect not, because no-one else is sure that his 'proof' amounts to anything either.

But Sandy really ought to make an effort to broadcast his 'proof' to the world at large. If Sandy is right, millions of people will know for a fact that the world's most famous home movie is a fake! None of those millions of people will make fun of Sandy ever again!

Of course, if Sandy is wrong ...

[Pat Speer]

To be fair, just as some are bent towards claiming "Alteration! Alteration!" whenever they see something they don't understand, others are just as bent towards claiming no alteration even when it is obvious. 

15 years ago or so I started a thread in which I proved that the famous photo of "Kennedy's foot hanging over the side of the limo" had been doctored by the Dallas Morning News, and that this doctored photo and bogus claim had then been repeated in the SS report on the assassination. It was not Kennedy's foot, but had been made to appear as such by someone (presumably Tom Dillard). This may have been innocent, but it certainly made the paper a lot of money as this image was then reprinted across the country. Unfortunately, it also damaged the integrity of the witness statements, as several witnesses took to claiming they saw Kennedy's foot dangling over the side of the limo after this photo was published. 

In any event, I was able to demonstrate the doctoring of this photo by finding an un-doctored version of the photo that was published in the Saturday Evening Post.

Or not. In what became one of the longest and most contentious threads in the forum up to that time. some (most notably Gary Mack) insisted that they could see no evidence of doctoring in the photo as published by the Dallas Morning News, and that the obviously un-doctored photo published in the Saturday Evening Post must have been the one that was doctored. There was also some discussion of whether or not the "foot" could have actually been a hand. 

This all goes to demonstrate that what people "see" is filtered through their biases. To prove alteration, then, one should find an alternate version of the same image, and demonstrate the difference, and explain why this could not have come as a result of copying, etc. 

In the case of the Miller photo, the photo was sold to the Dallas Morning News, which then published an altered version of the photo along with a misleading caption. Apparently, the Saturday Evening Post then got access to the original photo, and published it a few weeks later. The point is, then, that an original photo existed that was altered when published in a newspaper. This was common practice at the time. The photo of Oswald with a rifle was altered for publication on the cover of Life, if I recall. This was common practice. 

But the type of alteration proposed on this and other threads--the wholesale creation of a fake film using pieces from other films and other frames, etc, was not common practice. Sure, movies and TV splice together numerous takes to make a seamless-appearing action sequence, and today they add in CGI to boot, but these have edits. And no one purports that these sequences are the original footage. A series of experts have looked at the Z-film and have concluded it was the in-camera original, i.e.original footage. I don't see how one can argue that an obviously fake drawing of a penguin's being inserted into a series of film frames over the course of weeks if not months can be compared to the type of alteration proposed for the Z-film. It's apples and dinosaurs.  

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Pat Speer

[John Butler]

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

To conclude that human beings did something, you need to show two things:

• that it is possible for human beings to have done that thing;
• and that humans actually did that thing.

Jason and the Argonauts 1963 movie editing technology:

This is 10 frames from the movie.  It was a lot better as a DVD, or on the big screen.  This low resolution Youtube clip lacks much.

For it's day, it was quite impressive in the theater.  In 1963 you could basically do anything with film editing.  That's not my statement, but David Healey's, a master technician and editor.

If Jeremy is correct than this is just historical myth captured at the time of the event.

[Pat Speer]

6 hours ago, John Butler said:

Jason and the Argonauts 1963 movie editing technology:

This is 10 frames from the movie.  It was a lot better as a DVD, or on the big screen.  This low resolution Youtube clip lacks much.

For it's day, it was quite impressive in the theater.  In 1963 you could basically do anything with film editing.  That's not my statement, but David Healey's, a master technician and editor.

If Jeremy is correct than this is just historical myth captured at the time of the event.

That's stop-motion animation. The skeletons were essentially miniature action figures. It took months and months to film the movements of the skeletons. As I understand it, Ray Harryhausen would film a frame, move the skeleton a 1/16 of an inch, or whatever, and film another frame. The action sequence of the humans would be filmed separately, with part of the image blocked out. The skeleton film would then be added onto the film of the humans in the area that was blocked out. 

This was a time-consuming effort, performed by a man considered the master of his craft. And yet when you watch the humans fight the skeletons there are all sorts of giveaways that they are not really in the same shot. 

So, no, this footage does not make the wholesale alteration of the z-film within days of the shooting seem possible. Just the opposite. 

[John Butler]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:49 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

To conclude that human beings did something, you need to show two things:

• that it is possible for human beings to have done that thing;
• and that humans actually did that thing.

Photo editing in a hilarious way.

[John Butler]

22 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

That's stop-motion animation. The skeletons were essentially miniature action figures. It took months and months to film the movements of the skeletons. As I understand it, Ray Harryhausen would film a frame, move the skeleton a 1/16 of an inch, or whatever, and film another frame. The action sequence of the humans would be filmed separately, with part of the image blocked out. The skeleton film would then be added onto the film of the humans in the area that was blocked out. 

This was a time-consuming effort, performed by a man considered the master of his craft. And yet when you watch the humans fight the skeletons there are all sorts of giveaways that they are not really in the same shot.

The manipulation and photographing of miniature figures is not what I am talking about.  You still have to put those images into a frame in a logical sequence as you said.  That's the point.  Unnatural images are placed into a film.

I like John Costella's suggestion that the Z film may be built from the ground up.  Several people saw the film, but the film they saw is probably not the extant film.  Life Magazine published some still frames and that was all that was known by the public at the time.  When was the next showing of the Z film material in public?  I believe at the Shaw trial years later.

I believe they had all the time they needed to make any changes they wanted. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

29 minutes ago, John Butler said:

I like John Costella's suggestion that the Z film may be built from the ground up.  Several people saw the film, but the film they saw is probably not the extant film.  Life Magazine published some still frames and that was all that was known by the public at the time.  When was the next showing of the Z film material in public?  I believe at the Shaw trial years later.

Once again, John Butler proposes something that would be downright impossible with 1963 technology, if not easily spotted as phony by anyone with two functioning eyes. Built from the ground up how? How could any forgers have significantly altered the movements and actions of the occupants of the Presidential limousine? By pasting them over with footage of stand-ins dressed in their identical clothing? As always, there would also be no way for the forgers to be sure other films and photographs of the assassination wouldn't be discovered later, which would immediately contradict their fake Zapruder film and blow the whole operation. Are you also once again implying that Abraham Zapruder was somehow involved in the conspiracy ahead of time?

[Eddy Bainbridge]

To say the Z film hasn't been altered is one claim. To say it has been considerably altered is another claim. To claim the film has been altered somewhat is a third claim, and one I subscribe to. I see evidence from other sources (Witnesses,hospital, autopsy, documents) that do not align with the extant film. I see it is possible to create a strong narrative to explain the evidential problems, if you accept the film has been altered. As far as I can see there is no consensus view of what alteration has occurred.  (I judge a black matte on the back of the head, frame removal around extant Z309-Z325, removing deceleration, pause, acceleration, in the range 1sec-2sec of film removed))

There is no consensus view of how the assassination occurred presented by the non-alterationists. The Tangential headwound appears a fairly weakly supported conjecture, and its sad to say, but some of the attempts to rubbish the witness evidence required by this theory (The position, size and shape of headwounds described by witnesses) and the limo stop witnesses is not strongly persuasive. I can only express an opinion, but I think if there was a thread asking 'did Kennedy suffer a tangential wound to his head?' then it would not stand up well to scrutiny. Multiple points would be made criticising the theory.

 

I judge it unproven that there was not an opportunity to alter the film (Hawkeye works). I judge that crude alterations were possible and could be done in the time provided(Weekend after assassination). I judge that a sequence of events (removed from the Z film) provide the most likely scenario, when taking into account the evidence in the round, as opposed to rubbishing evidence that doesn't fit without the film having frames missing.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Eddy Bainbridge writes:

Quote

To say the Z film hasn't been altered is one claim. To say it has been considerably altered is another claim. To claim the film has been altered somewhat is a third claim, and one I subscribe to.

A fourth claim is simply to say that until someone comes up with convincing evidence, there is no good reason to suppose that the film has been altered. The same goes for the Moorman photograph, the Altgens photographs, and all the other films and photos taken in Dealey Plaza, as well as the autopsy photos and X-rays and the backyard photos.

Home movies and photographs taken by members of the public do not, as a general rule, get altered. The default setting is to assume, until proven otherwise, that they are genuine. The burden of proof is on those who claim that alteration took place. After 30 years or so of trying, no-one has come close to proving that the Zapruder film has been altered.

Not only that, but no-one has even suggested a plausible motive for altering the film, which is, after all, the single most important piece of documentary evidence that contradicts the lone-gunman theory.

And not only all of that, but there are strong reasons to suppose that the film cannot have been altered; such as the expert opinion that the film in the National Archives is the one that was in Zapruder's camera, and the obvious fact that any alteration was at risk of exposure from a contradiction with an unaltered image, any number of which could still be at large because there was never any attempt to identify all the photographers and round up their films.

The backyard photos and the medical images, on the other hand, are more likely candidates for alteration, since the reasons for supposing that the Zapruder film is genuine do not apply to them. There was enough time to make any alterations, and they form small, self-contained groups, so contradictions between them could plausibly have been eliminated. For what it's worth, I'm yet to be convinced that any of them were in fact altered, but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if someone were to come up with convincing evidence one day. I would be extremely surprised if someone ever came up with actual proof that the Zapruder film had been altered.

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I see evidence from other sources (Witnesses,hospital, autopsy, documents) that do not align with the extant film.

Witnesses, in general, are not the most reliable source of evidence. People often make genuine mistakes when recalling events, and we should expect inaccurate recollections of a very brief and unexpected event such as seeing the president getting murdered. Just because some witnesses claim that something happened that isn't shown on the Zapruder film or another home movie or photo, doesn't mean much. The car-stop witnesses illustrate this. A small number of witnesses claimed that JFK's car stopped; a larger number claimed that it merely slowed down. One set of witnesses must have been mistaken. It's no big deal.

As for contradictions between the depiction of JFK's head wound in the film and the statements by the Parkland doctors and others, Pat Speer has done some good work on that. There isn't any great disparity between the medical witnesses and the film.

The biggest sign that it's all a lot of fuss about nothing is the fact that, as Eddy's second and third claims illustrate, there is no agreement about exactly what alterations might have been made to the Zapruder film. This part of the film was altered! No, that part is genuine but this other part was altered! No, you're both wrong! Frames were removed! No, frames were added! A small patch was applied to these few frames! No, the film is a complete fabrication and was constructed from scratch! People have claimed all of these mutually contradictory things, and proved none of them.

What this phenomenon demonstrates is that there exists a group of people who really like the idea that the film was altered by some enormously powerful group of conspirators. They take this as an article of faith, and then go looking for evidence to support that idea. But that's the wrong way to go about things. Conclusions should follow from the evidence, not the other way around.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

7 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Eddy Bainbridge writes:

A fourth claim is simply to say that until someone comes up with convincing evidence, there is no good reason to suppose that the film has been altered. The same goes for the Moorman photograph, the Altgens photographs, and all the other films and photos taken in Dealey Plaza, as well as the autopsy photos and X-rays and the backyard photos.

 

No, that is wrong. That isn't a new claim. You are repeating the claim that the film hasn't been altered. I think your position is that people need to prove the film was altered. You are welcome to repeat that ad nauseum. I can present one piece of evidence, you can present another. Having seen your back and forth (above) I'd rather not.

[Chris Davidson]

On 2/17/2022 at 12:51 PM, Chris Davidson said:

First show the impossible actions of human beings in the following link.

Next, show how two films reveal the timing/syncing problem associated with those actions below.

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Chris Davidson

[Greg Doudna]

On 3/3/2022 at 9:54 AM, Pat Speer said:

The original film has been studied and the "frames-were-removed-to-speed-it-up" theory has been rejected, even by John Costella, if I'm not mistaken. The key, as I recall, was that each frame has a "ghost image" in the sprocket hole section, that connects it to the frame before. IOW, each of the available frames is linked to the frame before.

Addressed to anyone who believes alteration by means of removal of frames occurred or is possible to have occurred: please excuse if this has been answered elsewhere, but simple question: is there a published (or unpublished) response to this objection cited by Speer above drawing from Zavada (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/Z Disk/Zapruder Abraham Film Authenticity Controversy/Item 06.pdf)? On the ghost image in sprockets refuting possibility of frame removal? Zavada:

"There is no possibility that any frames could have been cut out of the film. Every time a frame was exposed, part of the background scene was exposed onto the next frame and the previous frame in their sprocket hole area. The ghostlike images in the sprocket hole area are double exposures ... "

I have Fetzer, ed., The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, if anyone can point me to page numbers where this point of Zavada is addressed and (arguably) refuted. I am not finding a refutation in this book easily. Thanks--

[Chris Davidson]

2 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

First show the impossible actions of human beings in the following link.

Next, show how two films reveal the timing/syncing problem associated with those actions below.

 

Then ask yourself how Jackie was layed out on the trunk in Nix's last frame, later sat down in Z and finally was back on the trunk in the same position in Bell (as with Nix) with the same orientation to Clint approx 23 extant zframes later.

 

 

 

[Chris Davidson]

5 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Then ask yourself how Jackie was layed out on the trunk in Nix's last frame, later sat down in Z and finally was back on the trunk in the same position in Bell (as with Nix) with the same orientation to Clint approx 23 extant zframes later.

 

 

 

Of course the math side could be confirmed by using Mark Tyler's LIMO distance entry between extant z411-434 at 50.7ft.

Guess what the distance is between Position A and the start of the data entry at extant Z161 on CE884.

If you arrived at 50.7ft consider yourself a genius.

When you start altering films that are supposed to sync, at some point, the compilation of those alterations will rear its ugly head.

 

 

 

[David G. Healy]

On 3/4/2022 at 10:23 AM, Jonathan Cohen said:

John, who are you trying to fool with this false equivalency? Nobody here has ever tried to deny that newspaper photos weren't edited for size or for the purposes of advertisements. You are claiming a level of film and photo alteration that is worlds apart from your average, run-of-the-mill tweak for the purposes of publication and which is frankly impossible given the time constraints not only for Altgens 6 but Mary Moorman's Polaroid.

I believe the first *formal* viewing of the Z-film by the Warren Commission was the end of Feb 1964. More than enough time to make all sorts of changes to the Z-film -- and -- the next 50 years to continue making changes, if so desired...