Simple proof that the Zapruder film has been altered.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Chris Bristow writes:

Quote

I said:
"If there was a limo stop removed the alteration was an undeniable success."
My premise started with the logical operator "IF".

Indeed. But since there's no good reason to suppose that the premise is true, the speculation is pointless. It only serves to encourage the 'everything is a fake' brigade.

This bizarre discussion is a bit like trying to work out exactly where in Arizona the moon landings photographs were taken.

Quote

I'm going to spitball here and throw out some observation about the Moorman photo. If it was published right away it would impossible to alter.

Online copies exist of newspapers from the weekend of the assassination which contain the Moorman photo. I don't have a reference to hand, but I don't recall noticing any discrepancies between the images I've seen and the Moorman photo that currently exists. One way to confirm or deny that alterations were made would be to examine these newspaper images in detail.

Either the photo was altered during the three hours or so before it was distributed to journalists, or it wasn't altered. If it wasn't altered, the limo didn't move into the left-hand lane, and the witnesses who claimed that it did move, simply made a mistake when recalling a trivial detail of a sudden, brief and traumatic event. In other words, they were normal human beings.

Quote

If not they would need to alter the position of the limo by about 12 inches to the west to match an altered Z film.

And the two police motorcycles to the left of the limo must have been added, which I suspect would not be a trivial task.

Quote

As I understand it the original was returned to Mary Ann Moorman after the FBI analyzed it. I guess the question would be after altering a photo printed on the Polaroid in camera paper could you then copy  and  print that onto the same type of Polaroid paper?

I doubt that it would be possible to take a convincing photo of an altered Polaroid photo using a fixed-lens Polaroid camera like Moorman's, though it might have been possible to do so with some sort of cobbled-together apparatus that used the Polaroid process. To believe that this happened, two things need to be demonstrated: (a) that such a procedure was technically feasible, and (b) that the Bad Guys had sufficient time, and access to the necessary parts, to cobble together the apparatus.

What also needs to be demonstrated is that it was technically feasible to produce an altered image that didn't contain evidence that it had been altered. Would a Polaroid copy of a Polaroid original contain features, such as excessive contrast, which would confirm that it's a copy (and the absence of which would confirm that it's the original)? We know that this is the case with Kodachrome film, which is why we can be sure that the Zapruder film in the National Archives is not a copy and must be the original film that was in Zapruder's camera.

Quote

It [the Zapruder film] shows the limo slowing to 8 mph which does not match the witness statements in question.

It matches quite a few of the witness statements: the ones that claimed the car merely slowed down. It is also consistent with the recollections of the majority of the spectators, who apparently didn't think that the limo's slowing down was worth mentioning.

The witnesses who claimed the car came to a halt were outliers. The balance of the current evidence shows that their recollections were mistaken. It's a lot of fuss about nothing.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

 
 Polaroid cameras do not have negatives and even if you printed a negative from the original photo it would be no better than the photo itself. A negative is needed to compare things like the film grain pattern.
 
 

 

Polaroids do have a negative in side, just in a different way as commonly known.

Especially with the older "hard" types this negative could be retrieved and re-used (to make multiple prints on the spot, in the 1950's you had salesmen using this system to sell pictures at events, etc).

Even today it is still possible to retrieve the negative (the process has changed but the basics are still the same)https://medium.com/rosa-roots-magazine/reclaiming-a-negative-from-a-polaroid-aea9cf004465

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Polaroids do have a negative in side, just in a different way as commonly known.

Especially with the older "hard" types this negative could be retrieved and re-used (to make multiple prints on the spot, in the 1950's you had salesmen using this system to sell pictures at events, etc).

Even today it is still possible to retrieve the negative (the process has changed but the basics are still the same)https://medium.com/rosa-roots-magazine/reclaiming-a-negative-from-a-polaroid-aea9cf004465

 

Regardless of whether it happened in this case or not, a couple of things are worth bearing in mind: 

- Technology is often had by the security apparatus long before the general public are made aware. Perhaps even a 10-20 year lag. 

- It’s probable that the CIA or similar organisations around the world had found all sorts of ways to doctor images for propaganda purposes, blackmail, or just to mislead. For example; an image like Oswald back yard photo was a very powerful tool for propaganda purposes. I should image they had methods for altering all sorts of photo formats. 
 

[Guest]

On 8/17/2022 at 12:30 PM, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Polaroids do have a negative in side, just in a different way as commonly known.

Especially with the older "hard" types this negative could be retrieved and re-used (to make multiple prints on the spot, in the 1950's you had salesmen using this system to sell pictures at events, etc).

Even today it is still possible to retrieve the negative (the process has changed but the basics are still the same)https://medium.com/rosa-roots-magazine/reclaiming-a-negative-from-a-polaroid-aea9cf004465

 

This was the in-between type introduced in 1955, you had a negative roll and a print-roll

https://obsoletemedia.org/polaroid-type-47/

 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Chris Bristow]

10 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

This was the in-between type introduced in 1955, you had a negative roll and a print-roll

https://obsoletemedia.org/polaroid-type-47/

And attached is a later 1959 adv. showing the Land camera and system to re-use the negative (sb. first print) to make multiple prints possible. With some know-how it was possible to alter the negative (or the first print).  I remember there was another type of "instant" camera's but I have forgotten the name.  Anyway, pretty much any photo could be faked, certainly in the early 1960's.    

Your link to the method for creating a negative from a polaroid was interesting. I Assume Mary Moorman would have thrown out the backing paper with the potential negative like we all did back then. But if they recovered it they could do the bleach process.
I have to wonder about the quality of the backing image. I can't see how it would be any sharper than the photo itself. A real negative on film is the sharpest image available and that is what gives it value. That polaroid negative was created on paper so I doubt it was like a real negative. The article mentioned that the backing image is darker. I think that would mean it has less information than the original. Of course if they did create a sort of negative and alter the original they would most likely destroy the incriminating negative after using it.
  I have to look again at the info on her camera model. If I find she had the type with the separate negative pack I will post it here.
  The ad you showed was not about negatives it was about making a copy of your photo from the original photo. that won't be any clearer than the original in fact it can't be as good as the original as every copy degrades the image.
 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Chris Bristow

[Chris Bristow]

9 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

This was the in-between type introduced in 1955, you had a negative roll and a print-roll

https://obsoletemedia.org/polaroid-type-47/

And attached is a later 1959 adv. showing the Land camera and system to re-use the negative (sb. first print) to make multiple prints possible. With some know-how it was possible to alter the negative (or the first print).  I remember there was another type of "instant" camera's but I have forgotten the name.  Anyway, pretty much any photo could be faked, certainly in the early 1960's.    

Found it!. Here is the manual of a Highlander 80A. It had two separate packs, one positive one negative. There should be a negative out there somewhere. Thanks for leading me to that.
 Now we have to ask what happened to it? The photo was auctioned off but I find no mention of a negative anywhere. Did the FBI take the negative with the original when they studied the image and put their fingerprint on it? Did they return it? The original negative would be of great value if it was made public.

Here is a link to the manual at the relevant page.
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1001935/Polaroid-80a-Highlander.html?page=4#manual

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Chris Bristow said:

Found it!. Here is the manual of a Highlander 80A. It had two separate packs, one positive one negative. There should be a negative out there somewhere. Thanks for leading me to that.
 Now we have to ask what happened to it? The photo was auctioned off but I find no mention of a negative anywhere. Did the FBI take the negative with the original when they studied the image and put their fingerprint on it? Did they return it? The original negative would be of great value if it was made public.

Here is a link to the manual at the relevant page.
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1001935/Polaroid-80a-Highlander.html?page=4#manual

Good find !

You were correct on me showing the wrong ad, oops... sorry about that I was to fast in my assumpion it was what I had in mind, but it wasn't. 

I just can't remember how and what specifically, but it could be I mixed up with the professional services they  rendered : in a April 15, 1965 Patent Appl. (for an actual photocopier) they mention some of the history "Appellant operates the "POLAROID COPY SERVICE" through which it has sold copies, enlargements, and negatives of "POLAROID" prints and transparencies since 1949".    But that was professional services (the FBI etc. would now about that of course, or had access in some way).  

[Chris Bristow]

13 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Chris Bristow writes:

Indeed. But since there's no good reason to suppose that the premise is true, the speculation is pointless. It only serves to encourage the 'everything is a fake' brigade.

This bizarre discussion is a bit like trying to work out exactly where in Arizona the moon landings photographs were taken.

Online copies exist of newspapers from the weekend of the assassination which contain the Moorman photo. I don't have a reference to hand, but I don't recall noticing any discrepancies between the images I've seen and the Moorman photo that currently exists. One way to confirm or deny that alterations were made would be to examine these newspaper images in detail.

Either the photo was altered during the three hours or so before it was distributed to journalists, or it wasn't altered. If it wasn't altered, the limo didn't move into the left-hand lane, and the witnesses who claimed that it did move, simply made a mistake when recalling a trivial detail of a sudden, brief and traumatic event. In other words, they were normal human beings.

And the two police motorcycles to the left of the limo must have been added, which I suspect would not be a trivial task.

I doubt that it would be possible to take a convincing photo of an altered Polaroid photo using a fixed-lens Polaroid camera like Moorman's, though it might have been possible to do so with some sort of cobbled-together apparatus that used the Polaroid process. To believe that this happened, two things need to be demonstrated: (a) that such a procedure was technically feasible, and (b) that the Bad Guys had sufficient time, and access to the necessary parts, to cobble together the apparatus.

What also needs to be demonstrated is that it was technically feasible to produce an altered image that didn't contain evidence that it had been altered. Would a Polaroid copy of a Polaroid original contain features, such as excessive contrast, which would confirm that it's a copy (and the absence of which would confirm that it's the original)? We know that this is the case with Kodachrome film, which is why we can be sure that the Zapruder film in the National Archives is not a copy and must be the original film that was in Zapruder's camera.

It matches quite a few of the witness statements: the ones that claimed the car merely slowed down. It is also consistent with the recollections of the majority of the spectators, who apparently didn't think that the limo's slowing down was worth mentioning.

The witnesses who claimed the car came to a halt were outliers. The balance of the current evidence shows that their recollections were mistaken. It's a lot of fuss about nothing.

I have looked for any newspaper image of the Moorman photo and find nothing. The Alltgens 6 & 7 photos were in the paper that night and if you google "Altgens image newspaper" you will  find many reports and images of the newspapers. The same type of search for Mary Moorman turns up nothing. If we do find a newspaper image it would have to date to 11/63 to be relevant.
 ""Indeed. But since there's no good reason to suppose that the premise is true, the speculation is pointless. It only serves to encourage the 'everything is a fake' brigade.""
    If there was something more than your biased opinion to go on then your claim would carry some weight. I expect you will again repeat all your opinions that add up to your conclusion that there was no limo slowing or stopping. But assumptions like " They just got it wrong" is a tired old argument that is only based on conjecture but usually put forth as some kind of real evidence. "They just got it wrong is one of the most common and, imo, the weakest points skeptics put forth. The fact it is used to explain away so many account makes it even weaker.
 Again, I think one of the best argument for the limo stop is the accounts of the 4 bike cops who were tasked with keeping pace with the limo and were only a few feet from when it is supposed to have stopped. There testimony supports the idea the limo slowed so much that many thought it fully stopped for a brief moment while others did not see that brief moment and only knew for sure that is slowed to almost a stop. Many said "It stopped or almost stopped".
 The bike cops testimony carries a lot of weight but the best the skeptics can say is "They just got it wrong".

 

[Chris Bristow]

34 minutes ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Good find !

You were correct on me showing the wrong ad, oops... sorry about that I was to fast in my assumpion it was what I had in mind, but it wasn't. 

I just can't remember how and what specifically, but it could be I mixed up with the professional services they  rendered : in a April 15, 1965 Patent Appl. (for an actual photocopier) they mention some of the history "Appellant operates the "POLAROID COPY SERVICE" through which it has sold copies, enlargements, and negatives of "POLAROID" prints and transparencies since 1949".    But that was professional services (the FBI etc. would now about that of course, or had access in some way).  

I wonder if you had to buy the double pack with negative and positive separate rolls or if it was possible and cheaper to just buy the positive only roll and not install a negative pack. That may mean there never was a negative. I could see a problem with running film that is not as thick the double roll. It may not sit flat and distort the image.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Chris Bristow said:

I have looked for any newspaper image of the Moorman photo and find nothing. The Alltgens 6 & 7 photos were in the paper that night and if you google "Altgens image newspaper" you will  find many reports and images of the newspapers. The same type of search for Mary Moorman turns up nothing. If we do find a newspaper image it would have to date to 11/63 to be relevant.
 ""Indeed. But since there's no good reason to suppose that the premise is true, the speculation is pointless. It only serves to encourage the 'everything is a fake' brigade.""
    If there was something more than your biased opinion to go on then your claim would carry some weight. I expect you will again repeat all your opinions that add up to your conclusion that there was no limo slowing or stopping. But assumptions like " They just got it wrong" is a tired old argument that is only based on conjecture but usually put forth as some kind of real evidence. "They just got it wrong is one of the most common and, imo, the weakest points skeptics put forth. The fact it is used to explain away so many account makes it even weaker.
 Again, I think one of the best argument for the limo stop is the accounts of the 4 bike cops who were tasked with keeping pace with the limo and were only a few feet from when it is supposed to have stopped. There testimony supports the idea the limo slowed so much that many thought it fully stopped for a brief moment while others did not see that brief moment and only knew for sure that is slowed to almost a stop. Many said "It stopped or almost stopped".
 The bike cops testimony carries a lot of weight but the best the skeptics can say is "They just got it wrong".

 

And pls do not forget, no search is invain when something can be learned from it (could be a very basic thing like negatives of a polaroid, good to know they exist !).   

That's what I like most about reasearch, there usually is knowledge to be gathered in areas one normally doesn't go.  E.g. I did not yet know that by 1963 Polaroid was commonly used in autopsie (cfr. With Malice about the Tippit autopsy, Polaroids handed over to the FBI, they made negative, copies, prints,... the works and GAVE the originals back to the doktors office (according With Malice).

We're like 60 years behind, and every day there's new technoligies that can help, I'm allways happy at least someone will walk the extra mile it takes to get to a point, and is persistent enough to repeat the process a number of times.  I.m.o. the only way to move ahead to get somewhere (wether it prooves one or the other.  

Currently I refuse to answer what I think it was, a LN or CT, both have their arguments and I'm lacking the knowledge to make a choice, and it will take some time before I make a choice.  During that I'm having fun in descovering and learning, no more no less.

 

 

 

[Guest]

19 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

I wonder if you had to buy the double pack with negative and positive separate rolls or if it was possible and cheaper to just buy the positive only roll and not install a negative pack. That may mean there never was a negative. I could see a problem with running film that is not as thick the double roll. It may not sit flat and distort the image.

I don't think positive only would work, at least not the ones (double rolls)  we are discussing here.  iMO one always needs a negative to make a positive print.  We'll see what's out there tomorrow, it's 1:45 here in Belgium... auchh... gonna be a short night (and tomorrow is a BIG day in preparing my racing pigeons for this weekends race (just antother one of my crazy hobbies....). 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Chris Davidson]

Simple proof.

Bell enlightens us.

Unless you believe Jackie rose back up (into her same position in Nix) after she amazingly sat down in Z in 1/3second.

Might help you realize why Nix ends where it does.

Maybe Bronson/Z subtlety next, but un-necessary.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Chris Bristow writes:

Quote

I have looked for any newspaper image of the Moorman photo and find nothing.

I was sure I'd seen at least one newspaper containing the Moorman photo, and that I'd mentioned this in a previous thread, so I trawled through my posting history. Here's an example I'd found a while ago:

https://www.downhold.org/lowry/pres48.jpg

That's the front page of The Fresno Bee of Saturday 23rd. As far as I can see, that copy of the photo seems to be identical to the existing photo. If so, any alterations must have been made on the afternoon of the assassination, before the original had been copied and distributed to journalists.

Although I haven't checked them all, there may well be other examples here:

https://www.downhold.org/lowry/JFK-NUPFRONTS.html

In addition, Richard Trask's Pictures of the Pain, p.242, implies (but doesn't state explicitly) that the photo was printed in the Friday evening edition of the Dallas Times Herald (on page A-17, in case anyone wants to look it up online or in a physical newspaper archive). Trask states that Moorman's photo was copied at the Dallas Times Herald's photo lab, the same lab that printed the Altgens photos, one of which also contradicts the claim that the limo moved into the left-hand lane. The Altgens photos were distributed shortly after 1pm, leaving virtually no time for them to have been altered.

Quote

The bike cops testimony carries a lot of weight but the best the skeptics can say is "They just got it wrong".

It all comes down to deciding which of two alternatives is the more likely:

• A small number of witnesses got a small detail wrong when recollecting a brief, stressful experience, as witnesses are known to do.
• Or several home movies and photographs, which corroborate each other, were altered.

Since no-one has come close to demonstrating that the second option is correct, the only rational conclusion is that the first option is correct.

On the plus side, Chris is at least looking to argue rationally that all of these images were altered, rather than take the usual approach of looking at a poor-quality copy, seeing a blob or squiggle that probably doesn't exist in a better-quality version, and declaring it to be proof of alteration.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

It all comes down to deciding which of two alternatives is the more likely:

• A small number of witnesses got a small detail wrong when recollecting a brief, stressful experience, as witnesses are known to do.
• Or several home movies and photographs, which corroborate each other, were altered.

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Since no-one has come close to demonstrating that the second option is correct, the only rational conclusion is that the first option is correct.

 

That's a non sequitur logical fallacy.

It's like saying that, since nobody has come close to demonstrating that Johnny took the last cookie from the cookie jar, the only rational conclusion is that he didn't.

Johnny still may have taken the cookie. And if there is any evidence that he did, that would justify the pursuit of further evidence or proof that he did. Even circumstantial evidence would justify it. For example, if Johnny is the only one in the family who likes those cookies.

 

[Pamela Brown]

Just a heads-up to info some of you already have that I saw a copy of what may have been the unaltered Zapruder in NYC in lat 1964.