Altering the Z film

[Richard Price]

4 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

That isn't the main problem you face. Anyone who claims that the film was altered faces two much more fundamental problems: actually proving that it was altered, and working out a plausible reason why it might have been altered. After about 30 years of trying, not much progress seems to have been made with either task.

Jeremy, these statements are blatantly wrong.  Starting with your #2 reason - There are many plausible reasons depending on who made the alteration(s).  The very first and most important is that they wanted to remove evidence that was readily discernible to anyone seeing the film (shot or shots).  Your #1 reason is shown in all the blurs, artifacts, splices missing frames and anomalies that are in the film at just the right instance and place.  For what was and had to be known as a highly important piece of evidence, this movie was handled/damaged much worse than a film of the family in the backyard would have been.  You can attribute this to anything you like, but bottom line is that the people working on this film were not the junior, inexperienced and untrained personnel.  They were the well trained, experienced and professional that such a film deserved.  These can be attributed to errors of various kinds (human, machine, etc.), but the more of these coincidental damages there are, the more it looks like someone took an active hand in them.  At the same time, I will extend this to the Altgens 6 photo.  It is a beautiful, perfectly framed and focused professional photo.  That is, except the area right around the view of the president's face.  That area is somehow the location of the probably the only anomalies/artifacts in the whole picture.

[Chris Davidson]

14 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

Oh thank you! So the shutter speed is just short of 3 times longer in the 'run' setting. We should see 3 times the motion blur at 1/35th  between background and foreground than the 1/100th slow motion. The overall film supports the 18.6 fps. The limo would have to be going almost 3 times as fast as the 'official' record to achieve the motion blur between foreground and background.
 Frame 232 has half the blur as pointed out by John Costella. Is that an artifact of a different frame rate? If it is there still has to be another film that produced the 18.6 fps version. I want to lean towards a simpler explanation that does not require two films if possible.

How much of that motion blur was determined by the following relationship?

18.3fps/35shutter speed = .522 ratio

48fps/100shutter speed = .48 ratio

 

[David G. Healy]

9 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

David G. Healy writes:

That isn't the main problem you face. Anyone who claims that the film was altered faces two much more fundamental problems: actually proving that it was altered, and working out a plausible reason why it might have be altered. After about 30 years of trying, not much progress seems to have been made with either task.

[...]

 It may surprise some, but rumors exist of case film/photo shenanigans back in the 60's immediately after the Warren Commission Report in 1964 ... and when more case evidence was dissected, specifically the Elm Street events were scrutinized, the conspiracy angle got real legs --

The added photo/film evidence disputes may be simple to understand *create a unique diversion,* with debate? Reason: divert attention to anything other than the case medical evidence.

So, here's the problem: The medical evidence/autopsy evidence regarding this case are a royal mess, everywhere and the WC knew it... so did a few others, notable medical experts. The photographic evidence is an important, yes, but a non-critical sideshow...

[Chris Bristow]

4 hours ago, David G. Healy said:

 It may surprise some, but rumors exist of case film/photo shenanigans back in the 60's immediately after the Warren Commission Report in 1964 ... and when more case evidence was dissected, specifically the Elm Street events were scrutinized, the conspiracy angle got real legs --

The added photo/film evidence disputes may be simple to understand *create a unique diversion,* with debate? Reason: divert attention to anything other than the case medical evidence.

So, here's the problem: The medical evidence/autopsy evidence regarding this case are a royal mess, everywhere and the WC knew it... so did a few others, notable medical experts. The photographic evidence is an important, yes, but a non-critical sideshow...

I find the Parkland issue to be the most convincing circumstantial evidence. In fact the JFK issue for me can all come down to a second shooter and a coverup. That means it could be Oswald on the 6th floor. Partial patsy, full patsy, innocent, I don't need to bother with it to consider the basic form of the CT. I would guess partial patsy but it is just my guess. Pondering how a film could be altered is the most entertaining thought experiment, imo.
 

[Chris Bristow]

10 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

How much of that motion blur was determined by the following relationship?

18.3fps/35shutter speed = .522 ratio

48fps/100shutter speed = .48 ratio

 

I  did not correct from 1/40th to 1/35 so I would need to subtract about 12% from the amount of relative motion blur between background and limo. As far the ratio I am just noting the difference in shutter speeds and the resulting difference in the amount of motion blur of 1/35 sec shutter speed vs 1/100 in any single frame. As I said before this subject is a challenge to envision so I may be misunderstanding some of the points you and others trying to make.

 I realized something today. Although I can get a slowing limo to appear in each frame as if it traveled at 8 mph by altering the location of the limo there would still be a motion blur problem. When I start to insert original frames (6,8,10,13) they will have less motion blur because the limo was moving slower and slower in the hypothetical film, By frame 13 it would be slowed to 2mph showing far less motion blur.  All the frames inserted after hypothetical fr 13 would also show only 2 mph speed and the blur would be inconsistent with the created illusion of the limo continuing at 7 mph.
The altering process would now have to include some cut and paste work to the frames in question. Maybe 50 frames would have the background cut and motion blur added, then re pasted back to the frame. Not really too difficult but another step. I suspect as we spitball this theory it may get to complicated to be realistic. But so far it looks workable.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Richard Price writes:

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There are many plausible reasons depending on who made the alteration(s).  The very first and most important is that they wanted to remove evidence that was readily discernible to anyone seeing the film (shot or shots).

Yes, of course the general reason for making any alterations would most likely have been to conceal incriminating evidence, such as evidence of more than one gunman, or of a shot from the front, or of complicity by the Secret Service agent who was driving the car.

My point was that if someone is claiming that a specific alteration was made, the onus is on them to provide (amongst other things) a plausible motive for whoever is supposed to have made that alteration. Most of the claims about alterations don't do this. See, for example, the recent claim that one of the cars in the motorcade was depicted back to front. What reason could anyone have had to depict the car the wrong way round? Alternatively, if the back-to-front car was an unintentional by-product of an alteration done for some unrelated reason, what sort of alteration might have produced that result?

Questions like these would be obvious to anyone who is serious about finding out whether the film is authentic or altered. But these questions are rarely even considered by most of the people who make these claims. Most of these people either don't understand or don't care. Hence my remark about this being more like a game than a serious attempt to discover the truth.

As we've seen on this forum, almost all the claims of alteration involve nothing more than anomaly-spotting. Someone decides that something doesn't look quite right, then fails to search for a non-sinister explanation, doesn't bother to consider why anyone would have wanted to make that particular alteration or even whether it was technically possible, declares that the anomaly is due to deliberate alteration, and, job done, moves onto spotting the next anomaly. This is the sort of simplistic, amateurish approach taken by flat-earthers and moon-landings deniers.

These claims contribute nothing worthwhile, and they make serious critics of the lone-gunman idea look ridiculous by association.

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Your #1 reason is shown in all the blurs, artifacts, splices missing frames and anomalies that are in the film at just the right instance and place.

The point I've been trying to make is that if someone is making a claim like this, it really is up to them to demonstrate that the defect in question is the result of alteration. Merely pointing out that the film contains "blurs, artifacts, splices missing frames and anomalies" doesn't do this. There is no justification for simply assuming that any apparent defects in the film are due to alteration. In each case, it needs to be demonstrated.

To take Richard's example that I've just quoted, the claim seems to be that all of these apparent defects occur at "just the right" locations in the film. Well, do they? That needs to be demonstrated, not merely asserted. What makes a particular location in the film "just the right" location? Presumably each of these locations contained incriminating evidence that needed to be disguised or destroyed. What incriminating evidence would that have been, in each case? How might that particular alteration have been done, in each case? Was the alteration technically feasible, in each case? More importantly, does a plausible everyday explanation exist? If it does, why not use it?

If a specific claim of alteration is to be taken seriously, these sorts of questions need to be answered. They rarely are, and even on those rare occasions, the answers haven't stood up to analysis (see, for example, the claim that the film was altered because it showed the car stopping).

After 30 years of trying, no-one has yet demonstrated that any specific alteration has taken place. No-one has even come up with a plausible specific reason for altering the film. If there's no serious evidence that it was altered, and no serious reason why it should have been altered, the notion that the film was altered is no better than a faith-based belief.

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the people working on this film were not the junior, inexperienced and untrained personnel. 

According to David Wrone, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003), p.35:

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As part of their processing, they [Life magazine] made a copy of the color original. This job was assigned to a young man just learning his trade, who accidentally broke the film, destroying frames 208 through 211. He spliced frame 207 to frame 212, a routine repair that normally leaves a dark line across the image. He salvaged the top portion of frame 212 and pasted that onto the bottom of frame 208. Here the dark repair line is much cruder than is typical, with the top half of a tree in the background glaringly out of alignment with its bottom half.

Wrone cites an interview with Richard Stolley in an MPI video from 1998, Image of an Assassination. I'm not aware of any source that contradicts Wrone's account, but I'm happy to be corrected.

This would be a perfect opportunity to put things to the test! Is anyone convinced that this splice was caused by deliberate alteration? If you are, can you demonstrate that deliberate alteration is a more credible explanation for this splice than technical incompetence? Can you come up with a plausible reason why someone might have wanted to destroy those specific frames, given that copies had already been made of those frames and the only parts missing from the copies are the sprocket hole areas? Remember: if you are claiming that the film was deliberately altered, it's up to you to prove it.

[Paul Bacon]

54 minutes ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Remember: if you are claiming that the film was deliberately altered, it's up to you to prove it.

I don't think anyone in this thread disputes that Jeremy.

What this spitballing is doing is trying to rectify what the Z film shows with eyewitness testimony and Parkland observations.  Once a potential alteration idea is formed, then it gets subject to all the tests you're talking about.

You're jumping the gun.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Bacon writes:

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I don't think anyone in this thread disputes that Jeremy.

Maybe not in this thread, which is about the technical aspects of any alteration, but if you look at the last 30 years of alteration claims you'll find plenty of people who genuinely don't seem to understand that to prove alteration, you need to do more than merely point out an apparent anomaly. See, for example, the laughably flimsy recent claims that Phil Willis had an extra-long leg, and that the white car in the motorcade was back to front.

You'll also find plenty of people who genuinely do not understand that it is up to them to prove their claims, and that it isn't up to anyone else to disprove those claims.

The level of proof required is surely the level that would satisfy a reasonable, open-minded member of the public, not the level that would satisfy someone whose mind was already made up. After three decades, no-one has come close to finding the necessary level of proof, which suggests that such proof probably doesn't exist.

Are there any good reasons to think that such proof will ever be found? If so, how long might it take? Another 30 years? At what point might a devout alteration believer finally accept that the elusive proof probably doesn't exist?

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What this spitballing is doing is trying to rectify [reconcile] what the Z film shows with eyewitness testimony and Parkland observations.

As far as I can tell, the two main supposed areas of discrepancy are (a) the car-stop witnesses versus the three or four home movies that show the car not stopping, and (b) the nature of the head wound.

I presume no-one takes the car-stop claim seriously any more. It's simply yet another instance of a small number of witnesses being mistaken: http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street.

As for the head wound, the supposed discrepancy between the Zapruder film's depiction and the Parkland doctors' recollections is nowhere near as substantial as some people claim. See chapters 13 onwards at Pat Speer's website: https://www.patspeer.com/.

In each case, a plausible non-sinister explanation exists for the supposed discrepancy. If you can explain something using an everyday explanation such as witnesses being mistaken, there's no justification for coming up with an intrinsically less likely explanation such as teams of Bad Guys seizing and altering home movies and photographs, no matter how exciting it might be to imagine these things.

To anyone looking at the question objectively, the existence of a plausible everyday explanation is the end of the matter.

[Paul Bacon]

The difference between us is that you start with the premise that the Z film is original and unaltered and I start with the premise that it has been altered, and we both work from our own position.

I've been studying the issues around the Z film for decades, with my own eyes, my own instincts, my own intelligence and and my own reason.  Whenever someone posits something peculiar about the Z film, I apply my own tests.  I am not automatically swayed.  And I don't need to convince anyone.

As of now, there is no definitive proof either way.  And no one, of any serious nature, is claiming they have proof.  What many are doing, is speculating.  I applaud the speculation because it often reveals previously unknown data.  This is a work in progress.

You seem to take the position that anyone who feels the Z film has been altered are nut jobs.  They are not.  Most are intelligent, reasoned, and open minded, seeking to find the truth.  Your demand that people provide proof is jumping the gun.  We're not there yet.

 

[John Butler]

On 4/15/2022 at 6:37 PM, Chris Bristow said:

I find the Parkland issue to be the most convincing circumstantial evidence.

Chris,

Witness testimony or a first hand report is considered direct evidence.  This is from the net, "Direct evidence is often used in court terminology to describe evidence that straightforwardly supports the guilt or innocence of a person on trial. Unlike circumstantial evidence, which asks the judge or jury to infer reasonable conclusions, this form of evidence can stand on its own, and does not require any presumption. Video, tape recordings, and some types of witness testimony can be used as direct evidence to support a claim." 

[John Butler]

On 4/16/2022 at 4:16 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Most of the claims about alterations don't do this. See, for example, the recent claim that one of the cars in the motorcade was depicted back to front.

That is not a claim.  It is something anyone can see in the film.  As far as providing a motive for it.  One can do that generally or not at all.  The proof of the alteration is enough to condemn the film as altered.  It is just one of many examples of alteration. 

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

The level of proof required is surely the level that would satisfy a reasonable, open-minded member of the public, not the level that would satisfy someone whose mind was already made up. After three decades, no-one has come close to finding the necessary level of proof, which suggests that such proof probably doesn't exist.

Talk about someone whose mind is made up!  If you convince yourself that someone has to provide proof beyond what they have provided and consistently ask for proof as if it hasn't been provided, then those kind of statements can be made to seem reasonable.

[Chris Bristow]

7 hours ago, John Butler said:

Chris,

Witness testimony or a first hand report is considered direct evidence.  This is from the net, "Direct evidence is often used in court terminology to describe evidence that straightforwardly supports the guilt or innocence of a person on trial. Unlike circumstantial evidence, which asks the judge or jury to infer reasonable conclusions, this form of evidence can stand on its own, and does not require any presumption. Video, tape recordings, and some types of witness testimony can be used as direct evidence to support a claim." 

Thanks for that. I had learned that once and forgot it.

[John Butler]

Chris,

Thanks for your reply.  It strengthens your hand when you speak of that topic.  When Dr. Perry said the wound was a wound of entrance, then that is direct evidence.  When one of the doctors placed his hand on the back of his head in explaining where the wound was, that is direct evidence.  The Parkland doctors were telling the truth as they knew it.  There are those who will make all kinds of outrageous claims denying what they said.  But, that's just it.  Outrageous claims.

That type of evidence would be accepted in court and be meaningful.  

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Bacon writes:

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The difference between us is that you start with the premise that the Z film is original and unaltered and I start with the premise that it has been altered, and we both work from our own position.

No, the premise I start with is that until someone demonstrates otherwise, there is no good reason to suppose that the film was altered. That isn't the same as assuming that it definitely was not altered.

It seems entirely irrational to start with the premise that the film was altered. Home movies do not, as a rule, get maliciously altered. It's an interesting admission on your part, but why would you start with the premise that this particular film has been altered?

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As of now, there is no definitive proof either way.

Correct. But it's important to remember that only one side needs to provide proof. The default position is that home movies should be considered authentic until proven otherwise, just as the default position is that someone accused of shooting a president should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

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And no one, of any serious nature, is claiming they have proof.  What many are doing, is speculating.

Some people have indeed claimed to have proof that the film has been altered: John Butler, for example. He has just repeated his claim that trivial anomalies in poor-quality copies constitutes proof of alteration. As you correctly point out, no definitive proof of alteration has yet been discovered, and it's just speculation.

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You seem to take the position that anyone who feels the Z film has been altered are nut jobs.

No, not all of these people are nut jobs, although one does tend to wonder about how strong a grip on reality someone like Jack 'the moon landings were faked' White had.

What many people within the JFK assassination bubble don't seem to appreciate is how this stuff looks to the average rational, open-minded person with no great interest in the assassination. To these people, some of the flimsy, speculative claims of alteration must look no different to the ravings of flat-earthers and moon-landings deniers.

If the case is ever going to get reopened, it'll be necessary to get the general public on board. As long as JFK assassination enthusiasts are wasting their time with dead-end stuff like alteration, the media won't have much trouble convincing the general public that the assassination is not something serious people bother with.

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Your demand that people provide proof is jumping the gun.  We're not there yet.

The earliest claim of alteration I'm aware of was in an article published in 1984, nearly 40 years ago. The craze seems to have taken off in the early 90s, when characters like Jack 'no planes hit the World Trade Center' White and James 'Sandy Hook was a false flag operation' Fetzer got involved.

People have been searching for proof of alteration for 30 years or more. As Paul says, we're not there yet. But what are the chances we'll ever get there? Will there ever come a time when proof of alteration will be found?

How much longer is Paul willing to wait? Ten years? Twenty? At some point, you have to conclude that probably no such proof will ever be found, and that there will never be a good reason to suppose that the film was altered.

If the two main sources of discrepancies (the car-stop witnesses and the head wounds witnesses) each have plausible non-sinister explanations, what else is there that might provide proof of alteration? If there is nothing else, why keep wasting your time with this stuff?

[Ron Bulman]

Zapruder told the Warren Commission he Did film the limo turning from Houston onto Elm.  That's straight from the horse's mouth, the guy who filmed it.  Where is That at in the version we see today?

Edited April 19, 2022 by Ron Bulman