Zapruder Film Alteration Synopsis

[Paul Bacon]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

I'm not aware of Rather saying anything about JFK's head moving forward before moving backward. John Kelin's article, 'Forward with Considerable Violence', includes transcripts of Rather's first two interviews. Neither transcript includes any mention of the forward head movement occurring before a backward head movement:

The violent forward head movement was what Rather observed when he saw the original film, I believe (not sure) on Saturday morning.  I think Cartha DeLoache, when he saw the original, made the same observation--he said so at some point--I studied this stuff more than 10 years ago and can't remember a lot of the details.

Doug Horne's theory is that the rest of that forward motion is excised, and that the back and to the left was an artifact of frame removal.  In other words, the back and to the left, was sped up as a result of frame removal.  (This may be why Rather didn't make the observation of "a violent back and to the left" as well--the movement didn't seem as egregious as the movement caused by the shot from behind.)  Further, there was nothing the technicians could do about it--it was an imperfect alteration--they had little time--they needed to hide the fact of "so many shots at one split instant".  And that's why the film was suppressed (among other reasons) for so long.

Regarding the picture that Andrej posted, it came from Sydney Wilkenson's work on the film in California--https://www.facebook.com/groups/JFK.thecontinuinginquiry/posts/2497783120274368/

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Paul Bacon

[Sean Coleman]

7 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

Interesting color changes & blob movements.

 

….on Jackie too, especially 311, 315 & 316?

[Chris Davidson]

4 hours ago, Paul Bacon said:

The violent forward head movement was what Rather observed when he saw the original film, I believe (not sure) on Saturday morning.  I think Cartha DeLoache, when he saw the original, made the same observation--he said so at some point--I studied this stuff more than 10 years ago and can't remember a lot of the details.

Doug Horne's theory is that the rest of that forward motion is excised, and that the back and to the left was an artifact of frame removal.  In other words, the back and to the left, was sped up as a result of frame removal.  (This may be why Rather didn't make the observation of "a violent back and to the left" as well--the movement didn't seem as egregious as the movement caused by the shot from behind.)  Further, there was nothing the technicians could do about it--it was an imperfect alteration--they had little time--they needed to hide the fact of "so many shots at one split instant".  And that's why the film was suppressed (among other reasons) for so long.

Regarding the picture that Andrej posted, it came from Sydney Wilkenson's work on the film in California--https://www.facebook.com/groups/JFK.thecontinuinginquiry/posts/2497783120274368/

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hKVp5-bwYU6JD0glP6sFQjhVkohr4ucd/view?usp=sharing

Sorry about the initial link. The default preference for sharing changed on me.

The link should be fine now.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Chris Davidson

[Michael Crane]

6 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

 

See Thompson's 'Last Second in Dallas' chapter 6 "A Matter of Reasonable Doubt" pgs 85-90.  Tink photographed Zapruder transparencies of individual frames in Time's office.

I'm aware of the individual frames.I would be skeptical of what I have just said also,but I am willing to go under oath about what I said.They talked about the frames and the film.Josiah did not like the restrictions or the legalities and said that he made a copy of the film for himself.

I said CSPAN on my other post,or it could have been on CNN also.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Michael Crane

[Michael Crane]

Here is what I was looking for.Go ahead and skip until about 1:21:00 and listen & tell me what you hear.

"3 weeks later,I snuck a camera into the Time Life building and made a copy of the Zapruder film"

 

https://www.c-span.org/video/?80107-1/jfk-assassination-film-status

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Michael Crane

[Sandy Larsen]

21 hours ago, Paul Bacon said:

The violent forward head movement was what Rather observed when he saw the original film, I believe (not sure) on Saturday morning.  I think Cartha DeLoache, when he saw the original, made the same observation--he said so at some point--I studied this stuff more than 10 years ago and can't remember a lot of the details.

Doug Horne's theory is that the rest of that forward motion is excised, and that the back and to the left was an artifact of frame removal.  In other words, the back and to the left, was sped up as a result of frame removal.  (This may be why Rather didn't make the observation of "a violent back and to the left" as well--the movement didn't seem as egregious as the movement caused by the shot from behind.)  Further, there was nothing the technicians could do about it--it was an imperfect alteration--they had little time--they needed to hide the fact of "so many shots at one split instant".  And that's why the film was suppressed (among other reasons) for so long.

 

Thanks Paul for explaining that so plainly yet eloquently. But good luck in getting Jeremy and Jonathan to understand it.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Bacon writes:

Quote

Doug Horne's theory is that the rest of that forward motion is excised, and that the back and to the left was an artifact of frame removal. In other words, the back and to the left, was sped up as a result of frame removal.

Yes, I understand what Horne is claiming. What I'm claiming is that Horne is trying to explain something that doesn't need explaining.

Horne's explanation is only necessary if frames of the film were removed. But, as I've already demonstrated, the balance of the evidence gives us no good reason to assume that frames were removed.

Two hypothetical events have been put forward that required frames of the film to be removed. Each hypothetical event is supported only by a minority of witnesses. There's no justification for supposing that either event actually happened:

• The car stop: supported by only a small minority of witnesses, and contradicted by a large majority of witnesses and four home movies which show that the car merely slowed down a little.
• The 'violent' forward head movement: supported by a small number of witnesses, but not mentioned by the majority of witnesses, and not shown by any of the home movies.

Take away those two claims, and there's no need for the 'back and to the left' head movement to be explained as an unintended by-product of frames being removed. The default explanation works perfectly well: the film shows it because it actually happened.

Horne invented a complex explanation when a far simpler one existed. The extra complexity is not needed.

Quote

it was an imperfect alteration ... And that's why the film was suppressed (among other reasons) for so long

The film was suppressed mainly to keep the general public from knowing about the very obvious 'back and to the left' head movement. It was suppressed not to hide an imperfect alteration, but to hide a real event.

Again, when it comes to explaining the suppression of the film, we have a choice between a complex explanation and a simple explanation. The only rational choice is to go with the simpler explanation: the film was suppressed because it depicted something that actually happened.

You could also argue that the film was suppressed to keep the public from questioning a couple of other aspects of the lone-gunman theory that are contradicted less obviously by the film:

• the timing of Connally's wounds, which fails to clearly support the single-bullet theory and may contradict it;
• and the speed of the car's journey down Elm Street, which sets a limit on the time available for the shooting.

If frames were removed, these items of evidence can no longer be used against the lone-gunman theory. In particular, if the Zapruder film doesn't depict the speed of the car accurately there would be no way to stop a lone-gunman advocate claiming that there was plenty of time for three shots to be fired from the sixth-floor rifle.

If frames were removed from the Zapruder film, the lone-gunman theory becomes more difficult to disprove.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 5/9/2022 at 8:47 PM, Jonathan Cohen said:

That black patch is not evident on any copy of the film I have ever seen,

 

That's because the colors of the frames you've seen aren't on a  logarithmic scale like the colors of the frame Andrej posted are.

 

22 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

If anyone wants to demonstrate that a black patch exists, the first thing you need to do is to show that it clearly exists in the best quality copy that's available.

 

That's precisely what Andrej did in the post above that you're addressing. The frame he posted is from a 6k resolution copy of a 3rd generation (32 mm) copy of the Zapruder film. The logarithmic scale makes black patches easier to see

 

[Paul Bacon]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Yes, I understand what Horne is claiming. What I'm claiming is that Horne is trying to explain something that doesn't need explaining.

Oh, but something does need to be explained.

Doug is trying to rectify what Dino Brugioni told him versus what we see in the Zap film.  And I think Doug's speculation makes perfect sense.

I find Dino's testimony to be highly, highly, credible.  I've put myself in his shoes.  He would never have a foggy memory about his briefing board event (save for a few minor details), because it was so momentus--and he was shocked by what he saw.

Leaving his recollections about what he saw in the film aside, the fact of the two briefing board events alone, require an explaination.

In my opinion, Doug Horne is an impeccable researcher.

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

Paul, I agree with your comments about Doug Horne and Dino Brugioni.  Doug has contibuted greatly to our knowledge of the JFK Assassination.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Paul Bacon writes:

Quote

Doug is trying to rectify [reconcile?] what Dino Brugioni told him versus what we see in the Zap film.  And I think Doug's speculation makes perfect sense.

It only makes perfect sense if you start with a quasi-religious belief that the film was altered. If you look at the evidence objectively, Horne's speculation makes no sense at all, because a far simpler explanation exists that requires much less speculation.

It makes no sense to use a complex and incoherent explanation (a team of people removed an unspecified number of frames for no good reason, in a way that evaded detection by expert examiners, in order to create a film that supported the lone-gunman theory, only to end up creating a film that refuted the lone-gunman theory) when a much simpler and entirely coherent explanation exists (what the film shows is what actually happened: JFK getting shot by more than one gunman from more than one direction).

Quote

Leaving his recollections about what he saw in the film aside, the fact of the two briefing board events alone, require an explaination.

Roland Zavada has demonstrated that the unslit film received by NPIC was a first-generation copy, not the original film. He also demonstrates that the alterations Horne proposed could not have been done in the time available, and that any such alterations would contain detectable defects which the film at NARA does not contain. See the document I've linked to several times, but which people don't seem to have bothered to read: 

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

Can Paul point to any problems with Zavada's analysis? If he can't, the first point alone refutes Horne's claim: because Brugioni and McMahon did not have access to the original Zapruder film, there's nothing to see here.

On the subject of unreliable recollections, I presume Paul now accepts that the car stop witnesses and the 'violent' forward movement witnesses were mistaken. In each case, these witnesses were in a small minority. In each case, many more witnesses would have seen what the minority claimed to have seen, but failed to corroborate their claims. Not only that, but four home movies failed to show the car stopping, and three home movies failed to show the 'violent' forward movement. The only rational conclusion is that the car didn't stop and JFK's head didn't move violently forward.

If Paul (or anyone else) doesn't accept that these minority witnesses were mistaken, he needs to explain why we should believe what they say when much stronger evidence indicates that we shouldn't believe them. An explanation along the lines of "but I desperately want the film to be a fake!" isn't good enough.

If the car-stop didn't happen and JFK's head didn't move violently forward, there would have been no need for any frames to be removed. And if no frames were removed, there's no need for Horne to explain away the 'back and to the left' movement. The film shows the 'back and to the left' movement because that's what actually happened.

So much for frame-removal. That leaves us with the possibility that someone painted over a hole in the back of the head. But the only evidence we have for that seems to be a processed copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of one frame with a blob in it.

There's still the idea that a section of the film was removed to disguise something to do with the car's turn onto Elm Street. Has anyone managed to work out what the problem might have been with the turn onto Elm Street? What is supposed to have happened that required that part of the film to be removed?

[Paul Bacon]

23 hours ago, Paul Bacon said:

Oh, but something does need to be explained.

Doug is trying to rectify what Dino Brugioni told him versus what we see in the Zap film.  And I think Doug's speculation makes perfect sense.

I find Dino's testimony to be highly, highly, credible.  I've put myself in his shoes.  He would never have a foggy memory about his briefing board event (save for a few minor details), because it was so momentus--and he was shocked by what he saw.

Leaving his recollections about what he saw in the film aside, the fact of the two briefing board events alone, require an explaination.

In my opinion, Doug Horne is an impeccable researcher.

 

Jeremy, your last post was a long, long, diversion.  I will read Zavada's rebutle to Horne's chapter 4, but it is beside the point I'm making--as was your post.  How do you and Zavada explain Dino Brugioni's observations?  Faulty memory?--not a chance.  So there's where we disagree.

You are aware of the two NPIC events, are you not?

[Gene Kelly]

Ron:

Thanks for creating this thread and summarizing the complex story of the Zapruder film.  As with many subtopics in the assassination, it's difficult to wade through and is passionately debated on both sides of the alteration "fence".  Dino Brugioni and Doug Horne are (imho) credible and compelling witnesses to the factual evidence.  Like other controversial assassination subtopics (e.g., Oswald, the Paine's, the autopsy), the film's provenance and handling are simply fishy.

In fact, there's something 'off' about Zapruder himself, and how his film came to be the centerpiece, that I cannot wrap my arms around (call it an instinct) ... but that's a more difficult two-beer discussion.  Some speculate that that the additional sum of $100,000 that Time Inc. agreed to pay Zapruder the following Monday, in a new contract was in reality “hush money,” in exchange for his silence for the change in image content.  Why on earth would authorities allow a media conglomerate to purchase the exclusive print rights for such an important piece of evidence?  And yet that happened the very next morning, less than twenty-four hours after the assassination ... and then the film is kept from the public for the next 12 years.  The renegotiated contract (highly unusual) gave Time the motion picture rights which it did not acquire in the first contract on Saturday, but - after paying the considerable amount - Time never commercially exhibited the Zapruder film as a motion picture.  Further, the payments to Zapruder were made in $25,000 increments, after the first of every year, through 1968.  Suppression of evidence and very fishy indeed.  

You make several very good points, including the fact that experts have examined the extant film digitally, frame by frame in high resolution, and every one of them conclude that the film is not only an altered film, but a badly altered film.  The following comment can be found on Jefferson Morley's website:

A chunk of the footage is literally just dropped without explanation; the motion blur doesn’t match from frame-to-frame; the image is zoomed-in and cropped down to remove everything in front of the limo during the kill shots: a big sign appears and blocks everything (without obeying physics). The entire film has the image resolution of a child’s watercolor painting ... it does not compare to a professional 35mm Hollywood effects job.

Besides what is obviously missing on the extant film (e.g., additional frames of the head shot, Jackie's reactions, the limousine stop), I would add the following to the list:

1. The differences between the “Brugioni” NPIC event (Saturday evening) and the “McMahon” NPIC event (Sunday evening) call into question the true chain-of-custody of the Zapruder film the weekend of the assassination. 
2. Richard Stolley’s recollection that the original film went to LIFE’s printing plant in Chicago on Saturday for immediate processing, warrants reexamination. The original was most likely diverted after it arrived in Chicago and sent to D.C., arriving at NPIC at about 10 PM (per Dino Brugioni’s recollection).
3. The 8 mm camera original was apparently flown to Hawkeye Works early Sunday morning, after enlargement prints had been made for the McCone briefing boards.  The CIA’s lab technicians would have had most of the day to remove whatever was objectionable in the film, as well as to add the painted-on exit wound consistent with the enlarged, altered head wound depicted in the autopsy photos.
4. Brugioni, during his 2009 interviews, recalled that the Secret Service agents who arrived with the film at NPIC on November 23rd, and who directed the analysis of the film, paid particular attention to the portion which showed the limousine just ahead of the Stemmons sign, its subsequent disappearance behind the sign, and then the frames after it reappeared. 
5. Captain Sands, NPIC’s Deputy Director, called in Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter to perform the work required by “Bill Smith” of the Secret Service, who then forbade both McMahon and Hunter from discussing their work with any of their NPIC colleagues (including Brugioni). The fact that the same work crew was not used on Sunday night reveals that a covert compartmentalized operation was afoot.
6. A 1975 CIA presentation on the NPIC analysis (to the Rockefeller Commission) - replete with sketchy dates and little documentation - appears to have been a conscious decision to obscure the NPIC analysis.  The CIA summary implies that NPIC relied on timing/frame numbers printed in LIFE Magazine, deflecting attention away from the actual analysis done, and to the Secret Service’s supposed sole responsibility for any analysis. 
7. The documents that came out of the Belin-Rockefeller investigation of the CIA show that the agency did not begin its study of the movie until after photographs had appeared in LIFE. The NPIC analysis had effectively disappeared from the record.  
8. The only “documentation” that the Zapruder film was in Rochester at Hawkeyeworks are the six interviews conducted by the ARRB staff (by David Horne and others) with Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter.  Most compelling, McMahon, during his 1990s ARRB interviews, stated that it was his impression that JFK reacted to "6 to 8 shots fired from at least three directions". 

I have attached some pictures taken a few years back while visiting Rochester that (at least for me) create a sinister feeling about the Hawkeyeworks location ... what possible valid reason would there be to send the film there that weekend, other than for alteration and coverup?  

Gene

[Rick McTague]

On 5/9/2022 at 9:07 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Thanks, Andrej.  I've never seen the black patch quite this clearly.  As Paul Bacon asks, where did you find it?  As Horne notes, it's no wonder film experts find it not only altered, but poorly altered.

 

I think it is very important to note two alterations here: one being the black blob to conceal the occipital exit wound that was seen by many at Parkland, and two being the huge red - orange flap added to the right temple area which NO ONE saw at Parkland.

[Jonathan Cohen]

7 hours ago, Rick McTague said:

I think it is very important to note two alterations here: one being the black blob to conceal the occipital exit wound that was seen by many at Parkland, and two being the huge red - orange flap added to the right temple area which NO ONE saw at Parkland.

No one saw the right temple flap at Parkland because per her own testimony, Jackie Kennedy pressed it back together while in the limousine on the way to the hospital. This damage is clearly evident on the autopsy x-rays.