Prayer Man

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

On the off-chance Oswald is Prayer Man, people have recombined all the evidence so that Oswald was not where the witnesses said he was--at the location suggesting his innocence--but was instead somewhere where no one saw him.

 

I don't know about Bart and his camp, but I didn't start off looking for evidence for (or against) PM. What got me started was noting that the first-day statement of Baker didn't match the official story of the second-floor encounter. There are numerous differences.

Then one day a researcher commented that it didn't look to him like Baker -- in his mad dash across Elm Extension-- was even headed toward the TSBD steps (in the Darnell film). I developed and gave a presentation proving that Baker actually changed course toward the Houston/Elm intersection just before the film ends.

Tommy Graves and I then went through an elaborate process for locating Gloria Calvery, which we eventually accomplished. From this I was able to show that both Billy Lovelady and Bill Shelley lied and kept changing their stories till it included their supposedly witnessing Victoria Adams exiting the stairwell SEVERAL MINUTES later than what she had said. Thus discrediting her account, which had otherwise challenged the official story of Oswald running down the stairs to the second floor after the shooting.

The whole second-floor encounter had been fabricated in order to account for Oswald's location. It was put on the second floor because it would have been possible to get there from the snipers nest in the allotted time.

It was only after making these conclusion that I began to believe that PM might actually be Oswald.

It wasn't till no other candidate for PM could be found, and the Hosty note was found, that I finally decided that PM probably was Oswald. But really, there is no reason to depend on PM being Oswald to conclude that Oswald was out there watching the p. parade.

 

[Roger Odisio]

Nice summary, Sandy.

I see the search for the truth having 2 distinct parts:  (1) Was Oswald on the 6th floor at the time of the shooting? and (2) If not, where was he?

The answer to (1) seems clearly no.  Garner is even more important to this part than Adams.  The WC induced Lovelady and Shelley to lie about when they first saw Adams on the first floor so they could claim that she didn't see Oswald come down the stairs because he had already done so.  When Barry Ernest tracked down Adams years later, she had no idea what the WC had done to her testimony. They ignored Styles altogether because she would have corroborated the the timing of Adams' story.

Likewise they only briefly contacted Garner and left her out of the report because her recollection would have completely destroyed their second floor fabrication.  Garner remained on the 4th floor while Adams and Styles went down the stairs.  She was still there to see Truly and a cop (it's not clear to me who the cop was) come up.  No Oswald.

To me, that's enough to blow up the WR by itself and require a reckoning with the truth. 

A clear identification of Oswald as Prayerman would also by itself devastate the WR, but at the moment that seems more problematic.  It's worth the effort though, and it's gratifying to see the number of people with a wide spectrum of opinions on Oswald's guilt who want to see Prayerman resolved.  

[Pat Speer]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Third comment from the bottom: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t587p800-prayer-man. 

I'm relatively neutral in this debate. It's not my intention to stir anything up here, and I do see your point that having two completely different and competing theories of Oswald's alibi can be counterproductive. However, I don't think the subjective interpretation of certain items of evidence by Murphy, Kamp, etc. is any less speculative than some of the interpretations in chapter 4 of your website. The evidence in many cases could really go either way.

For example, Baker's story of spotting a glimpse of Oswald through the window on the second floor is absolutely questionable - the layout and mechanism of the lunchroom vestibule door, the timing aspect, the whole thing strains credulity unless 1) Oswald was walking toward the door from the second floor office; or 2) The whole thing was a fantasy. It's a real problem, and for the encounter to have happened the way the WC said it did requires such an incredible alignment of events that it's pretty reasonable IMO to question it, and the witnesses that support it. 

That's not really my point though. My point is that the original films exist, and the chance, however minute, that PM is Oswald is worth verifying simply due to the fact that it would immediately reopen the JFK case, and if it isn't Oswald a lot of serious resources and brainpower would be redirected to more important research. Maybe I'm naive since I'm relatively new to this, but endlessly arguing over PM seems like a distraction. The goal should be to coordinate efforts on both sides of the debate toward obtaining high-definition scans of the original films, and if it isn't Oswald I'd hope everyone could just get over it and move on. If your goal is to debunk PM, the only way to really do that is by getting the scans. It's an achievable goal, but it'd be a lot more achievable if people other than those already advocating for the PM theory got behind it and got involved. Getting a better photographic record of Dealey Plaza should be of interest to everyone, as should the truth about PM, regardless of whoever it turns out to be. 

Let me be clear. I supported the investigation into Prayer Man when it first popped up on this forum. When I began to offer some alternatives to the "man" being Oswald, however, I saw that those smitten with the idea it was Oswald were not nearly as open-minded. They had solved the case. They then began tearing apart every part of the "official" narrative that conflicted with their belief, and attacking every person, including me, who questioned their belief. It was most disturbing and a huge distraction from the investigation of the case, IMO. So I took a back seat and waited for their zeal to die down. I thought that in time better versions of the films would become available and people would see for themselves that they'd been seeing what they'd wanted to see. Or not. I had no dog in the hunt. If it turned out to be Oswald in the films I would have been surprised, but not displeased. 

Well, then a few years back--I think it was about four--I heard that a clear version of the Darnell film had been screened and that some of the top researchers were convinced the film showed Oswald. It was guaranteed to me that this film would soon be made available to everyone, and that I too would be convinced. But then nothing happened. And nothing happened. When I finally went back to my source and asked what was up, he told me that at least one CT in the position to make the film available had refused to do so, as he was unimpressed by the film. Now this was like two years ago that I heard this. In the years since no forward progress has been made regarding the images, but the fervent belief in Prayer Man has not dwindled. To my mind it's time to put up or shut up. Instead of finding ways to twist what we thought we knew to fit the possibility the films show Oswald, someone needs to step up and make the films available. It can be done. I have every confidence. 

Because my own story tells me it can be done. At one point I was obsessed with the possibility the supposedly light brown shirt in the archives was in fact the reddish shirt Oswald claimed he'd worn to work on the 22nd. So I nagged the archives into selling me color pictures of this shirt. I was fed a lot of crap, but eventually prevailed and got the pictures I needed. And yes, they proved the shirt was in fact a reddish shirt and almost certainly the shirt Oswald claimed he'd worn to work. At another point I was obsessed with the neutron analysis performed on Oswald's cheek casts. These tests were performed to see if Oswald had fired a rifle on 11-22-63, but the FBI said these tests were tainted by having too much barium on the control side. Well, this made little sense. What about the other ingredient of gunshot residue, antimony? What were the numbers for antimony? If the numbers for antimony were low, it would suggest Oswald's innocence, no matter how much barium was on the flip side. Unfortunately, however, the FBI's expert, John Gallagher, failed to mention these numbers in his testimony. Well, from reading Harold Weisberg's book Post Mortem, I came to realize that he had sued the government for access to the working papers for these tests, and had succeeded. They just dumped a box off at his door, if I recall. Well, this led me to contact the Librarian at Hood Library, where Weisberg's papers were kept, to see if she could find these papers and make them available to me for a price. She agreed. And sure enough, she came through. A few weeks later I received a CD-rom in the mail of the hundreds of pages of documents Weisberg had received about the testing, which had been digitized by an unsung hero named Clay Ogilvie. Included within these papers were the numbers for antimony. They indicated Oswald had not fired a rifle. While I would subsequently learn that, yes, there was a possibility this was a false negative, as the paraffin tests were not performed within the recommended time span, there was no legitimate reason to dismiss these results out of hand and conceal them from the public, as had been done.

The point, then, is that I'm hoping those pissed off by my questioning the evidence for Prayer Man will put their money where their mouth is, and receive and share the access to the films they claim is necessary to prove their case. 

Sadly, however, I'm betting they'll do nothing...other than bitch about me...

Edited August 15, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Paul Bacon]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

The point, then, is that I'm hoping those pissed off by my questioning the evidence for Prayer Man will put their money where their mouth is, and receive and share the access to the films they claim is necessary to prove their case. 

The way you've worded this sentance raises a question for me Pat.

The only people I've seen "pissed off" by your questioning the evidence, are right here on this forum.  Are you saying the people who have the capability to receive and share the access are right here on this forum?  Who is bitching about you?

[Pat Speer]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:23 AM, Paul Bacon said:

The way you've worded this sentance raises a question for me Pat.

The only people I've seen "pissed off" by your questioning the evidence, are right here on this forum.  Are you saying the people who have the capability to receive and share the access are right here on this forum?  Who is bitching about you?

While I have received veiled death threats ("Let me take you out in the woods so I can show you how easy it is to shoot a Carcano") and insults ("May you and yours burn in hell forever!") from those believing Oswald acted alone, the bulk of the insults I've received over the years have come from some zealous CTs, who just can't grasp that anyone can research this case and come to more nuanced conclusions than themselves. I remember receiving a series of emails from someone who was outraged by my "defense" of Gary Mack. I had said that Gary Mack was wrong about a lot of stuff, and had made tremendous mistakes, and was fairly closed-minded, but that he was in many ways an ally to the research community. And this set this guy off. He felt certain that Gary Mack was a paid disinformationist who knew the truth about the assassination (that there was more than one shooter) but had now switched sides and was covering it up. And he sent me numerous emails questioning my integrity, and calling me a this and that. Well, the zeal of some Prayer Man believers matches that of this Gary Mack hater. 

Let me share a little story. As a teen I was determined to stretch my brain. I forced myself to read writers like Freud, Sartre and McLuhan, and study concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics. So, naturally, as a senior, I took a philosophy class. Well, within this class there was bit of a revolt. A dozen or so born-again Christian students tried to turn every discussion into a discussion of religion, and the Bible. So, at one point the teacher decided there should be a debate about the existence of God. I volunteered to make the argument there was no God, or that we can not know if there is a God, or some such thing, while the true believers were to argue for the existence of God. I prepared myself by studying the arguments of Christian philosophers like Augustine, Aquinas, and DesCartes, if I recall. And felt ready. On the day of the "debate" however, the believers failed to put up much of a fight. Outside of the unmoved mover argument, they relied mostly on emotion ("What would be the point of life if there is no God?") and subjective interpretation of photos. That's right. For their grand finale, these guys presented photos of cloud formations they claimed were in the shape of Jesus and insisted these photos proved there was a God. I was like "What the hell?" The final photo, as I recall, was actually the worst. This cloud formation did in fact give the appearance of a man wearing a robe standing at attention. But here's the kicker. There was no head on this man. So I pointed out that there was no way we could know if this was actually Jesus, and they said "Aha! That's where faith comes in!" or some such thing. And then of course I pounced and showed that their argument for the existence of God was built on faith, and not on stone cold logic. 

In any event, my experience with the Prayer Man faithful has been quite similar. They ardently believe they see Oswald in an image. Others including myself look at this same image and see someone who looks more like a frumpy woman. But they insist it must be Oswald, and have done their damnedest to make the case it was Oswald. But their case has not won the day. Many if not most of those following this conflict have decided to wait for better images before coming to a final conclusion. 

So it's time those images are made available. Now, do I personally think these images will be conclusive? Uhh, no. I've been shown photos of clouds that people said were Jesus, and my TSBD TSD tells me the Prayer Man believers will continue to claim it's Oswald in the films, even if the clearest images prove their "man" was wearing a necklace and bracelets and carrying a purse. ("Well, Oswald was in drag, you see...")

While you might think I am being facetious, moreover, sadly, I am not. This forum is polluted by hundreds of pages in which "believers" argued that it was Oswald in the Altgens photo. Never mind that it was Lovelady's face--his face had been added to the photo within minutes of the shooting in a CIA photo alteration trailer parked somewhere in the train yards, you see. And never mind that a number of photos and films from 11-22 proved Lovelady had been wearing the shirt worn by the man in the photo. These photos and films were obvious fakes. In one of these films, moreover, the Lovelady figure was not even Lovelady, and was more akin to a gorilla. 

These arguments took up hundreds of pages and wasted hundreds if not thousands of hours. And killed what can only be assumed were millions of brain cells...

I fear the Prayer Man argument has similarly jumped the rails. Which is why I'm trying to force the issue... 

I will drop out of this thread, but check back in in a few months to see if any progress has been made. I'm betting there will not, but wouldn't mind losing this bet. 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Andrej Stancak]

The conundrum around Prayer Man is frustrating, indeed. The impact of the positive identification of Prayer Man as Lee Oswald would be overwhelming and totally devastating for the Warren Commission report, hence the urgency of this question. Yet, the images themselves do not offer any intuitive confirmation of Prayer Man's identity due to heavy motion blur in most of the frames in Darnell or lack of signal in the critical area of the doorway in Wiegman.

I would just keep cool. We may not be able to answer the question now but it does not mean we would not be able to do so in future. We already have positive data regarding Prayer Man's figure and those bits of data will come handy.

However, I would not bet all my money on a decisive effect of a better, high-resolution copy of either Wiegman or Darnell or both. In Darnell, the problem is mostly the motion blur in most of the frames which problem cannot be alleviated by scanning the frames at a higher resolution. The best of Darnell stills is free of motion blur but it has Prayer Man's face burnt out; there is a chance that a new high-quality scan would retrieve some details in the facial region in this frame, however, this is not a guarantee.

Eventually, the identification of Prayer Man will possibly be based on circumstantial data. This would be similar to the identification of Buell Wesley Frazier in Darnell film. His facial features are not detailed enough to offer unequivocal identification and yet, nobody disputes his identity in Darnell based on details such as: 1. body height and overall body build, 2. shape of his hairline and hair tone, 3. clothing, 4. consistency with his self- and other-people reports of where he was while in the doorway.  The convergent effect of all these features and his testimony are enough to decide, even without a detailed view of his facial features. A similar process can be applied to Prayer Man even with the copies of Darnell/Wiegman film we currently have.

So, what information do we have and what information we can still hope to find out regarding Prayer Man's figure?

1. He was a white Caucasian, excluding as candidates about 20% of general population in Dallas (and a large number of TSBD employees).

2. His hairline matches Type II male baldness pattern. Lee Oswald sported this type of hairline.

3. The top of Prayer Man's head is at the height of 5' 2 1/2'' above the top landing. This height was verified by 3D modelling and independently by comparing the known height of Buell Frazier (6') with Prayer Man's figure. The top of Prayer Man's head aligns with the lower aspect of Frazier's chin, meaning that Prayer Man's top of the head is about 9 1/2'' lower than the top of Frazier's head knowing that the height of human head in a person of Frazier's body height is 9 1/2''. I take the distance of the top of Prayer Man's head from the top landing as a fact.

4. If the top of Prayer Man's head was 5' 2 1/2'' above the top landing, there are only two possibilities as to the overall body height: 1) he stood on the top landing and was therefore a tiny person sized 5' 2 1/2''. 2) he stood on the step below the top landing in which case his body height would be 5' 2 1/2'' + the height of the first step (7 1/4'') giving the total body height of 5' 9 3/4''. 

5. The possibility of Prayer Man being a tiny person standing with both his feet on the top landing would not give Prayer Man's figure as we see it in Darnell. This is because (A) his right elbow would appear to be too far from the brick pillar on the western wall, and (B) his arms would be located too high relative to the arms as seen in Prayer Man. 

6. The solution which came out as the most plausible had Prayer Man standing with his right foot firmly on the first step, no slouching, and his left foot on the top landing with his left leg bent in the knee joint. This stance resembles Lee's stance in a number of his photographs (including the infamous BY photograph), and this stance was amplified by having the feet on two different platforms. The plausibility of this solution can be evaluated by overlaying the realistic model of Lee Oswald with Darnell still. Some Darnell stills show Prayer Man's left leg bent in knee joint. 

7. The body height of 5' 9 3/4'' would fit Lee Oswald's body height of 5' 9'' plus the height of a shoe hill. Of course, there is a limited precision to my estimates, and I would say 1 cm (less than 1/2'') would be the possible error of my height estimates. 

8. As Prayer Man was 5' 9'', he only could be a male because the probability of a female measuring 5'9'' in 1963 is negligible (the normal body height of females in the U.S.A in 1963 was 5'2'' with a standard deviation of 1'').

9. We come to Prayer Man clothes. In Darnell, we see almost a continuous grey throughout his garment from shirt to his trousers. This is consistent with the grey tones of his shirt (CE 151) and Lee's work trousers he had on him on Friday morning. I did a back reconstruction of possible colours which the grey tone of Prayer Man's shirt would yield after adjusting the shade of grey for luminance (the shirt was photographed in the shadow). The most likely colour was  maroon, followed by green and other colours. 

10. The absence of a clear transition between the shirt and trousers on Prayer Man's figure suggests that Prayer Man wore his shirt as a work shirt - with the front facings pulled out of his trousers. Also, we see his bare forearms (both in Darnell and Wiegman), which suggests that the short sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. This man was a manual worker, not a white collar employee or an office lady.

11. Finally, the front faces of Prayer Man's shirt show quite large dark spots which appear to be diagonally shaped, orientated from top right to bottom left. These dark spots may provide the unique identification clue as to who Prayer Man was. Of course, a high-resolution copy of Darnell still would help to delineate this shape better than a low-resolution copy. however, even now it is possible to evaluate the similarity of dark spots on Prayer Man's shirt and on shirt CE151. This task is not trivial at all and while I have posted the highlighted spots in a number of my previous posts, the real work of comparing the dark spots on CE151 with Prayer Man's shirt remains to be done. 

12. And what about the missing self-identification? Unfortunately, this will not be possible to achieve given the nasty treatment Lee Oswald had received from the hands of Dallas Police. Being dead, Lee Oswald cannot identify himself. However, we have Hosty's notes; those notes say what Lee wanted to say - he was initially in Domino room, went to the 2nd floor to get soda, returned back to the first floor and then went to watch P. parade. Thus, did he speak truth, at one point he should have been photographed standing in the doorway. This is just what Darnell and Wiegman films indicate to us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Andrej Stancak

[Pete Mellor]

46 minutes ago, Andrej Stancak said:

So, what information do we have and what information we can still hope to find out regarding Prayer Man's figure?

Andrej, maybe you could add a No13 to your list.

Didn't Marina state that she thought PM was Lee?

[Paul Bacon]

18 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

While I have received veiled death threats ("Let me take you out in the woods so I can show you how easy it is to shoot a Carcano") and insults ("May you and yours burn in hell forever!") from those believing Oswald acted alone, the bulk of the insults I've received over the years have come from some zealous CTs, who just can't grasp that anyone can research this case and come to more nuanced conclusions than themselves. I remember receiving a series of emails from someone who was outraged by my "defense" of Gary Mack. I had said that Gary Mack was wrong about a lot of stuff, and had made tremendous mistakes, and was fairly closed-minded, but that he was in many ways an ally to the research community. And this set this guy off. He felt certain that Gary Mack was a paid disinformationist who knew the truth about the assassination (that there was more than one shooter) but had now switched sides and was covering it up. And he sent me numerous emails questioning my integrity, and calling me a this and that. Well, the zeal of some Prayer Man believers matches that of this Gary Mack hater. 

Let me share a little story. As a teen I was determined to stretch my brain. I forced myself to read writers like Freud, Sartre and McLuhan, and study concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics. So, naturally, as a senior, I took a philosophy class. Well, within this class there was bit of a revolt. A dozen or so born-again Christian students tried to turn every discussion into being a discussion of religion, and the Bible. So, at one point the teacher decided there should be a debate about the existence of God. I volunteered to make the argument there was no God, or that we can not know if there is a God, or some such thing, while the true believers were to argue for the existence of God. I prepared myself by studying the arguments of Christian philosophers like Augustine, Aquinas, and DesCartes, if I recall. And felt ready. On the day of the "debate" however, the believers failed to put up much of a fight. Outside of the unmoved mover argument, they relied mostly on emotion ("What would be the point of life if there is no God?") and subjective interpretation of photos. That's right. For their grand finale, these guys presented photos of cloud formations they claimed were in the shape of Jesus and insisted these photos proved there was a God. I was like "What the hell?" The final photo, as I recall, was actually the worst. This cloud formation did in fact give the appearance of a man wearing a robe standing at attention. But here's the kicker. There was no head on this man. So I pointed out that there was no way we could know if this was actually Jesus, and they said "Aha! That's where faith comes in!" or some such thing. And then of course I pounced and showed that their argument for the existence of God was built on faith, and not on stone cold logic. 

In any event, my experience with the Prayer Man faithful has been quite similar. They ardently believe they see Oswald in an image. Others including myself look at this same image and see someone who looks more like a frumpy woman. But they insist it must be Oswald, and have done their damnedest to make the case it was Oswald. But their case has not won the day. Many if not most of those following this conflict have decided to wait for better images before coming to a final conclusion. 

So it's time those images are made available. Now, do I personally think these images will be conclusive? Uhh, no. I've been shown photos of clouds that people said were Jesus, and my TSBD TSD tells me the Prayer Man believers will continue to claim it's Oswald in the films, even if the clearest images prove their "man" was wearing a necklace and bracelets and carrying a purse. ("Well, Oswald was in drag, you see...")

While you might think I am being facetious, moreover, sadly, I am not. This forum is polluted by hundreds of pages in which "believers" argued that it was Oswald in the Altgens photo. Never mind that it was Lovelady's face--his face had been added to the photo within minutes of the shooting in a CIA photo alteration trailer parked somewhere in the train yards, you see. And never mind that a number of photos and films from 11-22 proved Lovelady had been wearing the shirt worn by the man in the photo. These photos and films were obvious fakes. In one of these films, moreover, the Lovelady figure was not even Lovelady, and was more akin to a gorilla. 

These arguments took up hundreds of pages and wasted hundreds if not thousands of hours. And killed what can only be assumed were millions of brain cells...

I fear the Prayer Man argument has similarly jumped the rails. Which is why I'm trying to force the issue... 

I will drop out of this thread, but check back in in a few months to see if any progress has been made. I'm betting there will not, but wouldn't mind losing this bet. 

 

 

Yeah Pat, I do understand that you've put yourself out there for many years and have taken a lot of heat.  And that, because of your independance and tenacity, you end up asking uncomfortable questions that piss some people off.  I want you to know I have huge respect for your knowledge and independance.  I think what you do is important.

Mostly I'm very curious about the information regarding the clearer version of Darnell (or was it Weigman, or both?).  I'd never heard this story before and I find it fascinating.

When Andrej posted his work, about a year ago, with the program Sketchup (I used to be versed in it having been a building contractor), I was very taken with it.  The 3D capability gives us a lot of information that we wouldn't otherwise have.  Adding to it a clearer version of the photos he worked with, I believe, will give us even more circumstantial information, as Andrej suggests above.  Maybe the clearer version won't give us conclusive proof that Prayerman is Oswald, but it could go a long way in improving our understanding of the circumstances out on the front steps.

Keep up your good work Pat.

 

[Pamela Brown]

On 8/3/2022 at 12:51 AM, Robbie Robertson said:

It’s cool to mention in a btw but again evidence, Fritz note saying that would be helpful or I just take it as assumption 
 

But then, it does look like Lovelady is wearing Lee's shirt...

[Karl Hilliard]

4 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

But then, it does look like Lovelady is wearing Lee's shirt...

As side notes--  https://www.tpaak.com/tpaak-blog/2014/1/2/while-assassination-conspiracy-is-feasible-it-assigns-oswald-some-guilt

 

http://merdist.com/wp/2017/02/08/lovelady-spoke/