Those Front Steps

[Alan Ford]

Friends, for coming up to six decades now, the front steps of the TSBD have been an object of intense scrutiny. Chiefly, this is because of the erroneous belief held by many early critics of the official story that the famous Altgens photograph shows Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald there. It's not Mr. Oswald, of course: it's Mr. Billy Nolan Lovelady-----------

But the controversy over that question meant that the occupants of the front doorway never left the consciousness of the research community for long. And---------------as a result---------------some interesting ideas were generated. Not least.................. the 'Prayer Man' theory, which exploded ten years ago.

I shall come back to 'Prayer Man' in due course, but first I'd like to look at the fellow whose face launched a thousand excited ships: Mr. Billy Nolan Lovelady.

What does the visual record of the doorway at the time of the motorcade tell us? Well, let's track Mr. Lovelady's known location and movements....................

[Alan Ford]

9 minutes ago, Alan Ford said:

What does the visual record of the doorway at the time of the motorcade tell us? Well, let's track Mr. Lovelady's known location and movements....................

We can usefully start with the Altgens image itself, taken just after Pres. Kennedy was first hit. I hardly need rehearse what everyone already knows:

---------------------Mr. Altgens' LOS to the front doorway is such that Mr. Lovelady, in order to show up as he does, must be standing over near the center rail.

(A few years back, Mr. Pat Speer verified this in situ.)

**

And we can cross-reference this with the Wiegman film, which shows the doorway a couple of seconds after Altgens:

--------------------Mr. Lovelady, standing over near the center rail, and then taking a step down:

Furthermore!

We can rewind the clock from Altgens back ~8 or 9 secs to the Bell film and see Mr. Lovelady making his appearance in about the same spot in the doorway:

 

[Alan Ford]

And! We can rewind a very few seconds from Bell to the Hughes film, which shows Mr. Lovelady standing way over at the west side of the doorway:

If we zoom in, we can even see that he is taking a drink from a bottle:

This, presumably, is the Coca Cola which he purchased from the machine in the second-floor lunchroom about 35 minutes ago.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Alan Ford]

Also!

We can wind the clock forward a mere second or two from the end of Hughes to the Towner film frames that show the doorway just before the moment when Mr. Lovelady makes his appearance in Bell:

[GIF credit: Mr. Robin Unger]

Let's zoom in:

[Credit for Towner stabilization: Mr. Chris Davidson]

We don't see Mr. Lovelady's red shirt where we would perhaps expect to see it: that area, over near the center railing where he will in a moment be standing, is just dark. Clearly, he hasn't yet moved over to near the center railing.

However! Gratifyingly, we do see, in the selfsame spot where Hughes has just shown us Mr. Lovelady's red shirt, a..................red shirt. Phew: mystery solved. Mr. Lovelady is still standing way over on the west side of the doorway.

Let's dim the lights a little and up the contrast:

Mr. Lovelady is not just standing there, watching Pres. Kennedy pass. No, he's energetically----------nay, frenetically----------waving a flag or somesuch object. And he's really putting his body into the pumping of that object: note the correspondence between the movement of his red shirt and movement of the waved object.

Huh? 🤯

Edited October 24, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Sean Coleman]

Great pics & editing, love a thread with good pics.

So next you have footage of Lovelady & Shelley walking towards the rail yard….?

BL waving, that’s a new one? not heard/seen that before

Best posting I’ve seen in a long time,good work Al

[Alan Ford]

3 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

Great pics & editing, love a thread with good pics.

So next you have footage of Lovelady & Shelley walking towards the rail yard….?

BL waving, that’s a new one? not heard/seen that before

Best posting I’ve seen in a long time,good work Al

Very kind of you to say so, Mr. Coleman-----------thank you! 👍

[Alan Ford]

27 minutes ago, Alan Ford said:

Mr. Lovelady is not just standing there, watching Pres. Kennedy pass. No, he's energetically----------nay, frenetically----------waving a flag or somesuch object. And he's really putting his body into the pumping of that object: note the correspondence between the movement of his red shirt and movement of the waved object.

And................... it gets weirder.

I said that Towner shows only darkness in the area where we might expect to see Mr. Lovelady's red shirt. This is true, but it needs a little qualification.

In those instants of time when the flag (or whatever it is) that Mr. Lovelady is waving is raised higher, something reddish is disclosed behind where it's just been (yellow arrows):

This is most odd. If Mr. Lovelady hasn't yet moved over to his 'Altgens' spot near the center railing, then the only thing we should be seeing in the area pointed to by the yellow arrows is empty steps bathed in sunlight. Yet................. somehow............... there's already something other than sunlight on those steps. And it appears to be red or reddish in color.

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Jean Ceulemans]

Thank you, great information !

Now, in that corner there is something with arms looking funny

A weird POV I guess

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Alan Ford]

2 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Thank you, great information !

Thank you, good sir! 👍

[Alan Ford]

36 minutes ago, Alan Ford said:

In those instants of time when the flag (or whatever it is) that Mr. Lovelady is waving is raised higher, something reddish is disclosed behind where it's just been (yellow arrows):

 

Well!

Back in 2019, the JFKA research world was electrified (and Warren Gullibles horrified) by Mr. Bart Kamp's discovery (in the archive of Mr. Malcolm Blunt) of Agent James Hosty's original handwritten 11/22/63 draft report for Mr. Oswald's first interrogation. Here's the game-changing paragraph:

"Then went outside to watch P. Parade."

Yikes.

The idea that Mr. Oswald had gone out front for the motorcade could no longer be written off as a wild idea cooked up by suggestible and excitable folks on the kook wing of the CT movement. No, it was Mr. Oswald's own claim!

'Investigators' claim: LHO was at the SN window firing on Pres. Kennedy

VS.

LHO's claim: I went outside to watch the P. Parade.

GAME ON.............

**

Why do I mention the above bombshell at this juncture?

Because the following startling thought might well occur:

Perhaps the red(dish) color in Towner----------marked by these yellow arrows----------in fact belongs to none other than Mr. Oswald? Could this be him?

A few years back, Mr. Pat Speer did what no other researcher had ever thought of doing: he obtained COLOR photos of the "reddish-brown" shirt which Mr. Oswald told his interrogators he wore to work that morning. According to Mr. Oswald, he changed out of this shirt at the rooming-house.

Anyway, here's the shirt:

Could it be that Mr. Oswald, with this shirt on, is what the yellow arrows in the GIF above are pointing to? If so, then perhaps the reason he's so low down in Towner is that he's seated?

Could it be that we've finally found him for real, in the near vicinity of Mr. Lovelady...................................?

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Alan Ford]

20 minutes ago, Alan Ford said:

Could it be that Mr. Oswald, with this shirt on, is what the yellow arrows in the GIF above are pointing to? If so, then perhaps the reason he's so low down in Towner is that he's seated?

Could it be that we've finally found him for real, in the near vicinity of Mr. Lovelady...................................?

 

Spoiler alert: nope. That ain't Mr. Oswald.

But we're very, very close.

We just need to make one little adjustment to our thinking, and then all fits nicely into place.

Here's the little mental adjustment:

The man in the red(dish) shirt standing way over by the west side of the doorway in Hughes---------------------

 ------------------------is not Mr. Billy Lovelady.

He's Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald, taking a drink from the Coca Cola he bought in the second-floor lunchroom far less than 35 minutes ago.

As for the red(dish) color in Towner marked by these yellow arrows, it belongs to (you guessed it) Mr. Billy Lovelady:

But why is it so low down? Because he's sitting down. (Just like Mr. Bill Shelley told the FBI Mr. Lovelady was doing.) This is also the reason why he didn't show up clearly in Hughes a couple of seconds before this: he's quite a ways back sitting on one of the higher steps.

However, Mr. Lovelady's unimpeded view of the motorcade has just been rudely blocked by the guy just to his right, who has out of nowhere started maniacally waving a damn flag right in front of his face. This is what Towner shows.

So what does an irritated Mr. Lovelady do? Why, he rises to his feet to see over the damn flag. Which is what is happening in the latter Bell frames:

Mr. Oswald has been hidden in plain sight all these years, folks.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Alan Ford]

1 hour ago, Alan Ford said:

Phew: mystery solved. Mr. Lovelady is still standing way over on the west side of the doorway.

Let's dim the lights a little and up the contrast:

Mr. Lovelady is not just standing there, watching Pres. Kennedy pass. No, he's energetically----------nay, frenetically----------waving a flag or somesuch object. And he's really putting his body into the pumping of that object: note the correspondence between the movement of his red shirt and movement of the waved object.

We must now update the above in the light of the little mental adjustment we made in the foregoing post:

"Phew: mystery solved. Mr. Lovelady Oswald is still standing way over on the west side of the doorway.

Let's dim the lights a little and up the contrast:

Mr. Lovelady Oswald is not just standing there, watching Pres. Kennedy pass. No, he's energetically----------nay, frenetically----------waving a flag or somesuch object. And he's really putting his body into the pumping of that object: note the correspondence between the movement of his red shirt and movement of the waved object."

What in the heck is he doing THAT for? What is going on here?

To answer these questions, we could do worse than note the rather interesting fact that Pres. Kennedy appears for all the world to be looking Mr. Oswald's way, and then brushing his hand across his hair:

Understand why, and you have the key to Mr. Oswald's true (and tragic) role in the horror of Dealey Plaza.

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Marcus Fuller]

Could it be that he's clapping? 

[Joseph Backes]

Or...It COULD BE that Mr. Ford is completely full of it.  

We're going to see more and more people like him making more and more posts like the ones in this thread.  

 

 

[Alan Ford]

4 hours ago, Marcus Fuller said:

Could it be that he's clapping? 

They would need to be rather big hands, Mr. Fuller!