The Zapruder Film and NPIC/Hawkeyeworks Mysteries

[Charles Blackmon]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The logarithmic scan of the film reveals an artificially darkened patch on the back of JFK's head. 

 

Is there already a thread concerning this physical test that I missed somehow?

[Keven Hofeling]

9 minutes ago, Charles Blackmon said:

Is there already a thread concerning this physical test that I missed somehow?

And why are Wilkinson and Whitehead's 6k scans superior even to the 1998 MPI "Images of an Assassination" stills?

 

The answer has to do with the distinction between and utility of logarithmic color versus standard colorization. The scratches and mold that you can see on the film are because the 6k scans were made in log color. Sydney Wilkinson explained this to Doug Horne in a letter that he read while being interviewed on the 1/7/2019 Midnight Writer News, Episode 107, https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-107-douglas-horne-on-the-zapruder-film-alteration-debate/ , as follows:

----------------------------------------------------

SYDNEY WILKINSON WROTE:

 

 "Our scans show everything in the frame, the good, the bad, and the ugly." By that they mean the scratches and the mold on the film. They wrote "There is so much detail that individual grains of 8mm film stock are evident in the 6k logarithmic scans. It's hardly pretty, but the images are glaringly sharp. That is why we see all the scratches, mold, dirt, stains, and other film anomalies. Linear color is what we view on our TVs and computers, the color looks right to us. The versions of the Zapruder film we see on television documentaries or DVDs like "Images of an Assassination" sold in 1998 or on YouTube have been cleaned up and color corrected. Much of the scratches, dirt, mold, etc., have been removed along with color correcting each scene to create a much richer looking element. The processes used to do this can be grueling and take a long time depending upon how much money and how much time the producers want to spend on it. But we did not want to make our images look prettier. We did not want to touch anything because our goal was to conduct a forensic scientific study of the film. We wanted to see what was really there in every frame not what might have been hidden or obscured by cleaning or color correcting. So logarithmic color, or log color for short, is what professionals use when coming from or going to film because it brings out much more detail in blacks and mid-blacks by stretching the blacks into grays. However, without color correction, which we have not done, the image looks a little washed out, but the amount of information in the blacks is substantially increased. The primary reason we want log color space was to see all the information in the shadows, and what we saw was astounding. If our transfer was linear color we never would have seen the patch on the back of the head in frame 317 or it would have looked like a shadow. Most importantly, log shadow space does not make a shadow look like a patch."   

 

Doug Horne told the story of how Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead became involved in Zapruder film research in his "Addendum: The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood," of his 2009 "Inside the ARRB," Chapter 14, Vol. IV, as follows:

"...On June 3, 2009 I exchanged introductory e-mails with one Sydney Wilkinson, an accomplished professional in film and video post-production in Hollywood—specifically, in the marketing of post production services within the motion picture film industry. She has decades of experience under her belt in dealing with editors, experts in film restoration, and film studio executives. She lives and breathes the professional culture of the motion picture film industry, and has working relationships with many of the major players involved in post-production in Hollywood. When she first introduced herself to me she insisted that she was neither a researcher, author, nor a historian; and in spite of her continued self-deprecation, I have explained to her on numerous occasions since that day that she is now indeed a JFK assassination researcher, by simple virtue of what she is doing, whether she ever publishes a word or not! We are what we do, and what Sydney Wilkinson has done is truly extraordinary.

Sydney revealed to me in short order that she had purchased a dupe negative on 35 mm film of the Forensic Copy of the Zapruder film created by the National Archives. She did so purely for research purposes, to satisfy her own curiosity about whether or not the extant film in the Archives was the authentic out-of-camera original, or whether it was an altered film masquerading as the original. She had already purchased a copy of the Zavada report from the National Archives and knew its contents backwards and forwards, and was also familiar with the interviews of Homer McMahon and Ben Hunter of NPIC conducted by the ARRB staff in 1997. She was aware of my former role as the ARRB’s liaison with Kodak and Rollie Zavada, and was also very familiar with the existing literature about the film’s possible alteration. In short, she was simply a very curious American citizen who, out of both natural curiosity and a sense of patriotism, wanted to know the truth about this famous film. She had literally “put her money where her mouth was” by forking out $ 795.90 for a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from a source whose honesty and integrity could not be challenged by any future researchers: the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Counting the extant film as zero, she had obtained a fifth generation copy (as explained earlier in this chapter). If she had requested a projection print (i.e., a positive) she would have purchased a fourth generation copy; but the preferred medium for studying film characteristics in Hollywood is a motion picture negative, so she settled for a dupe negative of a fourth generation projection print. She wanted a dupe negative because her intent from the beginning was to subject the Zapruder film to the serious, professional scrutiny of Hollywood film professionals in an attempt to resolve the ongoing debate about its authenticity. Sydney’s attitude going into this effort was similar to my own attitude about the Zapruder film when I began working for the ARRB in 1995; she was very curious about the issues that had been raised about the Zapruder film’s authenticity, and simply wanted to know the answer, one way or the other.

I was stunned by the simplicity and power of the concept behind her ongoing research effort: only Hollywood visual effects technicians or other film professionals familiar with the optical effects techniques of the 1960s would be truly qualified to say whether or not there was evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film’s image content! While Rollie Zavada was a film chemist and a Kodak project manager (and was eminently qualified to study film density and edge print), he had no practical experience with the creation of motion picture visual effects, and I therefore viewed him as unqualified to make a final determination as to whether or not the Zapruder film was an altered film. (The ARRB’s senior management understood this also, which was why he was not asked to comment upon the film’s image content in his limited authenticity study.) I immediately wondered:

Why hadn’t anyone ever attempted this before? If anyone had attempted it before 2003 (the year that Monaco in San Francisco made the Forensic Copy of the extant film for NARA), the only tool available for study in Hollywood would have been a multi-generation bootleg copy of one of the Moses Weitzman blowups (from 8 mm to 35 mm) made circa 1968; because the provenance of the bootleg copy would have been suspect, so would any results obtained from such a study. If anyone had attempted this subsequent to 2003, neither Sydney nor I was aware of such an effort. Intuitively,

I felt that this was a “first.” A big first. For about thirty years, from 1963 to 1993, the Zapruder film’s authenticity was assumed, and went largely unquestioned, and the principal arguments about the film had been about what its image content depicted. For about the past fifteen years, most of the arguments pertaining to the film had been about its authenticity, not about its image content. The beauty of Syd Wilkinson’s research effort was not only that qualified Hollywood professionals would now be assessing the extant film’s image content to determine whether any frames showed evidence of alteration, but that the provenance of the film being studied could not be questioned! She was not going to be asking Hollywood to study a bootleg copy: she had a bonafide, genuine, guaranteed, unaltered copy of the extant film in the Archives. Truth is often the daughter of time. Conducting this kind of study was an idea whose time had come, and such a study was now overdue. I could hardly believe my good fortune at being included in her research effort.

Sydney then stunned me by saying that someone close to her who was an editor had arranged for an HD (high-definition) digital scan of each frame on her dupe negative, and that the HD scan was already completed. The HD scan of each 35 mm frame contained 1080 pixels in the vertical dimension and 1920 pixels in the horizontal direction, literally a wealth of information. Furthermore, the HD scan performed of each frame was a so-called “flat” or “exposure neutral” scan, in which the film’s images were NOT manipulated to make them more pleasing to the eye (as MPI did with its Ektachrome transparencies taken of each frame in 1997). Wilkinson and her editor friend instructed the person who performed the HD scan not to “clip the whites” or “crush the blacks” when conducting the scan. Such practices are commonly employed by video editors during post-production to make films more visually appealing, but when this occurs detail and valuable information is lost.

The HD scan created of the dupe negative of the Zapruder film was neutral, meaning that it was not shaded or manipulated for artistic or aesthetic purposes, and that there was a maximum of detail to study from each film frame.

And in two frames in particular, those details were apparently stunning, and quite damning. Sydney e-mailed to me JPEG images of two of the HD scans—frames 220 and 317. What I saw was electrifying, and certainly appeared to me at first blush (as they had to Sydney and a close associate of hers who is a video editor) to be evidence that the extant Zapruder film was an altered film, something I had just concluded, for a host of reasons, earlier in this chapter...."

 

And Doug Horne provided a synopsis with additional details in his online essay entitled "The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration" 

"...Altered Head Wound Imagery: 

California resident Sydney Wilkinson purchased a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from the National Archives in 2008—a third generation rendition, according to the Archives—and with the assistance of her husband, who is a video editor at a major post-production film house in Hollywood, commissioned both “HD” scans (1920 x 1080 pixels per scan) of each frame of the dupe negative, as well as “6K” scans of each frame. Because the Zapruder film’s image, from edge to edge, only partially fills each 35 mm film frame obtained from the Archives, the so-called “6K” scan of each frame is therefore ‘only’ the equivalent of a “4K” image, i.e., 4096 x 3112 pixels, for each Zapruder frame imaged. Each Zapruder frame scan still constitutes an enormous amount of information: 72.9 MB, or 12.7 million pixels per frame. These “4K equivalent” scans of the Zapruder film used by this couple to conduct their forensic, scientific study of the assassination images are 10-bit log color DPX scans, otherwise known in common parlance as “flat scans.”

These logarithmic color scans bring out much more information in the shadows than would the linear color normally viewed on our television screens and computers. Therefore, much more information in each Zapruder film frame is revealed by these logarithmic scans, than would be revealed in a linear color scan of the same frame.

As reported in the author’s book, numerous Hollywood film industry editors, colorists, and restoration experts have viewed the “6K” scans of the Zapruder film as part of the couple’s ongoing forensic investigation.

In the logarithmic color scans there are many frames (notably 317, 321, and 323) which show what appear to be “black patches,” or crude animation, obscuring the hair on the back of JFK’s head. The blacked-out areas just happen to coincide precisely with the location of the avulsed, baseball-sized exit wound in the right rear of JFK’s head seen by the Parkland Hospital treatment staff, in Dallas, on the day he was assassinated. In the opinion of virtually all of the dozens of motion picture film professionals who have viewed the Zapruder film “6K” scans, the dark patches do not look like natural shadows, and appear quite anomalous. Some of these film industry professionals—in particular, two film restoration experts accustomed to looking at visual effects in hundreds of 1950s and 1960s era films—have declared that the aforementioned frames are proof that the Zapruder film has been altered, and that it was crudely done.[35]If true, this explains LIFE’s decision to suppress the film as a motion picture for twelve years, lest its alteration be discovered by any professionals using it in a broadcast.

The extant Zapruder film also depicts a large head wound in the top and right side of President Kennedy’s skull—most notably in frames 335 and 337—that was not seen by any of the treatment staff at Parkland Hospital.

The implication here is that if the true exit wound on President Kennedy’s head can be obscured in the Zapruder film through use of aerial imaging (i.e., self-matting animation, applied to each frame’s image via an animation stand married to an optical printer)—as revealed by the “6K” scans of the 35 mm dupe negative—then the same technique could be used to add a desired exit wound, one consistent with the cover story of a lone shooter firing from behind.

The apparent alteration of the Zapruder film seen in the area of the rear of JFK’s head in the “6K” scans is consistent with the capabilities believed to have been in place at “Hawkeyeworks” in 1963.

In a recent critique of the author’s Zapruder film alteration hypothesis, retired Kodak film chemist (and former ARRB consultant, from 1997-1998), Roland Zavada, quoted professor Raymond Fielding, author of the famous 1965 textbook mentioned above on visual special effects, as saying that it would be impossible for anyone to have altered an 8 mm film in 1963 without leaving artifacts that could be easily detected. I completely agree with this assessment attributed to professor Fielding, and I firmly believe that the logarithmic color, “6K,” 10-bit, DPX scans made of each frame of the 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film have discovered just that: blatant and unmistakable artifacts of the film’s alteration.

Critics of this ongoing forensic investigation in California have tried to dismiss the interim findings by displaying other, dissimilar images from the Zapruder film that have been processed in linear color (not logarithmic color), and in some cases are also using inferior images of the Zapruder film of much poorer resolution than the 6K scans, or images from the film in which the linear color contrast has been adjusted and manipulated (i.e., darkened).

Saying that “it just isn’t so” is not an adequate defense for those who desperately cling to belief in the Zapruder film’s authenticity, when the empirical proof (the untainted and raw imagery) exists to back up the fact that it is so.

Anyone else who purchases a 35 mm dupe negative of the Zapruder film from the National Archives for $795.00, and who expends the time and money to run “6K” scans of each frame, will end up with the same imagery Sydney Wilkinson has today, for her scans simply record what is present on the extant film in the National Archives; she and her husband have done nothing to alter the images in any way. Their scans simply record what is present on the extant film...."

https://assassinationofjfk.net/the-two-npic-zapruder-film-events-signposts-pointing-to-the-films-alteration/ 

 

[Charles Blackmon]

The blacked-out areas just happen to coincide precisely with the location of the avulsed, baseball-sized exit wound in the right rear of JFK’s head seen by the Parkland Hospital treatment staff, in Dallas, on the day he was assassinated. 

Very good. I knew my eyes were not lying to me!

 

[Miles Massicotte]

On 6/7/2024 at 1:42 PM, Tom Gram said:

What credible evidence is there that the alleged black patch is not a natural shadow? Has anyone attempted to refute this study, which concluded that the shadow is “physically plausible” and “consistent with the 3D geometry of the scene and sub position”?

https://farid.berkeley.edu/downloads/publications/tr10a.pdf

In other words, is there any actual evidence in the film itself to suggest a black patch alteration to the back of JFK’s head, or is it still just speculation based on Parkland doctor statements? How exactly would one even detect such a thing? Wouldn’t access to the original film be necessary? 

Anything is possible, and I wouldn’t be surprised if capability did exist to edit the film in 1963, but I’ve never seen a credible demonstration of how it would’ve been done on an in-camera original Kodak film in the required time frame. 

As it stands, barring a full-scale reopening of the case, no-one is going to get a chance to perform a forensic examination of the original Z-film. Period. There is currently zero physical evidence that the film was altered, and the argument that the alleged alterations failed miserably since the film still convinced the public of conspiracy is compelling. 

I would support a forensic exam by objective experts, but until then, in my opinion, attempting to argue Z-film alteration based on perceived anomalies and ambiguous witness statements is a waste of time. Until someone comes up with actual proof of alteration, the film can and should be assumed authentic. Without new evidence, no one is going to be convinced of alteration who isn’t already convinced - certainly no one in a position make actual progress on the JFK case. 

As a side note, though I disagree with him on many topics, some quite strongly, this is where I see the most value in Pat’s work on the medical evidence. If Pat is correct that the extant medical evidence and Z-film can used to prove conspiracy to a respectable standard, that is a much more compelling argument for someone in a position to reinvestigate the case than any alteration theory. The vast majority of reasonable people would dismiss the popular alteration-based conspiracy theories as insane without hard evidence, which currently doesn’t exist. If Pat’s argument could be used to convince someone with access that JFK was shot twice in the head for example, that could lead to real, measurable progress vs. arguing the same crap over and over on Internet forums.

This is stretching it, but what if Pat’s argument eventually opened up access to the original autopsy material for study, and an expert analysis came out stating that the brain photos are not of JFK’s brain? This is really stretching it, but what if Pat’s argument led to proof that the autopsy photos were altered and there really was a hole in the back of JFK’s head?

My point is that if our goal is to better understand the history of the JFK assassination - which it should be - or make actual progress toward reopening the case, alternate theories should be embraced, not rejected and ridiculed, especially conservative theories that a non-JFK conspiracy nut may find compelling. You never know who might be paying attention. 

Pat might be right, or he might be wrong. We don’t know, but to not even consider the possibility that the autopsy materials and Z-film are authentic based solely on a subjective interpretation of eyewitness statements and ambiguous circumstantial evidence is just bad analysis. It’s fine to suspect alteration, but believing something so strongly that you refuse to consider or discuss alternatives is usually a sign you have a bias problem. Recent events suggest that certain folks here have a bias problem. So many comments reflect an irrationally strong emotional attachment to preferred theories, and a profound lack of self awareness, in my opinion.

Guess what folks? You might be wrong. 

Tom,

Having previously read this well written study, and noting that no one else has bothered to properly comment on it (not surprisingly), I am compelled to reiterate my support to the obvious hypothesis that the so-called “black patch” is merely a shadow. I paste below something I previously posted where Wilkinson and Whitehead themselves as much as admit that they too saw “normal shadow” on 1st generation Z film frames:

At 2:59:30 in the following podcast you can hear Doug Horne tell the story of Wilkinson and Whitehead seeing 1st generation frames (MPI transparencies) of the Z-film, and not seeing any "hole" or "black patch". Only "real looking hair and normal shadow" (3:01:20). https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-107-douglas-horne-on-the-zapruder-film-alteration-debate/

Horne of course implies a sinister explanation. When Wilkinson first viewed these transparencies in 2009 the so-called anomalies (black patch, etc.) were more prominent, but upon 2nd viewing were no longer present. The word "photoshopped" is used in the podcast. The alteration receives yet another alteration!

A more simple and less paranoid solution is that there simply is no black patch. The 1st generation film reveals this. Wilkinson, Mantik, Horne, et al. were mistaken. I think this is much more reasonable to assume until proven otherwise. The black patch is hair and natural shadow.

[Tom Gram]

3 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

10-bit log color DPX scans, otherwise known in common parlance as “flat scans.”

We’ve all seen this blurb from Horne a million times. Where can we all see the actual log scans of the Z-film and judge for ourselves? Who are the experts who viewed these scans, what are their actual credentials in identifying film alterations, and where are their analyses, in their own words? 

I’m not a film expert, but 5 minutes of googling shows that log scans of film are very low contrast, hence the name “flat scans”. In other words, detail like shadows and highlights on a raw log scan will appear washed out. For the image to be presentable, the scan must be color corrected, which from what I can tell is not a simple process. There seem to be many different methods, and many different ways you can screw it up and end up with an inaccurate image. 

Was this 10-bit DPX log scan color corrected before it was shown to experts? If so, how exactly was that done? It seems a bit hard to believe that a washed-out low contrast raw log scan would show a darker “black patch” than other digital versions online, so I’m assuming the answer is yes. 

Where can we all read an in-depth, technical analysis of the methods used in this Wilkinson project? Where can we see the results ourselves? A few paragraphs from a Doug Horne essay is not evidence. 

Like I said, I support anyone genuinely looking for forensic evidence of alteration in the Z-film, since I’d like to see this issue settled for good. However, anything like this needs to go through some form of peer review and have complete transparency to have any credibility at all. So far I’ve seen none of those things with this Wilkinson deal. 

[Sandy Larsen]

 

Pat Speer has said repeatedly that James Jenkins placed the gaping head wound on the top of the head, not on the back like most witnesses did. And he has said repeatedly that Jenkins actually told this to him personally. In person, I believe.

I recalled this upon reading the following comment that Pat posted recently:

 

On 6/7/2024 at 11:57 AM, Pat Speer said:

This is what Jenkins told me and others in a 2013 appearance at the Lancer conference, moreover. He said a lot of stuff at that conference that was at odds with with official story, and questioned the accuracy of the autopsy photos, etc. But I was mortified to discover that within hours of Jenkins saying there was NO HOLE on the back of the head between the ears when the body was put on the autopsy table, that certain people were citing his questioning the accuracy of the autopsy photos as evidence supporting their theory there was a hole on the back of the head between the ears. When I asked Jenkins about this in 2015, moreover--whether he realized many were taking his statements and using them to support stuff he had claimed was not true--he said, and Matt Douthit was there with me and he wrote this down the same way, something like "Whadda you gonna do? People will believe what they want to believe?"

 

Pat and his followers are the only people on earth who know and believe this.

Everybody else knows that Jenkins has always placed the wound on the back of the head. So I find it very odd that the only person in the whole world Jenkins tells otherwise is Pat.

I decided to buy James Jenkins' 2018 book At the Cold Shoulder of History because Pat likes to get his James Jenkins information from it. I wanted to see Jenkins' words for myself. The message that he tells everybody... except apparently for Pat Spear.

I wasn't surprised what I discovered.

There are numerous things I could quote from the book to make my case. But I  think that these two things say it well:

On page 121 of his Kindle book Jenkins writes:

The entire area was covered with matted hair and dried blood. This made it difficult to determine the true extent of the wound. This made it appear to be a massive blowout of the back of the head, but after the scalp was reflected back from the skull, the wound that had missing scalp and bone appeared to be more consistent with the shape and dimensions previously described by Dr. McClelland.

On page 129 he writes:

This is the wound drawing that Dr. McClelland made to illustrate the wound he saw at Parkland in 1963. This closely matches the wound that I saw after the scalp was retracted from the skull.

 

That's the back of the head, folks.

 

Edited June 9 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

Did you see that? I just proved once again that James Jenkins placed the gaping wound on the back of the head, not the top. The proof is very easy to do.

Pat's claim is a demonstrable falsehood. It is against forum rules to post demonstrable falsehoods... unless you're a prominent researcher. A moderator gets punished if the dare penalize a prominent researcher.

This is all my opinion.

 

Edited June 9 by Sandy Larsen

[Pat Speer]

54 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Pat Speer has said repeatedly that James Jenkins placed the gaping head wound on the top of the head, not on the back like most witnesses did. And he has said repeatedly that Jenkins actually told this to him personally. In person, I believe.

I recalled this upon reading the following comment that Pat posted recently:

 

 

Pat and his followers are the only people on earth who know and believe this.

Everybody else knows that Jenkins has always placed the wound on the back of the head. So I find it very odd that the only person in the whole world Jenkins tells otherwise is Pat.

I decided to buy James Jenkins' 2018 book At the Cold Shoulder of History because Pat likes to get his James Jenkins information from it. I wanted to see Jenkins' words for myself. The message that he tells everybody... except apparently for Pat Spear.

I wasn't surprised what I discovered.

There are numerous things I could quote from the book to make my case. But I  think that these two things say it well:

On page 121 of his Kindle book Jenkins writes:

The entire area was covered with matted hair and dried blood. This made it difficult to determine the true extent of the wound. This made it appear to be a massive blowout of the back of the head, but after the scalp was reflected back from the skull, the wound that had missing scalp and bone appeared to be more consistent with the shape and dimensions previously described by Dr. McClelland.

On page 129 he writes:

This is the wound drawing that Dr. McClelland made to illustrate the wound he saw at Parkland in 1963. This closely matches the wound that I saw after the scalp was retracted from the skull.

 

 

Just stop. When asked to show where the hole was in his 1998 interview with Law, Jenkins pointed to the top of his head--the top of his head towards the rear--but nevertheless the top of his head. When he spoke to a crowd of researchers at the 2013 conference, he told everyone there essentially the same thing...the hole was near the top of the back of the head, and the area below that was shattered but still extant beneath the scalp. This is basically what Custer said towards the end as well. 

Now the point I've been making all along is that Jenkins changed it up in his book, and switched it around where the hole was at the middle of the back of the head, and the area above that was shattered but extant beneath the scalp. Now these are just the facts. 

But for some reason Horne supporters like yourself are determined to pretend Jenkins saw a hole in the middle of the back of the head.

Which to me, is just bizarre, because even if that were true, Jenkins would still not be a friendly witness for Horne. Jenkins has specified many times that he was in the morgue the whole time and that no pre-autopsy surgery was performed in the Bethesda Morgue. And Horne has countered this by claiming Jenkins had a terrible memory and was actually kept out of the morgue for an hour and a half while this surgery was performed.

If this is so, however, Jenkins would need to have seen a large wound on Kennedy's skull from the middle of the back of the skull to the forehead and not the small wound.he claims to have seen. In 1998 he said the wound was a little bit bigger than a silver dollar and in 2018 he said it was basically the size of the wound in the McClelland drawing, which upset Horne's long-time colleague James Fetzer so much he screamed at Jenkins from the crowd at the Lancer conference. To be clear, Horne's theory held that his presumed pre-autopsy surgery expanded the size of the wound by 5 times. And yet here was Jenkins actually saying the wound had not been expanded at all. In a bizarre twist, moreover, McClelland, over the years, started describing the wound in ever-expansive terms, to the extent that the wound described by McClelland in his final years was bigger than the wound described by Jenkins. Well, this kills Horne's theory, IMO. Now, he could, of course, claim these were old men and badly mistaken or some such thing but for some reason his supporters, including yourself, have tried to turn it around and make out that I am the one making strange claims about Jenkins to support my theory or whatever. 

I mean, did I give an interview to an international TV audience in which I claimed James Jenkins said he saw a bullet hole in JFK's forehead? 

No, that was Horne. 

Now the last time I tried to point all this out to you you couldn't handle it, and suspended me, and then suspended anyone who disagreed with your behavior.

But that's not gonna happen this time.

So...seriously...are you really trying to claim Jenkins was pointing to this

 

 

 

when he did this? 

 

I thought not...

Edited June 9 by Pat Speer

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Keven Hofeling quotes Douglas Horne:

Quote

Counting the extant film as zero, she [Wilkinson] had obtained a fifth generation copy

So they have discovered an apparent anomaly in a fifth-generation copy, using methods that have not been fully described and which may have subjected this fifth-generation copy to an undisclosed form of digital manipulation which might itself be the cause of the apparent anomaly. The process appears not to have been replicated by anyone who possesses the appropriate technical skills and knowledge.

This isn't much, although it is at least a step up from the usual amateurish anomaly-spotting game that has been getting us nowhere for decades.

But, as Tom points out, the whole enterprise needs to be subjected to peer review if it is to be taken seriously. Get all the evidence together, write it up, submit it to a genuine scientific journal, and await the verdict of people who know what they are talking about.

If it passes that test,* Wilkinson's study may actually suggest (but not prove) that the anomaly in this fifth-generation copy cannot have an innocent explanation. The next stage would be to get some independent experts on board and demand access to the original Zapruder film that's in the archives.

If the film in the archives isn't the original but a copy, that fact should become evident upon close examination (Zavada, of course, already examined it closely and didn't find any evidence that it was a copy). If, on the other hand, the film in the archives isn't a copy but the original which has had black patches added to specific frames, that fact too should become evident.

There's a long way to go before we will be justified in believing that the film has been altered. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the Wilkinson project falls at the first hurdle, by failing to demonstrate that the apparent anomaly wasn't caused by whatever digital manipulation was used.

--

* If it doesn't pass that test, blame the CIA / Bilderberg / masons / lizard people and keep on spotting anomalies for the next few decades.

[Sandy Larsen]

19 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

But for some reason Horne supporters like yourself are determined to pretend Jenkins saw a hole in the middle of the back of the head.

 

First, the issue I raise has nothing to do with Horne. So quit deflecting over to him.

So, you say that Jenkins became a back-of-the-head man only recently. Well, if that is true, then how do you explain the fact that he was a back-of-the-head man a long time ago too... and in fact has always been a back-of-the-head man?

Here's a drawing Jenkins did for the HSCA:

 

Back of the head.

 

Later, Jenkins told David Lifton, "I would say that parietal and occipital section on the right side of the head--it was a large gaping area...It had just been crushed, and kind of blown apart, toward the rear."

When Lifton told Jenkins that photographs showed that the back of the head was essentially intact, except for a small bullet entry wound at the top, he responded, "That's not possible, That is totally--you know, there's no possible way. Okay? It's not possible."

In 1991 Jenkins told Livingstone, "I would like to kind of reverse a little bit and go back to what the wound looked like when we actually took the towels off the head at the initial. The wound was a massive type of wound where it was an open gaping wound approximately the size of a closed fist or maybe a little larger, more similar to what Dr. McClelland says in his drawing. ...as far as the area that it was in, I remember the wound a little higher maybe than in the drawing."

So even back in 1991, Jenkins was saying that the wound he saw was like the one in Dr. McClelland's drawing.

Just as I said, James Jenkins has ALWAYS been a back-of-the-head guy. Except, apparently, when he is talking to you.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

 

That's a cute trick that you did... cherry pick a frame from a video where Jenkins is pointing nearest the top of his head.

Now let me listen to the video so I can hear what Jenkins is actually saying. And so I can see where else he points.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

In 1998 he said the wound was a little bit bigger than a silver dollar and in 2018 he said it was basically the size of the wound in the McClelland drawing...

 

BTW Pat, Jenkins didn't change the size of the wound.

The McClelland-sized wound is what he saw when the head was first unwrapped. Later the morticians put the head back together again, used that rubber dam in the back to stop fluid leakage, and stretched the scalp as much as they could to cover the rubber dam. That left a remaining hole that Jenkins said was the size of a silver dollar.

I can easily prove that what I'm saying is true. Both the large and the small hole description are in that 1991 Livingstone video which I partially transcribed. And both are in his 2018 book.

 

Edited June 9 by Sandy Larsen

[Charles Blackmon]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

We’ve all seen this blurb from Horne a million times. Where can we all see the actual log scans of the Z-film and judge for ourselves? Who are the experts who viewed these scans, what are their actual credentials in identifying film alterations, and where are their analyses, in their own words? 

I’m not a film expert, but 5 minutes of googling shows that log scans of film are very low contrast, hence the name “flat scans”. In other words, detail like shadows and highlights on a raw log scan will appear washed out. For the image to be presentable, the scan must be color corrected, which from what I can tell is not a simple process. There seem to be many different methods, and many different ways you can screw it up and end up with an inaccurate image. 

Was this 10-bit DPX log scan color corrected before it was shown to experts? If so, how exactly was that done? It seems a bit hard to believe that a washed-out low contrast raw log scan would show a darker “black patch” than other digital versions online, so I’m assuming the answer is yes. 

Where can we all read an in-depth, technical analysis of the methods used in this Wilkinson project? Where can we see the results ourselves? A few paragraphs from a Doug Horne essay is not evidence. 

Like I said, I support anyone genuinely looking for forensic evidence of alteration in the Z-film, since I’d like to see this issue settled for good. However, anything like this needs to go through some form of peer review and have complete transparency to have any credibility at all. So far I’ve seen none of those things with this Wilkinson deal. 

Sound very reasonable. Who can make this happen?

[Keven Hofeling]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Pat Speer has said repeatedly that James Jenkins placed the gaping head wound on the top of the head, not on the back like most witnesses did. And he has said repeatedly that Jenkins actually told this to him personally. In person, I believe.

I recalled this upon reading the following comment that Pat posted recently:

 

 

Pat and his followers are the only people on earth who know and believe this.

Everybody else knows that Jenkins has always placed the wound on the back of the head. So I find it very odd that the only person in the whole world Jenkins tells otherwise is Pat.

I decided to buy James Jenkins' 2018 book At the Cold Shoulder of History because Pat likes to get his James Jenkins information from it. I wanted to see Jenkins' words for myself. The message that he tells everybody... except apparently for Pat Spear.

I wasn't surprised what I discovered.

There are numerous things I could quote from the book to make my case. But I  think that these two things say it well:

On page 121 of his Kindle book Jenkins writes:

The entire area was covered with matted hair and dried blood. This made it difficult to determine the true extent of the wound. This made it appear to be a massive blowout of the back of the head, but after the scalp was reflected back from the skull, the wound that had missing scalp and bone appeared to be more consistent with the shape and dimensions previously described by Dr. McClelland.

On page 129 he writes:

This is the wound drawing that Dr. McClelland made to illustrate the wound he saw at Parkland in 1963. This closely matches the wound that I saw after the scalp was retracted from the skull.

 

That's the back of the head, folks.

 

I think that there is remarkable similarity between the occipital-parietal wound that Dr. Robert McClelland drew with his own hand on TMWKK in 1988 and the occipital-parietal wound that James Jenkins drew on a skull model in 2018, as follows:

And in the following from the 1991 Dallas Medical Witnesses Conference, James Jenkins tells us that the wound was like Dr. McClelland's drawing (the one in Six Seconds in Dallas), but a little higher:

 

Edited June 9 by Keven Hofeling

[Pat Speer]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

That's a cute trick that you did... cherry pick a frame from a video where Jenkins is pointing nearest the top of his head.

Now let me listen to the video so I can hear what Jenkins is actually saying. And so I can see where else he points.

 

WOW. I'm sorry Sandy but I think I'm gonna have to start ignoring your posts. You're not following the discussion so to speak and are just venting about how you don't trust me.

Fine. But the image you say I cherry-picked comes from a taped interview by Law, and the image you say I cherry-picked is one Law picked out and put in his book to demonstrate where Jenkins pointed when he described the open hole he first observed...that was put up on this website by Keven to challenge a screen grab I'd made from this video from a split-second earlier, where the hand was in a slightly different location. 

IOW, the image you say I posted to deceive you is one Keven posted to claim I was being deceptive. It is Keven's evidence so to speak, not mine. But I am glad he posted it because it proved my point...which apparently you now concede. 

So... from my perspective you suspended me for claiming Jenkins pointed to the top of his head when describing the wound location, and for claiming Keven's posts had verified as much.

And now, with this post, you have shown I was correct. You have conceded my point. Thanks, I think.