The Zapruder Film and NPIC/Hawkeyeworks Mysteries

[Chris Bristow]

Craig Lamson's debunking of the Costello Stemmons pole lean was mentioned in this thread but his debunking was completely in error. I explained this on page 15 of this 2012 post by Greg Burnham. https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/16192-craig-lamsons-stemmons-sign-thread/page/10/   I received a response from Lamson(I believe he has since passed.). It was an email with multiple pages containing 99% vitriol and no real response to my point.
  Clamson stated in the 2012 thread that he had leaned the Exacto knife he used as the pole, TOWARDS his camera. The Exacto knife he used to simulate the Stemmons pole can be verified as leaning towards the camera in his image at below. He also verified this on his website.(Inserted text below photos.)
  The problem is that the Stemmons pole was leaning AWAY from Z's camera not towards it.
  A simple principle of perspective is the when a pole is leaning away from the camera it will swing/lean in the same direction that the camera is panning. Conversely when a pole is leaning towards the camera it will swing/lean in the opposite direction that the camera pans.
  So a pole leaning AWAY moves with the camera and a pole leaning TOWARDS the camera will  move against the camera motion.
 This is demonstrated in the images of the 3 pens. Below that is the test that Craig Clamson posted 'proving' that Costella's leaning pole was just due to parallax. So the only reason Mr Clamson's test seemed to support his parallax explanation is because he leaned the Exacto knife the wrong way. Had he leaned it away from the camera to match the Stemmons sign the Exacto knife would have moved to the right which the opposite direction it moves in the Z film. The explanation he gave that the shifting pole was due to the parallax of Z's rightward paining was completely backwards.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Pat Speer writes:

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The film has become a Rorschach test. ... The film does not show an explosion from the back of the head so those expecting to see such an explosion think it's been faked. This necessitates all sorts of conjecture involving faked evidence.

Good point. The film doesn't show what someone thinks it ought to show, therefore the film was altered.

Quote

Or one can accept the film as real and realize that it proves there were two headshots and thus a conspiracy.

That's one of several ways in which the film is inconsistent with the proposition that one person, firing from behind with a specific rifle, caused a specific series of wounds to two people.

It really is bizarre that conspiracy-minded people are willing to throw away the Zapruder film as evidence of conspiracy, simply so that they can claim that something happened which, as far as I'm aware, has never happened in any similar situation.

Since the advent of photography, numerous political figures, major and minor, have been assassinated in public, uncontroversially as the result of a conspiracy. In how many of these assassinations did anyone, whether the culprits or others, decide afterwards to round up some or all the photographic evidence and alter it?

For those who go a step further and think that altering films and photographs was a built-in element of the plot in the JFK case, rather than an ad hoc reaction after the event, how many other instances can they point to in which this happened? I'd be genuinely interested to see any solid evidence that anything has happened elsewhere that resembles the photo-alteration that some people think happened in the JFK assassination.

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Roger Odisio writes:

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But that deal [Zapruder's deal with Stolley on the morning of the 23rd] was expanded later to include full film rights after work had been done on the film at the two CIA sites. I thought that was well established. 

It's well established that the original deal was expanded later, but Roger should have finished his sentence at "full film rights".

It has not been established at all that any "work had been done on the film at the two CIA sites." There is evidence that a version of the film was examined at NPIC in Washington. That version can only realistically have been the first-day copy which the Secret Service in Washington received in the early hours of the 23rd. There is no evidence, apart from contradictory recollections from more than three decades later, that anything at all happened at any other CIA site. In the absence of corroborating documentary evidence, those recollections are worthless, and Roger is not justified in believing them.

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Melanson was right that all of the entities that wanted the film would have wanted the original, not a copy.

We know that this is not true, because the Secret Service was happy to receive its two first-day copies and let Zapruder keep the original film. Melanson forty years ago, like Roger now, was writing and speculating with the benefit of hindsight.

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Before those boards were even finished, the film was shipped off to a lab no one but the CIA knew at the time even existed.

This is pure speculation based on contradictory recollections from more than three decades later. It is not supported by any relevant documentary evidence. Roger really needs to give the speculation a rest and rely on the evidence which actually exists.

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Why did the CIA destroy Brugioni's boards? Why was a second set done that weekend?  Can you offer a better answer about what you think was done at HW, Tom?

I'm sure Tom can answer for himself, but here again Roger is assuming something for which there is no evidence. If Roger is going to allege that something "was done at HW", he needs to supply solid evidence to support his allegation. But there isn't any.

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However the original film got to the NPIC that Saturday, whether after first being sent to Chicago or directly from Dallas

Again, this is an assumption based on pure speculation. There is no documentary evidence that the original Zapruder film ever went to NPIC. If, as seems probable, a version of the film did go to NPIC, the evidence that exists shows that it can only realistically have been the Secret Service's first-day copy which had arrived in Washington on the Saturday morning.

Roger's problem all along is that he is starting from the assumption that some all-powerful Bad Guys controlled the details of what happened after the assassination. Having satisfied himself on this point, he has gone on to invent a convoluted scenario in which those Bad Guys did things for which no corroborating documentary evidence exists.

Instead, Roger should start at the beginning, with no assumptions about the all-powerful Bad Guys he desperately wants to believe in, and go where the evidence takes him. There is no evidence that anything happened to the original Zapruder film at either NPIC or Hawkeye Works, and no evidence that whoever instigated the examination of the first-day copy at NPIC on the Saturday (the Secret Service, according to the evidence) was acting on behalf of any Bad Guys, all-powerful or otherwise.

• This absence of evidence should oblige Roger to conclude that the film was not altered that weekend.
• Since second- and third-generation copies began to appear shortly afterwards, and since it would not realistically have been possible to round up all of those copies and replace them with copies based on a faked film, Roger should conclude that any substantial alterations made to the original film after that weekend would have been easily detectable by comparing the altered versions to the unaltered versions.
• Roger should conclude from this that no substantial alterations have been made to the film.
• Since no proof of alteration, whether substantial or trivial, has yet been discovered despite at least 40 years of trying, Roger should conclude (provisionally, of course) that no alterations have taken place at all.
• It follows from all of this that Roger's primary assumption, that all-powerful Bad Guys controlled the details of what happened after the assassination, is not tenable.

Let go of those assumptions, Roger! You can do it if you try!

[James DiEugenio]

I have to add here, that although  I have no dog in this fight, the fact that there is not an explosion  out the back of the head is not at all probative.

As Mili Cranor demonstrated, the explosion--sometimes called a bloodburst-- in not any meter of directionality.  It comes from a phenomenon called cavitation.  This is where the pressure center builds in the skull and then bursts through at the weakest point. She did a lot of research on this through some of the best wound ballistics authors she could find.

The indications of a rear skull wound come from the 42 witnesses who saw such, and the fact the HSCA tried to cover it up.  Plus Jackie Kennedy  going out the trunk of the car to retrieve a bone from JFK's skull.

Edited June 27 by James DiEugenio

[Mark Ulrik]

6 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

I received a response from Lamson(I believe he has since passed.)

When was that? It's been a while since I had contact with him, but I think he retired last year. Maybe he'll resume posting if he gets sufficiently bored (and Mrs. Lamson allows).

[Tom Gram]

17 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Strange response, Tom. In the note you are responding to, I was considering what happened to the original film that Life bought from Zapruder.  Obviously Life was not the only entity who had a distinct interest in what the film showed.  Kennedy had just been murdered. Uncertainty abounded.  Top government officials had a responsibility to find out what happened, and quickly.

Briefing boards made from the film were necessary to do that.  Holding the strip of film up to the light wasn't enough.

We know, don't we, Tom, that Brugioni, the NPIC's top film analyst made such boards starting late Saturday night. We can assume that was the best answer about the film content possible at the time.  Before those boards were even finished, the film was shipped off to a lab no one but the CIA knew at the time even existed.

When I asked Jeremy what was done there at HW--what was the purpose of sending the film there in secrecy--he said,  they probably just wanted more information. Pardon me, but that's not credible,  unless a case can be made that Brugioni's boards were somehow inadequate to show what happened.  Which, admittedly is not possible because, according to Brugioni, the CIA destroyed them about a decade later when they found he still had a copy.  Why did the CIA destroy Brugioni's boards? Why was a second set done that weekend?  Can you offer a better answer about what you think was done at HW, Tom?

Even if the original film made it to Chicago--i.e., we weren't completely lied to for decades about that--how long do you think it would have taken the government, the CIA or some high officials, to say to Life (even if you think life was acting solely on its own):   National Security.  We need to take the original to our NPIC to make briefing boards to find out what happened and we need to use the original film to do that.  That's  what is most important now, National Security.

However the original film got to the NPIC that Saturday, whether after first being sent to Chicago or directly from Dallas,*there will be no documentary evidence to show that trip or the subsequent one to HW*, Tom. That's how they got away with the Chicago story for decades.  Your insistence on relying on documentary evidence, and trying to exclude everything else, is particularly hollow in this instance.

I said your note was strange because I was focusing on the question of whether it's likely Brugioni was using the original film when he made his boards, as he thought he was.  You answered with your take on what McMahon and Hunter did with what film to make the second set of boards!  The film that "SS Agent Bill Smith" told McMahon he was bringing from Rochester where it had been developed.

Relevance? Is it clear to you that I don't think the film M&H used was any longer the original?

 

 

Isn’t McMahon’s reported 30 year old hearsay that SS Agent “Bill Smith” told him he’d brought the film to Rochester the only “evidence” the film was ever sent to Hawkeye Works at all? 

To be fair, McMahon said he was sure “Smith” told him that, but that doesn’t mean it was true, or that McMahon remembered correctly, or that we should trust 30 year old hearsay unconditionally from a witness with admitted memory problems. 

Both McMahon and Hunter said they had nothing to do with preparing the actual briefing boards. They only prepared the prints, so who assembled the briefing boards from their prints? Could it have been Brugioni? The only “evidence” that Brugioni was not involved are Brugioni’s 46-48 year-old highly questionable memories in a series of unsworn interviews. 

Do we even have access to the full set of interviews by Peter Janney and Horne with Brugioni, or just the cut together finished product? Janney’s interviews were supposedly recorded on MP3. Where can we listen to those interviews? Where are the uncut Horne video interviews? 

Brugioni’s answer in the O’Sullivan film that Hunter and McMahon were not present is hardly confidence inspiring. At one point after he’s asked again about McMahon and Hunter’s presence, Brugioni replies “I think there were about three in the lab and three pasting the thing together…”

Horne never asks Brugioni to name the “three people in the lab”, at least not in the film. I wonder why. 

Horne also claims McMahon told the ARRB that he opened up the lab, and unlocked all the doors, etc. that night. When did McMahon ever say anything like that? 

Horne’s assumption that the “three prints” mentioned in McMahon’s notes indicate three sets of boards is also unfounded. Ben Hunter told Horne that a set of test prints were made for correcting color balance, and McMahon indicated the same in his deposition. 

Brugioni’s justification that he had the original film is even more suspect. His rationale was that: 1) The SS brought it in; and 2) it wasn’t processed in a “typical commercial fashion” i.e. it didn’t come in a box. Also, just like Ben Hunter, Brugioni  said that he did NOT remember images between the sprocket holes.

Brugioni also did NOT say that he destroyed his set of briefing boards. He said he took the briefing boards out of storage and sent them to the director’s office during the Rockefeller Commission. Well, during the Rockefeller Commission, the CIA said the boards had been removed from storage and were available upon request. Hmmmmm…. 

The so-called “hinge” issue is also a nothingburger. Brugioni himself says the hinge was a piece of tape. Well, what do you get when you remove a piece of tape from two sets of two boards hinged together? 

The timelines are also extremely tight. Brugioni says the SS left with the film around 3-4 AM on Sunday the 24th. Per your theory, the original film was whisked away to HW to be altered, and brought back to NPIC later that same day. 

Expecting anyone to remember every detail perfectly from an event 30 years prior is ridiculous. Brugioni was interviewed between 2009 and 2011, almost 50 years after the assassination. 

The most rational conclusion from the available evidence, including the interviews of Brugioni, McMahon, and Hunter, is that the film was only at NPIC once, and it was one of the SS copies. That doesn’t mean I think the two briefing board/analysis scenario is impossible, but to present it as absolute fact based solely on decades-old highly questionable testimony is absurd. 

Edited June 26 by Tom Gram

[Roger Odisio]

20 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Strange response, Tom. In the note you are responding to, I was considering what happened to the original film that Life bought from Zapruder.  Obviously Life was not the only entity who had a distinct interest in what the film showed.  Kennedy had just been murdered. Uncertainty abounded.  Top government officials had a responsibility to find out what happened, and quickly.

 

 

Let me add to what I wrote yesterday.

The Life rep showed up to the bidding at Zapruder's office bright and early Saturday morning.  I recall he said he was there at 8 AM, which startled Zapruder.

Life's main competition for the film rights was CBS, but apparently the home office capped their bid at $100,000 (in today's dollars).  Life bid half a million dollars for limited rights, blowing them away.  They were Zapruder's obvious choice.  The bid didn't take very long.

The story we were told for decades is that LIfe then put the original film on a plane to Chicago to begin work on it for their mag.  I said this was a cover story designed to conceal the full story of what happened that weekend.

But its probable, even likely, that there was a flight to Chicago that day, initially. Documentation of that flight, dutifully recounted by you and Jeremy, would help establish the cover story.

But waiting in Chicago was another plane to fly the film to the CIA's NPIC lab in DC.  The CIA had its own planes.   Where various officials and perhaps some bad guys were waiting to have briefing boards made to clarify what the film showed. 

They enlarged key frames about 40 times their original size. They needed the original film to do that properly.

Brugioni said he started work on the film at NPIC at about 10 PM Saturday night.  There was plenty of time for both flights that day to proceed his work.

Whether Life was fronting for the CIA from the beginning or merely acquiesced to the CIA's assertion of national security as the reason to take the original film to its labs, probably doesn't matter for this point in the story.

Bottom line:  Your constant claim that documentary evidence only supports the original  cover story, as we should expect it would, but there is no evidence of that flight to NPIC the same day means nothing.  It proves nothing. 

It should be obvious the CIA would not tell us about what happened at their labs.  And they haven't.  In fact your continuous exhortation to rely on documentary evidence contains this unmentioned premise that requires reexamination: The CIA is as reliable a source of what happened as anyone else.

  

 

[Roger Odisio]

8 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

 

Isn’t McMahon’s reported 30 year old hearsay that SS Agent “Bill Smith” told him he’d brought the film to Rochester the only “evidence” the film was ever sent to Hawkeye Works at all? 

 

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/15399-dino-brugioni/

 

This is a post by Bill Kelly and others from 2010.  It is loaded with information.  I post it in the hopes you will read it and that it will discourage you from posting the kind of things you do below, into which I now dive.

 

Tom:  Isn’t McMahon’s reported 30 year old hearsay that SS Agent “Bill Smith” told him he’d brought the film to Rochester the only “evidence” the film was ever sent to Hawkeye Works at all? 

 

RO:  No.  "Smith" told McMahon he was bringing the film *from* Rochester.  Brugioni said that before his boards were finished the "SS agents" left with the film, but as far as I know he didn't say to where. We've since learned that in fact there were regular flights by the CIA between DC and Rochester (it's in the Kelly post).  The trip was not unusual but this one had a special urgency

 

So let's see.  The film went somewhere from the NPIC early Sunday morning and about 10-11 hours later it (was it the same unaltered film?) showed up from Rochester according to "Smith".

 

So, you ask, do we have *evidence* that it was sent to HW during that time away from NPIC?   You know, to HW, which was so secret its name was even classified until 2010. Has the CIA provided us with that "evidence" about its lab?  (There have been FOIA requests to the CIA but you can guess at the answers.)  I suggest you stop asking such silly questions you should already know the answer to.

 

Tom:  To be fair, McMahon said he was sure “Smith” told him that, but that doesn’t mean it was true, or that McMahon remembered correctly, or that we should trust 30 year old hearsay unconditionally from a witness with admitted memory problems. 

 

Both McMahon and Hunter said they had nothing to do with preparing the actual briefing boards. They only prepared the prints, so who assembled the briefing boards from their prints? Could it have been Brugioni? The only “evidence” that Brugioni was not involved are Brugioni’s 46-48 year-old highly questionable memories in a series of unsworn interviews. 

 

RO:  Yes, McMahon said some mysterious folks finished the work he and Hunter started. No, it could not have Brugioni who did that.  Brugioni was clear he did not encounter McMahon and Hunter that weekend.  He had no idea what they did until he was told (despite what you claim below).  Brugioni did in fact name others who were there with him Saturday night, despite your claim that he was never asked.  (again, read through the link).

 

Let's take a minute and go over how we know there were in fact two sets of boards done that weekend.

 

I assume you don't dispute the boards McMahon worked on.  They're at NARA, though McMahon pointed to some differences between what he did and the extant boards. 

 

After Brugioni's boards were finished around 5 or 6 AM Sunday morning, the director of the NPIC, Arthur Lindahl, came by and took them, along with the notes Brugioni had prepared, so he could brief John McCone, CIA director that morning.

 

Interestingly, Arthur Schlesinger wrote that at one point McCone had told Bobby he thought there were two shooters.  He had seen Brugioni's boards.  

 

McCone then went to Lyndon Johnson to brief him on what Brugioni's boards showed.  This is new info to me.  Going all the way to Johnson is a clear indication of the importance of the boards and why the film was taken that Saturday to make them.

 

Did none of this happen, Tom?  Is it all lies or misrememberances?

 

Tom:  Brugioni’s answer in the O’Sullivan film that Hunter and McMahon were not present is hardly confidence inspiring. At one point after he’s asked again about McMahon and Hunter’s presence, Brugioni replies “I think there were about three in the lab and three pasting the thing together…”

 

Horne never asks Brugioni to name the “three people in the lab”, at least not in the film. I wonder why. 

 

RO:  See above.

 

Tom:  Brugioni’s justification that he had the original film is even more suspect. His rationale was that: 1) The SS brought it in; and 2) it wasn’t processed in a “typical commercial fashion” i.e. it didn’t come in a box. Also, just like Ben Hunter, Brugioni  said that he did NOT remember images between the sprocket holes.

 

RO:  See the link for a fuller explanation of why Brugioni thought he was working with the original film.  You are mistaken.  Brugioni did remember images between the sprocket holesin the film he worked on.

 

Tom:  Brugioni also did NOT say that he destroyed his set of briefing boards. He said he took the briefing boards out of storage and sent them to the director’s office during the Rockefeller Commission. Well, during the Rockefeller Commission, the CIA said the boards had been removed from storage and were available upon request. Hmmmmm…. 

 

RO:  You have mischaracterized what I said.  I said in 1975 Brugioni was told to get rid of his boards when his then supervisor found out he still had them.  Brugioni sent them to the CIA director's office.  They have not been seen since.  The Rockefeller Commission did not make Brugioni's boards available.  If they had how could you have been doubting there existence all this time!

 

RO:  The timelines are also extremely tight. Brugioni says the SS left with the film around 3-4 AM on Sunday the 24th. Per your theory, the original film was whisked away to HW to be altered, and brought back to NPIC later that same day. 

 

RO:  Yep, that's what I said. The time was short. and combined with the inadequate tools they had, they were unable to eliminate all the incriminating evidence in the film.  Which is why they went back to Zapruder, bought the full film rights *for the purpose of burying the film from public view for as long as they could get away with*.  That turned out to be almost 12 years.

 

Jeremy admitted that it was hard to claim Life was merely acting in its own interest when it buried the film for that long and then gave it back to Zapruder for $1 when a bootleg version was shown on TV.  It was not doing the bidding of the CIA, he thought however, but rather going along with other powerful business interests who feared chaos if people could see the film. 

 

In fact there was quite a reaction when people saw the film--even the tamer, altered version--leading to new investigations of the murder.

 

Can you offer a better reason than Jeremy has as to why Life would bury the film if it was simply acting on its own?

 

Tom:  The most rational conclusion from the available evidence, including the interviews of Brugioni, McMahon, and Hunter, is that the film was only at NPIC once, and it was one of the SS copies. That doesn’t mean I think the two briefing board/analysis scenario is impossible, but to present it as absolute fact based solely on decades-old highly questionable testimony is absurd. 

 

RO:  That's your version of rationality, Tom.  The kind where if the CIA didn't tell us about it, it didn't happen.  I believe I just explained why there were two sets of boards done that weekend.

[Pat Speer]

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I have to add here, that although  I have no dog in this fight, the fact that there is not an explosion  out the back of the head is not at all probative.

As Mili Cranor demonstrated, the explosion in not any meter of directionality.  It comes from a phenomenon called cavitation.  This is where the pressure center builds in the skull and then bursts through at the weakest point. She did a lot of research on this through some of the best wound ballistics authors she could find.

The indications of a rear skull wound come from the 42 witnesses who saw such, and the fact the HSCA tried to cover it up.  us Jackie Kennedy goin going out the trunk of the car to retrieve a bone from JFK's skull.

In Chapter 16b I run through the wound ballistics of M/C ammo and cite dozens of early reports and articles which have largely been overlooked by everyone...from the WC on down. The bottom line. A bullet traveling on the trajectory proposed by the WC and HSCA etc does not explode the head  The explosion of JFK's skull is thereby the smoking gun, strangely enough. 

Here is a cadaver fired upon at a closer range than JFK was supposedly fired upon, on a similar trajectory, (although from front to back instead of back to front.) The skull remained intact. This should have been the expected result. 

 

 

 

[Michael Crane]

What?

Sandy Larsen is no longer a Administrator?

 

[Keven Hofeling]

On 6/25/2024 at 4:58 PM, Keven Hofeling said:

Mr. Cohen:

In what way, and when and where (citations!) did Josiah Thompson show Mary Moorman's claim that she stepped onto Elm Street prior to shooting Polaroid # 5?

Mary Moorman herself -- who in recent years has been under the influence of a group of lone nutters closely associated with the Sixth Floor Museum -- told me on Facebook a few years ago that she had not in fact stepped into the street to take the photo, but when I researched the question I found the following:

1. The Dallas Times-Herald Reported on the day of the assassination that Mary Moorman and Jean Hill had been standing in the street when Moorman took the photograph.
2. In a 1967 CBS special on the Kennedy assassination Mary Moorman specifically described that she stepped out into the street "and stood there and looked through [her camera] for quite a few seconds" before taking the photograph (See footage of the interview in the video below).
3. In an interview with Charley Jones on News Radio 1080 KRLD, broadcast live from The Sixth Floor Museum in 1997, Mary Moorman reiterated the claim that she was in the street when she captured the photograph.
4. Jean Hill, after the assassination, told authorities that she had called to the President to get his attention, and Mary Moorman also repeated this claim in a Discovery Channel special.
5. To the Warren Commission in 1964, and in a 1995 letter to historian Richard B. Trask, Hill stated that she had "jumped into the street and yelled, 'Mr. President, we want to take your picture!'"

From the Warren Commission testimony of Jean Hill [https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Hill.pdf]:

Thus, based upon their own accounts, Mary Moorman stepped into the street to take Polaroid #5, and Jean Hill stepped into the street with her to get the President’s attention. The Zapruder film, however, depicts both women standing on the grass and shows Hill standing completely still on the grass, with hands clasped, and only turning her head toward the President at the last moment. Unless you are among the lone nutters who summarily dismiss the testimony of 50 Parkland and Bethesda witnesses attesting to the existence of the large occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head, these discrepancies between Moorman and Hill's testimony and the imagery of them depicted in the Zapruder film are a serious problem, especially for Zapruder film authenticity apologists of all colors and stripes.

My interest in these questions stemmed from the fact that I had always been troubled by the Zapruder film imagery of Mary Moorman and Jean Hill because Mary Moorman and Jean Hill are depicted as towering giants in the background, larger in size than the occupants of the Presidential Limousine in the foreground, which is violative of basic photographic principles.

In the video below -- as indicated in the brief segment following Mary Moorman's filmed statement to CBS that she had in fact stepped into the street -- the presence of the towering giant spectator imagery in the extant Zapruder film are indicative of compositing techniques by which foreground imagery can be manipulated with a new background added in:

The film compositing and masking techniques alluded to in the video above are more fully explained in the following video:

'Uncovering the Probable Techniques Used to Alter the Zapruder Film in November 1963'  https://youtu.be/hgCCl5ep9dI

Drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking research of esteemed Australian physicist John Costella, this video delves into a meticulous examination of the intricate processes possibly employed in the creation of the Zapruder film. By exploring the technological capabilities accessible to forgers during the pivotal year of 1963, we aim to provide a detailed and enlightening analysis of the potential methodologies utilized in crafting this historic piece of footage. Join us on a journey through history and technology as we uncover the secrets behind one of the most iconic films of our time.

 

And supplementing all of the above about Mary Moorman and Jean Hill repeatedly attesting that they had stepped onto Elm Street just before Moorman took Polaroid #5 are the differences between the same split-second scene as depicted by the Nix film and the Zapruder film.

In the Zapruder film it looks like Moorman and Hill are standing on the grass about two feet back from the road, and in the Nix film it looks like Moorman and Hill are standing in the road, on Elm street, just like they both repeatedly said they were over the years following the assassination...

 

POLAROID # 5

 

Edited June 27 by Keven Hofeling

[Pat Speer]

42 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

And supplementing all of the above about Mary Moorman and Jean Hill repeatedly attesting that they had stepped onto Elm Street just before Moorman took Polaroid #5 are the differences between the same split-second scene as depicted by the Nix film and the Zapruder film.

In the Zapruder film it looks like Moorman and Hill are standing on the grass about two feet back from the road, and in the Nix film it looks like Moorman and Hill are standing in the road, on Elm street, just like they both repeatedly said they were over the years following the assassination...

 

POLAROID # 5

 

FWIW, I sat with Moorman at a conference and she explained to me that the confusion stemmed from her stepping into the street to take a photo of a motorcycle officer. She insists her famous photo is authentic and that she took this from the side of the road. When this all heated up some time back Tink Thompson demonstrated that the photo only made sense if she was on the grass, exactly where she is shown to be in the Z-film. This particular "proof" of forgery is dead and buried, IMO. 

Edited June 27 by Pat Speer

[Jonathan Cohen]

44 minutes ago, Roger Odisio said:

Jeremy admitted that it was hard to claim Life was merely acting in its own interest when it buried the film for that long and then gave it back to Zapruder for $1 when a bootleg version was shown on TV.  It was not doing the bidding of the CIA, he thought however, but rather going along with other powerful business interests who feared chaos if people could see the film. 

 

In fact there was quite a reaction when people saw the film--even the tamer, altered version--leading to new investigations of the murder.

 

Can you offer a better reason than Jeremy has as to why Life would bury the film if it was simply acting on its own?

Because it was an incredibly rare piece of American history and also a grotesque, real-time document of the leader of the free world being murdered in broad daylight?

[Jonathan Cohen]

16 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

FWIW, I sat with Moorman at a conference and she explained to me that the confusion stemmed from her stepping into the street to take a photo of a motorcycle officer. She insists her famous photo is authentic and that she took this from the side of the road. When this all heated up some time back Tink Thompson demonstrated that the photo only made sense if she was on the grass, exactly where she is shown to be in the Z-film. This particular "proof" of forgery is dead and buried, IMO. 

Precisely. Here's more on the subject.

[Keven Hofeling]

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I have to add here, that although  I have no dog in this fight, the fact that there is not an explosion  out the back of the head is not at all probative.

Based upon the extant Zapruder film headshot footage, it certainly does not appear that there was an explosion of biological debris out of the back of JFK's head, nor do we see in the footage the slightest hint of the skull and brain fragment retrieved from the trunk lid by the First Lady that you reference in the final clause of your comment...

 

But because same is not depicted in the highly questionable extant Zapruder film do we simply disregard the accounts of the long list of witnesses who attested to having seen, and in some cases felt, the rearward flying blood, brain and skull from JFK's occipital-parietal wound that was so well documented minutes later at Parkland Hospital?

Perhaps the most intriguing of this list of witnesses is Erwin Schwartz, Abraham Zapruder's business partner, who attested to having seen the biological debris flying backwards and to the left in the camera-original Zapruder film itself  when viewed the camera-original Zapruder film multiple times on Friday and Saturday, 11/22/1963 and 11/23/1963, while Schwartz was accompanying Zapruder to have the film developed, and watched it projected multiple times for journalists and investigators. 

From Noel Twyman's "Bloody Treason": 

"...When I interviewed Erwin Schwartz, I asked him several questions about what he saw on the film when he first viewed it in its original state at Eastman Kodak. [In a footnote, Twyman made clear that Schwartz was referring to first viewing the film in its 16 mm wide, unslit state at the Kodak plant in Dallas.] ...I also asked him to describe what he saw at the instant of the fatal head shot. His answer was very descriptive. He said he saw Kennedy's head suddenly whip around to the left (counter-clockwise). I also asked him if he saw the explosion of blood and brains out of the head. He replied that he did. I asked him if he noticed which direction the eruption went. He pointed back over his left shoulder. He said, "It went this way." I said, "You mean it went to the left and rear?" He said, "Yes." Bartholomew then asked him, "Are you sure that you didn't see the blood and brains going up and to the front?" Schwartz said, "No; it was to the left and rear." We went over this several times with him to be certain he was clear on this point. He was very clear. Of course. Schwartz's statement that the blood and brains went back to the rear and left was completely consistent with all of the eyewitnesses who said they saw the rear of Kennedy's head blow out and brain and blood go to the rear. It was also consistent with Dallas motorcycle policeman Bobby Hargis's testimony that he was riding to the rear and the left of limousine and was splattered with blood and brains...So here we have testimony from a man who first saw the original Zapruder film (he said he looked- at it at least fifteen times over the weekend)...who...saw the eruption of blood and brains in a direction opposite [to] what we now see on the Zapruder film...."

The obvious question is why, given that Schwartz viewed this imagery in the camera-original Zapruder film, do we not see the same thing in the extant "original" Zapruder film today?

Of course, such imagery is completely absent from the extant "original" Zapruder film (instead, we see only the morphing trapezoid shaped D-Max black patch with sharp edges that covers the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head):

 

The fraudulent nature of the morphing trapezoid shaped D-Max black patch with sharp edges that covers the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head -- perhaps best seen in the following 6K frames from Sidney Wilkinson and Thom Whitehead's film -- is so obvious it prompted one noted Hollywood expert in post production -- Ned Price, the Head of Restoration at a major motion picture studio -- to say: "Oh that's horrible, that's just terrible. I can't believe it's such a bad fake."

 

The following additional witness accounts are indicative of the rearward flying biological debris we should be seeing in the Zapruder headshhot sequence directly above, but which has clearly been completely excised from the extant film:

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"...BLOOD, BRAIN MATTER, AND BONE FRAGMENTS EXPLODED FROM THE BACK OF THE PRESIDENT'S HEAD. THE PRESIDENT'S BLOOD, PARTS OF HIS SKULL, BITS OF HIS BRAIN WERE SPLATTERED ALL OVER ME -- ON MY FACE, MY CLOTHES, IN MY HAIR..."

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill (in his 2012 book "Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir").
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"...I HAD BRAIN MATTER ALL OVER MY WINDSHIELD AND LEFT ARM, THAT'S HOW CLOSE WE WERE TO IT ... IT WAS THE RIGHT REAR PART OF HIS HEAD ... BECAUSE THAT'S THE PART I SAW BLOW OUT. I SAW HAIR COME OUT, THE PIECES BLOW OUT, THEN THE SKIN WENT BACK IN -- AN EXPLOSION IN AND OUT..."

Secret Service Agent Samuel Kinney (3/5/1994 interview by Vince Palamara).

"...WHEN PRESIDENT KENNEDY STRAIGHTENED BACK UP IN THE CAR THE BULLET HIT HIM IN THE HEAD, THE ONE THAT KILLED HIM AND IT SEEMED LIKE HIS HEAD EXPLODED, AND I WAS SPLATTERED WITH BLOOD AND BRAIN, AND KIND OF A BLOODY WATER...."

Dallas Motorcycle Patrolman Bobby Hargis (4/8/1964 Warren Commission testimony).
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"...I CAN REMEMBER SEEING THE SIDE OF THE PRESIDENT'S EAR AND HEAD COME OFF. I REMEMBER A FLASH OF WHITE AND THE RED AND JUST BITS AND PIECES OF FLESH EXPLODING FROM THE PRESIDENT'S HEAD..."

Dealey Plaza witness Bill Newman interviewed about the JFK assassination -- 0:13-0:27 -- https://youtu.be/EEhlbAwI7Zg?t=13

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"...THE HEAD SHOT SEEMED TO COME FROM THE RIGHT FRONT. IT SEEMED TO STRIKE HIM HERE [gesturing to her upper right forehead, up high at the hairline], AND HIS HEAD WENT BACK, AND ALL OF THE BRAIN MATTER WENT OUT THE BACK OF THE HEAD. IT WAS LIKE A RED HALO, A RED CIRCLE, WITH BRIGHT MATTER IN THE MIDDLE OF IT - IT JUST WENT LIKE THAT...."

Dealey Plaza witness Marilyn Willis from 24:26-24:58 of TMWKK, Episode 1, at following link cued in advance for you https://youtu.be/BW98fHkbuD8?t=1466 ).

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"...Charles Brehm: 0:21 WHEN THE SECOND BULLET HIT, THERE WAS, THE HAIR SEEMED TO GO FLYING. IT WAS VERY DEFINITE THEN THAT HE WAS STRUCK IN THE HEAD WITH THE SECOND BULLET, AND, UH, YES, I VERY DEFINITELY SAW THE EFFECT OF THE SECOND BULLET.

Mark Lane: 0:38 Did you see any particles of the President's skull fly when the bullet struck him in the head?

Charles Brehm: 0:46 I SAW A PIECE FLY OVER OH IN THE AREA OF THE CURB WHERE I WAS STANDING.

Mark Lane: 0:53 In which direction did that fly?

Charles Brehm: 0:56 IT SEEMED TO HAVE COME LEFT AND BACK...."

Dealey Plaza witness Charles Brehm interviewed about JFK assassination by Mark Lane for the 1967 documentary "Rush to Judgment": https://youtu.be/RsnHXywKIKs

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"...I SAW THE HEAD PRACTICALLY OPEN UP AND BLOOD AND MANY MORE THINGS, WHATEVER IT WAS, BRAINS, JUST CAME OUT OF HIS HEAD...."

Testimony of Dealey Plaza witness Abraham Zapruder -- who filmed the assassination -- at the Clay Shaw trial -- https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/zapruder_shaw2.htm
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"...Brugioni's most vivid recollection of the Zapruder film was "...OF JFK'S BRAINS FLYING THROUGH THE AIR." He did not use the term 'head explosion,' but rather referred to apparent exit debris seen on the film the night he viewed it. "...AND WHAT I'LL NEVER FORGET WAS -- I KNEW THAT HE HAD BEEN ASSASSINATED -- BUT WHEN WE ROLLED THE FILM AND I SAW A GOOD PORTION OF HIS HEAD FLYING THROUGH THE AIR, THAT SHOCKED ME, AND THAT SHOCKED EVERYBODY WHO WAS THERE..."

Excerpt from interview of Dino Brugioni -- Photoanalyst at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center -- who viewed the camera-original Zapruder film the evening of 11/23/1963. Douglas Horne, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board" , 2009, Volume IV, Chapter 14, page 1329. 

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I therefore respectfully dispute your claim that "the fact that there is not an explosion out the back of the head is not at all probative," and assert that the fact that the extant Zapruder film does not depict the explosion out of the back of the head that was attested to by multiple witnesses is probative as to the question of whether said explosion has been crudely edited out of the film.

 

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

As Mili Cranor demonstrated, the explosion in not any meter of directionality.  It comes from a phenomenon called cavitation.  This is where the pressure center builds in the skull and then bursts through at the weakest point. She did a lot of research on this through some of the best wound ballistics authors she could find.

I certainly concur with your favorable assessment of Milicant Cranor's work concerning the head wound, but would also like to point out that Cranor feels very strongly that the Zapruder film has in fact been altered.

She wrote an excellent article on the topic in 2018 as follows:

'JFK ASSASSINATION FILM: PROOF OF TAMPERING?'

By Milicent Cranor | 07/12/18

https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/jfk-assassination-film-proof-of-tampering/

And when I sought additional feedback from her on Facebook on 8/17/2021, she broke down the salient point of her article as follows:

"When comparing Jackie's position in the two films, please note that in the Nix film, Jackie's right arm is parallel to the trunk, and her hand clearly reaches to the end of it. In the Z film, her right arm is bent, and her right palm is flat on the trunk, not reaching out to Hill. And her distance from the end of the trunk could not possibly be explained by angle of camera."  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2232161073506616/posts/4392428030813232/

 

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The indications of a rear skull wound come from the 42 witnesses who saw such, and the fact the HSCA tried to cover it up.  us Jackie Kennedy goin going out the trunk of the car to retrieve a bone from JFK's skull.

Agreed, but I think this just supplements the evidence outlined above. The large avulsive wound reported and attested to by all of those witnesses at Parkland and Bethesda had very definite characteristics that did not in any way resemble the trapezoid shaped D-Max black patch with sharp edges that covers the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head that we see here in Z-317:

 

Edited June 27 by Keven Hofeling