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What did the witnesses hear?


Guest Mark Valenti

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Guest Mark Valenti

This is a rough, incomplete estimate of where witnesses placed the shots they heard.

Yellow - Grassy knoll

Red - TSBD

White - Underpass

Blue - Not sure

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Hello Mark

Not in any way attempting to downplay your interest in the "earwitness" reports in Dealey Plaza, I would like to mention however, that in my search, I have found reason to relegate this matter to a back burner.

What I found that I was faced with, were not only the echoes and reverberations involved, and the individual accuity of the hearing of different witnesss, but more importantly, I strongly feel that "some" sound supressed weapons were used. With the throngs that were massed in the Plaza along with the "various associated noises", it has been my experience that a "sound supressed" weapon, paricularly one firing a low caliber sub sonic bullet, would not only have been unrecordable on the accoustical tape, but may very well have gone unnoticed by other spectators very close to the shooter.

Yes, I do feel that there is a strong possibility that such a "handgun" may have been used. The proof of this would certainly answer many questions regarding bullet trajectories, a throat wound, and possibly as many as three separate hits on Connolly and at least four on JFK.

I feel that researchers and analysts have become "stuck" with the 4 deades long assumption of "TWO shooters with RIFLES". This may very easily have NOT been what happened......or at least not ALL that happened ! We perhaps need to "bail out of that box" that has been perhaps "set up for us", and begin to look at the possibility of other "REALITIES".

These 40 year old "speculations" have really advanced us but little!

I hope that someday we can all say, that "The solution (whatever it might prove to be), was so simple, that I cannot believe that I did not see it".

Mine, however, is purely personal undocumented speculation, based only on my experience with weapons, and what I understand of the wounds.

Charles Black

Edited by Charles Black
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Guest Mark Valenti

I totally agree that earwitnesses are of questionable value -- I just wanted to have a visual to see if there was any pattern. Even this cursory picture shows that there was no rhyme or reason to what anyone heard, regardless of where they were standing. I didn't even include suggestions that the shots came from inside the car, or from the Dal-Tex building or other locations.

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I totally agree that earwitnesses are of questionable value -- I just wanted to have a visual to see if there was any pattern. Even this cursory picture shows that there was no rhyme or reason to what anyone heard, regardless of where they were standing. I didn't even include suggestions that the shots came from inside the car, or from the Dal-Tex building or other locations.

Mark, I created a similar map a few years ago. While there may have been silencers used, and I suspect there were, these charts are still incredibly important as they demonstrate, quite conclusively in my opinion, that the "one shooter three shots from the sniper's nest story" is bunkum. The HSCA had professional listeners test the acoustics of the plaza. They concluded it was INCREDIBLY easy to tell shots from the sniper's nest from shots from the knoll when standing in front of the TSBD. And yet less than half the witnesses standing in front of the TSBD thought the shots came from above them. This so alarmed the HSCA's expert that he theorized that Oswald fired from inside the building.

I go into this in great detail in Chapter 9 of patspeer.com.

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Hello Mark

Not in any way attempting to downplay your interest in the "earwitness" reports in Dealey Plaza, I would like to mention however, that in my search, I have found reason to relegate this matter to a back burner.

What I found that I was faced with, were not only the echoes and reverberations involved, and the individual accuity of the hearing of different witnesss, but more importantly, I strongly feel that "some" sound supressed weapons were used. With the throngs that were massed in the Plaza along with the "various associated noises", it has been my experience that a "sound supressed" weapon, paricularly one firing a low caliber sub sonic bullet, would not only have been unrecordable on the accoustical tape, but may very well have gone unnoticed by other spectators very close to the shooter.

Yes, I do feel that there is a strong possibility that such a "handgun" may have been used. The proof of this would certainly answer many questions regarding bullet trajectories, a throat wound, and possibly as many as three separate hits on Connolly and at least four on JFK.

I feel that researchers and analysts have become "stuck" with the 4 deades long assumption of "TWO shooters with RIFLES". This may very easily have NOT been what happened......or at least not ALL that happened ! We perhaps need to "bail out of that box" that has been perhaps "set up for us", and begin to look at the possibility of other "REALITIES".

These 40 year old "speculations" have really advanced us but little!

I hope that someday we can all say, that "The solution (whatever it might prove to be), was so simple, that I cannot believe that I did not see it".

Mine, however, is purely personal undocumented speculation, based only on my experience with weapons, and what I understand of the wounds.

Charles Black

During the filming of JFK I was standing by the depository out of sight of the camera. A LAPD

officer was firing blanks in a .45 handgun from the knoll. VERY LOUD. NO ECHOES. Just

a reverberating BOOM...no distinguishable echoes that sounded like shots. From my location

IT WAS VERY EASY TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE SOUNDS CAME FROM THE KNOLL, NOT FROM

THE TSBD!

Got it? No echoes. Easy to determine direction. Very loud noise.

In my opinion, earwitnesses were not confused. Shots were fired from several locations.

They tended to report the shots NEAREST to their location.

Jack

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A number of the witnesses including Zapruder told of hearing the shots as coming from behind them when they were looking at the headshot. This has been interpreted as the grassy knoll. The Grassy Knoll has been interpreted as somewhere behind the fence. In fact these witness testimonies like Newman and Zapruder places the shot as coming from somewhere at the collonnade as this is what was behind them.

Some witnesses are not included as Dealey Plaza is commonly (almost universally) mistakenly presented as what in fact is the northern half of Dealey Plaza. Dealey Plaza and witnesses include a number of the southern half such as Harry Holmes, Price, Carr and others.

There was at least Harry reporting a shot 'a minute or so' after the last shot. I seem to remember the odd other likewise report. Perhaps a backfire? Perhaps something that accounts for blood spots, possibly 'obfuscation' which in Harry's case is not an unreasonable supposition.

Another thing to consider re the ear witnessing is the distance they may have been from the origins of the sound. ie someone on the south knoll may have a half second lapse between the shot and sound reaching them while someone right near the source would report a different timing and someone between say two different shooting positions would give a different report again.

Further, as a number of british pilots learnt during the French theatre pre dunkirk, pre battle of britain, a shot from behind is almost universally reacted to as being from rear right even if it came from rear left.

_______________________

I think this is a worthwhile endeavour as a proper comprehensive analysis could correlate particular shots, and the description thereof may serve to deduce the origin when one takes into account the speed of sound and the location of the ear witness in relation to the sound origin.

Another factor is the collonade itself. This type of semi circular solid structure is a type of 'sound lens'. IOW it, because of the uniformity of the curve, tends to direct sound in particular ways. ie it can act as a sound concentrator creating a sharp crack where the soundwaves converge. Also other factors are the muzzle blast and the shockwave accompanying the bullet as being two sounds. The muzzle blast can be deadened by firing from inside an enclosed space. The sixth floor was a solid walled open structure with various walls of cardboard boxes full of books arranged in different ways. This roughly approximates an echo chamber, however an echo chamber is with all surfaces solid. Nevertheless, with regards to hearing footfalls and the shots themselves which would have been the loudest of all sounds. Have any of the witnesses within the building indicated that they heard shots that seemed to be from inside the building, particularly those who may have been close to the stairwell and the elevator shaft?

EDIT::

IF one could take the first shot for examle, which is often described as firecrackers.

Then a map showing the location of witnesses who heard this and where they thought it came from AND at what moment in time.

Then one could assume it is the same sound but depending on where the witness was in relation to the sounds origin it would be heard at a different time to the visual as sound travels at a very slow speed compared to light.

Then, perhaps it would be possible to deduce where the sound must have come from in order to result in apparent inconsistencies.

The same principle applied to each shot in turn could yield the same. This is an approach that I don't think has been considered before?

Perhaps a sampling of ear witness reports from three far apart positions can help in some kind of triangulation deduction like what is used to triangulate to find radio emissions.

Edited by John Dolva
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Perhaps a sampling of ear witness reports from three far apart positions can help in some kind of triangulation deduction like what is used to triangulate to find radio emissions.

John, I explore the earwitness evidence in chapter 9 of patspeer.com. Most everyone at Houston and Main heard three shots, with the last two close together. Those nearest Kennedy, however, heard two shots or three shots with the last two Boom Boom. This suggests that the final shot was much closer to these witnesses than those at Houston and Elm. This supports that the last sound DID come from back behind Zapruder and Newman and Woodward. As more than half of those in front of the TSBD, including Shelley and Lovelady, also thought the shots came from this area, the earwitness evidence is strongly suggestive that a sound or sounds came from west of the TSBD.

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Hello Jack

Either my wording wasn't clear enough or you misconstrued, the essence of my post. My point was meant to be, that if sound supressed weapons were used, and I have absolutely no reason to believe that they were not considering whom I believe set up this operation, these certain sound supressed weapons, would have made both earwitness impressions and the dictabelt interpretations "moot"....as they would have been neither recorded nor reported.

I certainly accept your statement of being there during these tests and what you heard. However, even during these tests, there were several factors not present that could not have been "imitated", reproduced, or truly even imagined. One factor was the excitement and "adrenalin rush" that many of the spectators were experiencing. You were there to "listen to sounds"! They were there for the excitement of seeing Jack and Jackie. Something that they expected would be a treasured memory. To some, this was to be their only lifetime opportunity to be so physically close to fame and importance.

Any "sounds" were "secondary" at the least, in what they were attempting to perceive. Positioning of the witnesses was "a" factor. However separate witnesses in the same vehicle, or standing next to each other at street level, reported hearing different sounds. The same for SS agents.... "a flurry of shots".

But my prinary point, as I stated earlier, is that I seriously feel that if any good "sound supression" was used, what has been reported regarding the sounds and the recording of sounds should no longer be a foremost consideration.

There were at least two reports of "sounds similar to automatic weapons fire".

I realize that I may be totally wrong regarding echoes and reverberations, as I have never been in the Plaza when gunshots were fired.

Charles Black

Edited by Charles Black
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Charlie...I was NOT criticising anything you said.

I just have that reaction everytime I read about someone talking

about ECHOES BEING MISTAKEN FOR SHOTS. In Dealey Plaza

that is not true in my opinion.

I was there when numerous shots were fired by Stone's people

from near the Zapruder position using a .45 handgun. I was between

the pergola and the TSBD. Each time, even though I was expecting

shooting, I was totally surprised. The shot was VERY LOUD.

NO SINGLE ECHO COULD BE HEARD WHICH WOULD BE MISTAKEN

FOR A SHOT. The multiple echoes from dozens of buildings RETURNED

AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME, MERGING INTO A CONTINUOUS

REVERBERATION. It was like BOOM...OOM..OOM...OOM...OM...MM.

Nothing I said was personal. I'd just like to kill off the echo theory.

Jack

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Hello Jack

I quite understand and never did consider it personal.

The only noises that I ever heard in Dealey Plaza were traffic, my wife giving me her usual "helpful hints", and my kids being their normal loud and overly active selves.

I later went back alone and got a much better perspective.

Charlie Black

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