The Smell of Gunpowder and the Smell of Bigfoot

[Joe Elliott]

Excuse me? do you not see the alleged smoke in the photo? I have added alleged because even I am not convinced. But I could see why some might add this photo to the statements of witnesses that saw a puff of smoke lingering by the picket fence and conclude this is strong evidence of a shooter from that position.

Again, you dodge my question about the smell of gun smoke. Are witnesses smelling bigfoot and gun smoke a reliable indicator of bigfoots and gun smoke? You dodge the question.

I see patches of light and darkness. But I do not see gun smoke.


When were these Wiegman frames with the smoke taken?

Were they taken before z313? Within a second after z313? Five seconds after z313? If they were taken too late, several seconds after z313, I cannot consider them to be gunshots. Were shots being fired after the JFK limousine had already left Dealey Plaza?

Do not dodge this question. What is a good estimate of when these frames were taken? They look like they were taken like 10 seconds or more after z313.

And again, don’t continue to dodge my original questions. Are witnesses smelling bigfoot and gun smoke a reliable indicator of bigfoots and gun smoke?

[Charles Collins]

Witness accounts are not the most reliable form of evidence. So the answer to your question has to be no. That being said, I believe that it is possible that some witnesses did actually smell gunpowder. Mrs. Earle Cabell said that she looked up and saw the rifle immediately after the first shot. And smelled gunpowder shortly thereafter. Also, Rufus Youngblood said that he smelled gunpowder. Both of these witnesses were in the motorcade and very close to the front of the TSBD when the shots were fired. The wind tends to swirl when it hits the tall buildings. It is reasonable to believe that at least a portion of the wind hitting the front of the TSBD would be directed downward towards the motorcade participants and could have carried the gunpowder aroma from the muzzle of the rifle with it.

[Martin Weidmann]

You keep dodging my questions. But even though you have changed the subject of this thread, I will answer yours.

No, I don’t believe the Wiegman frames show smoke. I think people see the things they want to see, like smoke.

Can you show me a picture of a modern rifle producing smoke from one shot? Even in a 10 to 15 mph breeze. Or are the Dealey Plaza pictures the only pictures where this phenomenon can be observed.

I think people see the things they want to see

Like there being no smoke..... What makes your opinion better than somebody else's?

[Joe Elliott]

Witness accounts are not the most reliable form of evidence. So the answer to your question has to be no. That being said, I believe that it is possible that some witnesses did actually smell gunpowder. Mrs. Earle Cabell said that she looked up and saw the rifle immediately after the first shot. And smelled gunpowder shortly thereafter. Also, Rufus Youngblood said that he smelled gunpowder. Both of these witnesses were in the motorcade and very close to the front of the TSBD when the shots were fired. The wind tends to swirl when it hits the tall buildings. It is reasonable to believe that at least a portion of the wind hitting the front of the TSBD would be directed downward towards the motorcade participants and could have carried the gunpowder aroma from the muzzle of the rifle with it.

And I think it would take a Louisiana blood hound to smell this from a couple hundred feet away.

[Joe Elliott]

I think people see the things they want to see

Like there being no smoke..... What makes your opinion better than somebody else's?

How many seconds after z312 was the Wiegman frames in question taken? 10 seconds? 30 seconds?

I don’t think they show gun smoke. I think you would have seen similar play of light and shadow on leaves or whatever 10 minutes before or 10 minutes after the assassination.

The timing of the Wiegman film makes me confidence that it is other people who are seeing what they want to see in those frames, not me.

[Charles Collins]

And I think it would take a Louisiana blood hound to smell this from a couple hundred feet away.

Going by memory, it’s only about 63 feet from the sidewalk to the sixth floor southeast window sill. And the rifle uses a gunpowder charge that is proportionately higher than most rifles of a similar caliber. Which tends to create more than the average amount of spent gunpowder discharge. Also, there were three shots reported to have been fired in a relatively short time frame. So, I respectfully disagree.

[Robert Reeves]

Circled in the middle -- is JFK's limo 30ft from the approaching underpass.

So at an estimate, in the 3 to 6 seconds after the head shot.

Railway workers stood  nearby said:

S. M. Holland -- ''I made it very clear to the Warren people one of the shots came from behind that picket fence. I heard the report and saw the smoke come out about 6 or 8 feet above the ground, right out from under those trees. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind . . .''

Richard Dodd -- ''all four of us, all railroad men, standing here, seen about the same thing. The smoke came from behind the hedge -- and a motorcycle policeman dropped his cycle in the street and run up the embankment''

There's a very good old thread about this on the ed forum

google -- "Witnesses who say a shot and smoke came from behind the picket fence"

Interesting Youtube clip re 'do rifles produce smoke when fired' from footage of Charles Whitman 'Texas Tower Sniper'

I asked if the Wiegman still has been debunked because some have said it's just branches from the nearby tree ... which it obviously could be. But it fits with Holland's description ''the smoke come out about 6 or 8 feet above the ground''. The Wiegman film is so brief and all over the place it's hard to conclude much.

If people smelt gun powder, plus we have a photo of what appears like a smokey cloud hovering around the picket fence as described -- nothing changes. Because the eye witnesses who saw smoke weren't taken seriously by the investigators at the time.

[Joe Elliott]

If this frame of the Wiegman was taken at z453, JFK would still be 40 feet from passing under the overpass. This is being generous. Likely this frame is a little later than z453. Z453 is not 3 or 6 seconds but is 7.6 seconds after z313.

Here is what Vincent Bugliosi and Richard Trask have to say, this is a quote from Reclaiming History:

Perhaps just as far out is a photograph, a frame from film shot by NBC’s Dave Wiegman, which Groden has put on page 204 of his book, The Killing of a President. Groden has circled a large, hazy image in the upper right of the photograph and says it “could well be a haze of gunsmoke fire from an assassin’s rifle. But this is ludicrous for several reasons. One, the smoke from a rifle would be a very small and, as indicated, would vanish immediately on this windy day. If what Groden encircled were smoke, it would appear to be smoke from a small smokestack. If that’s an exaggeration, what is not is that the image is probably fifty times larger than what could be expected from the muzzle of a fired rifle. Moreover, the large image is not anywhere along the stockade fence, being to the west of the fence near the Triple Underpass. And finally, Groden has also encircled the presidential limousine on the photo, and it is, as he acknowledges, “disappearing under” the Triple Underpass, meaning that Wiegman’s photo had to have been taken at least a few seconds after the shots were fired. What can Groden’s response to this be? That the smoke originally came from a rifle fired behind the picket fence, that instead of vanishing in the wind actually mushroomed into a large, cloudlike image that kept its form and was drifting west at the time of the frame from Wiegman’s film? We know the image in the Wiegman frame is not smoke from any rifle.

What is it? Richard Task and studied the Wiegman film and he says what Groden says is gunsmoke is nothing more than “the contrast between the light and dark of the background”. Perhaps most importantly, he said the “frames of the Wiegman film that show this white image don’t show any movement of it, which there would be if it was smoke, particularly on a windy day. The image is stationary.”

Some additional points I would like to make. Don Roberdeau’s map agrees with Bugliosi’s assertions. The cloud, if it is a cloud, and if it is hoovering in the air near the “Sniper’s position” and not much further to the west and part wall of the overpass, is 20 feet south of the wooden fence, where the assassination is theorized as shooting behind. In the seven seconds after the headshot, this cloud did not disperse but instead drifted twenty feet to the south, when it should be blown 110 feet to the northeast. A magic cloud if ever I heard of one.

And you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say the gunsmoke held together for seven seconds, long enough for Wiegman to film it and at the same time the cloud disperses enough that witnesses more than 20 feet from the “Sniper’s” fence were able to smell it.