JFK's Head Snap and the Implausible Jet-Effect and Neurospasm Theories

[John Mytton]

I’ve been saving this, and perhaps now is the time to share it, blah blah blah....

The real elephant in the room that's never been addressed is there is no logical reason for any conspirator to place a sniper in front when your Patsy is behind, just how stupid do you think these people were?

Another important fact that is constantly ignored is that in a crossfire from opposite ends of Dealey plaza the vastly different direction of shots would be as obvious as dogs proverbial's but besides people understandably confused about the actual origin of the shots, 94% of the earwitnesses that Thompson tallied say that the shots came from only ONE direction, put that in your pipe and smoke it!



JohnM

[Jerry Organ]

If you can't conduct yourself in a civil manner, I have no desire for further discussion with you.

Given your response to my post about Lattimer's model (face sheet, tailored-shirts, etc.) was all diversion that showed some effort, and that you're an unceasing Trump defender, I going with "too stupid" rather than "too lazy."

Well, umm, tailor-made shirts are designed to fit the person well. Another "magical quality" that would have prevented Kennedy's shirt from bunching significantly would have been that the lower part of his back was pinning the shirt against the seat. Plus, photos and film of JFK 2-15 seconds before the first shot show that his coat was only slightly bunched.

You think Kennedy's shirt was a pair of long-johns? Why wouldn't a shirt have some give and pull out a bit? Once out, it's unlikely to tuck itself back in.

I take it you're unaware that the coat and shirt holes line up exactly? This has been known for decades. Both holes put the wound about 5 inches below the collar line.

I'm certainly unaware the holes in the President's jacket and shirt exist in "perfect millimeter-for-millimeter concert". Can you provide measurements to prove your statement? Or were you just trading in absolutes and hyperbole like Wecht and Trump?

If the autopsy sheet is marked "verified," one logically assumes that it has been, well, "verified." And isn't it just a whopping coincidence that the death certificate, which was also marked "verified," puts the back wound at T3? So Boswell and Burkley couldn't tell the difference between C7/T1 and T3? Really?

There is some thought that Burkley based his T3 location using the President's clothing, unaware the clothing had bunched during the motorcade. Boswell signed an autopsy report that located the wound at the base of the back of the neck, and said not to use his mark on the face sheet but the measurements written nearby. Those 14cm measurements get you to a wound on the base of the back of the neck that is at the C7 level.

Dr. Ebersole thought the wound was closer to T4. Was he blind too?

Clint Hill, who was called to the morgue for the specific purpose of viewing Kennedy's wounds, said the back wound was "about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column." Another blind man?

You've got the benefit of the back wound autopsy photo, have "studied" it for decades, and you can't figure out it shows the wound at C7, even when I show you visually how it does, and refer you to the autopsy report and Clark Panel Review that describe a wound at the base of the back of the neck.

Sibert and O'Neill both put the back wound well below the top of the shoulder blade, as did the FBI's 9 December 1963 report on the autopsy. The ARRB released the diagrams that Kellerman, Sibert, and O'Neill drew of the back wound for the HSCA. I trust you know what those diagrams show, right? They put the wound well below the top of the shoulder blade, just as does the face sheet and the death certificate and Dr. Ebersole and Clint Hill. What a coincidence, hey?

Again, if you can get a "low" back wound from the autopsy photo, why wouldn't they take away a similar false impression? Plus some of those witnesses were influenced by shoddy CT books and websites, or "gotten to" firsthand by kooks.

Your problem is that authenticated photos don't lie. The autopsy photos show an entry wound at the base of the back of the neck at C7 and another wound at the throat at T1. The Clark Panel and HSCA Medical Evidence Panel had no problem looking at the photos and concluding the bullet transited the neck going downward.

I hope you can regain your civility, or I won't be responding to you again.

You apparently have some resistance to being schooled. If you want to educate yourself (about the assassination and about Trump), there are many excellent posts here that would benefit you.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Given your response to my post about Lattimer's model (face sheet, tailored-shirts, etc.) was all diversion that showed some effort, and that you're an unceasing Trump defender, I going with "too stupid" rather than "too lazy." [Lame, erroneous, and evasive lone-gunman arguments snipped]

I told you that if could not maintain civility, I would not respond to you. Go try to find someone else who will sink down to your level. I will not waste time dealing with such juvenile rudeness. Goodbye.

[Joe Elliott]

Given your response to my post about Lattimer's model (face sheet, tailored-shirts, etc.) was all diversion that showed some effort, and that you're an unceasing Trump defender, I going with "too stupid" rather than "too lazy."

Hello Jerry

I think you are a little unfair to characterize Mr. Griffith as a Trump defender. At best, he is only a part time Trump defender. He is more of a Defender of the Southern Cause, i.e., the Confederacy.

He has a whole website on that at:

http://civilwar.miketgriffith.com/

He describes the Civil War as:

The War of Northern Aggression
The War for Southern Independence

Under Causes of the War
          What Caused the Civil War? An Attempt at a Balanced Answer by Gordon Leidner

Who makes the case that the causes of the Civil War were complex?

They were not complex. For the South, it was to maintain slavery.

For the North, it was to maintain the Union. If democracies can split up, perhaps this is a fatal flaw that will allow nations governed by Tyrants, which do not split up, to gobble up smaller democracies Perhaps this would be a fatal flaw in democracies that could cause them to disappear from the Earth. Maybe America is so remote, its not an issue. But America, for better or worse, is a model of Democracy for the rest of the world, much of it is menaced by Tyrannies to this day. In any case, right or wrong, many Union supporters felt this way.

After 1865, Confederate supporters downplayed the issue of slavery. But in 1861, while 9 of the seceding states did not give their reasons (I would guess they did not want to be on record of admitting Secession was to maintain slavery) four states did. They issued their own sort of “Declaration of Independence” where they issued their reasons, just like the original 1776 Declaration.

At the top of the list was the menace of the North to the instruction of slavery.

Another major concern was States Rights. They were against it. What ? ! ? ! ? Yes, they were. Three of the four complained about state laws that conflicted with Federal Law, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Now, if you are a real States Rights supporter, you should feel that Vermont has the right to determine if a black man is an escaped slave by not using its own method, if it doesn’t like the method specified in Federal law. And Federal law, by the way, rewarded the ‘Judge’ in the case an extra 5 dollars, I believe in gold, if he ruled the black man in question was indeed an escaped slave. Personally, I think his reward should not have been 5 dollars in gold but 30 pieces of silver, since the Bible says "As you do to the least of these, so you do to me”, but I guess Congress felt they had to take into account inflation.

So, yes, if you go with what the South said after 1865, the reasons for Secession were complicated. But if you go with the reasons for Secession that they stated in 1861, they weren’t.

[John Iacoletti]

Another attempt to poison the well with a completely off-topic smear.

Elliott does that a lot.

[Jerry Organ]

More from Griffith, who writes in a new topic pointlessly spun off the discussion in this thread:

    "When I recently mentioned in another thread that the holes in JFK’s coat and shirt overlap
     and align with each other, one longtime WC apologist called this factual statement “kooky.”
     But the fact that the holes overlap and align almost exactly has been known for decades."

Of course what I actually found kooky was Griffith's claim that the shirt "bunched in perfect millimeter-for-millimeter concert with the coat."

Griffith himself can't back up it up. He writes in the new topic:

    "The hole in the coat is 5.375 inches (5 and 3/8th inches) from the top of the coat’s collar
     and 1.75 inches (1 and 3/4th inches) from coat’s midline. The hole in the back of the shirt
      is 5.75 inches from the top of the shirt’s collar and 1.125 inches from the shirt’s midline."

That's not "perfect millimeter-for-millimeter concert". Griffith apparently went and looked up those measurements only after I called him out on it. The measurements show that the jacket and shirt had similar but naturally-random displacements, not exact. From what we see of the jacket it exhibits a clothing bunch at the President's nape. Being looser material, the shirt might have raised up due to several wrinkles. At Love Field, the President had reached into the crowd and he waved at people in high buildings during the motorcade.



Griffith is like his hero the Donald, overstating claims, promoting lost causes and full of baloney.

[Michael T. Griffith]

It turns out that Dr. Art Snyder, physicist at the Stanford National Accelerator Laboratory, did not tell Josiah Thompson that there is no forward movement in Z312-313, but that the alleged forward movement of 2.3 inches does not occur. I wish Thompson had made this clear in his 2007 article. However, Thompson did end the paragraph by saying “the two-inch forward movement was just not there”:

Art Snyder of the Stanford Linear Accelerator staff persuaded me several years ago that I had measured not the movement of Kennedy's head but the smear in frame 313. The two-inch forward movement was just not there. (https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bedrock_Evidence_-_part_3.html)

I was more than happy to realize that my inference from Thompson’s statement was unfounded.

Dr. Snyder says the forward head movement in Z312-313 is about 1/3 of the Itek-Thompson value. Snyder measures the forward movement as being about 0.3 meters per second, which equals =0.63 inches in one frame. I quote Snyder:

The measurements of Itek and Thompson are almost inconsistent with a shot from a Mannlicher-Carcano. The motion is so large that nearly all the momentum of the bullet is needed to account for it. However, quantitatively Thompson and Itek were mistaken. The apparent motion between Zapruder frames Z312 and Z313 is an artifact of the blurring of frame Z313. This is not to say that JFK’s head did not move forward between frames Z312 and Z313, but that the Z313 blur obscures the motion so that it cannot be measured using these frames. The actual forward motion (~0.3 meter/sec) can be estimated by comparing Z313 to Z314. It is about 1/3 the value obtained using the Itek or Thompson measurements—consistent with a Carcano bullet imparting ~1/3 its momentum and ~1/2 its energy. (“Case Still Open: Skepticism and the Assassination of JFK,” Skeptic, volume 6, number 4, 1998, p. 53)

So instead of the head moving forward 2.3 inches in Z312-313, Snyder says it moves forward about 0.63 inches. (Take 0.3 meters per second. Take the Zapruder camera speed, which was 18.3 frames per second, or 18.3 frames per 1,000 milliseconds. Divide 0.3 meters by 18.3. That equals 0.16 meters in one frame, or 0.63 inches in one frame.)

So if a bullet from the rear could move the head 0.63 inches forward in one frame (55 milliseconds), why could not a bullet from the front have moved the head backward at the same speed?

In his “Bedrock Evidence” essay, Thompson notes that David Wimp has determined through careful measurements that the upper bodies of the limo occupants begin to move forward at about Z308. He also mentions evidence of a head shot after Z313.

The idea of a shot to the head after Z313 has surprisingly good evidence on its side. The first two reenactments in Dealey Plaza put the head shot as occurring when the limousine was 294 feet from the sixth-floor window, 29 feet farther down the street than the limo was at Z313. Dr. Mantik observes,

. . . these re-enactments as well as associated documents and eyewitness statements, place the final head shot (the second, in my view) about 30 to 40 feet farther down Elm Street than Z-313. Warren Commission data tables actually place the final shot at 294 ft. from the "sniper's" window, not the 265 ft. that corresponds to Z313. (“The Zapruder Film Controversy,” p. 24, https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Zapruder_Film_Controversy.pdf)

Chuck Marler explores the evidence for a post-Z313 head shot in great depth in his chapter in Assassination Science, from which the following is quoted:

The distinct possibility that there was a final shot, one which struck the President after Zapruder frame 313, has been once again raised by studying the precise measurements in the 5 December 1963, survey plat, reexamining the testimony of Emmett Hudson, comparing the reference in CE-875 that the third shot struck at the "5+00" mark (which was west of Z-313), and looking at CE-2111 which stated the limousine was opposite the manhole cover at the final shot (the manhole cover is west of 313). Secret Service Agent Clint Hill also testified he heard the sound of a shot "just about as I reached it (the limousine)." (p. 258)

The 12/5/1963 survey done by the Secret Service put three marks on Elm Street to represent shots. These marks corresponded approximately to Z208, Z276, and Z358.

[Joe Elliott]

It turns out that Dr. Art Snyder, physicist at the Stanford National Accelerator Laboratory, did not tell Josiah Thompson that there is no forward movement in Z312-313, but that the alleged forward movement of 2.3 inches does not occur. I wish Thompson had made this clear in his 2007 article. However, Thompson did end the paragraph by saying “the two-inch forward movement was just not there”:

Question:

Does Dr. Art Synder provide a table, like William Hoffman did, showing his estimate of the President’s head at each frame from let’s say z305 through z320?

If all he says is that he estimates the head was only 0.63 inches ahead of the z312 position, that doesn’t give us much information on the speed of the head over time.

Dr. Snyder says the forward head movement in Z312-313 is about 1/3 of the Itek-Thompson value. Snyder measures the forward movement as being about 0.3 meters per second, which equals =0.63 inches in one frame. I quote Snyder:

So instead of the head moving forward 2.3 inches in Z312-313, Snyder says it moves forward about 0.63 inches.

I suspect the estimates are off, but at least the math checks out close, except 0.3 meters per second should be more like 0.645 inches per frame, not 0.63 inches per frame.

(Take 0.3 meters per second. Take the Zapruder camera speed, which was 18.3 frames per second, or 18.3 frames per 1,000 milliseconds. Divide 0.3 meters by 18.3. That equals 0.16 meters in one frame, or 0.63 inches in one frame.)

Should read, to make the math correct, although the estimate can still be incorrect:

(Take 0.3 meters per second. Take the Zapruder camera speed, which was 18.3 frames per second, or 18.3 frames per 1,000 milliseconds. Divide 0.3 meters by 18.3. That equals 0.016 meters in one frame, or 0.645 inches in one frame.)

So if a bullet from the rear could move the head 0.63 inches forward in one frame (55 milliseconds), why could not a bullet from the front have moved the head backward at the same speed?

A frontal bullet could start moving the head back at around 0.63 inches per frame. But the head should not continue to accelerate to 1.9 inches per frame by z318, as seen in the Zapruder film. Its basic Physics.

And no, the acceleration of the limousine cannot account for that. The acceleration is only one tenth of the acceleration needed to do this.

The idea of a shot to the head after Z313 has surprisingly good evidence on its side. The first two reenactments in Dealey Plaza put the head shot as occurring when the limousine was 294 feet from the sixth-floor window, 29 feet farther down the street than the limo was at Z313.

Dr. Mantik observes, Chuck Marler explores the evidence for a post-Z313 head shot in great depth in his chapter in Assassination Science, from which the following is quoted:

The 12/5/1963 survey done by the Secret Service put three marks on Elm Street to represent shots. These marks corresponded approximately to Z208, Z276, and Z358.

I would not say that this provide good evidence of a shot after z313 but good evidence that the Secret Service were poor surveyors.

No mark at z312-313 but marks at z208, z276 and z358 ? ! ?