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

[Michael Carney]

Jerry you will notice when McLaren does the watermelon tests the FMJ goes though the melon and the exit hole is a little larger than the entry hole plus there is some fracturing on exit. The frangible round enters the melon leaving a small entry hole, travels some distance and explodes taking the whole front end of the melon apart. We see this time and again as in Alvarez’s experiment.

In defense of Dr Alvarez:

To explain a little about Dr Alvarez, I don’t know this to be a fact but coming from an engineering background I see it as this. Regarding the multiple different results of shooting various “fruits” and seeing the results and increasing the velocity of the bullets and finally getting the same results as we see happened to JFK.  He kept trying and trying until something worked. It wasn’t that he was hiding the results of the failed attempts; in R&D we do a lot of that kind of thing, keep at it until you get it right. And as far as Vela Incident, the US and Israeli governments can cover up anything and in the process shred someone’s reputation. I know there are no facts to back this up, it’s just the way I see it from what I know and have experienced.

What I am trying to demonstrate as was Dr Alvarez is that a frangible round traveling at 3,000 ft/sec entering the back of JFK’s head gets ¾ of the way through his head and explodes. I don’t think Alvarez was hiding anything, I think he was just trying to demonstrate the effect. I have seen many other videos of others do the same experiment with the same results.

[Bill Chapman]

Jerry you will notice when McLaren does the watermelon tests the FMJ goes though the melon and the exit hole is a little larger than the entry hole plus there is some fracturing on exit. The frangible round enters the melon leaving a small entry hole, travels some distance and explodes taking the whole front end of the melon apart. We see this time and again as in Alvarez’s experiment.

In defense of Dr Alvarez:

To explain a little about Dr Alvarez, I don’t know this to be a fact but coming from an engineering background I see it as this. Regarding the multiple different results of shooting various “fruits” and seeing the results and increasing the velocity of the bullets and finally getting the same results as we see happened to JFK.  He kept trying and trying until something worked. It wasn’t that he was hiding the results of the failed attempts; in R&D we do a lot of that kind of thing, keep at it until you get it right. And as far as Vela Incident, the US and Israeli governments can cover up anything and in the process shred someone’s reputation. I know there are no facts to back this up, it’s just the way I see it from what I know and have experienced.

What I am trying to demonstrate as was Dr Alvarez is that a frangible round traveling at 3,000 ft/sec entering the back of JFK’s head gets ¾ of the way through his head and explodes. I don’t think Alvarez was hiding anything, I think he was just trying to demonstrate the effect. I have seen many other videos of others do the same experiment with the same results.

Just for fun

The Day of the Jackal

[Michael T. Griffith]

The WC apologists here clearly do not understand, or are pretending not to understand, why the two bullet fragments in the back of JFK’s head destroy the lone-gunman theory. Why do they destroy the theory? Because there is no way, no way on this planet at least, that those fragments came from an FMJ bullet. Perhaps a review is in order.

* The two fragments are nowhere near the EOP entry site described in the autopsy report, and they are in different layers of the head. In the autopsy skull x-rays, the 2-3 mm fragment inside the ghosted 6.5 mm object is in the outer table of the skull, but the other fragment, the one discovered by HSCA consultant Dr. G. M. McDonnel in 1978, is between the galea and the outer table and is slightly to the left of the 2-3 mm fragment (the galea is the membrane between the scalp and the skull).

* The two fragments are at least 1 cm below the Clark Panel-HSCA cowlick entry site. The proposed cowlick entry site is a whopping 4 inches higher than the EOP entry site. Subsequent research has found that there is no cowlick entry site, and that the EOP entry site is confirmed by autopsy photo F8 and is indicated/implied by the skull x-rays.

* The HSCA's forensic pathology panel offered the implausible theory that the two fragments sheared off the alleged FMJ bullet as it entered the skull. Since the alleged FMJ bullet supposedly struck the skull at a substantially downward angle, any fragments shearing off the bullet would have been deposited above the entry site, not 1 cm below it. Plus, as mentioned, the proposed cowlick entry site has been discredited. So there was no entry site that could have scraped off two fragments from an entering bullet. 

* Lone-gunman theorists have yet to find a single case in the known history of forensic science where an FMJ bullet striking skull bone had fragments sheared from it and where those sheared fragments deposited themselves in different layers of the head and on the wrong side of the entry wound (or 3 inches from the nearest entry wound).

* The only credible, plausible explanation for the two fragments is that they are ricochet fragments, just as Dr. Russell Fisher suggested to firearms expert Howard Donahue, and just as Donahue brilliantly developed through later research. Five eyewitnesses said they saw a bullet strike the curb near the limousine early in the shooting (Don Thomas, Hear No Evil: Politics, Science, and the Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination, 2013, pp. 314-317). This bullet sent several fragments streaking toward the limousine, with at least two of them hitting JFK in the back of the head. They would have hit hard enough to hurt, to sting.

It is entirely plausible, if not probable, that JFK’s first visible reactions, starting in Z186, were in response to the impact of these fragments. This would explain a number of things and would strongly suggest that JFK’s very visible Z226-232 reaction was in response to the bullet that struck him in the back. Most conspiracy theorists now agree with Fisher and Donahue that the two back-of-head fragments must be ricochet fragments.

WC apologists cannot accept the compelling conclusion that the two fragments are ricochet fragments because, for one thing, this would mean that Oswald, the alleged lone gunman, incomprehensibly fired at JFK while his view of him was blocked by the oak tree on Elm Street.

* Although the autopsy doctors’ EOP entry site has been vindicated, a major problem with this site remains: the extant autopsy skull x-rays show no fragment trail leading from/to the EOP entry site, even though the autopsy report says there was such a trail, and even though the autopsy doctors all insisted that they saw the trail on the x-rays during the autopsy.

The only fragment trail now appearing on the extant skull x-rays is 4 inches higher, almost at the very top of the skull. The autopsy report says nothing about this fragment trail, and the autopsy doctors never mentioned it in their testimony. What happened to the low fragment trail? Why is it nowhere to be seen on the extant skull x-rays? Why did the autopsy doctors say nothing about the high fragment trail?

There are three possibilities: one, the x-rays have been altered; two, the autopsy doctors ignored the high fragment trail (because it suggested a frontal shot), and they lied about seeing a low fragment trail; and three, the autopsy doctors, along with the radiologist, committed the unbelievable blunder of mistaking the high fragment trail as being 4 inches lower and as starting at the EOP entry site.

* The EOP entry site poses an unsolvable problem for the lone-gunman theory: There is no way that a bullet fired from the sixth-floor window of the TSBD could have made this wound and the alleged exit wound on the right-front side of the head unless JFK had been leaning forward by about 60 degrees. But the Zapruder film shows him leaning forward by only about 11 degrees.

A bullet from the sixth-floor window would have struck Kennedy’s head at a downward angle of about 16 degrees. As Donahue realized, if one assumes that the bullet struck just above the EOP and that it was fired from the sixth-floor window,

then the bullet struck Kennedy on a downward, 16-degree angle, banked up like a pool ball, and made a quick right turn to exit the skull near the right front—at a higher level than where it went in. (Bonar Menninger, Mortal Error, 1992, p. 47; see also pp. 43-46)

* On the lateral skull x-rays, the high fragment trail begins with a cluster of fragments in the frontal region and gradually dissipates as it moves leftward across the skull, which clearly indicates a shot from the front. A basic principle of wound ballistics is that when a bullet strikes the skull, if it leaves any fragments, it will leave the most fragments near the point of entry and will leave smaller and smaller amounts of fragments as it moves farther away from the entry point.

Someone may have realized this and therefore ensured that the high fragment trail was not mentioned in the autopsy report and that the autopsy doctors never mentioned it in their testimony. This is one possible explanation. There are other possible explanations, all of them problematic for the lone-gunman theory.

 

[Michael T. Griffith]

Anything to do with a melon is a soft-tissue test. Now Dr. Alvarez termed his wrapped melon (two layers of one-inch Scotch filament tape) a "reasonable facsimile of a human head" but Tony Szamboti, a mechanical engineer, critiqued Alvarez's study and claimed:

    "the force required for the same object to penetrate and shear through the same
     thickness of live human bone vs. that required for a melon rind, is at least 100
     times greater, and 50 times greater even for dead human bone."

Hard to imagine a .223 round impacting something 100 times harder than a melon rind and still perform as if it were in a gelatin block or melon.

With regards to the McLaren melon tests, the 6.5mm in soft-tissue has a uniform and steady temporarily cavity and wouldn't begin to tumble, if at all, until well pass the length of the melon. A tumbling or disintegrated FMJ round (as from impacting skull bone) would have a different temporary cavity.

The .223 round tumbles almost immediately and maybe separates early, producing a greater temporary cavity in a shorter space. The Australian .223 study makes me wonder if the .223 round would have sufficient force to "explode" a wrapped melon. In any event, we're still taking about soft-tissue events which has limited relevance to a skull wound.

So the .223 round has a "tumbling" advantage over FMJs in soft-tissue. But in regards to a skull wound, the FMJ would likely tumble and disintegrate as well, depending on how it struck the skull bone.

The Alvarez tests had explosive results using soft-nosed 30.06 bullets striking melons but apparently only if the melons were wrapped (two layers of strong one-inch Scotch filament tape). Alvarez doesn't much say what happened to the melons that weren't wrapped. Dr. Lattimer, in 1975, repeated the Alvarez wrapped-melon test using 6.5mm FMJs, claiming to have produced similar recoil results.

So we're back to melons tests by Alvarez/Lattimer and McLaren being soft-tissue, possibly having some application in showing the effects of a temporary cavity in a soft tissue mass, like the brain. But to get to that soft-tissue in a living human first requires impact and penetration on skull bone, which in turn induces the factor of bullet tumbling and, mostly likely, disintegration at the entry site.

Unfortunate the Alvarez and McLaren results fall into the soft-tissue test category.

You've made several incorrect statements here, but I will just make a couple of quick poiints.

Not one of the bullets in the Failure Analysis tests fragmented. In the Failure Analysis tests, FMJ bullets were fired into human skulls--not one of them fragmented.

In the WC's wound ballistics tests, none of the FMJ bullets fired into skulls broke into numerous fragments. They either did not fragment or broke into only a few fragments. Bullets were fired into 10 skulls, and fewer than 30 fragments were produced. So even if we assume that every single bullet fragmented, this would still mean that fragmentation was minimal and nothing like the bullet that you guys claim hit the back of JFK's skull.

As I explain in my previous reply, the autopsy doctors' rear head entry site--the EOP site--has been validated, but that site rules out the sixth-floor sniper's nest as the source of the shot because the vertical trajectory from the wound is impossible to line up with the sixth-floor window unless you assume that JFK was leaning about 60 degrees forward when the bullet struck.

Finally, regarding NOVA's flimsy Cold Case: JFK documentary, you might want to read Dr. Gary Aguilar's critique of it:

NOVA’s Cold Case: JFK -- The Junk Science Behind PBS’s Recent Foray into the Crime of the Century
https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/nova-s-cold-case-jfk-junk-science-pbs

[Michael Carney]

  "the force required for the same object to penetrate and shear through the same
     thickness of live human bone vs. that required for a melon rind, is at least 100
     times greater, and 50 times greater even for dead human bone."

I am not arguing that the melon rind is as hard as a person’s skull. The watermelon test is to demonstrate what the different effects of the two kinds of bullets has on a head. The FMJ basically passes right through with not a lot of collateral damage and no fragmenting. The frangible round on the other hand does a tremendous amount of damage. The frangible round passes into the melon and at some point explodes forcing the innards of the melon forward and the rear section backwards. Just like JFK reacted.

“With regards to the McLaren melon tests, the 6.5mm in soft-tissue has a uniform and steady temporarily cavity and wouldn't begin to tumble, if at all, until well pass the length of the melon. A tumbling or disintegrated FMJ round (as from impacting skull bone) would have a different temporary cavity.”

A FMJ round does not disintegrate, the jacket holds it together.

“So we're back to melons tests by Alvarez/Lattimer and McLaren being soft-tissue, possibly having some application in showing the effects of a temporary cavity in a soft tissue mass, like the brain. But to get to that soft-tissue in a living human first requires impact and penetration on skull bone, which in turn induces the factor of bullet tumbling and, mostly likely, disintegration at the entry site.”

M16 rounds do not “disintegrate” on impact, please see the data below.

Please see the M16 penetration characteristics shown at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle

Ballistic gelatin @ 10 meters - 14 in, sandbags @ 100 meters - 4 in, ¾” pine boards @ 100 meters - 8 boards, steel helmet - both sides at 300 m, one side to 500 m, 14 ga steel @ 100 meters - 2 layers, Kevlar - 31 layers

And it won’t penetrate ¼” of bone? I think 3.6 gr bullet traveling at 3,300 ft/sec will easily penetrate ¼” of bone. What was the gun of choice for mob hits, .22 cal. Now if a .22 hollow point will pass through the skull with a velocity of 1,100 ft/sec, a .223 at 3,300 ft/sec will certainly pass through it.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Tests by the Haags showed 6.5mm FMJs fired into asphalt almost instantly disintegrated into minute parts, which seems to put the "ricochet" theory to rest.

LOL! Well, that clinches it then!

One, the Haags are quacks when it comes to the JFK case. Q. U. A. C. K. S.  I’m guessing you haven’t read any of the critiques of their junk science?

Two, the ammo that hit Kennedy in the head behaved like frangible ammo, not FMJ ammo. A frangible bullet striking the curb could have sent fragments streaking at high speeds in several directions.

Three, I am still waiting for you to provide a shred of evidence that says an FMJ bullet striking a skull at a downward angle would somehow deposit two mid-section fragments 1 cm below the entry point. None of the bullets in the WC’s tests did that. None of the bullets in the Failure Analysis tests did that. And no one has yet been able to find a single documented case where an FMJ bullet behaved in this manner.

JFK doesn't react to being shot until Z226. He may have been shot a few frames before (while out of view) but didn't voluntary react until Z226.

Eee-gads! What about all of JFK’s obvious, visible reactions that begin nearly 30 frames earlier, reactions that even the HSCA acknowledged?

* The HSCA photographic evidence panel (PEP) said Kennedy was hit between Z188 and Z190. The panel noted that a fraction of a second later, at around Z200, Kennedy's movements suddenly freeze and his right hand abruptly stops in the middle of a waving motion. The PEP also noted that JFK's head rapidly moves from the right toward Jackie.
* By Z202-204, Jackie has made a sudden sharp turn to the right, toward her husband. When she reemerges into view at Z223, she is looking intently at her husband (obviously her attention was drawn to him because the reaction that he had begun at around Z200 had become more noticeable while the car was behind the freeway sign).
* At Z207, Howard Brennan suddenly looks to his right.
* At the direction of the Secret Service, Special Agent John Howlett analyzed films of the shooting (mainly the Zapruder film) with the aid of a surveyor a few days after the assassination. He concluded that Kennedy was first hit at around Z199.
* At around Z200, JFK's hand not only stops suddenly in the middle of a wave, but it also drops to the chin or throat level in a fraction of a second and stays at that level until he disappears behind the freeway sign at Z207.
* William Hartmann, a member of the Committee's photographic evidence panel, reported that the panel found that Willis slide 5 indicated a shot was fired at or shortly before Z190. Willis said he snapped the photo in a startle reaction to the sound of a shot. He took Slide 5 at Z202. "So," notes Hartmann, "that is very nice, consistent evidence that something happened, say, at 190 or shortly before 190." (2 HSCA 15)
* Kennedy's cheek are seen to puff at Z188.

Does your copy of the Zapruder film just not show all of these reactions? Or do you claim that you cannot see them?

Modified from HSCA drawing

Is this supposed to be your answer to the EOP-entry-site trajectory problem? Did you notice that this diagram is based on the cowlick entry site? Did you miss that?

For starters, you might want to begin your long-overdue homework by reading Howard Donahue’s demolition of Canning’s head-shot trajectory analysis (Mortal Error, pp. 243-246). Donahue (through his writer Bonar Menninger) pointed out that Canning made several fundamental errors in his analysis.

By the way, after Canning finished his work with the HSCA, he wrote the committee's chief counsel, Robert Blakey, a letter in which he said that he was surprised that this study of the photographic evidence revealed "major discrepancies" in the Warren Commission's findings:

When I was asked to participate in analysis of the physical evidence regarding the assassination of John Kennedy, I welcomed the opportunity to help set the record straight. I did not anticipate that study of the photographic record of itself would reveal major discrepancies in the Warren Commission findings. Such has turned out to be the case. (Letter from Thomas Canning to Robert Blakey, 1/5/1978, https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/canning-s-letter-to-blakey)

[Joe Elliott]

LOL! Well, that clinches it then!

One, the Haags are quacks when it comes to the JFK case. Q. U. A. C. K. S.  I’m guessing you haven’t read any of the critiques of their junk science?

The Haags are quacks? You mean the writers who criticize their works are quacks. If the Haags are ‘quacks’, why do judges allow them to testify in murder trails as expert ballistic experts? How many of these ‘critics’ have been allowed to give testimony as experts on ballistics in a court of law?

I challenge you to name them.

And no, a medical doctor, giving testimony as a medical expert, does not count as a ballistic expert giving testimony as a ballistic expert.

Two, the ammo that hit Kennedy in the head behaved like frangible ammo, not FMJ ammo. A frangible bullet striking the curb could have sent fragments streaking at high speeds in several directions.

False. WCC/MC will fragment when striking bone at velocities of around 1900 feet per second. They won’t fragment or deform at speeds below 1400 feet per second, even upon striking bone. But they will at the velocity they struck the skull of the President.

Three, I am still waiting for you to provide a shred of evidence that says an FMJ bullet striking a skull at a downward angle would somehow deposit two mid-section fragments 1 cm below the entry point. None of the bullets in the WC’s tests did that. None of the bullets in the Failure Analysis tests did that. And no one has yet been able to find a single documented case where an FMJ bullet behaved in this manner. [/size]

Were any of these experiments conducted with living heads? Couldn’t blood flow move fragments within a head? I am no ballistic expert, but I remember Larry SPersonivan mentioning something along this line in his book “The JFK Myths”.

And would blood flow be even necessary? With the bullet travelling downward, I don’t see how it is that surprising if any fragments ended up 1 cm below the entry point. Surely the bullet, or it’s fragments would likely be passing through that area.

[Michael Carney]

All this back and forth crap is getting old. Check out this website where cops talk about .223 headshots.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?5445-223-in-the-head

Basically it says that the .223 enters the head and rarely exits. Typically enters the head and travels a couple inches and explodes. Just like what happened to JFK, traveled a couple of inches and exploded.