Tom Alyea “What the Hull Is That?”
My apology to Steve Martin’s skit from vintage Saturday Night Live.
Also, I give very long overdue but very grateful thanks to Charles Collins, for his patient and quite helpful collaboration with 3D modeling to help determine the timing of Tom Alyea’s filming of the sniper’s nest. However, Charles does not, I believe, agree with my conclusions from the interpretation of this work.
The image under discussion is a stacked frame composite of 171 frames of Alyea’s first of two scenes taken of the sniper’s nest rest boxes, barricade boxes, window ledge and slat flooring. The purpose of registering and stacking individual frames is to reduce the video noise giving the possibility of drawing out fainter details not evident in single frames. The stacked product is then able to withstand more aggressive enhancements compared with that for single frames. Stacking gives a theoretical improvement of signal (true image) to noise ratio by the square root of the number of frames ~13x for this example.
Tom Alyea asserted that Capt. Fritz picked up the hulls and replaced them before the crime lab took their photos. I wanted to see if Alyea’s timing could be consistent with his assertion.
For the timing of Alyea’s film Charles and myself used our own independent 3D modeling software for analysis of several shadows present in the image. Of primary interest to me were the complex shadows cast by the raised window sash and frame on the window’s east bricks. As Charles pointed out to me the light/shadow pattern on the center window divider (mullion) is also helpful. Nevertheless we were getting timings maybe 30 minutes or more differences. Stubborn me felt the time could be earlier before the Dallas PD Crime lab took their photos of the nest area at near 13:17. I decided the only way to confirm the models was to put myself in the Sixth Floor Museum’s exhibit on November 22. I was able to photo the SN on the anniversary under brilliant blue sky. My determination range of error of 1:55-2:00 pm is wider than I wanted. It was later that night after study of my day’s photo work revealed that the museum’s window is 4-5” lower than when Dillard and Alyea filmed the partially open sniper’s window.
I was doubly blessed that the following day the sky was still cloudless and I was able to reproduce the timing of Lt. Day’s leaving the building and crossing Houston Street at 1:56 pm. It appears from preliminary examination of photos that Captain Fritz also left within a few minutes of Lt. Day.
Timeline, pm:
1:17 Dallas Police Crime Scene Photos
1:23 Hulls collected and placed in an evidence envelope (from Warren Commission testimony)
1:55-2:00 Tom Alyea, after he and Studebaker returned to the nest area after filming the Carcano.
1:56 Lt. Day leaves the depository, and Capt. Fritz at a similar time.
171 registered and stacked frames from the WFAA DVD with subsequent processing reveals something the size and shape of a Carcano rifle hull, as seen in the DPD crime scene photos. It is on the floor very near where hull “B” was labeled in the crime photos, but is no longer positioned nearly parallel with the ledge bricks, but rotated some 30 degrees in the direction of Alyea’s camera. It appears in the processed image between the two “L”s of DALLAS, along the floor/brick intersection. This object is not in this position in the crime scene photos or in an especially clear photo taken from a similar location by William Allen, probably around 3 pm.
https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/3674/-?ctx=976b9fe77bac91797901f98dc91d9726997aa52c&idx=177There is no significant floor defect in that location that could be responsible for the object. The object is not a film defect for several reasons I’d be happy to describe if there any questions.
So, assuming the object is a hull, why is it there when presumably the hulls were already collected for evidence some 35-40 minutes earlier?
