"Hidden beneath the pallet"?
Yes that's what Seymour Weitzman said.... Weitzman said that he had his face down on the floor and he was shining his flashlight beneath the pallet when he spotted the rifle lying on the floor.
Sure, Weitzman's going to plant his face on the oily dirty floor and shine his breadbox-size searchlight into the opening of a pallet.
The pallet openings run east/west, so here's the only openings available to Weitzman:
Weitzman can't possibly see to where the rifle is depicted in the Crime Lab photos.
This photo shows the top of the cartons that were on Pallet "C" in the foreground (which photographer Studebaker was on) and the rifle in-situ to the north (top of the picture).
"I was on the floor looking under the flat at the same time
he was looking on the top side and we saw the gun"
Weitzman was in retail, so the term "on the floor" could mean the open area of a store.
"Yes, sir; this is taken the opposite side the flat I was looking under."
"Boone was looking the top side; I was looking under the flat. We
were looking over everything. I was behind this section of books."
Notice Weitzman says "flat" and not "pallet". In others words, he was looking along the lower sides of the stacked cartons. Weitzman testified: "I said, 'There it is' and he [Boone] started hollering, 'We got it.' It was covered with boxes." That doesn't sound like a rifle hidden under the wooden boards of a pallet.
Look at the arrows in Weitzman Exhibits E and F:
Mr. BALL - Would you mind making a mark there with a pen?
That is on F. Draw on Exhibit F, draw an arrow. The arrow
in ink on F shows the location?
Mr. WEITZMAN - Down on the floor.
Mr. BALL - Shows the location of the gun on the floor?
Mr. WEITZMAN - Yes.
Mr. BALL - Take E here and make a mark on E as to the
location of the place where the gun was found.
Mr. WEITZMAN - Same area.
Mr. BALL - The same area and the arrow marks the place
where the gun was found?
Mr. WEITZMAN - Yes, sir.
The arrow points away from the pallets and Weitzman again says it was on the floor, not beneath a pallet.
What about Eugene Boone? He testified the rifle was "stuffed down between two rows of boxes with another box or so pulled over the top of it. And I hollered that the rifle was here." Shown one of the Studebaker in-situ photos, Boones testified:
Mr. BALL - This shows the rifle as you saw it, does it?
Mr. BOONE - That is right. Then you could kneel down over
here and see that it had a scope, a telescopic sight on it,
by looking down underneath the boxes.
Boone doesn't say the rifle was hidden in a pallet, visible through one of the end openings. Here's where Boone located the rifle and it is away from the pallets.