LNers Can't Explain the 6.5 mm Object on the JFK AP Skull X-Ray

[Charles Collins]

But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation." What kind of "explanation" is that? Organ initially compared the known, established science of OD measurement to "seer stones." But, after I documented that OD measurement is a recognized science, he back-peddled and said he wasn't questioning the science, just Mantik's use of it. Okay, Mantik's measurements have been published for years now, yet no scientist has challenged their validity, and the only scientist who did his own OD measurements found that his measurements mirrored Mantik's.

Grasping for anything, WC apologists cite the fact that Dr. Fitzpatrick, the ARRB forensic radiologist, told Doug Horne that he disagreed with Dr. Mantik's research on the autopsy x-rays. Yet, Fitzpatrick failed to offer any explanation for the OD measurements, for the 6.5 mm object, for the white patch, and for the presence of emulsion under the T-shaped inscription on the left lateral x-ray, which is a physical impossibility unless this x-ray is a copy. When Dr. Mantik attempted to engage Fitzpatrick in a discussion on these matters, he declined.

Simply claiming that the 6.5 mm object is an innocent artifact does not explain the object. That is not an "explanation." That is merely a claim. HOW could an object that is perfectly round in 3/4 of its shape be formed on the AP skull x-ray during a presidential autopsy? HOW? Beyond this basic question, there is the glaring issue of the object's size and placement: it is perfectly positioned over the image of a smaller, genuine fragment, and it is exactly 6.5 mm in size, the precise diameter of the ammo that Oswald allegedly used. The least implausible of Sturdivan's three theories--that a stray metal disk somehow ended up on the table just before the AP x-ray was taken--is not only unprecedented (no one has yet identified another case where such a far-fetched scenario occurred), but it requires one to believe that the radiologist or his assistant spotted the disk before they took the lateral x-rays were taken but did not retake the AP x-ray after spotting the disk, a preposterous idea.

The conspiratorial explanation is a credible, scientifically supported explanation because it not only identifies the 6.5 mm object as an artifact that was created intentionally over the image of a smaller, genuine fragment, but it includes a proven method by which the object could have been placed there; it explains the OD measurements; and it provides a logical explanation for why the autopsy doctors failed to mention the object in their report and in their repeated testimonies. THAT is an explanation.

But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation.


There is no reason to address Mantik’s work. The answer was explained to you in an earlier post. Here is a repeat. I have underlined some of this for emphasis.


In 1997, the ARRB discovered during its deposition of Jerrol Custer, a Bethesda Hospital X-ray technician who was on duty that night, that Dr. Ebersole had indeed seen Mantik’s alleged “6-millimeter object” during the autopsy - a “half circle that appears to be the lightest part of the film […] in the right orbital superior” - after Custer pointed it out to him as a possible bullet fragment. This suggests that the “6.5-millimeter object” already appeared on the X-ray before the body was dissected and was not added later, as Mantik suggests.76 Ebersole dismissed it offhand, telling Custer it was an artifact.77 If Custer is right, Ebersole would presumably have said the same thing to the pathologists if they inquired, which explains why no mention of it was made in the autopsy report and why it was easily forgotten until the HSCA’s Forensic Pathology Panel questioned them about it 15-years later. Like the “white spot” at the back of JFK’s head, the “6.5-millimeter object” is little more than a distraction caused by circular logic. What is missing here is not just a motive, but also the signature hypercompetence of the JFK buffs’ all-powerful enemy. Instead, Mantik offers us a one-time ad hoc explanation to suggest that, rather than being devilishly cunning, the men who killed Kennedy were in fact wildly incompetent.78 We can therefore safely conclude that the “object” on the X-ray is just what many experts said it was, an artifact, and that Mantik is seeing monsters in his bedroom closet.

An aside that I think demonstrates what I think about Mantik’s work:

True story:

In the mid seventies, a professor at a highly acclaimed and prestigious major engineering university, at the beginning of each new quarter, provided “mathematical proof” to the new students, using the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe, that the exact center of the universe (where everything in existence began) was located at a specific location (which “just happened” to be a monument in the downtown area of the professor’s small home town. In all his years of teaching, no one ever disproved the professor’s theory. The professor used this demonstration to show that mathematics can be used to “prove” a lot of things.


I think of Mantik’s work with the same skepticism that I would think of the professor’s “proof” of the location of the center of the universe.

Michel Gagne has given a reasonable explanation that makes sense to me. I don’t expect that you will ever even entertain the thought that he could be correct. If you really want to find some answers to your unending questions, try considering that the standard historical model (aka: WC Report) could possibly be correct. And begin your research anew with an open mind to this possibility. You just might be surprised…

[Michael T. Griffith]

I went back and checked Custer's 10/28/97 ARRB interview. It is not clear that Custer was referring to the 6.5 mm object when he discussed Ebersole's reference to an artifact. Custer's actual words suggest that he called Ebersole's attention to an "area" that contained fragments, i.e., the right frontal region, and that when he said that Ebersole "called it an artifact," the "it" was the area, not an individual fragment.

Importantly, Custer said the area was behind the superior right orbital ridge (i.e., just above the right socket), which is right next to the cloud of fragments. However, the extant AP skull x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be on the back of the skull, on the rear outer table. Custer was an experienced x-ray technician, and it seems unlikely that he would have mistaken an object behind the right orbital ridge for an object on the rear outer table of the skull.

Plus, Custer's comments later in the interview suggest that Custer was using the term "fragment" to refer to the cloud of fragments in the right frontal part of the skull, near the top of the skull; this cloud of fragments is the collection of metal flecks that constitutes most of the high fragment trail on the extant skull x-rays.

As many people sometimes do, Custer may have intermittently used a singular noun, in this case "fragment," as a collective noun to describe a collection of the same kinds of objects, in this case the cloud of tiny fragments in the right frontal region. If Ebersole identified the right-frontal cloud of fragments as an artifact, this would explain why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and why the autopsy doctors never mentioned the high fragment trail in their WC testimony, even though the high fragment trail, with its huge cloud of fragments in the right frontal region, is impossible to miss.

Later in the interview, Custer appears to return to Ebersole's artifact conclusion and seems to challenge it by stating his opinion that it was unlikely that the numerous metal flecks in the right frontal region were an artifact. The interviewer adds context by asking Custer what is holding those fragments if there's no brain in that area on the x-rays:

Q: Are you able to identify any metal fragments in the head?

A: Sure.

Q: And you're pointing toward the flecks?

A: Towards the black area. Towards the top of the skull. Here. That's the only way that can be, this fragment. There's no way an artifact will show up like that.

Q: Now, what is supporting those metal fragments, if there is no brain in the cranium? Where are they resting?

A: They have to be resting on the bone itelf somewhere. That's the only thing I can possibly think of, unless there's enough tissue there in that region to hold them. (p. 133)

Q: Let me draw your attention to what appear to be some flecks in what I would say is above the right eye socket.

A: Mm-hmm.

Q: -- and going towards the back. Are you able to identify whether those flecks arc artifacts or metal fragments?

A: They are metal fragments. Artifacts do not come in an irregular form like this. Not in that - in that traveling projection like that. It just doesn’t. Not that many in that one area. (p. 135)

With these statements in mind, let's go back and read Custer's comment about Ebersole's artifact conclusion in its full context:

Q: Can you identify in the X-ray any brain shadow?

A: No.There’s no brain shadow that I can see. Maybe portions - very small. But this is all empty. Anything -

Q: Do you know where the bullet fragment was located on the body?

A: Right orbital ridge, superior.

Q: How do you know it was in the right orbital ridge, rather than at the back of the skull?

A: Because of the protruding eyeball.

Q: Did you see the fragment removed?

A: No, I did not. Can I inject something here? This area, I pointed out to Dr. Ebersole as a fragment. And he called it an artifact. I said, "How about these fragments up here?" This is when he told me to mind my own business. (p. 115)

One can easily read "this area . . . a fragment" and "these fragments up here" as referring to the same thing: the cloud of metal flecks in the right frontal region near the top of the skull.

When Custer was specifically asked about the location of the "semi-circular" large "metal fragment," he said he could not identify its location on the x-ray he was being shown (p. 133). This suggests that he may not have been referring to this object when he mentioned Ebersole's artifact conclusion, since he was clear that that the area he pointed out to Ebersole was behind the right orbital ridge.

As mentioned, if this interpretation is correct, it clears up a number of issues. It explains why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail. It explains why the autopsy doctors said nothing about the high fragment trail in their WC testimony. If Ebersole told them that the right-frontal cloud of fragments was an artifact, their failure to say anything about it makes sense.

Humes mentioned that he saw 30-40 tiny fragments on the skull x-rays, but he said those fragments ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, several inches lower than the cloud of fragments on the extant x-rays. Finck reported, in writing, to General Blumberg that he saw the same low fragment trail. However, no such fragment trail appears on the extant x-rays.

I should add that Dr. Mantik and Custer met several times to discuss the autopsy and the autopsy x-rays, and during all those discussions, never once did Custer claim that Ebersole identified the 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Finally, allow me to address Jerry Organ's erroneous claim that Oswald did not speak Russian well. Organ is making this bogus claim because the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible" Russian, "hardly recognizable" Russian.

Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union. She told the WC that Oswald's conversational Russian was "just perfect." She complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When WC attorney Liebeler ask her, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did."

George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language. He told the WC that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian.... he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian."

Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the WC that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent. . . . It would be rather unusual . . . for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not."

Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. He conversed with Oswald and later told the WC that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea . . . that he wanted to in Russian."

Other witnesses spoke of Oswald's good command of Russian, including George Bouhe, Mrs. Teofil Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk.

So the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in MC clearly was not the real Oswald.

[Charles Collins]

I went back and checked Custer's 10/28/97 ARRB interview. It is not clear that Custer was referring to the 6.5 mm object when he discussed Ebersole's reference to an artifact. Custer's actual words suggest that he called Ebersole's attention to an "area" that contained fragments, i.e., the right frontal region, and that when he said that Ebersole "called it an artifact," the "it" was the area, not an individual fragment.

Importantly, Custer said the area was behind the superior right orbital ridge (i.e., just above the right socket), which is right next to the cloud of fragments. However, the extant AP skull x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be on the back of the skull, on the rear outer table. Custer was an experienced x-ray technician, and it seems unlikely that he would have mistaken an object behind the right orbital ridge for an object on the rear outer table of the skull.

Plus, Custer's comments later in the interview suggest that Custer was using the term "fragment" to refer to the cloud of fragments in the right frontal part of the skull, near the top of the skull; this cloud of fragments is the collection of metal flecks that constitutes most of the high fragment trail on the extant skull x-rays.

As many people sometimes do, Custer may have intermittently used a singular noun, in this case "fragment," as a collective noun to describe a collection of the same kinds of objects, in this case the cloud of tiny fragments in the right frontal region. If Ebersole identified the right-frontal cloud of fragments as an artifact, this would explain why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and why the autopsy doctors never mentioned the high fragment trail in their WC testimony, even though the high fragment trail, with its huge cloud of fragments in the right frontal region, is impossible to miss.

Later in the interview, Custer appears to return to Ebersole's artifact conclusion and seems to challenge it by stating his opinion that it was unlikely that the numerous metal flecks in the right frontal region were an artifact. The interviewer adds context by asking Custer what is holding those fragments if there's no brain in that area on the x-rays:

With these statements in mind, let's go back and read Custer's comment about Ebersole's artifact conclusion in its full context:

One can easily read "this area . . . a fragment" and "these fragments up here" as referring to the same thing: the cloud of metal flecks in the right frontal region near the top of the skull.

When Custer was specifically asked about the location of the "semi-circular" large "metal fragment," he said he could not identify its location on the x-ray he was being shown (p. 133). This suggests that he may not have been referring to this object when he mentioned Ebersole's artifact conclusion, since he was clear that that the area he pointed out to Ebersole was behind the right orbital ridge.

As mentioned, if this interpretation is correct, it clears up a number of issues. It explains why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail. It explains why the autopsy doctors said nothing about the high fragment trail in their WC testimony. If Ebersole told them that the right-frontal cloud of fragments was an artifact, their failure to say anything about it makes sense.

Humes mentioned that he saw 30-40 tiny fragments on the skull x-rays, but he said those fragments ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, several inches lower than the cloud of fragments on the extant x-rays. Finck reported, in writing, to General Blumberg that he saw the same low fragment trail. However, no such fragment trail appears on the extant x-rays.

I should add that Dr. Mantik and Custer met several times to discuss the autopsy and the autopsy x-rays, and during all those discussions, never once did Custer claim that Ebersole identified the 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Has if occurred to you that Custer didn’t look at the X-ray and say that the “6.5-millimeter object” wasn’t there during the autopsy?

Again, the title of your thread is blatantly wrong.  There is no need for anyone to try to put words into Custer’s mouth if we believe that the artifact was indeed on the X-ray during the autopsy.l

[Steve M. Galbraith]

One of the three KGB agents/Soviet Embassy officials who say they met Oswald in Mexico City, Oleg Nechiporenko, explained in his book "Passport to Assassination" that Oswald "switched [from speaking English] over to broken Russian, in which the rest of the conversation was conducted, except in a few instances when Oswald experienced difficulty in expressing certain thoughts in Russian and inserted English words."

And: "Our meeting had been conducted primarily in Russian but Oswald, possibly from the strain of being overly excited, often experienced difficulties in finding the proper Russian word and would switch to English. His pronunciation was bad, and he really mangled the grammar....."

It seems that Oswald, for whatever reason, was having problems speaking Russian while in Mexico City. Thus the explanation for the "broken Russian" that the CIA translator Tarasoff heard. And all three men were emphatic in saying the man they met was Oswald not an impostor.

[Michael T. Griffith]

But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation."

There is no reason to address Mantik’s work. The answer was explained to you in an earlier post. Here is a repeat. I have underlined some of this for emphasis. [RIDICULOUS "ANSWER" SNIPPED]

And I already proved that that "answer" makes no sense and raises even more questions than Sturdivan's acid-drop and stray-metal-disk theories, questions that you ducked by complaining that they were "unanswerable."

Furthermore, this supposed "answer" does not even mention Dr. Mantik's and Dr. Chesser's mutually corroborating sets of dozens of OD measurements. You guys are so blinded by your lone-gunman dogma that you can't see the forest for the trees. You constantly paste haughty, pretentious "answers" that are riddled with errors and comical illogic.

Let's look at another gem of silliness and error in Gagne's pseudo-academic answer:

We can therefore safely conclude that the “object” on the X-ray is just what many experts said it was, an artifact, and that Mantik is seeing monsters in his bedroom closet.

What?! For your and Gagne's information, until Larry Sturdivan came out with his 2005 book, not a single lone-gunman theorist claimed that the 6.5 mm object was an artifact but adamantly declared that it was a bullet fragment. I recall many debates with WC apologists in online forums, before Sturdivan's book was published, where lone-gunman theorists insisted over and over again that "of course" the object was a bullet fragment because, gee, all the experts on the Clark Panel, on the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and on the HSCA's medical panel said it was.

But after Sturdivan, to his great credit, explained why it was a physical impossibility for the 6.5 mm object to be a bullet fragment (using the same argument that skeptics had been making for years, by the way), WC apologists slowly began to adopt his position. WC critics have long argued that the object had to be an artifact, and now, because of Sturdivan, LNers agree. The only difference is that we say the artifact was added to the AP x-ray after the autopsy, whereas you say that somehow, some way, by a means you can't explain, the artifact was accidentally, and thus innocently, added to the AP x-ray.

No one is putting words in Custer's mouth. His own words clearly suggest that he was using "fragment" as a collective noun to refer to the cloud of tiny fragments near the right orbit and that he was associating Ebersole's artifact conclusion with that fragment cloud. Even David Von Pein, of all people, says, "I'm not 100% sure Jerrol Custer was referring to the now-famous 6.5 mm object." When one read Custer's words, one sees that it is entirely possible that Custer was not referring to the 6.5 mm object and that "artifact" referred to the area of the fragment cloud that Custer pointed out to Ebersole.

As I mentioned, this would explain why the autopsy doctors, incredibly, said nothing about the fragment cloud/high fragment trail in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. It would also explain why Ebersole said nothing about the 6.5 mm object to the HSCA and why he refused to discuss it with Dr. Mantik.

And I repeat that in all the numerous times that Dr. Mantik spoke with Custer about the autopsy and the x-rays, Custer never once claimed that Ebersole identified a single circular/6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Here's another example of pitiful blindness and bias, this one from Steve Galbraith in his most recent reply:

Steve Galbraith: And: "Our meeting had been conducted primarily in Russian but Oswald, possibly from the strain of being overly excited, often experienced difficulties in finding the proper Russian word and would switch to English. His pronunciation was bad, and he really mangled the grammar....."

It seems that Oswald, for whatever reason, was having problems speaking Russian while in Mexico City.

OR, the man spoke such horrible Russian because he was not the real Lee Harvey Oswald! But, no, the same Oswald who was cool, calm, and collected when challenged by a gun-toting police officer less than 2 minutes after supposedly just having shot the president of the U.S.--according to you, this same Oswald was so "overly excited" while talking on the phone to get a visa that he temporarily lost his fluency in Russian and spoke in such bad Russian that he couldn't even pronounce his words correctly and "mangled" the grammar.

Thus the explanation for the "broken Russian" that the CIA translator Tarasoff heard. And all three men were emphatic in saying the man they met was Oswald not an impostor.

UH-HUH. Well, all the CIA had to do was produce the surveillance photo of the man who entered the Cuban Consulate. And the FBI agents who viewed the photos and heard the recording of the supposed Oswald said the man was not Oswald, as Hoover informed LBJ:

Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Charles Collins]

And I already proved that that "answer" makes no sense and raises even more questions than Sturdivan's acid-drop and stray-metal-disk theories, questions that you ducked by complaining that they were "unanswerable."

Furthermore, this supposed "answer" does not even mention Dr. Mantik's and Dr. Chesser's mutually corroborating sets of dozens of OD measurements. You guys are so blinded by your lone-gunman dogma that you can't see the forest for the trees. You constantly paste haughty, pretentious "answers" that are riddled with errors and comical illogic.

Let's look at another gem of silliness and error in Gagne's pseudo-academic answer:

What?! For your and Gagne's information, until Larry Sturdivan came out with his 2005 book, not a single lone-gunman theorist claimed that the 6.5 mm object was an artifact but adamantly declared that it was a bullet fragment. I recall many debates with WC apologists in online forums, before Sturdivan's book was published, where lone-gunman theorists insisted over and over again that "of course" the object was a bullet fragment because, gee, all the experts on the Clark Panel, on the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and on the HSCA's medical panel said it was.

But after Sturdivan, to his great credit, explained why it was a physical impossibility for the 6.5 mm object to be a bullet fragment (using the same argument that skeptics had been making for years, by the way), WC apologists slowly began to adopt his position. WC critics have long argued that the object had to be an artifact, and now, because of Sturdivan, LNers agree. The only difference is that we say the artifact was added to the AP x-ray after the autopsy, whereas you say that somehow, some way, by a means you can't explain, the artifact was accidentally, and thus innocently, added to the AP x-ray.

No one is putting words in Custer's mouth. His own words clearly suggest that he was using "fragment" as a collective noun to refer to the cloud of tiny fragments near the right orbit and that he was associating Ebersole's artifact conclusion with that fragment cloud. Even David Von Pein, of all people, says, "I'm not 100% sure Jerrol Custer was referring to the now-famous 6.5 mm object." When one read Custer's words, one sees that it is entirely possible that Custer was not referring to the 6.5 mm object and that "artifact" referred to the area of the fragment cloud that Custer pointed out to Ebersole.

As I mentioned, this would explain why the autopsy doctors, incredibly, said nothing about the fragment cloud/high fragment trail in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. It would also explain why Ebersole said nothing about the 6.5 mm object to the HSCA and why he refused to discuss it with Dr. Mantik.

And I repeat that in all the numerous times that Dr. Mantik spoke with Custer about the autopsy and the x-rays, Custer never once claimed that Ebersole identified a single circular/6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.

Here's another example of pitiful blindness and bias, this one from Steve Galbraith in his most recent reply:

OR, the man spoke such horrible Russian because he was not the real Lee Harvey Oswald! But, no, the same Oswald who was cool, calm, and collected when challenged by a gun-toting police officer less than 2 minutes after supposedly just having shot the president of the U.S.--according to you, this same Oswald was so "overly excited" while talking on the phone to get a visa that he temporarily lost his fluency in Russian and spoke in such bad Russian that he couldn't even pronounce his words correctly and "mangled" the grammar.

UH-HUH. Well, all the CIA had to do was produce the surveillance photo of the man who entered the Cuban Consulate. And the FBI agents who viewed the photos and heard the recording of the supposed Oswald said the man was not Oswald, as Hoover informed LBJ:

And you ignore what I said about Custer. He didn’t look at the X-ray (after all those years) and see the “6.5-millimeter object” and say: Hey, wait a minute, that wasn’t on the X-ray back on 11/22/63. So, it seems to me that it must have been on the X-ray during the autopsy. Just like Gagne showed us.

When one considers the above, it really doesn’t matter how much one believes Mantik’s work is accurate. It is just as unbelievable as the center of the universe being in the professor’s home town…

[Michael T. Griffith]

Surely you're not comparing what you do with good police work? LOL! You dispute every bit of the "first day evidence" and 48-hour-evidence found by the Dallas Police Department and the FBI.

You're lying and misleading again. Now, you knew when you wrote this tripe that I was referring to honest detectives and policemen dealing with genuine evidence in an ethically handled case, which is not what we had with the Dallas Police Department and the FBI in the JFK case.

As you well know, or certainly should know, Dallas Police Department Chief Jesse Curry admitted to the Dallas Morning News in a 1969 interview that they did not have any proof that Oswald shot JFK:

We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did.
Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand. (Dallas Morning News, 6 Nov 1969; for more info on this, see Don Thomas, "Rewriting History: Bugliosi Parses the Testimony," https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Rewriting_History_-_Bugliosi_Parses_the_Testimony.html)

To get some idea of the questionable, suspicious, and contradictory nature of the evidence against Oswald, see my article:

Faulty Evidence: Problems with the Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R1CZaCZfLA5QFjTCHNINcKxTH4cBiPfw/view

The "second gunman" finding (not accept by all of the Committee's members) was largely based on acoustical analysis (a science then in its early stages). The HSCA acoustics findings were overturned in 1982 by the National Research Council. In science, a theory can be challenged by subsequent analysis.

You're lying and misleading yet again. You know full well that the National Research Council (NRC) panel that rejected the HSCA acoustical evidence did not include a single acoustical scientist, and that the panel was driven by a long-time ardent WC apologist who was later caught misrepresenting data from his own ballistics tests. Why didn't you mention that?

You know full well that the NRC panel's claims were strongly challenged by the HSCA acoustical scientists. You know that in recent years Dr. Josiah Thompson arranged for several acoustical scientists at BBN to conduct additional tests on the acoustical evidence, and that those tests confirmed the acoustical evidence and refuted the NRC panel's main claim about the timing of the impulse patterns on the dictabelt. Dr. Thompson published this historic information last year in his book Last Second in Dallas. I pointed out all of these facts in a long thread on the acoustical evidence, and you participated in that thread. Yet, here you are citing the NRC panel's bogus findings.

For those who want to see just how flawed and unreliable the NRC panel's analysis is, see the following article:

The HSCA's Acoustical Evidence: Proof of a Second Gunman in the JFK Assassination
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KvdvH8gTqFgMn-2vTI5ppg_egWxRKg9U/view

The Justice Department in 1988 reviewed the HSCA findings, finding "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman" and "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy in … the assassination of President Kennedy".

LOL! The 1988 DOJ "review" is a joke. Not a single acoustical scientist participated in that review. 

"The acoustic evidence that was the sole objective, scientific support for the existence of a conspiracy in the HSCA investigation was debunked." -- Larry Sturdivan, 2005

You might have mentioned to our readers that Sturdivan is a long-time WC apologist, that he has no background in acoustical science, and that his neuromuscular-reaction theory has been exposed as not just wrong but downright whacky. You might have mentioned that to support his neuromuscular-reaction theory, Sturdiven cited the video of a goat being shot in the head, and that the goat's reaction looks nothing like JFK's reaction in the Z film.

The opposite is true. Oswald didn't speak fluent Russian.

"Lessons took place in a second-floor room after work ...      Shushkevich just worked on verbs, and occasionally tried to teach this American colloquial Russian....Their lessons proceeded without great enthusiasm, and Oswald found      Russian difficult. He did get to a point where he could achieve understanding if Shushkevich spoke slowly, used gestures, wrote words on pieces of paper, and sometimes brought out a dictionary." -- Stanislav Shushkevich, engineer at the Minsk Factory (Norman Mailer, "Oswald’s Tale" 1995)

I already exposed this claim as erroneous in a previous reply, citing numerous Russian speakers who spoke with Oswald and who said he spoke excellent Russian. I'm mentioning your bogus claim again to provide another example of the fact that you repeatedly make bogus claims that were debunked years ago.

One of your fellow LNers here has already ditched your bogus claim in this very thread and has instead argued that the normally Russian-fluent Oswald suffered some kind of panic or anxiety episode and forgot how to speak Russian when he called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City.

Yeah, makes perfect sense! The same Oswald who was calm and collected when the gun-toting Officer Baker confronted him less than 2 minutes after Oswald had allegedly shot JFK--this same Oswald became so flustered and excited while requesting a visa over the phone from the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City that he forgot how to speak Russian!

You mean where Blakey wrote to the Secretary of Defense: "Our photographic experts have determined that this camera, or at least the particular lens and shutter attached to it, could not have been used to take JFK's autopsy pictures."? That simply means that if the Graphic View camera provided by the DoD was the 1963 one, then the lens was different. Or there was a additional or different camera used in 1963 that the DoD was not aware of. This does nothing to undermine how the HSCA determined authenticity of the autopsy photographs.

Nope, sorry. You are once again years behind the information curve. I won't accuse you of lying in this instance, because I think the problem is that you simply have not read the post-ARRB research on this issue.

Dr. Gary Aguilar and RN Kathy Cunningham discuss this issue in their article "How Five Investigations Into JFK's Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong":

https://www.historymatters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_5.htm

The HSCA authenticated the Backyard Photographs using, in part, the actual camera that took the photos. Most critics didn't accept that either.

You're lying and misleading again. In a thread on the backyard photos, I personally explained to you, at great length, the gaping holes, dubious claims, and suspicious omissions in the HSCA Photographic Evidence Panel's (PEP) "authentication" of the backyard rifle photos.

-- I pointed out to you that the PEP found only incredibly small differences in the distances between the objects in the backgrounds of the photos, a wildly implausible outcome for photos that were supposedly taken with a lever-operated handheld camera that was passed back and forth between each exposure.

-- I pointed out to you that the PEP was unable to duplicate the variant shadows seen in the backyard photos.

-- I pointed out to you that, incredibly, the PEP refused to publish the Penrose measurements for the backyard figure's chin.

Yet, here you are citing the PEP's alleged authentication again.

For those who want to read more about the HSCA PEP's dubious "authentication" of the backyard rifle photos, here's an article that I've written on the subject:

The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JiOqKWO-XJSO-z_lk6bSgUBXq_vD1yZs/view

LNers have long acknowledged the Oswald connection to 544 Camp Street. But what Oswald-Shaw connection did the HSCA publish? The CAP picnic photo was accepted by LNers. They didn't go around saying it was faked.

Eee-gads! This is too silly to waste much time on, given the veritable tsunami of evidence that we now have that Oswald worked with Banister, Shaw, and Ferrie. And, for the record, when the CAP picnic photo first came out, most LNers dismissed it as unimportant and argued that it did not prove a Ferrie-Oswald relationship. Remember?

No problem with "hard scientific evidence". Problem with non-peer-reviewed Mantik's "hard scientific evidence". You likewise push forward hardened over-dramatized conclusions rather than focus on a single element and "drill down".

You're lying and misleading again. I've repeatedly pointed out to you that Dr. Mantik's OD research was reviewed by Dr. Arthur Haas, who was the director of Kodak's Department of Medical Physics at the time. I've repeatedly pointed out to you that Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist, did his own OD measurements on the autopsy x-rays at the National Archives and that his measurements mirror Dr. Mantik's. I've noted that Dr. Greg Henkelmann, a radiation oncologist, has endoresed Dr. Mantik's OD research. In fact, let's quote from Dr. Henkelmann's endorsement:

Unlike other evidence, optical density data are as “theory free” as possible, as this data deals only with physical measurements. To reject alteration of the JFK skull X-rays is to reject basic physics and radiology. Dr. Mantik has a PhD in physics and has practiced radiation oncology for nearly 40 years; he is thus eminently qualified in both physics and radiology.

Other scientists who have endorsed Dr. Mantik's OD research include Dr. Donald Siple (former chief radiologist at Maryland General Hospital), Dr. Gary Aguilar (an ophthalmology specialist and a former professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University and the University of California), and Dr. Phil Bretz, a general surgeon who has worked extensively in the field of treating certain forms of cancer.

Dr. Bretz was one of the pre-publication reviewers of Dr. Mantik's new book. In fact, Dr. Bretz argued for a stronger title for the book; one of the titles he recommended was "JFK Assassination Paradoxes: Scientific Proof of Conspiracy."

Just look at your pitiful attempts to explain the 6.5 mm object over the years (and in this thread). For years and years, you guys insisted that the object was a bullet fragment, even after Dr. Mantik published his OD measurements on the object. You blindly cited the findings of three government medical panels that said it was a bullet fragment, and you ignored the powerful wound ballistics evidence that the object could not be a fragment from an FMJ bullet, and you ignored Dr. Mantik's OD findings. Then, along came Larry Sturdivan, who, to his great credit, explained why the object could not be an FMJ bullet fragment, and suddenly you guys began to admit that the object was not a bullet fragment after all.

So then you guys were left scrambling to come up with an explanation for how an artifact could have been accidentally formed on a skull x-ray during a presidential autopsy, and how that artifact could be perfectly circular in 3/4 of its shape, could appear on only one skull x-ray and not on any of the others, could end up with a notch that is remarkably neat in shape, could end up perfectly overlapping the image of a small genuine bullet fragment, and could end up being, by what you say is just another coincidence, 6.5 mm in diameter, the same diameter as the ammo allegedly used by Oswald.

We've drilled-down on your claims many times here (ie: the Brehm boy in the Zfilm) and, rather than concede you were proven wrong, you posted more deflections in the form of cut-n-paste "conclusions".

It is comical that you would claim that I was "proven wrong" about the Brehm boy's movements in the Z film. Neither you nor your fellow WC apologists did any such thing. I invite interested readers to go read the exchanges I had with Organ et al on the Brehm boy in the Z film.

I repeat my standing challenge to WC apologists to conduct a simulation of the Brehm boy's movements. If your test subject manages to duplicate those movements in 0.56 seconds, post the video. I conducted my own simulation with my youngest son, and he could never come close to duplicating the Brehm boy's movements in the allotted time.

For more info on the evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film, see my article:

Evidence of Alteration in the Zapruder Film
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YOK_7uLe49zgXADGQxkIH1dmaEcpyaWd/view

Some of what Mantik believes:

• The Zapruder film is faked ("Special Effects in the Zapruder Film: How the Film of the Century was Edited" 1998)
• Witnesses say Kennedy was struck in the head by two separate shots
• The limousine is stopped in the Moorman Photo

And? You cite these science-backed claims as if they were dubious. Yet, you say nothing about the mountain of research that supports these claims. Are you aware of the Hollywood film experts who've concluded that the Z film has been altered? Are you aware of the new evidence that shows that the Z film was taken to a CIA-contracted lab in New York and that two versions of the film were viewed and briefed at the CIA? Of course you are, because I've discussed these things many times in this forum and in threads in which you participated. Yet, you said nothing about any of this evidence but repeated your talking points.

And, just to clarify, Dr. Mantik has not claimed that witnesses said "JFK was hit in the head twice." He has said that the eyewitness accounts describe two head shots, which they do.

[Michael T. Griffith]

The refusal of WC apologists to face the facts about the 6.5 mm object is similar to the refusal of a small band of Nixon diehards who still refuse to believe that the 18-minute gap in the 6/20/72 Watergate tape resulted from a deliberate criminal act. When people don't want to admit the occurrence of a criminal act, virtually no amount of evidence will cause them to change their minds. As long as the innocent explanation is theoretically possible, they will cling to it, no matter how wildly improbable and ridiculous it is.

It is theoretically possible that Rose Mary Woods accidentally erased five different segments of the 6/20/72 Watergate tape by mistakenly pushing the "record" button and then holding her foot on the dictabelt machine's pedal for a total of 18.5 minutes while allegedly talking the phone. It's also possible that Ms. Woods was telling a white lie when she said she could not have erased more than 5 minutes of the tape. After all, maybe she didn't want to admit that she had gabbed on the phone for 18.5 minutes. Yes, this is theoretically possible, but it defies common sense and reason; the fact that the erasure was not continuous but was split into five segments suggests to logical people that the erasure was not accidental.

WC apologists' "explanation" for the 6.5 mm object is even more unbelievable than the tale that Ms. Woods accidentally caused the 18.5-minute gap on the 6/20/72 tape. At least the Woods story includes a plausible method by which the 18.5 minutes could have been erased--it's very unlikely that this method occurred, but it could have happened.

However, of the three explanations for the 6.5 mm object offered by WC apologists, only one of them is even theoretically possible. Two of the three explanations (acid drop and stray metal disk in x-ray cassette) are physically impossible. That only leaves the theory that the AP skull x-ray was taken while there was a "stray metal disk" lying on the autopsy table. But WC apologists can't identify what kind of disk it could have been, can't identify a disk that was 6.5 mm in diameter, can't explain how a neatly defined notch would have been chipped from the disk, can't explain why the disk/object does not appear in any of the other skull x-rays, etc., etc.

For many years, LNers insisted that the 6.5 mm object was a bullet fragment, an FMJ bullet fragment. Skeptics pointed out that no FMJ bullet in the known history of forensic science had sheared off a fragment while penetrating a human skull and had deposited the fragment on the outer table of the skull. WC apologists replied that the esteemed forensic experts on three government medical panels (Clark Panel, Rockefeller Commission panel, HSCA medical panel) had identified the 6.5 mm object as a bullet fragment. Critics noted that those experts did not cite a single case where an FMJ bullet had deposited a fragment in this manner, and that the autopsy doctors did not mention the object in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. Yet, lone-gunman theorists continued to insist that the object was a bullet fragment.

Firearms and ballistics expert Howard Donahue came along in the 1990s and noted, as conspiracy theorists had been arguing for years, that it was extremely unlikely that an FMJ bullet would deposit a fragment on the outer table of the skull while striking it, and that forensic science knew of no FMJ bullet that had ever behaved in this manner. LNers rejected Donahue's perfectly valid arguments, noting that Donahue also posited an accidental fatal shot from a Secret Service agent riding in the follow-up car, and once again citing the fact that three government medical panels had concluded the 6.5 mm object was a bullet fragment.

Later in the 1990s, Dr. David Mantik first published his optical density (OD) measurements done on the autopsy skull x-rays at the National Archives and noted that the OD readings proved that the 6.5 mm object was not metallic. Dr. Mantik reported that he was even able to duplicate how the object could have been added. I remember very well presenting the OD evidence to LNers in online forums, and every single one of them dismissed this hard scientific evidence and repeated the point that "all those experts" on the Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and the HSCA's medical panel had said the object was a bullet fragment.

Then, along came wound ballistics expert and former HSCA consultant Larry Sturdivan with his 2005 book The JFK Myths. Using the same essential argument that critics had long been using, Sturdivan explained in his book why the 6.5 mm object simply could not be an FMJ bullet fragment. This time, since Sturdivan was (and is) an ardent lone-gunman theorist and a staunch WC defender, WC apologists began to change their minds. Nowadays, most LNers have ditched the bullet-fragment claim and acknowledge that the 6.5 mm object is an artifact.

However, WC apologists claim that the artifact was created accidentally, with no criminal intent. But, as mentioned, their only theoretically possible innocent explanation is that a metal disk somehow got onto the autopsy table, that nobody noticed it (including the radiologist and the x-ray technician when they were preparing to x-ray the skull), that the AP x-ray was taken while the disk was on the table, and that the 6.5 mm object is the image of that disk. Yet, as also mentioned, WC apologists can't identify what kind of disk it could have been, can't identify a disk that was 6.5 mm in diameter, can't explain how a neatly defined notch would have been chipped from the disk, can't explain why the disk/object does not appear in any of the other skull x-rays, etc., etc.

Of course, this far-fetched theory also requires us to believe that the disk just happened to be in the right position to cause its x-rayed image to perfecty overlay the image of a small genuine fragment on the outer table of the skull.

This far-fetched theory also requires us to believe that someone noticed the disk after the AP x-ray was taken and that it was removed from the table before the lateral x-rays were taken. But this naturally begs the question of why the radiologist and/or the x-ray tech would not have retaken the AP x-ray in order to get an x-ray that did not include an artifact that so clearly looked like a bullet fragment.

In addition, this far-fetched theory fails to explain why the radiologist, Dr. Ebersole, said nothing about the 6.5 mm object in his HSCA testimony and why he refused to discuss the object with Dr. Mantik. Nor does this theory explain why the x-ray technician, Jerrol Custer, in his many interviews with Dr. Mantik, never claimed that Dr. Ebersole identified a 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy and why Custer never claimed that he himself saw the 6.5 mm object during the autopsy.