Obvious Facts that Refute the Lone-Gunman Theory

[Jerry Organ]

which means you have to believe that your sixth-floor gunman fired at JFK while his view of JFK was obstructed by the oak tree.

Willis could have taken his Z202 photo after hearing a shot fired in the mid-Z150s, the shot that some say made the Connallys and Mrs. Kennedy turn from their left to their right (Mrs. Kennedy begins in the Z170s; she was posing for Croft). The three said the first shot caused them to turn their heads. The Z150s is before the President went behind the foliage.

Willis claimed his slide was taken "instantaneously" with the first shot, but it's an exaggeration. Here's his testimony where he says the first shot caused Mrs. Kennedy to "snap" her head from her left to her right.

Mr. LIEBELER. You couldn’t tell whether he was hit by the first shot? You couldn’t tell whether he had been hit by the first shot or the second shot or the third shot, or by how many shots he had been hit?

Mr. WILLIS. No, sir; except this one thing might be worthy of mention. When I took slide No. 4, the President was smiling and waving and looking straight ahead, and Mrs. Kennedy was likewise smiling and facing more to my side of the street. When the first shot was fired, her head seemed to just snap in that direction, and he more or less faced the other side of the street and leaned forward, which caused me to wonder, although I could not see anything positively. It did cause me to wonder.

Mr. LIEBELER. You say that the President looked toward his left; is that correct? Toward the side of Elm Street that you are standing on, or which way?

Mr. WILLIS. In slide No. 4 he was looking pretty much toward--straight ahead, and she was looking more to the left, which would be my side of the street. Then when the first shot was fired, she turned to the right toward him and he more or less slumped forward, and it caused me to wonder if he were hit, although I couldn’t say.”

Did you look at Z200-207 in slow motion yet? If you do, you can't help but see that starting in Z200, JFK suddenly freezes his waving motion, starts to bring his right hand toward his throat, and starts to rapidly turn his head to the left.

I don't see that as reacting to being shot. He's finished waving and begins to lower his hand, as he did throughout the motorcade. Kennedy's head only gets turned as far as it is in Z225. He doesn't turn his head towards Jackie.

In the animation, I left out the really blurred frames. This explains why the animation has an abrupt change in the right hand between frames 189 and Z193.

You will also see that during this same time frame, Jackie suddenly starts to turn her head from left to right to look at JFK.

There's a little turn by Mrs. Kennedy, but it's a continuation of the larger head turn she began in the Z170s.

Even most of the HSCA experts who analyzed the Zapruder film acknowledged that these movements mean that JFK must have been shot before Z190.

They got it wrong. The last-minute "95% certainty" acoustics testimony suddenly added importance to any Z190-zone "indicators".

The HSCA experts also noted that there is a strong blur episode from Z189-197, which of course indicates a shot was fired a few frames earlier (6 HSCA 27).

Didn't you just accord a 12-frame reaction time to Willis' Z202 shot? So by that measure, a blur episode beginning at Z189 would mean going back 12 frames to Z177. That's eleven frames earlier than your notorious Z188 JFK "cheek puff".

Seems what frames are blurred in Z189-197 have horizontal blur, resulting from Zapruder panning the camera. It may be unsteady there because the sign is beginning to intrude between Kennedy and Zapruder. There's not much blur at all in Z193, Z194 and Z196.


I wonder if vertical blur might indicate a "startle reaction" by Zapruder.

I also notice that you ignored the fact that Canning said the windshield damage was too high to have been caused by a fragment from the head shot. If you doubt that he said this, go read his analysis/testimony. Ignoring facts that you can't explain won't make them go away.

I also notice that you ignored the fact that Canning found it necessary to ignore the HSCA medical panel's placement of the back wound to get his SBT trajectory to work, which was a damning and revealing admission.

Have you looked at Canning's diagrams? Go look at his diagram that shows his placement of JBC in the limo, and then, again, find me one photo or frame that shows Connally as far left as Canning shows him to be. Let's see it. Z224 destroys, utterly destroys, the fiction that Connally was that far to the left.

Well, you got Canning on that one. He had an inaccurate limousine drawing as his base. With the information we have today, we can slide Connally to his right so he's more in the middle of the jump-seat. Kennedy would merely be slid an equal amount because Canning's relationship of Kennedy to Connally hasn't changed.



Canning didn't assume a firing location for the bullets.  To his credit, Canning's use of back-projecting from the wound sites and using a cone for error-margin seems pretty fair-minded.

I further notice that you are still ignoring JFK's dramatic reactions that start in Z226, when he is jolted forward and his hands and elbows are flung upward and forward. These actions show that JFK was hit in the back a frame or two earlier, clearly after he had begun to react to the Z186 shot in Z200-207. WC apologists are caught between a rock and a hard place by these Z226-232 reactions and the Z200-207 reactions, because they obviously could not have been caused by the same bullet. That's why you guys either ignore one or both of these reaction sequences.

I see. And, per critics, wind caused Connally's jacket to pluck forward or the lapel to flip between Z223 and Z224. Something that was not captured on film anywhere else in the motorcade or while they were walking about at Love Field. Amazing, the right side of Connally's jacket--where we know a bullet exited--just happened to be the only place where, per critics, he suffered a random wardrobe malfunction.

Note that Kennedy's right hand is beginning to cup in Z224; in Z225 the hand has closed more and is being moved towards his throat area. These may be involuntary movements by Kennedy to a shot that struck him ca. Z222. It takes a few frames for Connally's jacket to pluck forward, which offers the possibility he was struck by the same bullet that struck Kennedy.

[Zeon Mason]

It’s easy to see the effects of angular momentum caused by a bullet hitting Connelly off center of his torso and shoulders as he turns counter clockwise within about another 1/18 sec frame after the lapel flap frame.

So I agree with Jerry on the point of the lapel flap being a sign of a bullet exiting rather than a wind gust.

However I’m not convinced that Jerry’s model of Connelly is accurate at the moment Connelly is hit. Imo, for the trajectory line to work, Connallys legs and his torso would be rotated clockwise towards the right side door .

I think that Connelly being rather tall and having long legs would have found it uncomfortable to have his legs in parallel with the side door and his knees being pushed onto the back of Kellermans seat.

Also from the angle of Connallys shoulder line in Jerry’s posted frames just a fraction of a sec before the lapel flap, Connallys torso is likely in the same angle as his shoulders and his head which appears to be facing the right front side of the limo. ( Connally may have been noticing umbrella man and DC man actions as were the SS agents looking that same direction).

[Jerry Organ]

It’s easy to see the effects of angular momentum caused by a bullet hitting Connelly off center of his torso and shoulders as he turns counter clockwise within about another 1/18 sec frame after the lapel flap frame.

So I agree with Jerry on the point of the lapel flap being a sign of a bullet exiting rather than a wind gust.

However I’m not convinced that Jerry’s model of Connelly is accurate at the moment Connelly is hit. Imo, for the trajectory line to work, Connallys legs and his torso would be rotated clockwise towards the right side door .

I think that Connelly being rather tall and having long legs would have found it uncomfortable to have his legs in parallel with the side door and his knees being pushed onto the back of Kellermans seat.

Also from the angle of Connallys shoulder line in Jerry’s posted frames just a fraction of a sec before the lapel flap, Connallys torso is likely in the same angle as his shoulders and his head which appears to be facing the right front side of the limo. ( Connally may have been noticing umbrella man and DC man actions as were the SS agents looking that same direction).

My model wasn't meant to portray the moment Connally was hit. It models the two men as seen in the Croft photo. SketchUp doesn't have an engine to rotate body parts (I have to do it manually or import from Blender). Matching where Connally's neck axis was enough to determine his position relative to Kennedy. It appears the two men may have to be raised up a little; the parade bar is too high; the side-windows of the parade bar aren't matching; the top of the rear seat needs more curvature. Lots of tweaking to do.

The idea is to get the two men matching positions and the limousine tightened using the better-resolution pictures. Then take it to how they are seated in the Zapruder film. Matching the Zapruder film first is risky because the resolution is poor.

[Tim Nickerson]

Have you looked at Canning's diagrams? Go look at his diagram that shows his placement of JBC in the limo, and then, again, find me one photo or frame that shows Connally as far left as Canning shows him to be. Let's see it. Z224 destroys, utterly destroys, the fiction that Connally was that far to the left.

I'm sure that you're aware of the Photographic and film analysis done of the Kennedy assassination by the ITEK Corporation in 1976. People with training and experience in the following disciplines participated in the program: physics, photographic science, special photographic processing, photo interpretation, image analysis, coherent optical image processing, photogrammetry, and digital image processing.  From the Zapruder film, they determined that Connally was as much as 8.6 inches inboard of Kennedy.

[Jack Nessan]

I'm sure that you're aware of the Photographic and film analysis done of the Kennedy assassination by the ITEK Corporation in 1976. People with training and experience in the following disciplines participated in the program: physics, photographic science, special photographic processing, photo interpretation, image analysis, coherent optical image processing, photogrammetry, and digital image processing.  From the Zapruder film, they determined that Connally was as much as 8.6 inches inboard of Kennedy.

He knows Z224 is not proof of anything, that is why he chose it. JFK is not in the photo and JBC is sitting there looking to his right, beginning to react to having been shot. JBC stated he was looking at men, women, and children when he heard the first shot. The only children there to his right were the Chism's and Newman's immediately to his right.

The best photo of the orientation of the men is the photo looking down from the Adolphus Hotel or Dave Power's photo of the two men from behind.

[Joe Elliott]

I'm sure that you're aware of the Photographic and film analysis done of the Kennedy assassination by the ITEK Corporation in 1976. People with training and experience in the following disciplines participated in the program: physics, photographic science, special photographic processing, photo interpretation, image analysis, coherent optical image processing, photogrammetry, and digital image processing.  From the Zapruder film, they determined that Connally was as much as 8.6 inches inboard of Kennedy.

And if, like myself, you are not an expert on film analysis, you can always look at the David Powers film, showing a view from directly behind the limousine, that clearly show Connally sitting well inboard of Kennedy. One can generally see almost all of Connally's head, sometimes all of it, showing Connally was at least six to eight inches inboard of Kennedy.

And there is no reason to think that either changed positions during the five minutes Powers had the camera turned off before reaching Dealey Plaza. Connally would stay in the same position, sitting in a bucket seat. And Kennedy would stay in the same position, to keep his right elbow resting on the side of the limousine, something we see in both the Powers and Zapruder films.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Another obvious fact that refutes the lone-gunman theory is the self-evident contradiction between the largest fragment that was supposedly removed from the frontal area of JFK's head and the appearance of that fragment on the autopsy skull x-rays.

The fragment can be seen in CE 843. It is the largest of the fragments in the exhibit. The large fragment in CE 843 is supposed to be the 7 x 2 mm fragment described in the autopsy report and seen on the skull x-rays, but the two fragments look nothing like each other.

The large fragment in CE 843 is roundish in shape and weighs 107 mg. In contrast, the 7 x 2 mm fragment seen on the skull x-rays looks nothing like that: it is a mostly straight and narrow object that bends moderately to the left in the top fourth of its body. Some might refer to it as being shaped like a club.

The FBI only removed about 1 mg of the fragment's substance to perform spectrographic and NAA testing; the removal of such a tiny amount of the fragment's mass would not have drastically altered its shape.

Dr. Mantik discuses this contradiction in his article "The JFK Autopsy Materials: Twenty-Nine Conclusions After Nine Visits":

This is one of the most shocking contradictions in the entire case. The shape of the larger piece of metal is nothing like the supposedly identical piece seen on the X-rays. No measurements taken on this piece can explain its bizarre transformation in shape. Most likely, it is not the piece taken from the skull. Its origin is unknown.

John Hunt has much better quality images, obtained from NARA. Incidentally, I saw only two, not three, fragments at NARA. The largest, however, bears no resemblance to the corresponding image on the X-rays. The larger piece shown here is pancake shaped and was 107 mg. On the other hand, the X-rays show a club shaped object on both X-ray views (see Figures 2 and 6 above). The studies done by the FBI on this object (spectrographic analysis and neutron activation analysis) required only a tiny amount at most, about 1 mg, according to one of the FBI experts. No one has ever offered an explanation for this flagrant discrepancy in the shape of the largest piece. ("The JFK Autopsy Materials: Twenty-Nine Conclusions After Nine Visits," pp. 14-15, http://themantikview.org/pdf/The_JFK_Autopsy_Materials.pdf)

[Jack Nessan]

Another obvious fact that refutes the lone-gunman theory is the self-evident contradiction between the largest fragment that was supposedly removed from the frontal area of JFK's head and the appearance of that fragment on the autopsy skull x-rays.

The fragment can be seen in CE 843. It is the largest of the fragments in the exhibit. The large fragment in CE 843 is supposed to be the 7 x 2 mm fragment described in the autopsy report and seen on the skull x-rays, but the two fragments look nothing like each other.

The large fragment in CE 843 is roundish in shape and weighs 107 mg. In contrast, the 7 x 2 mm fragment seen on the skull x-rays looks nothing like that: it is a mostly straight and narrow object that bends moderately to the left in the top fourth of its body. Some might refer to it as being shaped like a club.

The FBI only removed about 1 mg of the fragment's substance to perform spectrographic and NAA testing; the removal of such a tiny amount of the fragment's mass would not have drastically altered it shape.

Dr. Mantik discuses this contradiction in his article "The JFK Autopsy Materials: Twenty-Nine Conclusions After Nine Visits":

Wrong thread. This fragments subject is being discussed in the thread:

: LNers Can't Explain the Two Back-of-Head Bullet Fragments

In this thread you were explaining how there were two other shots having been fired by an unknown assassin in addition to the two shots that were fired by LHO.