Several reasons:
- the accounts by Boone, Weitzman, and Craig
- the existing Alyea footage doesn't necessarily show the moment of discovery. At least the box that was allegedly over the top had already been moved.
- the existing Alyea footage is blurry and lacking in identification detail
- we don't know that exactly one rifle was found
- we don't know what did not get captured in the existing footage
I hope, John, the last few posts have eased your concerns regarding the MC.
You seemed to be unaware that the MC was filmed by Alyea from it's discovery until a point where it could be easily identified as an MC (Day dusting it for prints)
It now becomes clear that Boone and Weitzman were simply mistaken about the Mauser identification, it happens. Craig, stating that he saw"Mauser" stamped right on the barrel, does not put him in a great light, although I would like to believe he was lying for the right reasons.
You make the strange point - "we don't know that exactly one rifle was found".
Is this just some kind of philosophical point or are you referring to something evidence based, that there is something in the evidence that indicates more than one rifle was found?
I think we can safely say the Mauser debate is wrapped up