JFK's Head Snap and the Implausible Jet-Effect and Neurospasm Theories

[Tim Nickerson]

The fact that the entry wound measurement was noted in the autopsy as 6 mm tells me it couldn’t have been a 6.5 mm round but a 5.65 diameter would explain an AR 15 round.

The entry wound measurement of 6 mm was actually 15 mm X 6 mm. It was of the laceration in the scalp, not the hole in the skull. The dimensions of the hole in the skull were never given. All that they said was that there was a corresponding wound in the skull. Which was just them giving the location of the wound in the skull, not the dimensions of it.

[Michael Carney]

"The entry wound measurement of 6 mm was actually 15 mm X 6 mm. It was of the laceration in the scalp, not the hole in the skull. The dimensions of the hole in the skull were never given. All that they said was that there was a corresponding wound in the skull. Which was just them giving the location of the wound in the skull, not the dimensions of it."

Tim could you please direct me to where I can read more about this?

Seems odd that Howard Donahue would dedicate so much time and energy based on faulty information but maybe all the information wasn't available to him at the time.

[Michael T. Griffith]

For example, Donahue assumed the 6.5 mm object was a genuine fragment that came from the bullet that struck the curb early in the shooting, but we now know that the object is a ghosted image that was placed over the small genuine fragment in the back of the skull.

Please excuse my ignorance but please explain what you mean by “ghosted image” in this situation.

A forger used a darkroom technique to place the image of the 6.5 mm object over the small genuine fragment in the back of the head--after the autopsy. Dr. David Mantik has been able to duplicate how it was done.

Until three medical doctors with expertise in radiology (one of them was Mantik) did optical density (OD) measurements on the 6.5 mm object, nearly all researchers assumed the object was a fragment, and the debate was over whether it came from FMJ ammo or from other ammo and whether or not it was a ricochet fragment.

When the OD measurements were done, we learned that the 6.5 mm object is a ghosted image--it is an image that was placed on the AP x-ray. The object's OD measurements are nothing like what they would be if the object were metallic, even though the object is brighter than any of JFK's dental fillings. On a normal x-ray, the brighter an object is, the thicker it is. If the 6.5 mm object were a fragment, its OD measurements would be consistent with those of other metal objects on the x-rays, but they are not.

On a related note, the noticeable white patch in the right-rear part of the skull on the lateral skull x-rays gives OD measurements that are wildly impossible, proving that the patch is not bone but is manmade. The patch was placed there to conceal the right-rear exit wound that dozens of witnesses in three different locations saw on JFK's head.

Here are some articles on the 6.5 mm object and the right-rear white patch:

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-application-of-forensic-principles-for-the-analysis-of-the-autopsy-skull-x-rays-of-president-kennedy-and-a-review-of-the-brain-photographs

https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_JFK_Autopsy_Materials.pdf

https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf

https://themantikview.com/pdf/JFK_Autopsy_materials_summary.pdf

http://assassinationofjfk.net/a-review-of-the-jfk-cranial-x-rays-and-photographs/

One thing I would like to mention is that JFK said “I’ve been hit”, this was before the magic bullet so I assumed that he was hit with a frag from the bullet that hit the pavement. He would not have been able to say anything after being hit with the magic bullet.

Yes, I agree with McLaren and Donahue on this point. The only possible explanation for the two small fragments on the back of the head in the skull x-rays is that they are ricochet fragments. There is just no other plausible scientific explanation.

The two small fragments are the small fragment that is inside the 6.5 mm object and the slightly smaller fragment that Dr. McDonnel identified on the skull x-rays for the HSCA. The smaller fragment is slightly to the left of the fragment inside the 6.5 mm object. Both are embedded in the outer table of the skull, so there is no way on this planet that they came from an FMJ missile that hit the head.

Sturdivan did not know there was a small genuine fragment inside the 6.5 mm object. His radiology skills were limited because he was a ballistics expert. But, he noted that the 6.5 mm object could not have come from an FMJ missile, which is why he said it was an "artifact." I find it odd that he did not address Dr. McDonnel's report on the second fragment on the back of the head on the outer table of the skull. I find it hard to believe that he was not aware of it.

Donahue uncritically accepted the Clark Panel and the HSCA's relocation of the rear head entry wound by a whopping 4 inches, but we now know that the skull x-rays show no entry wound at the proposed higher location, and that when the HSCA showed the back-of-the-head photo to Finck, he went so far as to question how the photo had been authenticated as having been taken during the autopsy.

I don’t know that it matters if the bullet hit JFK high in the back of the head or 4 inches lower. He was leaning forward and downward. A bullet coming almost perfectly horizontal would do what it did to JFK. A frangible round of course, not a fmj bullet.

I agree it was a frangible bullet, not an FMJ one, but even Donahue admitted that the EOP entry site, i.e., the low entry site, was very problematic for the lone-gunman scenario. Moving a wound by 4 inches on the back of a skull makes a huge difference in trajectory. JFK was leaning forward, but not nearly far enough forward to make the EOP entry site line up with the sixth-floor window, as Donahue correctly noted.

Another key issue here is the fragment trail now seen on the skull x-rays. The autopsy doctors said the trail began at the EOP site and went upward to a point just above the right eye. But no such trail is now visible on the x-rays, and the autopsy doctors said nothing about a trail 4 inches higher at the top of the skull. So either they were staggeringly incompetent and mistook the high fragment trail as being 4 inches lower and starting at the EOP site, or they just brazenly lied about the trail's location, or the lower trail was removed from the x-rays.

Plus, the revised rear entry point has been discredited. We now know that even some of the HSCA's radiologic consultants doubted the higher entry point. Moreover, the ARRB experts refuted it, as have many private medical doctors who have examined the x-rays at the National Archives.

The fact that the entry wound measurement was noted in the autopsy as 6 mm tells me it couldn’t have been a 6.5 mm round but a 5.65 diameter would explain an AR 15 round.

I totally agree. Bullets always make entry holes in bone that are slightly larger than their diameter. Donahue, being a ballistics expert, knew this and spotted this issue when he read the autopsy report. The WC comically said that the skull bone shrunk.

Lets sum it up: with the diameter of the hole in the back of JFK’s head, the explosive destruction of JFK’s head and direction (the physics of it, an explosion in his head), Hickey’s behavior after, the cover up by the SS, the smoke smelled in the motorcade, the witness’s that saw Hickey with the gun, the one SS Agent that thought Hickey fired off a round, what was going on in the autopsy room with Dr Ebersol and Jerrome tells you a cover up was in progress. And who is pushing the cover up and getting the body out of Dallas, the Secret Service, why?

This is where we disagree. All but one of these items of evidence fits very well with a frontal-gunman scenario. I agree that the SS was deeply involved in cover-up activity, but I don't think it had anything to do with Hickey.

I see no credible evidence that Hickey fired his gun. Kennedy loyalist Dave Powers was in Hickey's car, and Powers said there was no way he could not have heard Hickey's rifle fire. In fact, none of the occupants in Hickey's car showed any reaction that would be consistent with having just heard an AR-15 fire from their car. I have fired several AR-15s--they are very loud.

[Michael Carney]

I had not seen or heard of the “spray” of the tiny fragments before and the direction. Then if that is true then James Files did it after all. I have not seen what a mercury tipped bullet would do to someone’s head but I would like to sew this part of it up.

I think in the case of Hickey and the secret service, I think they though they did it. Hickeys gun went off at the same time of the head shot, thus the cover up. I don’t know when the particle paths were discovered but I think Hickey might have gone to his grave thinking he killed JFK, poor bastard.


As far as you not seeing any credible evidence that Hickey fired the gun: 1. the gun smoke in the motorcade, could not have come from the grassy knoll, wind direction was wrong. 2. Several witnesses saw him with the gun and one thought he fired it. It makes sense he stood up on the back seat, the car accelerated or decelerated and he lost his balance and grabbing for something to hold onto, he squeezed off a round, where it went, who knows.

This scenario works with everything I said happened with a shot from Hickey. Only part of my previous scenario is Hickeys shot did not hit JFK but it explains everything else; smelling gun smoke in the motorcade, seeing Hickey with the gun, etc. 

[Michael T. Griffith]

They didn't say the "bone shrunk", Ole Misrepresentator. They said the 6 millimeters "was caused by the elastic recoil of the skull".

This is silly word parsing. So the skull "recoiled" from 6.5 mm or larger "back" ("REcoiled") to 6.0 mm. What is the difference between saying it "recoiled" to 6.0 mm and saying that it shrunk to 6.0 mm?  But, I'll be happy to stipulate that the WC claimed the skull bone "recoiled" from 6.5 mm or larger to 6.0 mm. Bullet holes made in bone do not "recoil." They are always slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet.

That passage cited Dr. Humes' testimony.

    "The size of the defect in the scalp, caused by a projectile could vary from
     missile to missile because of elastic recoil and so forth of the tissues.
     However, the size of the defect in the underlying bone is certainly not likely
     to get smaller than that of the missile which perforated it, and in this case,
     the smallest diameter of this was approximately 6 to 7 mm., so I would feel
     that that would be the absolute upper limit of the size of this missile, sir."

    "This is in the scalp, sir, and I believe that this is explainable on the elastic
     recoil of the tissues of the skin, sir. It is not infrequent in missile wounds of
     this type that the measured wound is slightly smaller than the caliber of the
     missile that traversed it."

See how Humes said elastic recoil applied to the scalp, not the skull. Bugliosi termed the reference to "skull" in the Report to be a "clear case of either of typographical error or loose writing."

Since there was no measurement made on bared bone, Humes' 6x15 measurement would seem to be proof that Humes only measured the skull entry wound with the scalp in place and that he never measured with the EOP bared. It would also stand to reason that he located the "EOP" bump (mistakenly) through touch of the scalp.

Here is another prime example of your showing yourself to be poorly read on the case and of your habit of repeating debunked claims.

Bugliosi should have read the autopsy report, because he would learned that Humes said that the hole in the bone was 6.0 mm, not just the hole in the scalp. Let us read it--again. I have already pointed this out in this very thread, but I guess you missed it, or forgot, or your brain just would not process it, so let us read it again. Let us read where Humes stated in the autopsy report that the wound in the skull corresponded to the wound in the scalp, that the wound in the bone was a "corresponding wound" to the wound in the scalp:

Situated in the posterior scalp approximately 2.5 cm. laterally to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance is a lacerated wound measuring 15 x 6 mm. In the underlying bone is a corresponding wound through the skull which exhibits beveling of the margins of the bone when viewed from the inner aspect of the skull. (p. 4)

Humes repeated this point in his WC testimony, noting that they determined that the entry wound in the skull corresponded to the wound in the scalp by reflecting the scalp:

So, we could see that it was the measurement which I gave before, I believe 15 by 6 millimeters. When one reflected the scalp away from the skull in this region, there was a corresponding defect through both tables of the skull in this area. (2 H 352)

If the hole in the skull had been larger or smaller than the hole in the scalp, Humes would not have called it a "corresponding wound." Why? Because if it were a different size, it would not correspond to the wound in the scalp and thus could not be called a "corresponding wound." If Wound A is 8 mm x 4 mm and Wound B is 8 mm x 3 mm, they could not be called "corresponding wounds"--because, well, they do not correspond, because they are different sizes.

I mean, good grief, even the WC understood plain English here and understood that they had to explain how the hole in the skull could be smaller than the diameter of the alleged 6.5 mm bullet:

The dimension of 6 millimeters, somewhat smaller than the diameter of a 6.5-millimeter bullet, was caused by the elastic recoil of the skull which shrinks the size of an opening after a missile passes through it. (WCR, p. 86)

The WC, ignoring Humes's observation that there was a "corresponding wound through both tables of the skull," even proceeded to cite Dr. Finck as their authority for claiming that "when a bullet enters the skull (cranial vault) at one point and exits at another, it causes a beveling or cratering effect where the diameter of the hole is smaller on the impact side than on the exit side" (WCR, p. 86) Which, of course, did not really directly address the issue but left the reader to infer that it was not strange that the skull hole was smaller than the bullet that allegedly made it.

Australian detective Colin McLaren addresses this drivel, pointing out that bullet holes in bone are always larger than the diameter of the bullet:

Dr. Fisher made another fascinating discovery, to do with the width of a Carcano full metal jacket round and that of a .223 round that suits an AR-15 rifle. The Carcano round is 6.5mm wide, hence it is referred to as a 6.5 calibre round. When shot, it will leave an entry hole larger than 6.5mm wide in the wound. Due to the natural elasticity of skin and (in the case of JFK’s rear head wound) skull bone, the entry wound would be around 7mm wide. Whereas the .223 round is a 5.56mm wide projectile. Such a bullet would leave an entry wound 6mm wide.

The entry hole width to JFK’s skull wound measured 6mm in width. A stunning fact! (JFK: The Smoking Gun, 2013, pp. 69-70)

The rear head entry wound was made by a bullet that was smaller than 6.5 mm in diameter. If Oswald's alleged ammo had caused the wound, it would have been 6.75 mm to 7.5 mm in diameter. Good heavens, just get over this fact and move on.

[Michael Carney]

So we have a hole in the back of JFK’s head likely from a 5.65 diameter round and evidence of a frontal shot also.  If so then Hinkley and Files both hit him at the same time.

[Michael Carney]

From whatever I have read on the subject the hole always larger than the bullet. The WC would naturally try and convince folks that the hole “shrunk” keep with the lone assassin narrative.

[Michael Carney]

“This is where we disagree. All but one of these items of evidence fits very well with a frontal-gunman scenario. I agree that the SS was deeply involved in cover-up activity, but I don't think it had anything to do with Hickey. “

“I see no credible evidence that Hickey fired his gun. Kennedy loyalist Dave Powers was in Hickey's car, and Powers said there was no way he could not have heard Hickey's rifle fire. In fact, none of the occupants in Hickey's car showed any reaction that would be consistent with having just heard an AR-15 fire from their car. I have fired several AR-15s--they are very loud.

Hole in the back of the head, not frontal.  Explosive nature of JFK’s head, either direction.  Hinkleys behavior after and the cover up, why would the SS cover anything up if they didn’t do anything, that makes no sense.  Smoke smelled in the motorcade, could not have come from forward because the shot would have come from the grassy knoll and the wind direction would not support that.
 
Two witnesses saw Hickey with the AR 15 and one said he had thought Hinkley had fired it and both of these witnesses were SS Agents.  There were more witnesses that saw Hinkley with the AR 15, one was on the overpass and he thought Hinkley fired it.
A  5.65 mm round came from behind and  based on Donahue’s study it came from Hinkley’s direction. Hinkley was holding the AR 15.

Powers was running towards JFK’s limo and was grabbing on to the handrail on the back of the limo at the time of the head shot. So he was in no position to witness the shot.

I have fired the M16 also and with the flash suppressor on them they are about a third of the noise level as an M14, granted my memory going back over fifty years is not that sharp but I do remember when I first fired the M16 after months of training with an M14. They are so different in the noise level.

So based on all of this I am saying that Files and Hinkley fired frangible rounds at the same time and probably added to the intensity of the head "explosion" and the jerking backward of the head.