Question about Dr. Donald Thomas’s Dictabelt Offset Hypothesis

[Joe Elliott]

Question about Dr. Donald Thomas’s Dictabelt Offset Hypothesis

The “Hold Everything Secure” phrase, which was said about a minute after the assassination, and the “four impulse patterns” occur at about the same time on the Dictabelt recording. Dr. Donald Thomas explained this away by saying the two channels could drift apart from each other by a minute.

If this is true, there must be other cases where two events, that happened at about the same time, but appear to occur a minute apart on the recording. Or two events that happened a minute apart appear to happen at the same time, or two minutes apart.

Question:

Is there a single clear case of this happening on this Dictabelt tape? Is there a case, where we know two phrases were actually spoken about a minute apart, but appear to occur at about the same time on the recording? Or are there no other examples of something like this occurring, except with the “Hold Everything Secure” and the “four impulse patterns”.

If this is the only known example, what fantastic luck that this is the only case of this “Offset” phenomenon happening.

[John Iacoletti]

The "hold everything secure" was crosstalk from a channel 2 radio nearby the stuck motorcycle microphone on channel 1.  So any other example would have to meet the same narrow condition.

[Joe Elliott]

The "hold everything secure" was crosstalk from a channel 2 radio nearby the stuck motorcycle microphone on channel 1.  So any other example would have to meet the same narrow condition.

So, of all the sounds or “sound impulses”, which were recorded “out of order”, the lone example, according to Dr. Thomas, is the “sound impulses” from the gunshots themselves.

What a fantastic coincidence.

In other words, the hypothesis that the Dictabelt recording contains sounds which are out of order, is totally without support. If this hypothesis had any support, we would have other examples, like maybe:

Statement C - Officer X – “Officer X here. I have reached Main and Texas.”
. . .
Statement A – Dispatcher – “Officer X, proceed immediately to Main and Texas.”
Statement B – Officer X – “I am on my way. I am almost there.”

Clearly, if we had such an example, we would have statements that were recorded out of order, since the real order in time was Statement A, B, C.

Dr. Thomas, and others talk of how unlikely the hypothesis is that the 4 “sound impulses” were not recorded at Dealey Plaza. They talk of how unlikely it would be, for these 4 “sound impulses” to match the testing done at Dealey Plaza so well. Initially, the probability was calculated at 50%, which does not sound like much of a coincidence to me. Later they revised the probability to 95%. Later still, Dr. Thomas made it at 96%. How much more unlikely is it, that of the hundreds of Statements and sounds that were recorded on the Dictabelt, the only one that was recorded out of order, was the “sound” of the four gunshots.

The HSCA/Dr. Thomas acoustic hypothesis, is ultimately based on a probability argument. The type of argument you criticize so much when I use it. It is curious that you criticize a LNer when he uses a “probability argument”, but never say a peep when a CTer does so, like whenever they give support to the 1978 HSCA Acoustic Studies. Actually, I think Probability arguments can be valid, when applied consistently.

If the odds of the “1963 gunshots” matching the “1978 tests” are 50%, 95%, or even 96%, but the odds of the “gunshot sounds” being recorded out of order is 0.1%, then these probability arguments collapse. It is too much for one to believe the 1 in 25 chance of the “1963 impulses” matching the “1978 impulses” by chance. But not too much to believe the 1 in 1,000 chance that the only “sound” that was recorded out of order, was the four gunshots?

[John Iacoletti]

So, of all the sounds or “sound impulses”, which were recorded “out of order”, the lone example, according to Dr. Thomas, is the “sound impulses” from the gunshots themselves.

What a fantastic coincidence.

In other words, the hypothesis that the Dictabelt recording contains sounds which are out of order, is totally without support. If this hypothesis had any support, we would have other examples, like maybe:

Statement C - Officer X – “Officer X here. I have reached Main and Texas.”
. . .
Statement A – Dispatcher – “Officer X, proceed immediately to Main and Texas.”
Statement B – Officer X – “I am on my way. I am almost there.”

Clearly, if we had such an example, we would have statements that were recorded out of order, since the real order in time was Statement A, B, C.

I have no idea what you're talking about.  Main and Texas?  Who said that the impulses were recorded "out of order"?  The impulses and the "hold everything secure" announcement were on two different recording devices with different speeds and two different dispatchers with unsynchronized clocks.

The HSCA/Dr. Thomas acoustic hypothesis, is ultimately based on a probability argument. The type of argument you criticize so much when I use it.

I've never opined on any "probability argument" made by Thomas.  On the other hand when you make probability arguments you just make up the probabilities.

[Joe Elliott]

I have no idea what you're talking about.  Main and Texas?  Who said that the impulses were recorded "out of order"?  The impulses and the "hold everything secure" announcement were on two different recording devices with different speeds and two different dispatchers with unsynchronized clocks.

And yet the “four alleged gunshots” are the only “sounds” that were recorded out of order. No other examples can be named.

I've never opined on any "probability argument" made by Thomas.

Why not? Do you deny that the 1978 Accoustic/Dr. Thomas arguments are probability arguments?

[John Iacoletti]

And yet the “four alleged gunshots” are the only “sounds” that were recorded out of order. No other examples can be named.

Why not? Do you deny that the 1978 Accoustic/Dr. Thomas arguments are probability arguments?

I still don't know what you mean by "out of order".

[Michael T. Griffith]

This thread is a waste of time. You clearly have not bothered to read any of the research on the acoustical evidence that I cite in my thread "Poor Scholarship on Display: Larry Sturdivan's Book The JFK Myths."

Every single point you raise is addressed in that research, and you know, or should know, that you are simply ignoring strong evidence that the acoustical evidence of four-plus shots is valid: the sound-distance correlations, the sound fingerprints, and the N-wave correlations.

[Joe Elliott]

Michael Griffith and John Iacoletti have tried to change the subject of this thread. For those who may have forgotten, this thread is about the following question:

On the Dictabelt recording, there are 4 N-waves (I have read there are a good deal more than that scattered over the recording, but they focused on these 4) which, though they don’t sound anything like a gunshot, are actual gunshots.

The supporters of the HSCA 1978 Acoustic study and of Dr. Thomas Acoustic study, admit that the 4 N-waves, the alleged “4 gunshots” are found on the recording near the phrase “Hold everything secure”. This would indicate that the alleged “4 gunshots” were recorded a minute, or perhaps a half minute, too late to have been the real gunshots. The claim is that somehow these “sounds” were offset from their true position in time.

Question:

Can anyone come up with another example of a sound, or a spoken phrase, anything, that got offset by 30 or more seconds?


They have not answered this one basic question, but instead go off on all kinds of tangents. Clearly, the answer is no, they can’t. So, it appears everything else appears in the proper order, all the spoken phrases, everything, was recorded in the proper order. Everything except the alleged 4 gunshots.

So, when they speak of the odds that the 1963 N-waves match so closely to the 1978 N-waves, to a chance, which they have at times said was 1 in 2, or 1 in 20, or 1 in 25, consider all the hundreds of spoken phrases, and all the other sounds, and the only sound that got offset in time, was the “4 gunshots”.


And as an aside, I might point out, let’s assume, for the moment, that they are right. The 4 sound impulses were displayed in time from where they actually occurred, we don’t know if they actually occurred right when they are supposed to have occurred. For all anyone knows, if they didn’t happen 1 minute too late, maybe they really happened 2 minutes too late, or maybe 1 minute too early. There is nothing to show that the cause of these 4 N-waves happened within the period of, let’s say, z133 through z400. Nothing.