Oswald took 10.2 seconds to fire all three shots.

[Royell Storing]

Remember, Hickey was standing in the back of the Secret Service car. And JFK was turned to his left so Hickey could see the left side of JFK's head from about 4 feet above from his standing position. That would enable him to see the top of the right side of his head. So I don't see why he did not see what he said he saw and that was (18H762 CE1024):

• "The first shot of the second two seemed as if it missed because the hair on the right side of his head flew forward and there didn't seem to be any impact against his head.  The last shot seemed to hit his head and cause a noise at the point of impact which made him fall forward and to his left again."

I find it odd that he imagined but did not see something that is seen in the zfilm at or very close to the time the second shot may well have occurred (according to the shot pattern recalled by the vast majority of witnesses and as further supported by the turn to the rear that Greer made just after the second shot).

   My opinion, but I think we are getting into the Gov Connolly "lapel flip" territory. JFK had a pretty good head of hair, and he was jostling around while clutching at his throat and Jackie pulling downward on his hands as she attempted to get a look at his throat. It also depends on what you believe Hickey's "flew forward" hair description actually means. What I see on the Z Film does not fit a "FLEW Forward" description.
    What I glean that is important from the SA Hickey statement is that; (1) he believed the 1st shot was fired from "right and rear", (2) 1st shot was fired from "GROUND LEVEL", and (3)  the 2nd and 3rd shots/"Two Reports" with "practically 'NO TIME ELEMENT between them".  All of these Hickey observations are contrary to the WC's 1 Shooter. bolt action rifle, 3 shots, 6th floor, conclusion.

[Charles Collins]

John, there was a little more involved in the technique than casually looking at reactions in a blurry, silent film.

If this is how you have interpreted how the analysis works then I have done a terrible job in conveying to readers how and why it works. That is my fault and your comment makes me wonder how many other folks may also have questions about it.  I need to remedy that.

Perhaps some additional context should be added to help other readers, and I’ll add it in three areas:
1)   A little more on how it works, its use and possible misuse.
2)   Some background on how it evolved, actually spurred on by this forum, and how it was reviewed.
3)   Reasons why the results are credible and the method reliable.

1) The technique was developed as a new forensic technique useful for misc occasions, not just the JFK case. It uses the observations on film of the start of surprise voluntary reactions in order to estimate when a surprising, sound occurred (specifically when the sound reached them). To use the technique in a shooting case using silent film you definitely should have some prior reason to believe that gunfire (or loud surprising sound like gunfire to elicit reactions) occurred in the particular event being evaluated. If you didn’t have any expectation of a surprising sound happening in the film being reviewed, this might not be the technique to use.
Since it relies some on statistics and on historic reaction time science modeling, it can, like any forensic method, have some variations and misreads when misusing a technique. Although you could do it, using only one data point is a misuse in my mind. That’s part of the reason the technique recommends averaging, using multiple observations, if at all possible, to reduce error, and I would recommend not using any sample point if someone was unsure about a particular observation. But if you review enough film slowly frame by frame, and at actual rate, you can get a pretty good sense of when you see a surprise reaction.

Another misuse can occur if looking at a situation with a sequential grouping of sounds, the technique would only be applicable analyzing for the first surprising sound in a grouping of sounds, as recent earlier sounds in a group can forewarn of subsequent sounds occurring and that would alter the analysis since “surprising” is no longer applicable after a first sound.

One clue that supports the reactions are surprise and have a common source is how close together these (surprise) reactions are, i.e. how they begin relative to each other. For surprise reactions you would expect to see them start at nearly the same time (within a second or so of each other). This is based on what has been determined what the population as a whole would do.

2) Now about the technique background as applied to JFK. In fact, I think I first connected up with Ken Scearce on the subject in this forum a long time ago when first starting to investigate reaction observations. Ken said my comments were very interesting and he had similar observations. I asked him to send me what he was talking about. When I got his notes, my jaw dropped as I was surprised to see that he had observed the same exact 7 people around the Presidential limo that I was commenting on, and the start of reactions he observed were basically identical to mine and ours were all within a couple of frames of each other. This is when I thought there is something here for the JFK case. To note, it was more than just seeing the same reactions, there was the proximity of seeing all the reactions start happening at about the same time, between Z140 and z150, which is within the 1 second timing I mentioned earlier for what the population would be expected to do on voluntary surprise reactions.

3) Reasons the results are credible and the method reliable.
A reliable theory has a few properties that are key. A basis that is accepted by technical experts, the ability to Predict results in the context, and Testability. I don’t know about other theories put forward, but this one has all three.

- A basis that is accepted by technical experts. This method has been reviewed and approved by two journals peer review groups, and published by one of them. Both journals told me it was good but I needed to trim out a lot of fat, I was too wordy (imagine that). The first journal that published it was the crime scene reconstruction journal. The second journal, a psychology journal, said that it was good, suggested some minor additions, but encouraged going to another journal since they debated about it and decided not to publish is because it was "not the subject matter they wanted at the time". I think once you include the Kennedy assassination topic that makes people nervous. An independent review by some professionals I know were aligned as well. Net, it has been accepted by a number of technical experts.

- The ability to Predict results in context. You have seen this method predicts a very narrow point in time (z124) as opposed to a large range over much later frames.
1) This result is newer but it predicted that there should be a subset of lower variability testimonies that aligns right with it. It predicted what the anchored testimony results would be almost to the frame.
2) It also predicted that Elsie Dorman should have a camera reaction (a startle reaction this time) at the predicted first shot frame. Analysis at the link below showed that this is indeed what appeared to happen, again at basically the exact predicted frame time. The link also appeared to show when the second shot was fired. https://sites.google.com/view/dorman-zapruder-sync-on-elm-st/home   
3) As follow up to its prediction of first shot trigger time, it indirectly suggested the idea of a minimum limo miss into pavement, which in turn would imply that the Tague mark was not the result of the first shot but another bullet fragment. Subsequent analysis of the Tague incident supports a prediction of a third shot head fragment as causing the Tague incident. 4) Another piece of work is not yet complete but the perception time results here would also predict there was no first shot at z160 as proposed from the acoustic analysis  (the film blur was voluntary panning effects and comes from some extended jiggle analysis which supports that conclusion).

The technique does all sorts of predictions that appear to agree with observations.

-The method is Testable. Testability in a scenario separate from the JFK assassination would be a sign of a credible and reliable method. Unfortunately, this was also done. This one is kind of a Twilight Zone moment for me. One Sunday morning in August 2019 I got an email from the Editor of the Journal that published the method saying it was accepted but had a few suggestions to add and he wanted to remove some fat. He previously said it would be nice if it could be used for future cases given the proliferation of security cameras, many without audio. Later that day the news came out that there was a mass shooting in Dayton overnight with 27 injured and 9 dead. A few days later the police had a news conference and said they were looking for any information and showed a silent surveillance video from the balcony of the bar near where the shooting happened. They said their estimate was 30 seconds from the beginning of the shooting to the end where you could see the last shot from a policeman’s gun into the dead offender. With 7 people visible on the silent patio video showing reactions, I used this technique of reactions of the people on the patio to estimate the offenders first shot and using the policeman’s last shot, estimated the shooting at 32.67 seconds. I sent this to Dayton law enforcement and said it was a shooting duration based on a developmental method. A few days later police found a surveillance video further down and across the street that had sound. The shots you could audibly hear on that video yielded an actual shooting event duration of 32.616 seconds. Our method was testably very close and better than the initial police estimate. It was also spookily off by 0.054 seconds.

Net, the method was testable, and succeeded, in another unfortunate set of circumstances.

Very interesting Brian, thanks for posting this. I am wondering if you ever saw some animated GIFs of spectator reactions in the Zapruder film that Jerry Organ posted here back in about June of 2024. Here is a frame from one of his GIFs with a circle around a lady who snaps her head around and appears to look in the direction of the TSBD. I thought I saved the animated version but cannot find it at the moment. So, I will try to find the posts that have the animated version.




After Jerry Organ posted that animation I noticed a lady with a gold jacket who appears to jump out of her skin and then raise her hand to cover her mouth at about the same time as the first woman snaps her head around. And Jerry noticed some others who appear to stand on their toes to get a look at the limo. Here are a couple of animated GIFs of those folks circled by Jerry.






I believe all of these reactions happen very close to each other. So, I am wondering if they might be something you would be interested in testing and/or commenting on. There are a few others that are documented in Jerry’s post. I will post a link to it when I locate it. Thanks for all you do.


Edit: After further review, the lady who snaps her head around towards the TSBD can be seen at the extreme left of the frame of the animated GIFs. I remembered incorrectly and was thinking she was out of the frame.

[Tom Mahon]

There's a woman who doesn't start out in the big "circle" but walks into it from the near left. She's wearing a white or light-blue dress. When the clip begins at Z-162, her head is already turned far to her right in the direction of the TSBD.

Question: Was she just saying to her (not visible) husband, "I'll be right back, honey," or was she reacting consciously to Oswald's first (missing everything) shot at "Z-124"?

[Charles Collins]

There's a woman who doesn't start out in the big "circle" but walks into it from the near left. She's wearing a white or light-blue dress. When the clip begins at Z-162, her head is already turned far to her right in the direction of the TSBD.

Question: Was she just saying to her (not visible) husband, "I'll be right back, honey," or was she reacting consciously to Oswald's first (missing everything) shot at "Z-124"?

I believe you are describing the first woman who snaps her head from front to back, then back to the front again. The complete reaction is better seen in the clip that Jerry first posted back last June, but isn’t yet included here. In my opinion, a head snap that is as quick as her’s and in this circumstance, should be considered a reaction to a loud noise from the direction of the TSBD. The large circle in the clip you commented on is there to show the lady in the gold jacket. I will continue to see if I can find the clip that shows the head snap more completely.

[Tom Mahon]

I believe you are describing the first woman who snaps her head from front to back, then back to the front again. The complete reaction is better seen in the clip that Jerry first posted back last June, but isn’t yet included here. In my opinion, a head snap that is as quick as her’s and in this circumstance, should be considered a reaction to a loud noise from the direction of the TSBD. The large circle in the clip you commented on is there to show the lady in the gold jacket. I will continue to see if I can find the clip that shows the head snap more completely.

There's something big and "black" (a guy's suit) in the lower left-hand corner. The woman I'm referring to walks from left to right directly behind it.

[Charles Collins]

There's something big and "black" (a guy's suit) in the lower left-hand corner. The woman I'm referring to walks from left to right directly behind it.

Here’s the clip that I have been searching for that shows the first woman who snaps her head from front to back then back to the front (if you view both clips you can see the entire sequence).




Here is tread that contains that clip and some discussion of the various reactions, some of which I haven’t yet mentioned.

https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4021.0.html


Edit: Yes, I believe we are looking at the same woman.

[Brian Roselle]

Very interesting Brian, thanks for posting this. I am wondering if you ever saw some animated GIFs of spectator reactions in the Zapruder film that Jerry Organ posted here back in about June of 2024. Here is a frame from one of his GIFs with a circle around a lady who snaps her head around and appears to look in the direction of the TSBD. I thought I saved the animated version but cannot find it at the moment. So, I will try to find the posts that have the animated version.




After Jerry Organ posted that animation I noticed a lady with a gold jacket who appears to jump out of her skin and then raise her hand to cover her mouth at about the same time as the first woman snaps her head around. And Jerry noticed some others who appear to stand on their toes to get a look at the limo. Here are a couple of animated GIFs of those folks circled by Jerry.






I believe all of these reactions happen very close to each other. So, I am wondering if they might be something you would be interested in testing and/or commenting on. There are a few others that are documented in Jerry’s post. I will post a link to it when I locate it. Thanks for all you do.


Edit: After further review, the lady who snaps her head around towards the TSBD can be seen at the extreme left of the frame of the animated GIFs. I remembered incorrectly and was thinking she was out of the frame.

Note: As I was typing this up I saw that Tom Mahon made the same observation about a lady in the gif. He beat me to posting it. Tom you have a faster reaction time than I do, but I don’t want to discuss my current reaction times 

Charles this is a great question and I had not seen this before but am interested in it.

I can make some comments on it related to PRT study and in fact some of these reactions may be something expected and I have been looking for!

First off, the study uses the very first indication of a start of motion for the person’s reaction, which indicates the end of a perception time and the beginning of a cognitive voluntary reaction. The method cannot use mid part or latter parts of reactions.

On a side note, it also looks like a lady in the foreground with a blue dress, that comes into view about z180 and is moving forward (going in front of the lady in gold),  has recently had her head turned sharp to the right, looking back away from where she is walking direction and is in the process of swinging her head back to a more normal forward direction. If she had an earlier head turn back to the right it would have been before the start of the gif at z161 here.

Although these are blurry, I would like to start with the assumption they are voluntary reactions to a z124 shot, with start of reactions around say z161. The blue lady would be a little earlier and the gold lady might be a little later but this could represent their reactions. This is also near when Connally started his head turn left-to-right reaction (after just doing an initial right-to-left head turn starting at z150).

Here is what I would expect, although not all people have to have a voluntary reaction to a stimulus, for the ones that do, the Perception time model would expect the following distribution of reactions to be seen. The time that surprise voluntary reactions start are not a fixed number they are from a distribution.  I’ll scale it with z-frame numbers below. If the muzzle blast hit that general area on Elm around z125.7, this is roughly the % of folks who reacted that would react in each time increment below and comes from a rough histogram I used on page 8 in a presentation linked below.

Frame range      ~% of Population start reacting                     
z125.7 -> z144.0                 43.6 %
z144.0 -> z162.3                  47.7 %
z162.3 -> z180.6                   7.8 %
z180.6 -> z188.0                   0.9 %

The model would say we should see reactions to a TSBD z124 triggered shot, with the muzzle blast reaching Elm around z125.7, to start occurring over the time frame from z131 to z188 with the start of reactions frequency log normally distributed between those numbers.

Net, we should see some reactions start happening at the time of your gif and it looks like about 10% of the population would start reacting between z160 and z181.

If you want to get more into the weeds on all this, I will give you a link to the slide presentation I did.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I_sgOpgeT3A3-D7oLwYBE71vsTi_Wrew/view

Only look at time 17:05 – 20:39 in this presentation for discussion related to estimating when you would expect to see reactions from the first shot in the Plaza.
This presentation covers in more detail how, using human voluntary and involuntary reactions, I got my current trigger time estimates for 3 shots from the TSBD. I wanted to refine my estimates for the total assassination shooting timeline and add some new thoughts on shots 2 and 3.

[Charles Collins]

Note: As I was typing this up I saw that Tom Mahon made the same observation about a lady in the gif. He beat me to posting it. Tom you have a faster reaction time than I do, but I don’t want to discuss my current reaction times 

Charles this is a great question and I had not seen this before but am interested in it.

I can make some comments on it related to PRT study and in fact some of these reactions may be something expected and I have been looking for!

First off, the study uses the very first indication of a start of motion for the person’s reaction, which indicates the end of a perception time and the beginning of a cognitive voluntary reaction. The method cannot use mid part or latter parts of reactions.

On a side note, it also looks like a lady in the foreground with a blue dress, that comes into view about z180 and is moving forward (going in front of the lady in gold),  has recently had her head turned sharp to the right, looking back away from where she is walking direction and is in the process of swinging her head back to a more normal forward direction. If she had an earlier head turn back to the right it would have been before the start of the gif at z161 here.

Although these are blurry, I would like to start with the assumption they are voluntary reactions to a z124 shot, with start of reactions around say z161. The blue lady would be a little earlier and the gold lady might be a little later but this could represent their reactions. This is also near when Connally started his head turn left-to-right reaction (after just doing an initial right-to-left head turn starting at z150).

Here is what I would expect, although not all people have to have a voluntary reaction to a stimulus, for the ones that do, the Perception time model would expect the following distribution of reactions to be seen. The time that surprise voluntary reactions start are not a fixed number they are from a distribution.  I’ll scale it with z-frame numbers below. If the muzzle blast hit that general area on Elm around z125.7, this is roughly the % of folks who reacted that would react in each time increment below and comes from a rough histogram I used on page 8 in a presentation linked below.

Frame range      ~% of Population start reacting                     
z125.7 -> z144.0                 43.6 %
z144.0 -> z162.3                  47.7 %
z162.3 -> z180.6                   7.8 %
z180.6 -> z188.0                   0.9 %

The model would say we should see reactions to a TSBD z124 triggered shot, with the muzzle blast reaching Elm around z125.7, to start occurring over the time frame from z131 to z188 with the start of reactions frequency log normally distributed between those numbers.

Net, we should see some reactions start happening at the time of your gif and it looks like about 10% of the population would start reacting between z160 and z181.

If you want to get more into the weeds on all this, I will give you a link to the slide presentation I did.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I_sgOpgeT3A3-D7oLwYBE71vsTi_Wrew/view

Only look at time 17:05 – 20:39 in this presentation for discussion related to estimating when you would expect to see reactions from the first shot in the Plaza.
This presentation covers in more detail how, using human voluntary and involuntary reactions, I got my current trigger time estimates for 3 shots from the TSBD. I wanted to refine my estimates for the total assassination shooting timeline and add some new thoughts on shots 2 and 3.

Thanks Brian, I just included a link to the ~June 2024 thread titled “A Closer Look” that you might find interesting. There are other reactions indicated in that thread that you might find interesting.