JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

Dave Rogers · Dec 5, 2015

manifesto said:
Is this a blanket statement? The acoustic signature i unique and if it fits the experimental data (test firing in D Plaza) with a P = 1/100 000 you pretty much know where it came from.

Except that there wasn't a bike where it's supposed to have come from at the time it was recorded. And there have been other analyses that have not agreed with those findings; probabilities in particular could be 1/100000, or 95%, or 96.3%, or any other random number someone wanted to pick. Assigning a probability to an analysis like that sounds like bad science right off the bat. Ultimately it's the opinion of a few experts against a mountain of evidence.

And also, what do you particularly want to happen? Another analysis of the same piece of evidence that's been debated back and forth for decades with multiple conclusions being formed by different people at different times, never leading anywhere? Who cares? Believe what you want to believe, and someone will cite a different study to contradict it. It all cancels out, leaving the preponderance of evidence right where it's always been.

Dave

manifesto · Dec 5, 2015

Dave Rogers said:
Except that there wasn't a bike where it's supposed to have come from at the time it was recorded.

Says who?

Dave Rogers said:
And there have been other analyses that have not agreed with those findings; probabilities in particular could be 1/100000, or 95%, or 96.3%, or any other random number someone wanted to pick. Assigning a probability to an analysis like that sounds like bad science right off the bat.

Are you saying that acoustics analysis isn't real science?

Dave Rogers said:
Ultimately it's the opinion of a few experts against a mountain of evidence.

What evidence. Be specific.

Dave Rogers said:
And also, what do you particularly want to happen?

I want to discuss the HSCA acoustic evidence with people who like to do the same. If you don't want to, well, I certainly will not try to force you.

Dave Rogers said:
Another analysis of the same piece of evidence that's been debated back and forth for decades with multiple conclusions being formed by different people at different times, never leading anywhere? Who cares? Believe what you want to believe, and someone will cite a different study to contradict it. It all cancels out, leaving the preponderance of evidence right where it's always been.

Dave

Isn't this a bit nihilistic (lol) outlook for a sceptic? I thought we were in it for the science?

turingtest · Dec 5, 2015

manifesto said:
If the acoustic analysis says there is five rifle shots on the dictabelt and a conspiracy, well, a critic has three choices:

1. Show thats something is wrong with the investigation.

2. Show other secondary data that contradicts the finding and with a stronger confidence.

3. Don't give a ****.

Wich is it?

"Stronger confidence" is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? IMO, it's at least strongly enough contradicted that you need something more to back up the conclusion of "conspiracy because a shooter on the grassy knoll." What you're doing is pure anomaly-hunting with no regard for overall context. "LHO acted alone" is a conclusion backed by a convergence of independent evidence; if you want to counter that with your conclusion, then you need a convergence of your own, not just the single data point. And your conclusion is one; this means that a standard for proof for it equal to the one you impose on the other is proper.

Unless, of course, your conspiracy is the analog of the creationist deity, such a completely self-evident and over-arching whole that it needs no consilience, only faith in its indivisible perfection- an illusion of precision.

turingtest · Dec 5, 2015

manifesto said:
I would tax all big corporations who profit from war, and the investigation would be open-ended until every lead was followed up. A new peoples referendum every third year that should give mandate for a new three year period, and which overrides everything else. JFK, Malcom X, MLK, RFK, that is, all State Crimes Against Democracy in US should be investigated until the american people have been satisfied.

Like in a real democracy.

NARA.

There are always tag-ends in investigations; your investigations would never conclude because there would always be someone who wasn't satisfied.

Dave Rogers · Dec 5, 2015

manifesto said:
What evidence. Be specific.

The totality of evidence that indicates that the only viable hypothesis is that Oswald acted alone. This is just one minor outlier, easily explained.

Dave

manifesto · Dec 5, 2015

turingtest said:
"Stronger confidence" is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?

No, it is pure statistics.

turingtest said:
IMO, it's at least strongly enough contradicted that you need something more to back up the conclusion of "conspiracy because a shooter on the grassy knoll." What you're doing is pure anomaly-hunting with no regard for overall context.

What do you mean? A scientifically proven shot from the grassy knoll is just an anomaly, nothing else?

turingtest said:
"LHO acted alone" is a conclusion backed by a convergence of independent evidence;

Says who?

turingtest said:
if you want to counter that with your conclusion, then you need a convergence of your own, not just the single data point.

If there is a second shooter this should be followed up with a new investigation. I can't do that, I do not have access.

turingtest said:
And your conclusion is one; this means that a standard for proof for it equal to the one you impose on the other is proper.

What?

turingtest said:
Unless, of course, your conspiracy is the analog of the creationist deity, such a completely self-evident and over-arching whole that it needs no consilience, only faith in its indivisible perfection- an illusion of precision.

It's not self evident, I put forward HSCA's research with conclusions. if you have any problem with that, attack the research.

manifesto · Dec 5, 2015

Dave Rogers said:
The totality of evidence that indicates that the only viable hypothesis is that Oswald acted alone.

Says who?

Dave Rogers said:
This is just one minor outlier, easily explained.

Dave

So, explain it.

Loss Leader · Dec 5, 2015

A separate thread on acoustic evidence has been merged back into this thread. All discussion of the assassination of President Kennedy must be confined to this thread. It is a violation of the MA to start a thread on a subject that is under moderation. Your cooperation in keeping to these rules is appreciated.

Posted By: Loss Leader

calebprime · Dec 5, 2015

Specific criticisms of the content of this paper by Michael O'Dell?

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/odell/

Conclusions

1. The timeline relied on by the NRC report and by Thomas is inaccurate.

2. Both the "hold everything" and the "you want me" crosstalk alignments demonstrate that the suspect impulses happen too late to be the assassination gunshots.

3. There is no evidence that the Audograph machine that recorded channel II ran continuously in the first few minutes after the shooting, and evidence indicates that it did stop. Because the Audograph stopped, later instances of crosstalk cannot be used to align the suspect impulses on channel I.

4. There is no statistical significance of 95% or higher for a shot from the grassy knoll. There is persuasive evidence that BRSW/WA simply found a match to the speech pattern that exists at the same location on the recording.

Dave Rogers · Dec 5, 2015

manifesto said:
What do you mean? A scientifically proven shot from the grassy knoll is just an anomaly, nothing else?

It's not self evident, I put forward HSCA's research with conclusions. if you have any problem with that, attack the research.

Let's look at how "scientifically proven" it is. In sequence we have:

The original presentation to the HSCA, accepted by two-thirds of the committee and rejected by the remaining third.
The FBI's December 1980 report rejecting the conclusion of a second shooter.
The National Academy of Science's 1982 report also rejecting the conclusion.
A 1988 Justice Department review rejecting the conclusion.
A March 2001 analysis in Science & Justice claiming the conclusion was correct.
Three studies by different TV channels in 2003 rejecting the conclusion.
A 2005 study in the same magazine rejecting the conclusion.

To suggest that this evidence was presented as scientific proof to the HCSA and has remained uncontested since is to say the least somewhat disingenuous. It might better be described as highly contested.

Also, note that one of the above studies was by the Justice Department, which seems to have been exactly the re-examination manifesto is asking for. It's already been done, and it didn't give the conclusion he wants.

Dave

Axxman300 · Dec 5, 2015

What do you mean? A scientifically proven shot from the grassy knoll is just an anomaly, nothing else?

There is no scientifically proven shot from the Grassy Knoll.

Anybody who has been to Dallas can testify that there is no way a gunman could not have been seen by everyone in the street and in the motorcade. There's nowhere to hide.

BazBear · Dec 5, 2015

Manifesto, there is no proof that those sound impulses were gun shots, and there is no proof that whatever was recorded came from McLain's radio. If these basic assumptions are shaky (which they are, putting it mildly), any conclusions by anyone - even the greatest acoustic experts in the world - are not credible evidence of a conspiracy. And as others have pointed out, there is a ship load of evidence that points directly to Oswald acting alone.

Sandy McCroskey · Dec 5, 2015

This fellow thinks the four students infamously shot down by the National Guard were in Kentucky. Has he never heard the song about the sad event? "Four Dead in O-HI-O." Kent State University is located in Kent, Ohio.

Needless to say, he is also off by more than a country mile on everything else.

First, it is not just witness testimony that says McClain's bike wasn't in the position required for BB&N's analysis to be valid. It is also the film record that tells us that.

I do not know what these two sentences mean:
"1. The tapes was not in sync, depending on different possible factors.
"2. The cross over-talk appears I believe five times över the ca five minutes of the recording and the closest cross over is spot on."
They wasn't (ha ha) "in sync" with what? "Spot on" with what?
Garbled transmission.

But the NAS committee on ballistics did "[f]ind flaws in the HSCA acoustics findings." The esteemed physicists on the committee were indeed capable of analyzing BB&N's work, including the aspect specific to acoustics analysis. And contrary to conspiracist allegations, some at least did have background in directly relevant subfields (and certainly more than the noted entomologist Thomas). For example, here is a patent...
https://www.google.com/patents/US4748639
...by John C.Feggeler of Bell Telephone Laboratories. Gee, I wonder what they do at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for the work of even highly qualified researchers to be influenced by unconscious bias; this is why such a thing as peer review exists. It isn't difficult to see how BB&N went wrong, nor how W&A ran with and elaborated on BB&N's results.

Gary Mack thought he heard seven shots in the recording... none of which turned out to match any of the spots where BB&N later located impulse patterns supposed to be shots. There are actually no audible gunshots on the recording, a fact that was explained away by the existence of a noise limiter on the police microphone. But please see the footnote on pages 160-161 of the CD part of Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History (which, by the way, contains everything you need to know in order to stop wondering about the damned Dictabelt recording). It seems the noise-limiter explanation is nonsense.

Can anyone tell me if BB&N, when they fired their test shots (in only two locations, the TSDB and the knoll; i.e., with no controls for this experiment), verified that no audible gunshots were heard on their recording either? Didn't they, in attempting to reproduce the same sort of patterns as on the Dictabelt, use the same, or same sort, of equipment as produced the original recording? Ask yourself this: If they had proven that, because of the noise limiter on Dictabelt microphones, no shots emerge audibly from their own recording either… wouldn't they have shouted this from the rooftops? Instead... well, I have not been able to find any reference to this hypothesis's having been tested—let alone confirmed!

There were many more than four, or five (as some conspiracists have it), impulse patterns virtually identical to the four that BB&N determined to be the real McCoy; several, in fact, were discarded as "false positives." So what you have is basically a random distribution of noise over a period of just several seconds; it shouldn't be surprising that BB&N were able to find three that matched a plausible timing, based on what we can see in the Zapruder film, for the three shots that were already known, from the incontrovertible physical evidence, to have been fired from the TSDB.

That they threw in a fourth shot, which they have as third in the sequence of shots that day, coming from the highly unlikely exposed position of the grassy knoll, and hitting no one and nothing... is indeed a curiosity. But it is evident that people were primed to find what they were looking for in the random noises of the recording, like ancients poring over bird entrails. The HSCA's eleventh-hour turnaround to a finding of conspiracy, based solely on this phantom shot from the knoll, contradicted everything else the committee had concluded up that point. No other evidence of conspiracy had been found, zilch, nada, rien. So even before the National Academy of Sciences panel weighed in, this conclusion wasn't very convincing to anyone but conspiracy believers.

Sandy McCroskey · Dec 6, 2015

Sandy McCroskey said:
McClain's bike

McLain's, oops.

Sandy McCroskey said:
Can anyone tell me if BB&N, when they fired their test shots (in only two locations, the TSDB and the knoll; i.e., with no controls for this experiment), verified that no audible gunshots were heard on their recording either? Didn't they, in attempting to reproduce the same sort of patterns as on the Dictabelt, use the same, or same sort, of equipment as produced the original recording?

I'll answer my own question: No, they recorded the shots on audiotape (according to the previously cited Bugliosi CD).

manifesto · Dec 6, 2015

Axxman300 said:
There is no scientifically proven shot from the Grassy Knoll.

Yes, there is, in the HSCA report. Ca 96% for the grassy knoll shot, P = 1/100 000 for the five-shot-series being a chance occurrence.

Pretty much a slam dunk.

Axxman300 said:
Anybody who has been to Dallas can testify that there is no way a gunman could not have been seen by everyone in the street and in the motorcade. There's nowhere to hide.

Behind the fence and everybody is intensely focused on the presidential limo. Ca 50 polismen and bystanders herd shots from the fence area. Ca 10 saw smoke puffs.

manifesto · Dec 6, 2015

BazBear said:
And as others have pointed out, there is a ship load of evidence that points directly to Oswald acting alone.

Good. Name one.

Dave Rogers · Dec 6, 2015

manifesto said:
Yes, there is, in the HSCA report. Ca 96% for the grassy knoll shot, P = 1/100 000 for the five-shot-series being a chance occurrence.

Pretty much a slam dunk.

You misunderstand the nature of scientific proof. To be considered reasonably proven, a scientific result has to be peer reviewed, ideally repeated and / or confirmed by other workers, and generally accepted as sound by the scientific community. What you are offering as "scientific proof" is the opinion of two experts. Whatever their status or level of expertise, this does not constitute proof; there is no Nobel Laureate Exception.

So any new investigation of this specific piece of evidence would have to start by considering the validity of the evidence. There are at least two officially sanctioned re-investigations that have done exactly this, and stalled at this point because they found the evidence not to be credible. Other than the fact that you personally consider the original evidence to be irreproachable and incontrovertible, a view not shared by the scientific or law enforcement communities and in fact completely alien to their most basic principles, what justification can you offer for ignoring those conclusions and requiring an inquiry to begin from an already rejected position?

Dave

turingtest · Dec 6, 2015

Dave Rogers said:
Let's look at how "scientifically proven" it is. In sequence we have:

The original presentation to the HSCA, accepted by two-thirds of the committee and rejected by the remaining third.
The FBI's December 1980 report rejecting the conclusion of a second shooter.
The National Academy of Science's 1982 report also rejecting the conclusion.
A 1988 Justice Department review rejecting the conclusion.
A March 2001 analysis in Science & Justice claiming the conclusion was correct.
Three studies by different TV channels in 2003 rejecting the conclusion.
A 2005 study in the same magazine rejecting the conclusion.

To suggest that this evidence was presented as scientific proof to the HCSA and has remained uncontested since is to say the least somewhat disingenuous. It might better be described as highly contested.

Also, note that one of the above studies was by the Justice Department, which seems to have been exactly the re-examination manifesto is asking for. It's already been done, and it didn't give the conclusion he wants. Dave

Which is the whole problem with manifesto's proposed solution- it's no solution at all, literally speaking, because there would never be any resolution. He has his impulse patterns; someone else has the backyard photos, "proven" to be impossible; someone else has "scientific proof" of "reflex reactions" at a point in the Z-film showing shots too close to the others to have been fired by LHO; and so it goes, each CTist flogging an isolated data point that demands an investigation which is only valid when it reaches their (non-specific) conclusion of "aconspiracydidit!" Any event like this one is going to have its leftovers; life is messy like that, it can't always be just wrapped up in a neat little package labeled "conspiracy!" so the CTist can take satisfaction in the illusion of control. And I don't mean the control of the conspiracy- I think that for the CTist, like the theist, the simple act of naming the conspiracy (or the deity) is the satisfying act of asserting their control over life. When they name it, they own it.

Tomtomkent · Dec 6, 2015

manifesto said:
Good. Name one.

Please see parts 1 to 4 of this thread for repeated naming of the evidence.

However, we need only one ok at the Autopsy to disprove a gunman on the grassy knoll. It doesn't matter what anybody thought they saw, if the bullets didn't hit JFK, and there is no other evidence of their impact.

As Oswalds rifle is the only one in the vicinity from which bullets were fired, as we have evidence of his bullets, from his rifle, with his prints, we can infer he alone was the shooter.

Border Reiver · Dec 6, 2015

manifesto said:
Behind the fence and everybody is intensely focused on the presidential limo. Ca 50 polismen and bystanders herd shots from the fence area. Ca 10 saw smoke puffs.

Modern propellants (those in use since the beginnings of the 20th century) don't produce smoke puffs, hence the name "smokeless powder."

manifesto · Dec 6, 2015

Sandy McCroskey said:
This fellow thinks the four students infamously shot down by the National Guard were in Kentucky. Has he never heard the song about the sad event? "Four Dead in O-HI-O." Kent State University is located in Kent, Ohio.

Yes, I knew that. Sorry. Tired.

Needless to say, he is also off by more than a country mile on everything else.

First, it is not just witness testimony that says McClain's bike wasn't in the position required for BB&N's analysis to be valid. It is also the film record that tells us that.

How?

I do not know what these two sentences mean:
"1. The tapes was not in sync, depending on different possible factors

Take two instances of cross-talk and measure the time it takes from the first syllable in the first cross-talk to the first in the second one. After that, do the same with the other channel. If the two recordings are synchronised the time period should be the same. In this case they are not the same.

The cross-talk that appears in the proposed shooting sequence stems from a radio call one minute after the shooting which led NRC's panel to conclude that HSCA's impulse patterns couldn't come from rifle shots. The patterns was registered one minute after the shooting.

But, as I said above, the recordings are not in sync. They differ exactly one minute between them and instead of refuting the HSCA's results, NRC inadvertently did corroborate them.

Thank's.

"2. The cross over-talk appears I believe five times över the ca five minutes of the recording and the closest cross over is spot on."
They wasn't (ha ha) "in sync" with what? "Spot on" with what?
Garbled transmission.

Se above.

But the NAS committee on ballistics did "[f]ind flaws in the HSCA acoustics findings."

No, they thought a rock drummer from O-H-I-O found flaws in the HSCA acoustics findings. They were severely misstaken.

So where You.

The esteemed physicists on the committee were indeed capable of analyzing BB&N's work, including the aspect specific to acoustics analysis. And contrary to conspiracist allegations, some at least did have background in directly relevant subfields (and certainly more than the noted entomologist Thomas).

The noted entomologist Donald Thomas was not hired by the Justice Department to do the "job."

For example, here is a patent...
https://www.google.com/patents/US4748639
...by John C.Feggeler of Bell Telephone Laboratories. Gee, I wonder what they do at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

I'm not sure either.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for the work of even highly qualified researchers to be influenced by unconscious bias; this is why such a thing as peer review exists. It isn't difficult to see how BB&N went wrong, nor how W&A ran with and elaborated on BB&N's results.

Good. I'm still waiting for a peer that shows that BB&N and Weiss & Aschkenasy were wrong. Many have tried.

Gary Mack thought he heard seven shots in the recording... none of which turned out to match any of the spots where BB&N later located impulse patterns supposed to be shots. There are actually no audible gunshots on the recording, a fact that was explained away by the existence of a noise limiter on the police microphone.

No, it was not explained away. BB&N concluded that Gary was misstaken, there were no audible shots on the recording.

But please see the footnote on pages 160-161 of the CD part of Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History (which, by the way, contains everything you need to know in order to stop wondering about the damned Dictabelt recording). It seems the noise-limiter explanation is nonsense.

It's more than nonsense. It's a red herring.

Can anyone tell me if BB&N, when they fired their test shots (in only two locations, the TSDB and the knoll; i.e., with no controls for this experiment), verified that no audible gunshots were heard on their recording either?

Yes, the test shots was audible because there was no motor sound drowning it. The relevant data, though, came from comparing graphs from the two recordings. Not a single human ear was used.

Didn't they, in attempting to reproduce the same sort of patterns as on the Dictabelt, use the same, or same sort, of equipment as produced the original recording? Ask yourself this: If they had proven that, because of the noise limiter on Dictabelt microphones, no shots emerge audibly from their own recording either… wouldn't they have shouted this from the rooftops? Instead... well, I have not been able to find any reference to this hypothesis's having been tested—let alone confirmed!

I'm not exactly sure of what you are trying to say here. Maybe you could try to reformulate?

There were many more than four, or five (as some conspiracists have it), impulse patterns virtually identical to the four that BB&N determined to be the real McCoy;

No, there were five impulse patterns corresponding to the test shots with a coefficient of 0.6 - 0.8 where 0.5 was the lower limit.

several, in fact, were discarded as "false positives."

Yes, but not in the sense I fear you have come to understand it. The microphones on Houston and Elm had a certain overlap which means that the "false positiv" was leakage from other positions.

So what you have is basically a random distribution of noise over a period of just several seconds;

No. What you have is basically a random distribution of noise over a period of just several seconds, posing as comprehensive critique of HSCA's acoustics analysis.

it shouldn't be surprising that BB&N were able to find three that matched a plausible timing, based on what we can see in the Zapruder film, for the three shots that were already known, from the incontrovertible physical evidence, to have been fired from the TSDB.

Yes it should, given the studies well known excellent methodology.

That they threw in a fourth shot,

Wrong. They detected five impulse patterns corresponding (k=0.6 - 0.8) to five of the test shots at Dealey Plaza.

which they have as third in the sequence of shots that day, coming from the highly unlikely exposed position of the grassy knoll, and hitting no one and nothing... is indeed a curiosity.

Yes, W/A succeed to confirm and strengthen BB&N's finding, giving the shot from the grassy knoll a 96% certainty, not 50%.

But it is evident that people were primed to find what they were looking for in the random noises of the recording, like ancients poring over bird entrails.

Well, I'm afraid you still have to show that. So far no good.

The HSCA's eleventh-hour turnaround to a finding of conspiracy, based solely on this phantom shot from the knoll, contradicted everything else the committee had concluded up that point. No other evidence of conspiracy had been found, zilch, nada, rien. So even before the National Academy of Sciences panel weighed in, this conclusion wasn't very convincing to anyone but conspiracy believers.

Well, this is how it goes when you read crack pot primadonna Vincent Bugliosi.

May he rest in peace.

Axxman300 · Dec 7, 2015

Yes, there is, in the HSCA report. Ca 96% for the grassy knoll shot, P = 1/100 000 for the five-shot-series being a chance occurrence.

Pretty much a slam dunk.

Nope, the round would have come out the left side of Kennedy's skull, not the front.

Behind the fence and everybody is intensely focused on the presidential limo. Ca 50 polismen and bystanders herd shots from the fence area. Ca 10 saw smoke puffs.

The shooter would stand out like Mt Rushmore in the half-dozen photos of the area before the shots.

Dealey Plaza has a bad echo, which has been discussed multiple times in this thread, so what somebody heard depended on where they stood.

Unless the shooter on the Grassy Knoll was using a Civil War-era rifle there was no smoke because bullets had been smokeless for over 60 years by that time. The puffs of smoke is a lie, spread by people who don't know jack about guns.

BazBear · Dec 7, 2015

manifesto said:
Good. Name one.

I suggest you read through the several JFK threads, you'll find them there.

Sandy McCroskey · Dec 7, 2015

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

First, it is not just witness testimony that says McClain's bike wasn't in the position required for BB&N's analysis to be valid. It is also the film record that tells us that.

Click to expand...

How?

How do you think?
The calculations, as you know, depend on the microphone's having been at certain locations at certain times. But McLain's bike wasn't at those places at those times.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

I do not know what these two sentences mean:
"1. The tapes was not in sync, depending on different possible factors

Click to expand...

Take two instances of cross-talk and measure the time it takes from the first syllable in the first cross-talk to the first in the second one. After that, do the same with the other channel. If the two recordings are synchronised the time period should be the same. In this case they are not the same.

The cross-talk that appears in the proposed shooting sequence stems from a radio call one minute after the shooting which led NRC's panel to conclude that HSCA's impulse patterns couldn't come from rifle shots. The patterns was registered one minute after the shooting.

But, as I said above, the recordings are not in sync. They differ exactly one minute between them and instead of refuting the HSCA's results, NRC inadvertently did corroborate them.

Thank's.

You are leaving out a lot of background that would be necessary for anyone who wanted to see the point of your argument, if you have one. Some will even wonder, What two tapes? Now, it's been a while since I read about the attempts to synchronize the recordings from Channels 1 and 2, and I find this all rather moot, since the crosstalk is far from the only thing that tells me the recording does not cover the time of the assassination. But if you wanted to support this line of argument, you should address the objections that have been brought forth, such as the article by Michael O'Dell referred to here earlier. O'Dell thinks crosstalk was misinterpreted as a shot from the knoll.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

But the NAS committee on ballistics did "[f]ind flaws in the HSCA acoustics findings."

Click to expand...

No, they thought a rock drummer from O-H-I-O found flaws in the HSCA acoustics findings. They were severely misstaken.

So where You.

No, they found fault with other aspects of the methodology as well.
You should read the report.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

The esteemed physicists on the committee were indeed capable of analyzing BB&N's work, including the aspect specific to acoustics analysis. And contrary to conspiracist allegations, some at least did have background in directly relevant subfields (and certainly more than the noted entomologist Thomas).

Click to expand...

The noted entomologist Donald Thomas was not hired by the Justice Department to do the "job."

That's just the conspiracy theorist in you talking.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

For example, here is a patent...
https://www.google.com/patents/US4748639
...by John C. Feggeler of Bell Telephone Laboratories. Gee, I wonder what they do at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure either.

So you really don't know. My own question was merely rhetorical.

[...]

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

Gary Mack thought he heard seven shots in the recording... none of which turned out to match any of the spots where BB&N later located impulse patterns supposed to be shots. There are actually no audible gunshots on the recording, a fact that was explained away by the existence of a noise limiter on the police microphone.

Click to expand...

No, it was not explained away. BB&N concluded that Gary was misstaken, there were no audible shots on the recording.

I don't think you understood what I was saying, which is that BB&N claimed that no shots were audible on the recording because of the noise limiter on the police microphone. I went on to assert that this hypothesis was never tested nor verified.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

But please see the footnote on pages 160-161 of the CD part of Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History (which, by the way, contains everything you need to know in order to stop wondering about the damned Dictabelt recording). It seems the noise-limiter explanation is nonsense.

Click to expand...

It's more than nonsense. It's a red herring.

Then what is your explanation for why no gunshots were found on the recording?

Mine, of course, is that the recording was not made at the time of the gunshots.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

Can anyone tell me if BB&N, when they fired their test shots (in only two locations, the TSDB and the knoll; i.e., with no controls for this experiment), verified that no audible gunshots were heard on their recording either?

Click to expand...

Yes, the test shots was audible because there was no motor sound drowning it. The relevant data, though, came from comparing graphs from the two recordings. Not a single human ear was used.

They compared apples and oranges.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

Didn't they, in attempting to reproduce the same sort of patterns as on the Dictabelt, use the same, or same sort, of equipment as produced the original recording? Ask yourself this: If they had proven that, because of the noise limiter on Dictabelt microphones, no shots emerge audibly from their own recording either… wouldn't they have shouted this from the rooftops? Instead... well, I have not been able to find any reference to this hypothesis's having been tested—let alone confirmed!

Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure of what you are trying to say here. Maybe you could try to reformulate?

See above.

The allegation that a noise limiter on a police microphone would prevent gunshots from being recorded on a Dictabelt has not been substantiated. Certainly not by BB&N.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

There were many more than four, or five (as some conspiracists have it), impulse patterns virtually identical to the four that BB&N determined to be the real McCoy;

Click to expand...

No, there were five impulse patterns corresponding to the test shots with a coefficient of 0.6 - 0.8 where 0.5 was the lower limit.

Wrong. Their report...
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/jfk8/sound1.htm
...says "15 correlation coefficients exceeded the detection threshold value of 0.6."

It's instructive, by the way, to see the grounds laid out on which specific patterns were disqualified. For example,

"l. The fourth entry in Table II that occurred at 137.70 sec is a false alarm, because it represents a rifle shot fired from the knoll at Target 4 near the triple underpass at a time when the limousine was near the position seen in frame 171. Thus, this shot was fired in a direction opposite to that of the logical target.

"2. The entry in Table II that occurred at 140.32 sec is a false alarm, because it occurred only 1.05 sec later than earlier correlations also obtained from the TSBD. The rifle cannot be fired that rapidly. Since there are three correlations plausibly indicating the earlier shot, the one occurring 1.05 sec later must be a false alarm.

"3. The fourth entry in Table II that occurred at 139.27 sec is a false alarm, because the motorcycle would have had to travel 130 ft in 1.6 sec (55 mph) to gain that position."

Now, if their vaunted methodology was so solid, what it found could not be thrown out on extraneous grounds. If the science is rock-solid and it says a shot was fired from somewhere, or at a certain time, then a shot was fired then. If it had to have been another shooter besides Oswald, then you're stuck with that.

But BB&N did not depend on their own science, so the principle of consilience is entirely lacking in their conclusion. Essentially (the crazy missing shot from the knoll aside), they depended on making their data appear to match with what could be assumed or plausibly supposed from the solid evidence that already existed.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

several, in fact, were discarded as "false positives."

Click to expand...

Yes, but not in the sense I fear you have come to understand it. The microphones on Houston and Elm had a certain overlap which means that the "false positiv" was leakage from other positions.

See above. The data itself shows no difference between the patterns selected as shots and the other identical patterns. So they arrived at the distinction from extra-experimental considerations.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

So what you have is basically a random distribution of noise over a period of just several seconds;

Click to expand...

No. What you have is basically a random distribution of noise over a period of just several seconds, posing as comprehensive critique of HSCA's acoustics analysis.

It should take you more than a few seconds to seriously read my critique, although it is far from comprehensive.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

it shouldn't be surprising that BB&N were able to find three that matched a plausible timing, based on what we can see in the Zapruder film, for the three shots that were already known, from the incontrovertible physical evidence, to have been fired from the TSDB.

Click to expand...

Yes it should, given the studies well known excellent methodology.

Ahem.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

That they threw in a fourth shot,

Click to expand...

Wrong. They detected five impulse patterns corresponding (k=0.6 - 0.8) to five of the test shots at Dealey Plaza.

BB&N said there were only four. That doesn't indicate that you have very much faith in them, after all.

]

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

which they have as third in the sequence of shots that day, coming from the highly unlikely exposed position of the grassy knoll, and hitting no one and nothing... is indeed a curiosity.

Click to expand...

Yes, W/A succeed to confirm and strengthen BB&N's finding, giving the shot from the grassy knoll a 96% certainty, not 50%.

Garbage in, garbage out.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

But it is evident that people were primed to find what they were looking for in the random noises of the recording, like ancients poring over bird entrails.

Click to expand...

Well, I'm afraid you still have to show that. So far no good.

manifesto said:
Sandy McCroskey said:

The HSCA's eleventh-hour turnaround to a finding of conspiracy, based solely on this phantom shot from the knoll, contradicted everything else the committee had concluded up that point. No other evidence of conspiracy had been found, zilch, nada, rien. So even before the National Academy of Sciences panel weighed in, this conclusion wasn't very convincing to anyone but conspiracy believers.

Click to expand...

Well, this is how it goes when you read crack pot primadonna Vincent Bugliosi.

May he rest in peace.

That you haven't read Reclaiming History, nor will ever read it, is exactly what I would have expected.

manifesto · Dec 7, 2015

BazBear said:
I suggest you read through the several JFK threads, you'll find them there.

You are the one making the statement: Why do you want me to find the sources you are alluding to?

Name one.

manifesto · Dec 8, 2015

Axxman300 said:
Nope, the round would have come out the left side of Kennedy's skull, not the front.

I take it you trust the autopsy photos but not the pathologists?

Are you satisfied with the autopsy of the century (lol)?

Axxman300 said:
The shooter would stand out like Mt Rushmore in the half-dozen photos of the area before the shots.

Good. Link a photo where a shooter from grassy knoll would be easy to detect.

Axxman300 said:
Dealey Plaza has a bad echo, which has been discussed multiple times in this thread, so what somebody heard depended on where they stood.

Maybe so, but still, most of the spectators near the fence thought they heard shots coming from there. Positive evidence. Yes. Proof? No.

Axxman300 said:
Unless the shooter on the Grassy Knoll was using a Civil War-era rifle there was no smoke because bullets had been smokeless for over 60 years by that time. The puffs of smoke is a lie, spread by people who don't know jack about guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCBxEQUjaiw

manifesto · Dec 8, 2015

Tomtomkent said:
Please see parts 1 to 4 of this thread for repeated naming of the evidence.

However, we need only one ok at the Autopsy to disprove a gunman on the grassy knoll. It doesn't matter what anybody thought they saw, if the bullets didn't hit JFK, and there is no other evidence of their impact.

All the doctors/nurses/service men at Parkland, Methodist (Harpers fragment) and Bethesda hospitals are witnessing a big gaping wound at the right back of JFK's head.

Photographs are easy to fake.

Tomtomkent said:
As Oswalds rifle

Who's rifle? Oswald did not buy the C-139.

Tomtomkent said:
is the only one in the vicinity from which bullets were fired,

There were reported shots/bullets fired from both behind and from the front of JFK's limo. Are you including the whole of Dallas in the "vicinity" or just in and around Dealey Plaza?

Tomtomkent said:
as we have evidence of his bullets, from his rifle,

Are you referring to the so called neutron activation analysis by Guinn? Long since majestically debunked. Anything else?

Tomtomkent said:
with his prints,

Are you referring to the palm print under the barrel? The old one? The one found by DPD Lt. Carl Day who forgot to tell anybody until a week later? After the rifle had been sent to FBI i HQ i D.C., back to DPD and back to D.C. again. With a deposition that Lt. Day refused to sign. The one he forgot to take a picture of before he taped it?

Tomtomkent said:
we can infer he alone was the shooter.

No, we can interfere he alone was the shooter.

Big difference.

Tomtomkent · Dec 9, 2015

manifesto said:
All the doctors/nurses/service men at Parkland, Methodist (Harpers fragment) and Bethesda hospitals are witnessing a big gaping wound at the right back of JFK's head.

Or more accurately, a wound on the right hand side of his head that extended to a limit of the occipital region. I really do encourage you to read the discussion you have joined, to catch up. It will earn you much more goodwill than expecting people to repeat the same points that have already been made at length.

manifesto said:
Photographs are easy to fake.

And yet no viable artefact indicative of a faked photograph is ever described. At best we get the usual waffle about shadows not looking right, followed by examples of how those 'impossible' shadows are easily recreated.

Saying "This could be faked" is not a substitute for "I have evidence this was faked."

manifesto said:
Who's rifle? Oswald did not buy the C-139.

Unfortunately he did. Under a false ID. He owned the rifle. He kept the rifle at his wife's place. She photographed him with the rifle. He gave people photographs of himself with two murder weapons.

Again. This has been discussed at length, and you are advised to catch up.

manifesto said:
There were reported shots/bullets fired from both behind and from the front of JFK's limo. Are you including the whole of Dallas in the "vicinity" or just in and around Dealey Plaza?

There were all kinds of reports. But witness reports are not particularly reliable. They contradict each other, and vary wildly.
So let's look at the evidence we actually have.
Three bullets. Three bullet wounds. All consistent with Oswald.

manifesto said:
Are you referring to the so called neutron activation analysis by Guinn? Long since majestically debunked. Anything else?

I am talking about the totality of ballistics evidence. Including bullet markings, etc, that indicate Oswalds rifle was the most likely source of all three bullets.

manifesto said:
Are you referring to the palm print under the barrel? The old one? The one found by DPD Lt. Carl Day who forgot to tell anybody until a week later? After the rifle had been sent to FBI i HQ i D.C., back to DPD and back to D.C. again. With a deposition that Lt. Day refused to sign. The one he forgot to take a picture of before he taped it?

I am referring to the palm print that was lifted from the rifle, and includes features that identify the source location. Perhaps a little research into the chain of custody, and the procedures used, would prevent you stating supporting evidence for the print being Oswalds as though it were a reason to be suspicious.

And frankly, if you can offer a viable method for a powder medium latent print with locational markings that key with the rifle to have been faked, you will be the first.

As with the photographic record, the innuendo of conspiracy does not actually defeat evidence. Saying "The evidence is iffy and might be faked" is not showing how, or even if, the evidence was faked.

manifesto said:
No, we can interfere he alone was the shooter.

Big difference.

There is a big difference. And I used the correct word.

From the evidence available, we can infer that Oswald was acting alone.

Oswald is the only person we can reasonably infer fired a rifle that day, and yes, Oswald's rifle was the only one we can reasonably infer was fired. It is the only scenario we have physical, testable, evidence for.

JayUtah · Dec 9, 2015

manifesto said:
All the doctors/nurses/service men at Parkland...

As previously indicated, this and all your other points are covered at length in this thread and its three preceding ones. As a newcomer to it, you should come up to speed with that so that you don't retread old ground.

HSienzant · Dec 9, 2015

manifesto said:
All the doctors/nurses/service men at Parkland, Methodist (Harpers fragment) and Bethesda hospitals are witnessing a big gaping wound at the right back of JFK's head.

No, that's just your conspiracy books talking. Search the prior threads for posts by Robert Prey, who insisted for months on that same talking point. The contrary evidence was cited numerous times.

manifesto said:
Photographs are easy to fake.

Using 1963 technology? No, they are not. And all the qualified photographic experts who examined the extant first generation autopsy photos found no evidence of fakery.

manifesto said:
Who's rifle? Oswald did not buy the C-139.

Establish that from the evidence. We'll await your attempt to shift the burden of proof.

manifesto said:
There were reported shots/bullets fired from both behind and from the front of JFK's limo. Are you including the whole of Dallas in the "vicinity" or just in and around Dealey Plaza?

You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who thought shots came from *multiple* directions. Most witnesses thought ALL the shots came from either in front of the limo, or thought ALL the shots came from behind the limo. If you are alleging shots from multiple directions, then you're alleging most of the witnesses got it wrong, because most of the witnesses thought the shots came from one direction only.

manifesto said:
Are you referring to the so called neutron activation analysis by Guinn? Long since majestically debunked. Anything else?

Establish that from the evidence. We'll await your attempt to shift the burden of proof.

manifesto said:
Are you referring to the palm print under the barrel? The old one? The one found by DPD Lt. Carl Day who forgot to tell anybody until a week later? After the rifle had been sent to FBI i HQ i D.C., back to DPD and back to D.C. again. With a deposition that Lt. Day refused to sign. The one he forgot to take a picture of before he taped it?

Yes, that one (most of what you say about the palm print is conspiracy talking points, not supported by the evidence). What exactly do you question about this palm print? The fact that it is Oswald's? We don't even need it. His *fingerprints were photographed on the trigger guard* on the afternoon of the assassination by J.C.Day. Those photos are reproduced in the Warren Commission volumes of evidence. They were determined to be Oswald's by noted fingerprint expert Vincent Scalise, who examined first generation photos of that trigger guard.

manifesto said:
No, we can interfere he alone was the shooter.

Big difference.

'Interfere' as used above makes no sense. Perhaps a re-write is in order?

Hank

manifesto · Dec 10, 2015

Sandy McCroskey said:
How do you think?
The calculations, as you know, depend on the microphone's having been at certain locations at certain times. But McLain's bike wasn't at those places at those times.

Yes, but how do you know that from looking att the available photographic material?

Sandy McCroskey said:
You are leaving out a lot of background that would be necessary for anyone who wanted to see the point of your argument, if you have one.

Tell me what you need and I post it. Ok?

Sandy McCroskey said:
Some will even wonder, What two tapes?

Including you? The two DPD recordings, one of the cha-1 and and one of the cha-2.

Sandy McCroskey said:
Now, it's been a while since I read about the attempts to synchronize the recordings from Channels 1 and 2, and I find this all rather moot,

So, you agree then that the crosstalk is not a sufficient reason to refute HSCA’s findings?

Sandy McCroskey said:
[…] since the crosstalk is far from the only thing that tells me the recording does not cover the time of the assassination.

What are these other things?

Sandy McCroskey said:
But if you wanted to support this line of argument, you should address the objections that have been brought forth, such as the article by Michael O'Dell referred to here earlier. O'Dell thinks crosstalk was misinterpreted as a shot from the knoll.

Could you please quote relevant parts of his studies and put forth a good argument for it being sufficient?

Sandy McCroskey said:
No, they found fault with other aspects of the methodology as well.
You should read the report.

Yes, there are a surprisingly great amount of actors and activity over the years, trying to debunk the HSCA acoustics evidence, but even more surprising is the total lack of success.

What “other aspects of the methodology”?

Sandy McCroskey said:
That's just the conspiracy theorist in you talking.

No, it is a reasonable answer to your question. Why ask a nuclear scientist to head an investigation of … acoustics analysis?

Sandy McCroskey said:
So you really don't know. My own question was merely rhetorical.

[...]

Is there any hint in there to an answer to my question of why NRC’s acoustics panel did not contain a single expert on acoustics analysis?

Sandy McCroskey said:
I don't think you understood what I was saying, which is that BB&N claimed that no shots were audible on the recording because of the noise limiter on the police microphone. I went on to assert that this hypothesis was never tested nor verified.

Do you have any references on this?

Sandy McCroskey said:
Then what is your explanation for why no gunshots were found on the recording?

Wrong. BB&N found five gunshots on the recording which was confirmed by the second team, Weiss&Aschkenasy from Queens College.

Sandy McCroskey said:
Mine, of course, is that the recording was not made at the time of the gunshots.

Yes I know, but were is your evidence for that assertion?

Sandy McCroskey said:
They compared apples and oranges.

In what sense?

Sandy McCroskey said:
See above.

The allegation that a noise limiter on a police microphone would prevent gunshots from being recorded on a Dictabelt has not been substantiated. Certainly not by BB&N.

References? The gunshots has been recorded, but they are not detectable by the human ear. That is why HSCA employed the two world leading research teams in acoustics analysis, BB&N and W/A, to see if there were any recordings beneath the level of human hearing capabilities.

Sandy McCroskey said:
Wrong. Their report...
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/jfk8/sound1.htm
...says "15 correlation coefficients exceeded the detection threshold value of 0.6."

Yes, but 0.5 was = no correlation. Between 0.5 and < 0.6 is a grey area and > 0.6 shows undisputable significance.

Sandy McCroskey said:
It's instructive, by the way, to see the grounds laid out on which specific patterns were disqualified. For example,

"l. The fourth entry in Table II that occurred at 137.70 sec is a false alarm, because it represents a rifle shot fired from the knoll at Target 4 near the triple underpass at a time when the limousine was near the position seen in frame 171. Thus, this shot was fired in a direction opposite to that of the logical target.

References for your critique?

Sandy McCroskey said:
"2. The entry in Table II that occurred at 140.32 sec is a false alarm, because it occurred only 1.05 sec later than earlier correlations also obtained from the TSBD. The rifle cannot be fired that rapidly. Since there are three correlations plausibly indicating the earlier shot, the one occurring 1.05 sec later must be a false alarm.

I agree, and so do Donald Thomas, BB&N and W/A. The reason this shot got discarded is because head of the HSCA, Robert Blakey employed circular reasoning: It has to be a false positiv because Oswald could not have reload and shoot this fast with the Carcano rifle and since we know that Oswald killed the president it has to be a false positive.

Blakey also did move the grassy knoll shot time wise relative to the Z-film in order to say that this shot did not hit anybody, and with the same flawed reasoning, that it was Oswald alone who killed JFK. When confronted with this he argued that the five shot scenario which indicates more than one shooter from behind and a killing shot from the grassy knoll would be politically impossible to sell to the HSCA’s political (Congress) overseers.

This is why you have to read the actual research data and not only the HSCA presentation.

(“Misstakes made by the HSCA”): https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Acoustics_Overview_and_History_-_part_2.html

Sandy McCroskey said:
"3. The fourth entry in Table II that occurred at 139.27 sec is a false alarm, because the motorcycle would have had to travel 130 ft in 1.6 sec (55 mph) to gain that position."

References?

Sandy McCroskey said:
Now, if their vaunted methodology was so solid, what it found could not be thrown out on extraneous grounds. If the science is rock-solid and it says a shot was fired from somewhere, or at a certain time, then a shot was fired then. If it had to have been another shooter besides Oswald, then you're stuck with that.

No, as I said, the final report is a “political compromise” authored by Robert Blakey in order to sell a fourth shot from the grassy knoll, not a truthful summary of the actual findings.

Sandy McCroskey said:
But BB&N did not depend on their own science, so the principle of consilience is entirely lacking in their conclusion. Essentially (the crazy missing shot from the knoll aside), they depended on making their data appear to match with what could be assumed or plausibly supposed from the solid evidence that already existed.

References?

Sandy McCroskey said:
See above. The data itself shows no difference between the patterns selected as shots and the other identical patterns. So they arrived at the distinction from extra-experimental considerations.

I am not an expert on acoustics analysis, that is why I need your references in order to see what the experts I’m consulting says. Do you have any references?

Sandy McCroskey said:
It should take you more than a few seconds to seriously read my critique, although it is far from comprehensive.

I agree, it is far from it and most of it is old rehash of old arguments. Doesn’t take long to read and comprehend.

Sandy McCroskey said:
Ahem.

Ahem.

Sandy McCroskey said:
BB&N said there were only four. That doesn't indicate that you have very much faith in them, after all.

I have reasoned faith in science, not political animals like Robert Blakey, no.

Sandy McCroskey said:
Garbage in, garbage out.

Exactly. Were is the garbage? Be specific.

Sandy McCroskey said:
That you haven't read Reclaiming History, nor will ever read it, is exactly what I would have expected.

I’ve read most of it and it is mostly crap. Sorry.

Here is Donald B. Thomas review of Bugliosi’s crap: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Rewriting_History_-_Bugliosi_Parses_the_Testimony.html

Sandy McCroskey · Dec 10, 2015

manifesto said:
Yes, but how do you know that from looking att the available photographic material?

Surely this is not a new line of argument to you. There is lots of information about this at your fingertips on the web. If you don't know by now, you simply don't want to know.

[...]

manifesto said:
So, you agree then that the crosstalk is not a sufficient reason to refute HSCA’s findings?

No, it's sufficient. But it's not necessary, as there are other ways we know the Dictabelt recording is not relevant.

manifesto said:
Wrong. BB&N found five gunshots on the recording which was confirmed by the second team, Weiss&Aschkenasy from Queens College.

Here the topic was audible gunshots. I neglected to repeat "audible." Sorry that you lost the thread of the convo.

manifesto said:
References?

In this response, you repeatedly ask for references, where it should be quite clear, as I provided a link, that I was quoting directly from Bolt, Beranek and Newman's own study.

The parts between the quotemarks. That's their report, their reasoning. Their own report proves that they proceeded exactly as I said they did.

Tomtomkent · Dec 10, 2015

manifesto said:
Yes, but how do you know that from looking att the available photographic material?

Mostly by noticing the motorbike is not featured in the photographs, or film, at the moments it would need to be, for the claim to be substantiated.

manifesto said:
So, you agree then that the crosstalk is not a sufficient reason to refute HSCA’s findings?

It is however one factor that adds to the weight of evidence. When you consider how the selected impulses are indistinguishable from impulses not selected, that there are sounds simply not explained (whistles, bells, etc, that do not match the route), that the engines idle when they should be racing, and such forth, then, rightly, the HSCAs findings were refuted by subsequent enquiry.

manifesto said:
Yes, there are a surprisingly great amount of actors and activity over the years, trying to debunk the HSCA acoustics evidence, but even more surprising is the total lack of success.

I have no idea about any thespians who failed to refute the HSCA. But historians, scientists, and investigators seemed to have been incredibly successful. Once again, perhaps if you read the discussion so far you would be in a better place to comment.

manifesto said:
No, it is a reasonable answer to your question. Why ask a nuclear scientist to head an investigation of … acoustics analysis?

By nuclear scientist, do you mean physicist? Acoustics is a branch of physics. So that would be a good start. Is he experienced at heading a team of scientists, and collating the results of their experiments into a report? In which case his own expertise are secondary to managing and guiding the specialists called in to design and run the experiments to analyse the recordings.

manifesto said:
Is there any hint in there to an answer to my question of why NRC’s acoustics panel did not contain a single expert on acoustics analysis?

Perhaps if you explained what experience and expertise you expect to qualify, we can answer. It would seem that most people think experienced physicists qualify to carry out the analysis. I for one don't see why you should assume they are not capable.

manifesto said:
Wrong. BB&N found five gunshots on the recording which was confirmed by the second team, Weiss&Aschkenasy from Queens College.

Or more correctly they identified five impulses they believed may have been gunshots. However these impulses are not distinguishable from others recorded on the track. They were selected due to their apparent timing, which is itself a flawed assumption. Later experiments have proven that, yes, a gunshot can create such an impulse. But it has not established they were gunshots, because other sources can also create these impulses.

There is no viable reason to distinguish those impulses alone as gunshots, while discounting others.

manifesto · Dec 10, 2015

Tomtomkent said:
Or more accurately, a wound on the right hand side of his head that extended to a limit of the occipital region.

No. The right rear. That is, posterior. Behind the ear. Some of the witnesses from Bethesda did report an extension forward from the rear, but everyone are talking of the right rear.

http://www.history-matters.com/essa...w5InvestigationsGotItWrong_tabfig.htm#Table_1

Tomtomkent said:
I really do encourage you to read the discussion you have joined, to catch up. It will earn you much more goodwill than expecting people to repeat the same points that have already been made at length.

It is an ongoing discussion. If you know of a good argument already been made in this or other threads, cite it and provide a link.

Tomtomkent said:
And yet no viable artefact indicative of a faked photograph is ever described. At best we get the usual waffle about shadows not looking right, followed by examples of how those 'impossible' shadows are easily recreated.

In the case of the autopsy photos and x-ray-photos there is some very interesting critique, yes, and the photographers who supposedly made them doesn’t recognise them, not according to the ARRB-hearings.

Tomtomkent said:
Saying "This could be faked" is not a substitute for "I have evidence this was faked."

Correct, but nowhere have I made such a statement. I’m stating that photographs are easy to fake and that this fact should be duly recognised when weighting the evidence and witness testimony. A massive majority of the expertise who saw the head wounds first hand are on the record stating that there was a gaping wound at the right rear of the head.

Tomtomkent said:
Unfortunately he did. Under a false ID. He owned the rifle.

Oh, sorry, I did not know that. Do you have evidence to back up this remarkable statement?

Tomtomkent said:
He kept the rifle at his wife's place.

Oh, sorry, I did not know that. Says who? Marina?

Tomtomkent said:
She photographed him with the rifle.

Did she? According to whom? Her self? Have you read WC's and HSCA's internal memo's concerning Marinas reliability as a witness? "It reads like a nightmare", etc.

Tomtomkent said:
He gave people photographs of himself with two murder weapons.

Ah, did he? Says who? The baron?

Tomtomkent said:
Again. This has been discussed at length, and you are advised to catch up.

If so, you should have no problem to cite and link to relevant discussion, should you?

Tomtomkent said:
There were all kinds of reports. But witness reports are not particularly reliable. They contradict each other, and vary wildly.

But not Marinas or the barons? You can not make blanket statements like that. You have to argue every single testimony. Is the person trustworthy. Is the person an expert witness. How long between the testimony and the event. Independent corroborating testimony. What kind of event … get it?

Tomtomkent said:
So let's look at the evidence we actually have.

Three bullets. No, one almost pristine bullet (CE-399), two big fragments from one bullet, small fragments from n bullet/s.

Tomtomkent said:
Three bullet wounds. All consistent with Oswald.

No. At least three bullet wounds in JFK, four in Connally and one from a fragment in Tauge. That makes it eight bullet wounds.

Tomtomkent said:
I am talking about the totality of ballistics evidence. Including bullet markings, etc, that indicate Oswalds rifle was the most likely source of all three bullets.

The totality of the ballistics evidence is crap, and you know it.

Tomtomkent said:
I am referring to the palm print that was lifted from the rifle, and includes features that identify the source location. Perhaps a little research into the chain of custody, and the procedures used, would prevent you stating supporting evidence for the print being Oswalds as though it were a reason to be suspicious.

So, you have tracked down the chain of custody on the palm print? Plz tell us!

Tomtomkent said:
And frankly, if you can offer a viable method for a powder medium latent print with locational markings that key with the rifle to have been faked, you will be the first.

Medium latent?

Tomtomkent said:
As with the photographic record, the innuendo of conspiracy does not actually defeat evidence. Saying "The evidence is iffy and might be faked" is not showing how, or even if, the evidence was faked.

Correct. But if the evidence is severely compromised and the vittnes testimony from three different hospitals in unison say something completely different, you are still putting your miljon dollars on the iffy evidence, knowing that DPD was one of the most corrupt police departments in the US anno 1963.

Tomtomkent said:
There is a big difference. And I used the correct word.

From the evidence available, we can infer that Oswald was acting alone.

No. from the evidence available we can infer that someone tried to interfere with the evidence.

The question is why.

Tomtomkent said:
Oswald is the only person we can reasonably infer fired a rifle that day, and yes,

Even though no residues was found on his cheeks? No one saw him or anyone that looked like him with a rifle in his hands that day? There is simply no evidence for it. Ask chief Curry.

Tomtomkent said:
Oswald's rifle was the only one we can reasonably infer was fired.

Even though no one from the DPD, FBI or anyone else remembered to look inside the barrel to check this out?

Tomtomkent said:
It is the only scenario we have physical, testable, evidence for.

No, you have no evidence for anything you have stated so far.

Show me the evidence.

Major Major · Dec 10, 2015

Deep Politics

The discussions of the Kennedy Assassination here focus on various technical points; five, six, or seven shots detected by alleged flinches of the passengers, photographs of dimwitted men in stained trousers wearing V-for-Guy-Fawkes^tm masks holding sticks to illustrate shadows, blurred phonecam pictures of computer screen shots with blobs alleged to be a driver somehow shooting behind him with a gun held over his shoulder and not even looking at his target or being seen to so so by any passenger, and so on. This is all very informational and occasionally amusing, but passes over the primary theme of conspiracy theorists.

In 1956, Columbia University sociologist C. Wright Mills published The Power Elite, a book which revolutionized the perception of American politics. The formal structure of American politics, it said, was a false front and a sham. All real decisions were made by a group of powerful politicians, business figures, military officers, bureaucrats, and others not accountable to or concerned with the public.

After the Kennedy Assassination, then, other theorists applied this thesis to the incident. In 1975, New Left journalist Kirkpatrick Sale brought out Power Shift: The Rise of the Southern Rim and the Challenge to the Eastern Establishment and in 1976 New Left activist Carl Oglesby brought out The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate, both of which placed the Kennedy Assassination squarely in this view.

Since then, a growing number of conspiracy books have simply taken for granted the conspiracy-arguing events and sought to set them in the context of the Power Elite. Thus we have works like John Newman's Oswald and the CIA (2008), James W' Douglas's JFK and the Unspeakable (2010), Roger Stone,s The Man Who Killed Kennedy (2013), David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard (2015), and so on.

Now these all contradict each other, yet their basic theme is "Deep Politics", the existence of the unaccountable Power Elite.

The closest of them who participated in this discussion got dragged away into an argument about listing "forty crucial books" and a quarrel about the definition of "sociopath". This managed to avoid any discussion of the basic thesis.

Indeed, "deep politics" makes for an easy argument. All the evidence has been forged and their bought experts will proclaim it true.

Or other things. To consider just one of many points:

Ha Ha. You actually believe some dumb army officer would stand watch over the President's body and prevent it from being taken away for alterations. Tell me, do you still believe in Norman Rockwell, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy? He would let them take the body and say he watched over it because the Real Powers ordered him to. Or do you still think that there is real democracy and rule of law?

So we have the self-styled elite who understand the way the world works, the true and clear-minded skeptics, easily able to dismiss such arguments as Lone Nuttery held by naive fools.

BazBear · Dec 11, 2015

manifesto said:
You are the one making the statement: Why do you want me to find the sources you are alluding to?

Because I don't feel like doing your homework for you.

Name one.

I suspect I could name a thousand of them, and you'd just handwave them away.

Loss Leader · Dec 11, 2015

manifesto said:
Oh, sorry, I did not know that. Do you have evidence to back up this remarkable statement?

Well, there's this:

[IMGw=400]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=681&pictureid=10447[/IMGw]

manifesto · Dec 12, 2015

Major Major said:
Since then, a growing number of conspiracy books have simply taken for granted the conspiracy-arguing events and sought to set them in the context of the Power Elite. Thus we have works like John Newman's Oswald and the CIA (2008), James W' Douglas's JFK and the Unspeakable (2010), Roger Stone,s The Man Who Killed Kennedy (2013), David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard (2015), and so on.

I have read all four of this books but I have a hard time remembering instances of taking for granted anything. That doesn't mean I buy everything they are trying to argue though.

Major Major said:
Now these all contradict each other, yet their basic theme is "Deep Politics", the existence of the unaccountable Power Elite.

Deep Politics, corruption, SCAD's (State Crime Against Democracy), ... call it what you want, they have one thing in common though, trying to argue for a certain line of evidence being indicative of a certain line of events leading up to the murder of JFK, who did it and who did the cover up.

Major Major said:
Indeed, "deep politics" makes for an easy argument. All the evidence has been forged and their bought experts will proclaim it true.

It's not an "easy" argument, it's a concept describing what is going on in the body politics not disclosed to the public eye and against the american democratic institutions. It is not a blanket statement, it has to be argued for in every instance of the way in a proposed line of evidence.

You are the one taking things for granted.

manifesto · Dec 12, 2015

Loss Leader said:
Well, there's this:

[IMGw=400]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=681&pictureid=10447[/IMGw]

This is maybe a photograph of Oswald, maybe holding the maybe murder weapon in his hand, it's not evidence for him buying it or own it though.

manifesto · Dec 12, 2015

BazBear said:
Because I don't feel like doing your homework for you.

Since when is it mine or anyone else's homework trying to find sources to support your grandiose proclamations?

BazBear said:
I suspect I could name a thousand of them, and you'd just handwave them away.

No, you are the one doing the handwaving at the moment.

Name one.

JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through

Banned

Mistral, mistral wind...

Mistral, mistral wind...

Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through

Banned

Banned

I would save the receptionist., Moderator

Penultimate Amazing

Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through

Philosopher

Possible Suspect

Thinker

Thinker

Banned

Banned

Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through

Mistral, mistral wind...

Philosopher

Philosopher

Banned

Philosopher

Possible Suspect

Thinker

Banned

Banned

Banned

Philosopher

Penultimate Amazing

Philosopher

Banned

Thinker

Philosopher

Banned

Critical Thinker

Possible Suspect

I would save the receptionist., Moderator

Banned

Banned

Banned