JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

[MicahJava]

No, it doesn't.

Put your thinking cap on.

You're saying that one shot fired reverberated in such a way that sounded like two shots? Or are you saying that there were three shots, but somehow the last two sounded close together?

 

[Tomtomkent]

You're saying that one shot fired reverberated in such a way that sounded like two shots? Or are you saying that there were three shots, but somehow the last two sounded close together?

Er... Perhaps you should stop telling people what they said.

If you don't understand the post ASK for clarification.

 

[Ranb]

Frazier also tested it at 100 yards and found the scope to be unstable. The bullets landed 5 inches too high and 5 inches to the right of the aiming point.

Which means it was entirely adequate to hit a man sized target at 88 yards.

Can we please cut to the chase? Sure, 2.3 seconds is more than enough. Do YOU, Ranb, think that two bullets were fired 1.5 seconds apart in the actual assassination? This all goes back to what the witnesses say about the event, since we do not have an audio recording.

Doesn't really matter to me right now how far apart the shots were. I'm more concerned about your lack of evidence to support the strange claims you're making. Can we ever expect to see something of substance regarding your claims?

Do you have a claim that can be cited in any book?

I'm not certain that I've made any claims in this thread that need a citation. Which one of my claims do you think needs more support? I've made certain claims in the past that I've supported with evidence contained in a book or other source.

With your continued resistance to support the claims about Hathcock and the Carcano scope, it seems that you have simply made up these claims and hoped that people would not question them. Why should anyone believe what you said about Hathcock or the Ordnance Optics scope?

 

[MicahJava]

I'm taking her at her word. How is that over-analyzing?

If she stopped in reaction to a gunshot, that puts the first shot before frame 177, a shot that most certainly missed.

A journalist for a magazine showed her the Z film and asked why she stopped. She was expected to give an interesting answer, so she thought it may have been in responce to a gunshot. Who TF knows? they were ten back then!

I just happen to perfer the recollections of a grown adult. Phillip Willis was a grown adult at the time of the assassination.

Kennedy turns to his right before frame 190. So does Jackie. So does Connally a reaction he explicitly said was due to a gunshot.

I want to share the literature that convinced me that there was most likely no first loud shot before z190. There's a whole part that addresses that conception. It's here:

http://www.patspeer.com/chapter5:thejigsawpuzzle
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter5b:primarypieces
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter6:piecesontheroad
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter7:morepiecesofthepuzzle
http://www.patspeer.com/more-pieces-in-the-plaza
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter8:therestofthepuzzle
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter9:piecingittogether
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10073

Check out Mary Woodward. She says in no uncertain terms that the first shot hit nothing, and she was as close as anyone. She's been saying it since the day of the assassination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLQ4id9AN38

Mary Woodward is a fantastic witness. Let''s examine the history of her statements.


11-23-63, the day of the assassination, newspaper column:

The President was looking straight ahead and we were afraid we would not get to see his face. But we started clapping and cheering and both he and Mrs. Kennedy turned, and smiled and waved, directly at us… After acknowledging our cheers, he [JFK] faced forward again

http://www.copweb.be/images/temoins07.jpg

Edited by zooterkin: 

Edited for rule 5, and for large images.

EXACTLY. The Zapruder film shows that the President finished acknowledging their cheers into the z180's. Only after smiling and waving did the first shot come. The president did not smile and wave after the first shot.

and suddenly there was a horrible, ear-splitting noise coming from behind us and a little to the right. My first reaction, and also my friends', was that as a joke someone had backfired their car.

Okay? So maybe you didn't have a very clear view of him? Earlier you were talking about having difficulty seeing his face.

Apparently, the driver and occupants of the President's car had the same impression, because instead of speeding up, the car came almost to a halt...

You are simply correct, Woodward. After the first loud shot came at z190-224, did the driver slow the vehicle.

I don't believe anyone was hit with the first bullet.

You are simply wrong, Mrs. Woodward. Everything you're describing sounds like the first shot did hit.

The President and Mrs. Kennedy turned and looked around, as if they, too, didn't believe the noise was really coming from a gun...Then after a moment's pause, there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car.

YES, the President slumped over after the first shot at z190-224! Therefore, he was hit by z190-224!

This was followed rapidly by another shot. Mrs. Kennedy stood up in the car, turned halfway around, then fell on top of her husband’s body… The cars behind stopped and several men--Secret Service men,--I suppose-- got out and started rushing forward, obstructing our view of the car... About ten feet from where we were standing, a man and a woman had thrown their small child to the ground and covered his body with theirs. Apparently the bullets had whizzed directly over their heads.”

Hmm. You're vagueness could allow some wiggle room for some theorist to speculate that you just didn't notice that the first loud shot happened at z160. Did you make more statements that could clarify what you mean?

12-7-63 FBI report:

She stated she was watching President and Mrs. Kennedy closely, and all of her group cheered loudly as they went by. Just as President and Mrs. Kennedy went by, they turned and waved at them.

Sounds extremely fair to say that she's describing z160 and after.

Just a second or two later, she heard a loud noise. At this point, it appeared to her that President and Mrs. Kennedy probably were about one hundred feet from her.

Mary Woodward is #105, marked in neon pink on this map:

[IMGw=640]https://i.imgur.com/KokNNm8.jpg[/IMGw]

Let's see what google maps says.

[IMGw=640]https://i.imgur.com/orbSWn6.jpg[/IMGw]

Oh, ok. You're undoubtedly describing the first shot as happening near the Stemmons freeway sign.

There seemed to be a pause of a few seconds, and then there were two more loud noises which she suddenly realized were shots, and she saw President Kennedy fall over and Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and started crawling over the back of the car. She stated that her first reaction was that the shots had been fired from above her head and from possibly behind her.

She notes that the last two shots were close together, and at least one of seemed to have come from the grassy knol area.

March-May 1964 memo written for the Dallas Morning News

"The car proceeded down Elm and when it was about 40 yards from us, we heard the first noise."

40 yards is 120 feet.

My immediate reaction was that someone had backfired a car deliberately--a pretty poor excuse for a joke. Ann said no--it was firecrackers.

Perhaps your recollection of this is why you said earlier that the first shot missed even though it did.

Before we could say anything more, the sound repeated itself twice in rapid succession. I saw the bystanders fall to the ground, saw the President slump, heard Mrs. Kennedy's anguished cry and saw her crawl out of the car and drag the Secret Service man in before the car sped away from view."

The last two shots were bunched together. Are you sure?


The Men Who Killed Kennedy, 1988:

One thing I am totally positive about in my own mind is how many shots there were. And there were three shots. The second two shots were immediate. It was almost as if one were an echo of the other. They came so quickly the sound of one did not cease until the second shot. With the second and third shot I did see the president being hit. I literally saw his head explode. So, I felt that the shots had come, as I wrote in my article, from behind me and to my right, which would have been the direction of the grassy knoll, and the railroad overpass.

Cool. And she pretty much hasn't changed her tune since then (besides adding that she supports the official story).

And that is my thesis on why you are entirely wrong about Woodward. She's walking evidence that there was no first missed shot.

 

[Axxman300]

The last two shots were bunched together. Are you sure?

We call this an echo. Dealey Plaza is an outdoor echo machine.

This is why most acoustical has to be thrown out.

 

[BStrong]

Re: ear witness testimony and firearms.

# 1

Guy witnesses gang related murder, within 10', single headshot.

Witness is a recreational shooter and hunter with no formal mil/LE training.

He recognized the type of weapon used (Glock midsize - as in M19 or M23)

He recognized the type of getaway vehicle.

He could not remember the shooters face, and did not remember the sound of the weapon fired even though he clearly remembered the pistol cycling and ejecting the casing.

#2

I take new shooter to a private outdoor range to begin training them in basic safety/basic handgun marksmanship.

New shooter has fired rimfire rifles, no formal training.

I go through all the safety protocols, start the shooter out w/ a Ruger .22 semi auto pistol, at 7 yds firing on a standard B-34 silhouette target.

I guide the shooter through the process and make corrections as needed.

New shooter eventually asks me if I'm going to shoot.

Since this was informal, I go against what I'd normally do in a formal military/LE training situation, and go through the failure drill* w/ the 9 rounds in the 1911 platform pistol I was carrying, and go through two reloads w/ my spare 8 rounders, fired likewise.

New shooter is suitably impressed.

The day is successful, no safety issues, shooter on the right track.

New shooter reports to other people on their first range day, and also tells them that I "shot a machine gun" I was carrying.

Word gets back to me pretty quickly, and the next time I speak with the NS I ask him about it.

His answer was that "it sounded like a machine gun..."

*The failure drill - two shots, controlled double to center mass, third shot to head.

#3

Me.

At home.

Loud hollow boom, not bang.

First report gets my attention, second boom maybe two minutes later.

Hollow, boom not bang, not handgun, not rifle, has to be a 12 gauge shotgun.

I get on the horn, while on phone, more reports.

I report to 911 dispatcher what I heard.

Maybe three minutes later I get a call from the responding officer informing me that the "flat hollow boom" I reported as a shotgun being fired was in reality a truck driver having difficulty with his tractor. The flat hollow boom was un-burned diesel combusting in the tractors' exhaust stack...and yes, my balls were broken for a long time behind the 911 call once the word got out, and it took all of 48 hrs to circulate through local LE and into my agency

Ear witness testimony is subjective at best, and all manner of factors can color the report of an ear witness, or an eye witness for that matter.

 

[MicahJava]

We call this an echo. Dealey Plaza is an outdoor echo machine.

This is why most acoustical has to be thrown out.

Are you suggesting that only two shots were fires in the assassination?

 

[BStrong]

Are you suggesting that only two shots were fires in the assassination?

Ear witness reports, even from trained individuals in that or any other environment are not reliable.

Read my post above.

 

[MicahJava]

Re: ear witness testimony and firearms.

# 1

Guy witnesses gang related murder, within 10', single headshot.

Witness is a recreational shooter and hunter with no formal mil/LE training.

He recognized the type of weapon used (Glock midsize - as in M19 or M23)

He recognized the type of getaway vehicle.

He could not remember the shooters face, and did not remember the sound of the weapon fired even though he clearly remembered the pistol cycling and ejecting the casing.

#2

I take new shooter to a private outdoor range to begin training them in basic safety/basic handgun marksmanship.

New shooter has fired rimfire rifles, no formal training.

I go through all the safety protocols, start the shooter out w/ a Ruger .22 semi auto pistol, at 7 yds firing on a standard B-34 silhouette target.

I guide the shooter through the process and make corrections as needed.

New shooter eventually asks me if I'm going to shoot.

Since this was informal, I go against what I'd normally do in a formal military/LE training situation, and go through the failure drill* w/ the 9 rounds in the 1911 platform pistol I was carrying, and go through two reloads w/ my spare 8 rounders, fired likewise.

New shooter is suitably impressed.

The day is successful, no safety issues, shooter on the right track.

New shooter reports to other people on their first range day, and also tells them that I "shot a machine gun" I was carrying.

Word gets back to me pretty quickly, and the next time I speak with the NS I ask him about it.

His answer was that "it sounded like a machine gun..."

*The failure drill - two shots, controlled double to center mass, third shot to head.

#3

Me.

At home.

Loud hollow boom, not bang.

First report gets my attention, second boom maybe two minutes later.

Hollow, boom not bang, not handgun, not rifle, has to be a 12 gauge shotgun.

I get on the horn, while on phone, more reports.

I report to 911 dispatcher what I heard.

Maybe three minutes later I get a call from the responding officer informing me that the "flat hollow boom" I reported as a shotgun being fired was in reality a truck driver having difficulty with his tractor. The flat hollow boom was un-burned diesel combusting in the tractors' exhaust stack...and yes, my balls were broken for a long time behind the 911 call once the word got out, and it took all of 48 hrs to circulate through local LE and into my agency

Ear witness testimony is subjective at best, and all manner of factors can color the report of an ear witness, or an eye witness for that matter.

BStrong, earlier I think you were saying that the last two shots sounded close together because the last noise was just an echo or some kind or reverberation. How does this not mean that only two shots were fired in the assassination?

Edited by Agatha: 

Do not alter usernames without express permission, particularly if done to insult.

 

[BStrong]

BStrong, earlier I think you were saying that the last two shots sounded close together because the last noise was just an echo or some kind or reverberation. How does this not mean that only two shots were fired in the assassination?

I have never made that claim.

Ear witness accounts are not reliable, even when a trained individual is the witness in question, see above. I was confident enough in my pov that I called 911.

I was completely wrong.

The ear witness accounts of shots fired/direction/timing/whatever do not out balance the physical evidence.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I just started spending my free time reading about JFK a few months ago. How could I know?

Ah, I see. Sincere good luck in your pursuit.

 

[abaddon]

BStrong, earlier I think you were saying that the last two shots sounded close together because the last noise was just an echo or some kind or reverberation. How does this not mean that only two shots were fired in the assassination?

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove comment on moderated comment; please report and ignore rather than quoting and commenting.

 

[Axxman300]

I just started spending my free time reading about JFK a few months ago. How could I know?

Let me save you some time:

Oswald did it alone.

Look, I get it, you WANT THIS TO BE A CONSPIRACY. Maybe it reinforces your world view, maybe you actually believe it, but you're lying to yourself.

I was a JFK CTer (aka: Moron) for 25 years. I read every book written between 1964 and 1996 on the assassination and I bit hard on the conspiracy. I sat through Oliver Stone's movie 6 times in the theater, and hundreds more on VHS. I even bought the cleaned up Zapruder Film.

I have forgotten more Assassination CT lore than I can recall.

Looking back there was a huge problem that I ignored (because ignoring the obvious is a primary trait of morons), over the years my prime suspects behind the assassination changed with each new book. First it was Johnson, then the Mafia, then the CIA, then the CIA with the Mafia, then anti-Castro Cubans, then anti-Castro Cubans with the Mob, then anti-Castro Cubans with the mob, CIA, and the FBI.
The motivations also changed; the military industrial complex wanted to go big into Vietnam, the Mafia wanted revenge, the CIA wanted revenge, the anti-Castro Cubans wanted revenge, Hunt oil had some kind of problem, etc...

A real crime has a narrow list of suspects.

All of the suspects I just listed were angry with JFK and his brother, but killing a President of the United States was not part of their playbook.

More importantly, there was no guarantee JFK would be re-elected in 1964. Historically speaking, Kennedy accomplished nothing while he was in the White House. Not a single bill he co-sponsored made it through the house. With the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis he is mostly a forgettable President if one looks at his record alone, and not the hype.

There was no need by any of the suspects to kill him.

I never thought of any of these things...until I went to Dallas.

In less than 10 minutes I went from a CT-moron to normal person. Oswald had an easy shot from the 6th floor. I mean EASY. You can argue ear-witness testimony, and matrix in your interpretation of the Zapruder film frames all you want, none of these things outweigh the physical evidence, or the ballistic evidence which all points to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Like I said before, guns don't lie.

 

[BStrong]

Let me save you some time:

Oswald did it alone.

Look, I get it, you WANT THIS TO BE A CONSPIRACY. Maybe it reinforces your world view, maybe you actually believe it, but you're lying to yourself.

I was a JFK CTer (aka: Moron) for 25 years. I read every book written between 1964 and 1996 on the assassination and I bit hard on the conspiracy. I sat through Oliver Stone's movie 6 times in the theater, and hundreds more on VHS. I even bought the cleaned up Zapruder Film.

I have forgotten more Assassination CT lore than I can recall.

Looking back there was a huge problem that I ignored (because ignoring the obvious is a primary trait of morons), over the years my prime suspects behind the assassination changed with each new book. First it was Johnson, then the Mafia, then the CIA, then the CIA with the Mafia, then anti-Castro Cubans, then anti-Castro Cubans with the Mob, then anti-Castro Cubans with the mob, CIA, and the FBI.
The motivations also changed; the military industrial complex wanted to go big into Vietnam, the Mafia wanted revenge, the CIA wanted revenge, the anti-Castro Cubans wanted revenge, Hunt oil had some kind of problem, etc...

A real crime has a narrow list of suspects.

All of the suspects I just listed were angry with JFK and his brother, but killing a President of the United States was not part of their playbook.

More importantly, there was no guarantee JFK would be re-elected in 1964. Historically speaking, Kennedy accomplished nothing while he was in the White House. Not a single bill he co-sponsored made it through the house. With the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis he is mostly a forgettable President if one looks at his record alone, and not the hype.

There was no need by any of the suspects to kill him.

I never thought of any of these things...until I went to Dallas.

In less than 10 minutes I went from a CT-moron to normal person. Oswald had an easy shot from the 6th floor. I mean EASY. You can argue ear-witness testimony, and matrix in your interpretation of the Zapruder film frames all you want, none of these things outweigh the physical evidence, or the ballistic evidence which all points to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Like I said before, guns don't lie.

I had stopped believing the CT nonsense before I got there, but in visiting the six floor myself with a few of the usual suspects that I ran around with it really brought it home - all the ******** about impossible shots is so far wrong it's unbelievable - one of my buddies said it best "Manny (an absent friend) could have killed him with a lime!" (our friend having thrown a lime just about over the horizon, it was a running joke in my unit at the time.)

 

[carlitos]

Same here. I went to Dallas with a friend. Both of us shot .22s in the cub scouts and we both agreed that we probably could have made those shots in Dallas. When we were 12 years old.

 

[traxy]

Let me save you some time:

Oswald did it alone.

Look, I get it, you WANT THIS TO BE A CONSPIRACY. Maybe it reinforces your world view, maybe you actually believe it, but you're lying to yourself.

I was a JFK CTer (aka: Moron) for 25 years. I read every book written between 1964 and 1996 on the assassination and I bit hard on the conspiracy. I sat through Oliver Stone's movie 6 times in the theater, and hundreds more on VHS. I even bought the cleaned up Zapruder Film.

I have forgotten more Assassination CT lore than I can recall.

Looking back there was a huge problem that I ignored (because ignoring the obvious is a primary trait of morons), over the years my prime suspects behind the assassination changed with each new book. First it was Johnson, then the Mafia, then the CIA, then the CIA with the Mafia, then anti-Castro Cubans, then anti-Castro Cubans with the Mob, then anti-Castro Cubans with the mob, CIA, and the FBI.
The motivations also changed; the military industrial complex wanted to go big into Vietnam, the Mafia wanted revenge, the CIA wanted revenge, the anti-Castro Cubans wanted revenge, Hunt oil had some kind of problem, etc...

A real crime has a narrow list of suspects.

All of the suspects I just listed were angry with JFK and his brother, but killing a President of the United States was not part of their playbook.

More importantly, there was no guarantee JFK would be re-elected in 1964. Historically speaking, Kennedy accomplished nothing while he was in the White House. Not a single bill he co-sponsored made it through the house. With the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis he is mostly a forgettable President if one looks at his record alone, and not the hype.

There was no need by any of the suspects to kill him.

I never thought of any of these things...until I went to Dallas.

In less than 10 minutes I went from a CT-moron to normal person. Oswald had an easy shot from the 6th floor. I mean EASY. You can argue ear-witness testimony, and matrix in your interpretation of the Zapruder film frames all you want, none of these things outweigh the physical evidence, or the ballistic evidence which all points to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Like I said before, guns don't lie.

This hit so close to home I had to check if I was the one who wrote it.

I wasn't a CTer as long as you, only 15 years or so. Read every conspiracy book I could get my grubby mitts on. Jim Marrs, Mark Lane, Josiah Thompson, Jim Fetzer, Jim Garrison, Robert Groden, you name it I read it. I had the same tactic as MicahJava too, picking gnat **** out of pepper at every turn.

What flipped me was watching Beyond Conspiracy for the first time and seeing the Dale Myers animation. All of a sudden, the magic bullet was completely plausible. How could this be??? Then I tracked down the website "The JFK 100" and read all the lies Oliver Stone packed into my favorite movie. Then I stumbled across the gif of Kennedy's head snapping forward the moment the headshot struck. Poof, there went "back and to the left". I was already 90% of the way to being a Lone Nutter by the time I read Reclaiming History, which neatly did away with the remainder of my CTism in the most acid tongued way.

But yeah, the thing is, I wanted it to be a conspiracy. I wanted to believe I was enlightened, I was in on something, I saw through the lies.

 

[kookbreaker]

Here's the problem: If we accept that Oswald ordered and owned the rifle, then we was most certainly not familiar with it. Also, the inaccuracy of a newly-assembled rifle would be random considering that it was the worst scope in the world.

All that I have read indicates that the rifle scope was of Japanese origin. While this might have been cheap or inexpensive, I strongly doubt it was of low quality.

All Japanese commercial optics: Binoculars, Spotting Scopes, and Rifle scopes (and sometimes telescopes & microscopes) are submited to inspection by the Japanese Binocular Inspection Institute. Initially this Insitute was in place to ensure the various militaries got quality instruments, but post-war it ensured that one of Japan's few industries did let standards slip while the economy tried to grow.

The standards of the institute were and are very stringent. One did not get junk through them.

So unless this scope was grossly mistreated, to call it the 'worst scope in the world' shows you are once again repeating some Buff's snide remark without a bit of thought.

 

[Ranb]

It's been my experience with people who have an opinion on JFK, if they actually know how to shoot a rifle and have seen the layout of Dealey Plaza, they generally don't have a problem with the fact that Oswald could have shot JFK. The exceptions would be those who are selling something; people like Craig Roberts.

 

[JayUtah]

I owned a very fine rifle in my youth. I learned to shoot it well, at a variety of targets. I had a reasonably open mind about "other shooter" theories until I actually visited Dealey Plaza. When I finally saw the view myself from the TSBD, I was immediately and forcefully struck with the thought: "Wow, that's a much easier shot than I was led to believe." When I walked around the Grassy Knoll and imagined lining up shots there, I was similarly struck: "This is the dumbest place ever to try to shoot at someone." People don't realize just how small Dealey Plaza is.

 

[cmikes]

Are you suggesting that only two shots were fires in the assassination?

I believe what people are trying to suggest is that earwitness testimony is even more unreliable than eyewitness testimony. There were a few witnesses who believed that the second and third shots were closer together the the first and second. There were some witnesses who believed the opposite. There were some who believed that the three shots were evenly spaced. Is there any particular reason that you believe the first set of witnesses over the second two sets, other than that's what you've read from conspiracy theorists and don't know any better?

As far as the number of shots fired by Oswald at JFK, the majority of witnesses heard three shots, with more witnesses hearing two shots than four or more. But more importantly to the claims of conspiracy, even of the people who heard four or more shots, most witnesses in Dealy Plaza only heard shots from one direction. Now, again, ear and eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence you can get, but in this case, it matches up with the forensic evidence discovered. It's important to remember that both the damaged bullet recovered as well as the large fragment of a bullet recovered from the limousine were fired from Lee Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of every other rifle in the world. So no matter how many shots were fired, they all came from LHO's rifle unless you're claiming other bullets that hit no one and nothing and then vanished into thin air leaving no trace of their existence.

Like many other posters, when I first became interested in this subject at least entertained the idea that there may have been a conspiracy and read several conspiracy books with an open mind. Most of the books were full of cherry picked quotes, obfuscations, and outright lies. My advice is to check everything, preferably against sources like the Warren Commission Report, the HSCA report and the ARRB reports, which are all available online. It's obvious that you've been reading various conspiracy theorists websites and books, so I would like to recommend a counter balance, along with the official reports. John McAdams' site at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm is a great resource with a lot of links to primary sources.

As a matter of fact, if you're interested in the earwitness testimony, here's a link that clarifies some of your confusion.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/shots.htm