JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

[traxy]

The scalp is being pulled back in the BOH photos.

In the interest of following you down your rabbit hole...so what? If the scalp is being pulled forward an inch or two in that photo, how does that invalidate a shot from the depository or the explosive exit wound in Zapruder?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

The scalp is being pulled back in the BOH photos.

Oh my goodness! It's all so clear to me now!

Oswald shot JFK dead.

Clear now, like it has been for a very long time.

 

[Tomtomkent]

In the interest of following you down your rabbit hole...so what? If the scalp is being pulled forward an inch or two in that photo, how does that invalidate a shot from the depository or the explosive exit wound in Zapruder?

It's almost as though it is being held to give the clearest possible view of the wound described in the autopsy records, and the WC.

 

[HSienzant]

The scalp is being pulled back in the BOH photos.

Let me know where you were during the autopsy. Were you standing at the head of the table, the foot, or elsewhere in the room?

Oh, you weren't there? You're not an eyewitness to the taking of the photograph?

Ok, then your expertise as a forensic pathologist and/or radiologist will come in handy in deciphering the images and the x-rays.

Oh, you don't have expertise in either discipline?

Then your opinion means nothing. Your opinion may be important to you, but it's not important to us. Sorry, that's just the way critical thinking works.

We can take the opinion of the man who was at the autopsy and who looked at the photos as a trained forensic pathologist, or we can take the opinion of some anonymous internet poster with no background in the requisite skill set.

My vote is for the guy who was at the autopsy and who looked at the photos as a trained forensic pathologist.

But thanks for sharing.

Hank

PS: You can also make the font bigger if you think that'll help.

 

[JayUtah]

Oh, you don't have expertise in either discipline?

I did ask him a few days go whether he had actually held a human skull in his hands and been quizzed on its osteological features. He didn't answer, so I assume that means he hasn't. This thread has seen a number of people rather clumsily attempt to describe cranial anatomy, probably from the spoonfeeding so many of the books and websites offer. I maintain that just as one cannot appreciate the geography of Dealey Plaza without having been there, one cannot knowledgeably speak about the geography of the human cranium without having spent some time in an osteology lab.

 

[Axxman300]

This is a discussion from the 6th Floor Museum folks featuring Dr. Ronald C. Jones and Dr. Robert N. McClelland, two of the physicians who contributed to President John F. Kennedy's treatment in Trauma Room One.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZCxT88cMo


Dr. Jones had the best view of the head wound, and feels the shot came from the front. Dr. McClelland is Parkland's Gunshot Wound expert, and disagrees. Both men were in the room. One understands gunshot injuries better than the other, and Jones' opinion is formed on what he saw, but it is not married to knowledge of what a rifle bullet can do, and certainly neither one of them had ever seen damage from a Carcano round.

This video is excellent as it underscores the mess caused when two experts disagree while seeing the same thing.

 

[MicahJava]

This is a discussion from the 6th Floor Museum folks featuring Dr. Ronald C. Jones and Dr. Robert N. McClelland, two of the physicians who contributed to President John F. Kennedy's treatment in Trauma Room One.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZCxT88cMo


Dr. Jones had the best view of the head wound, and feels the shot came from the front. Dr. McClelland is Parkland's Gunshot Wound expert, and disagrees. Both men were in the room. One understands gunshot injuries better than the other, and Jones' opinion is formed on what he saw, but it is not married to knowledge of what a rifle bullet can do, and certainly neither one of them had ever seen damage from a Carcano round.

This video is excellent as it underscores the mess caused when two experts disagree while seeing the same thing.

Let's grant that there were no frontal gunshot wounds. The EOP wound is almost just as bad. The official story of Dealey Plaza requires a very specific set of circumstances, and if there is almost any slightly deviation, the whole story begins to collapse. It seems like the lone nutters here prefer to act like children rather than counter the sea of evidence for an EOP wound. I wouldn't even call the cowlick entry wound a pet theory, it's just... a sad common misconception. It's the very definition of a crackpot theory.

I think I'm going to go out and buy me a decent replica of a human male skull. Let's see if I can replicate the open-cranium photographs! See ya'll when it comes in the mail.

 

[Tomtomkent]

What is so crackpot about considering the wound we have descriptions of, records of, and photographs of?

 

[MicahJava]

What is so crackpot about considering the wound we have descriptions of, records of, and photographs of?

Precisely, Tomtomkent. The ones who may consider this crackpot are themselves the crackpots. It is easier to be fooled than to convince others that they have been fooled. What do they think when they see the reports of a bullet found "lodged behind the President's ear"?

 

[Tomtomkent]

Precisely, Tomtomkent. The ones who may consider this crackpot are themselves the crackpots. It is easier to be fooled than to convince others that they have been fooled. What do they think when they see the reports of a bullet found "lodged behind the President's ear"?

Sorry. That makes no sense.

I asked why it is "crackpot" to consider the wound we have evidence for. You may claim it is a blood smear, or some other marking. But I can see and identify an open wound. Your only counter argument is your own misunderstanding of testimony, your own disorientation looking at a cropped and enlarged photo (despite being gently reminded that context would help you) and an insistence that the entry wound is elsewhere but hidden.

Sorry. But disagreeing with you does not make somebody a crackpot, when you post evidence that clearly, and obviously, proves you wrong.

Put your preconceptions aside for a moment. Consider what you are showing us. A photograph of the back of JFKs head. It is centred, on a wound. The rule is place by the wound for scale. The hair is parted to expose the wound. The focal point of the image is the wound.

And you are not only telling us the wound is not a wound, and of no consequence, you are unable to identify an alternative, used a scatter gun approach, then settled on a mark that does not match the blemish on another photograph that you think is an entry wound.

I claim no expertise in the medical analysis required to interpret xrays, or autopsies. I fully sympathise with your confusion. It took me a long time to get to grips with it. But frankly your squinting and telling me what does, or does not, look like what you imagine a wound to look like is not going to convince me.

Your experiments with a plastic skull will not convince me, because I have no confidence you are orientating the wounds and interpreting the photos correctly, and I am fairly confident you may impose the wounds you think you see, rather than the wounds described in the photograph. If on the other hand, you could get a pathologist to perform the experiment, recreating the wounds both described in the autopsy and those in the photographs, I would be interested.

But I do not believe they will find a significant discrepency.

 

[BStrong]

Precisely, Tomtomkent. The ones who may consider this crackpot are themselves the crackpots. It is easier to be fooled than to convince others that they have been fooled. What do they think when they see the reports of a bullet found "lodged behind the President's ear"?

That anytime a human is involved mistakes are the norm, not the exception.

I've posted the photo enough in this thread so I won't do so again, but on 26 July 2010 I was rear-ended by a passenger vehicle while riding my Yamaha R1, the bike ended up jammed underneath the front end of the Jetta and levered the front tires off the ground.

The photo shows a uniformed LEO in the foreground, the bike underneath the car behind him.

The officer in the photo wrote the report.

When I eventually received a copy of the accident report, the officer reported : "When I arrived at the scene, V1 (motorcycle) was out from under V2...

No stress, no urgency, no nothing and the officer got the basic facts wrong from the gitgo. I've seen reports that confuse the points of the compass (switching north for south usually) and all sorts of other minor mistakes up to instances where an arresting officer does a field search on a subject and fails to find drugs, weapons or other materials that either end up in the back seat of the unit or found by Sheriffs at intake at county.

If I have a choice between mistake and grand conspiracy, I'll take mistake just about every time.

 

[Tomtomkent]

CT advocates do try to testimony the more important evidence. Amazingly it is always the witnesses whose narrative best matches a theory that is apparently more reliable.

So here's an idea. What if we assumed all memories were as likely to be vulnerable to skewing and changing, and we turned to objective evidence.

What if we decided, for example, that because the only evidence for a wound on the occipital nodule is from people trying to remember later, we turned to the photographs and the records.

Oh... But then we would have to admit the red thing that looks like an open wound was an open wound. Then we would have measurable and testable evidence that indicates a wound by the known rifle, in the known location.

What we would have a complete lack of was measurable data that suggests smaller calibre, silenced, or frangible rounds. And apparently it has already been decided those were part of the conspiracy.

 

[traxy]

It seems like the lone nutters here prefer to act like children rather than counter the sea of evidence for an EOP wound.

I have no problem believing the wound was in the spot documented in the autopsy report, above and to the right of the EOP. I think the red spot in the BOH photo shows that exact wound.

 

[Axxman300]

Precisely, Tomtomkent. The ones who may consider this crackpot are themselves the crackpots. It is easier to be fooled than to convince others that they have been fooled. What do they think when they see the reports of a bullet found "lodged behind the President's ear"?

There was no bullet lodged behind the President's ear.

You refer to a "Sea of Evidence" for your EOP, but I live next to the ocean, and you have presented nothing but speculation based on other non-expert's biased "work". "Work" that has been debunked eons ago.

I will say it again, as a guy who wasted 20 years as a JFK Assassination nutbar like you, if you want to find a conspiracy you are wasting your time with the actual shooting. Oswald did. He was the lone shooter in Dealey Plaza.

If there was a conspiracy it lies in the shadows of Oswald's limited social life, maybe his trip to Mexico City, but not in Dealey Plaza. If you are genuinely interested in proving a conspiracy, and want to take a real-world run at it, then you need to develop your own information, and stay away from CT sites dressed up as "research" sites. That means going to Dallas and pouring through the Assassination Archives at the Library where all of the DPD notes are stored. That means bugging the National Archives, it means petitioning the Cuban Government, it means going to Mexico City to interview Mexican intelligence people.

What it doesn't mean is screwing around on the internet with bad information.

 

[traxy]

If there was a conspiracy it lies in the shadows of Oswald's limited social life, maybe his trip to Mexico City, but not in Dealey Plaza.

Yup, this is my feeling exactly.

The one explanation that I've heard that got my interest was that Oswald might have shot Kennedy as a means to immigrate into Cuba. The theory is that some of his shady Cuban contacts might have represented (truthfully or not) that they had Castro's ear, and once Oswald knew he might have a shot at taking out Kennedy, he offered to snuff him in exchange for asylum there. Oswald carried out the actual deed alone.

Gus Russo offered up a version of this theory in Live By The Sword. I'm not sure I totally buy it, but it's an interesting glimpse into a possible "why" instead of always focusing on "how".

 

[Axxman300]

Gus Russo's book was the last one I bought. I'm not buying his theory, but at least the man did his own leg-work on research. He probably knows Oswald about as well as any researcher can.

I just think he doesn't understands psychology. Oswald is a classic hot-head who was looking to shoot someone famous in line with his self-image as a Marxist rebel. Everything leading up to the shooting: Marina moving out with the baby, not being allowed back into the USSR, Cuba not wanting him, all of these things pushed him to act.

 

[Hans]

If there was a conspiracy it lies in the shadows of Oswald's limited social life, maybe his trip to Mexico City, but not in Dealey Plaza.

As you said if there was any actual conspiracy it lies in his motivation. As you say someone may have said something or implied something to make him want to do it or equally possible was is own personal madness.

One item I do find odd was his weak response after firing the shots. Why does his after the fact actions seem disorganized. You would think he would either flee or try to act innocent.

 

[Axxman300]

As you said if there was any actual conspiracy it lies in his motivation. As you say someone may have said something or implied something to make him want to do it or equally possible was is own personal madness.

One item I do find odd was his weak response after firing the shots. Why does his after the fact actions seem disorganized. You would think he would either flee or try to act innocent.

My view is that Oswald was shocked that he'd pulled it off. He'd gone from a wannabe to political assassin in 6 to 8 seconds. He leaves the the building, gets on a bus, then takes a cab that drops him off a few blocks from his rooming house, changes and takes his gun. He clearly hadn't planned his escape, everything his does after he kills JFK is on impulse. No plan to hide the rifle better, which he might have pulled off (does anybody have a picture of the freight elevators?). Why not shoot it out with the police as they came up the stairs?

So many questions.

 

[Meadmaker]

David Belin, one of the investigators for the Warren Commission, believed that his plan was to head to Mexico City. The assassination was an attempt to impress Castro.

It has been a very long time since I read that book, and in truth I only skimmed it in the library, so I don't remember the details about what led Belin to that conclusion. I'm pretty sure that Belin thought his actions were consistent with heading in that direction, until he shot officer Tippitt.

ETA: I see this theory has already been discussed...at least sort of. (I had only read the last couple of posts before I posted the above.) Belin's theory did not involve any meetings with anyone connected with Castro. It was pure delusion. The theory was that Oswald was simply looking to become significant. Having shot the President, Castro would recognize Oswald's value, and let him into Cuba.

It was no more realistic that a later would be assassin's plan to impress a movie actress, but that's what Belin believes Oswald was up to.

 

[BStrong]

Gus Russo's book was the last one I bought. I'm not buying his theory, but at least the man did his own leg-work on research. He probably knows Oswald about as well as any researcher can.

I just think he doesn't understands psychology. Oswald is a classic hot-head who was looking to shoot someone famous in line with his self-image as a Marxist rebel. Everything leading up to the shooting: Marina moving out with the baby, not being allowed back into the USSR, Cuba not wanting him, all of these things pushed him to act.

The classic little man w/ a firearm that wants to be a big man.

LHO would be the happiest man alive if he lived to see himself being discussed in 2016.