JFK Conspiracy Theories IV: The One With The Whales

[MicahJava]

cmikes, you are either very confused or you are trying to confuse others. The autopsy report, the autopsy professionals, and the autopsy witnesses unanimously place the rear entry wound no higher than the level of the ears. Anything higher than that is a revision specifically denied by everybody who was there. Nobody who was there at the autopsy recognizes the red spot on the back-of-head photographs or the cowlick fracture on the head X-ray as the entry wound. They all insist it was lower than that. You may also be interested in the possibility that the skull photographs show the cranial the entry wound, low in the head.

 

[cmikes]

cmikes, you are either very confused or you are trying to confuse others. The autopsy report, the autopsy professionals, and the autopsy witnesses unanimously place the rear entry wound no higher than the level of the ears. Anything higher than that is a revision specifically denied by everybody who was there. Nobody who was there at the autopsy recognizes the red spot on the back-of-head photographs or the cowlick fracture on the head X-ray as the entry wound. They all insist it was lower than that. You may also be interested in the possibility that the skull photographs show the cranial the entry wound, low in the head.

I don't think I'm the one that's confused. But let's be clear, are you claiming an entrance wound below the EOP, in contradiction to every pathologist that has examined the autopsy materials?

Still waiting for a citations and links to any pathologist that agrees with your claim that every other pathologist that has examined the evidence is wrong or lying. Or alternatively a link to any evidence that all the photos and x-rays of JFK are forged.

BTW, I notice that you're cribbing most of your claims from Pat Speer. You should do a little research before hitching your wagon to his "evidence". Even most CTers accept that he's not to be taken seriously since he has no medical training and has proven that he has no idea how to orient photos or read x-rays.

 

[MicahJava]

cmikes, the autopsy professionals all say the entry wound was 2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the EOP, no higher than the level of the ears. That's what the autopsy report says, and any autopsy witness who remembers seeing it or hearing them discuss the wound places it around that area. The current official story is that the entry was 4 inches higher than the original location and slightly to the right of the midline as opposed to 2.5 centimeters.

One of the Rydberg drawings, showing the original location of the small head wound:

HSCA drawing, showing the "new-and-improved" location of the small head wound:

Am I done explaining this for the millionth time? Maybe you should try listening. You act like you have some grasp of this but your words indicate you have no idea.

 

[traxy]

cmikes, the autopsy professionals all say the entry wound was 2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the EOP, no higher than the level of the ears. That's what the autopsy report says, and any autopsy witness who remembers seeing it or hearing them discuss the wound places it around that area. The current official story is that the entry was 4 inches higher than the original location and slightly to the right of the midline as opposed to 2.5 centimeters.

One of the Rydberg drawings, showing the original location of the small head wound:

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/WtLF9qL.jpg[/qimg]

HSCA drawing, showing the "new-and-improved" location of the small head wound:

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/CgraFoM.jpg[/qimg]

Am I done explaining this for the millionth time? Maybe you should try listening. You act like you have some grasp of this but your words indicate you have no idea.

It's a good thing we have the photos and x-rays, isn't it? We don't have to rely on the fallibility of human memory, we have definitive proof where the entry wound was located.

 

[cmikes]

cmikes, the autopsy professionals all say the entry wound was 2.5 centimeters to the right and slightly above the EOP, no higher than the level of the ears. That's what the autopsy report says, and any autopsy witness who remembers seeing it or hearing them discuss the wound places it around that area. The current official story is that the entry was 4 inches higher than the original location and slightly to the right of the midline as opposed to 2.5 centimeters.

One of the Rydberg drawings, showing the original location of the small head wound:

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/WtLF9qL.jpg[/qimg]

HSCA drawing, showing the "new-and-improved" location of the small head wound:

[qimg]https://i.imgur.com/CgraFoM.jpg[/qimg]

Am I done explaining this for the millionth time? Maybe you should try listening. You act like you have some grasp of this but your words indicate you have no idea.

Wait, now you're back to claiming that the entry wound is above the EOP? Maybe the reason I'm confused is because you can't get your story straight? If you're arguing in this post that the entry wound is above the EOP why did you post a diagram in post #2340 that has the entry wound below the EOP?

If the point that you're struggling to make is that there is a disagreement between where the autopsy pathologists located the wound and where every subsequent medical panel found the wound, that's been a known issue for decades. Everyone acknowledges that the Humes, Boswell and Finck were under tremendous time pressure from Robert Kennedy* via Admiral Burkley, to the point that Burkley told Humes "They got the son of a bitch who did it, we just need the bullet!" Add that to the fact that neither Humes nor Boswell had much experience with gunshot wounds (Finck, who did have a lot of expertise with gunshot wounds, arrived after the autopsy had already started), and the fact that JFK's skull was literally blasted apart by Oswald's bullet and it's not surprising that they were off on the precise location. There's a whole section in the HSCA report that criticizes how the autopsy was handled if you were actually interested in the evidence.

The point is, though, we don't have to rely on the autopsy. One thing they did get right was to take lots of pictures and x-rays of all the damage to JFK's head. Again, unless you have some evidence that all the photos and x-rays from the autopsy were faked somehow in such a way that to this day can't be detected, what exactly is your claim?

Even if Humes, Boswell, and Finck were correct in where the entry wound was and all the other pathologist that have examined the evidence since were either completely incompetent, being blackmailed, or members of THEY, so what? It's hard to tell at exactly what angle JFK was holding his head in the Zapruder film. You can tell he's leaning forward with his chin down towards his chest reacting to Oswald's second bullet that went through his throat but that doesn't tell us what exact angle that Oswald's bullet to JFK's head hit at. Also, it's common for bullets to deflect to a different angle when striking a hard, heavy bone like the skull so even if we did know the precise angle that Oswald's bullet hit at it wouldn't necessarily give us a good trajectory.

So please lay it out for us. What exactly is your claim regarding JFK's head wound?


*Regarding RFK's control of the autopsy, I should make it clear that I don't blame Robert Kennedy at all for his actions. He was absolutely devastated by his brother's assassination and shouldn't be expected to have been thinking clearly at the time. The person I hold responsible for botching the autopsy is Admiral Burkley. When RFK made it clear that he and Jackie weren't leaving until JFK's body was released to the funeral home and he wanted it done as soon as possible, Burkley should have been the one to tell RFK that it was absolutely essential for there to be a complete and thorough autopsy and maybe RFK and Jackie should go home and he would contact them when the autopsy was done. But the Kennedy's didn't have advisers, they had sycophants, so Burkley just said OK and went to harass Humes into hurrying it up.

 

[MicahJava]

It's a good thing we have the photos and x-rays, isn't it? We don't have to rely on the fallibility of human memory, we have definitive proof where the entry wound was located.

Photographs? You mean the red spot? Well, I don't think there's any proof that red spot correlates to the depressed fracture on the X-rays 10 centimeters above the external occipital protuberance. The scalp is being pulled back in the back-of-head photographs, and the red spot appears to be at least 3 centimeters above the external occipital protuberance. Dr. Humes, Dr. Finck, and photographer John Stringer never recognized that red spot as the entry wound they saw, instead suggesting it was just a bit of blood. Dr. Boswell is the only one who told HSCA and the ARRB that he thinks the thinks the red spot was a tear in the scalp related to the large head wound. I tend to go with Boswell's interpretation.

X-Rays? Here's a list of some experts who examined the X-rays and never identified a specific location for the entry wound (some of them have noted the depressed fracture at the cowlick, but never specifically said it could be an entry):

Dr. Fred Hodges

Dr. Robert McMeekin

Dr. Alfred Olivier

Dr. Norman Chase

Dr. G.M. McDonnel

Dr. David O. Davis

Dr. Douglas Ubelaker

Dr. John J. Fitzpatrick

Dr. Robert Kirschner

Dr. David Mantik has explained that the cowlick spot on the X-rays could just be an ordinary fracture related to the large head wound.

Dr. Peter Cummings used to subscribe to the cowlick entry theory, but later changed his mind and decided the X-rays could be consistent with an entry low in the head, by default making the cowlick spot just a fracture related to the large head wound.

And of course, the radiologist at Kennedy's autopsy Dr. John Ebersole never agreed with the cowlick entry wound theory, nor did any other professional at Kenendy's autopsy who examined the X-rays.

 

[traxy]

Photographs? You mean the red spot? Well, I don't think there's any proof that red spot correlates to the depressed fracture on the X-rays 10 centimeters above the external occipital protuberance.

With all due respect Micah, who gives a rats ass what you think? Entire teams of pathologists have examined the photos and the x-rays. The red spot is the entry wound. The pattern of lead debris cinches it. No guess work needed.

http://www.the-puzzle-palace.com//wecht smith frags.jpg

If you think the red spot is something else, explain why the autopsy surgeons felt it was important enough to part the hair around it and make it the focal point of multiple photographs, yet made no mention of it in their notes and could not recall what it was under questioning.

 

[MicahJava]

Traxy, the scalp is being pulled back in the BOH photographs. The red spot appears to be about a couple of centimeters above the level of the ears, and yet it had to be about 4 inches higher to correlate to the depressed cowlick fracture. If they were photographing it because they thought it was an entry wound, why would they pull the scalp back that far as to create a misleading photograph?

Dr. Boswell told the HSCA and ARRB that the red spot was some kind of laceration to the scalp related to the large head wound. Dr. Humes told the HSCA that he ruler in that photograph isn't there to measure anything, just to "provide scale".

And, of course, several people have said the emperor is wearing no clothes by pointing out that the fragment dispersal is too high and to the right of the depressed cowlick fracture, creating anything but a straight line. Also, the fragment near the depressed cowlick fracture is a whole centimeter below it. If the open-cranium photographs is the one which shows the EOP wound in plain view, then we also have a good case that the depressed cowlick fracture and maybe the red spot was created by an exiting fragment.

Maybe you should review the past several pages of posts, because you're just reshasing BS.

 

[traxy]

Are you asserting that the x-rays are fake? If so, stop nibbling at the edges and just say it.

If they aren't fake, the path of the bullet is spelled out in black and white.

 

[MicahJava]

Are you asserting that the x-rays are fake? If so, stop nibbling at the edges and just say it.

If they aren't fake, the path of the bullet is spelled out in black and white.

No.

Your last several posts have been you misunderstanding simple things and being incoherent.

 

[traxy]

No.

Your last several posts have been you misunderstanding simple things and being incoherent.

OK, so where does your EOP entry wound appear on the x-rays? And while you're at it, explain the lead debris pattern in a way that supports an EOP entry wound.

 

[Axxman300]

OK, so where does your EOP entry wound appear on the x-rays? And while you're at it, explain the lead debris pattern in a way that supports an EOP entry wound.

He can't.

MJ seems to be incapable of independent thought. If you read through his posts he has drifted from one dead-end theory to the next, all taken from JFK-CT sites - rarely an impartial source. He wants or needs this to be a conspiracy, and like all CTists he ignores facts, evidence, and ballistics which undermine CT.

Last year he was arguing a second gunman whose weapon had a silencer, right after someone else tried to run wild with that claim and was shot down in flames.

He says he doesn't claim the autopsy results are fake, he implies that they are fake. When I was a JFK-CTer the argument was that the fatal head-shot came from the front, and that debate went back and forth until VHS provided private access to the Zapruder Film, and within five years the Grassy Knoll theory fell by the wayside. MJ's angle is that there was a second head wound, which is asking a lot from a skull that has already been 30% destroyed by Oswald's round. A second head-shot that NOBODY saw, and is invisible on film, X-ray, and to two sets of MDs.

MJ has admitted to being a CTist in search of a CT, having come to the JFK nonsense from the 9-11 nonsense. Maybe it appeals to him because it is so old, and there is a medium sized library of books dedicated to everything but what actually happened in Dallas, or maybe he has bought into a prepackaged CT world view where the JFK assassination is a "Gateway Conspiracy" which initiates the unwashed into a world where everything is controlled, and people like you and I are mindless puppets.

Whatever his motivations, it's great comedy.

 

[HSienzant]

Here is all (or most) of the material where Dr. Burkley ...expressed that he believed or suspected multiple shooters, at least twice suggesting two head shots.

Not according to what you quoted:

1977 HSCA interview report:
...DR. BURKLEY said the doctors didn't section the brain and if it had been done, it might be able to prove whether or not there were two bullets. DR. BURKLEY thinks there was one but concedes of the possibility of there having been two.

Burkley's affidavit to the HSCA:
Had the Warren Commission deemed to call me, I would have stated why I retained the brain and the possibility of two bullets having wounded President John F. Kennedy's brain would have been eliminated.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

To be fair to MicahJava, Cyril Wecht, who was a member of the medical panel of the HSCA strongly believed that there were two headshots. He based this belief on "evidence" (read as personal confirmation bias) other than the medical evidence, however.

His explanation of why there wasn't any medical evidence of a headshot from the front was that the headshot from the rear miraculously obliterated all the evidence of the shot from the front. Even he wasn't crazy enough to buy into any "THEY altered the body!" or "THEY faked all the evidence!" theories so he merely adopted a stance that the evidence just coincidentally happened to support one shot from the rear.

He admitted in his testimony to the HSCA there was no evidence of a second shot to the head.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/m_j_russ/hscawech.htm

Mr. PURDY. Dr. Wecht, what evidence is there which supports the possibility that there was a shot from the side or from the lower right rear?
Dr. WECHT. Very meager, and the possibility based upon the existing evidence is extremely remote. There is a small piece of some material that is present at the base of the external scalp, just above the hairline, which has never been commented on before except by me following the 1972 investigation of the material at the Archives, and later commented upon by this forensic pathology panel. There is a total deformation of the right side of the cranial vault with extensive fractures of the calvarium, the top portion of the skull, and extensive scalp lacerations and loss of soft tissue, so that we cannot exactly know where the exit wound was. It is, therefore, possible that that extensive deformity of the scalp, underlying galea, underlying bone calvarium, could also be the locus of the second shot of some kind of frangible ammunition which would not have penetrated deeply or at all through the calvarium. I want to emphasize that this is remote but I have pointed this out because it is a possibility. The question of the President's movement after he was struck in the head makes us direct our attention toward such a possibility and, of course, the absence of the brain and the failure of the original pathologists to have conducted studies that are routine, perfunctory in any kind of an autopsy where the brain has been fixed in formalin, to serially section the brain 10 to 14 days later, and the absence of the brain and the inability or the failure of the staff to obtain that medical evidence, all of these things, I believe, make it important to just raise that possibility, remote as it may be, that a second shot might have struck the President in the head in synchronized or simultaneous fashion.
...
Mr. PURDY. Dr. Wecht, does the present state of available evidence permit the conclusion that to a reasonable degree of medical certainty there was not a shot from the side which struck the President?
Dr. WECHT. Yes, with reasonable medical certainty I would have to say that the evidence is not there. I have already said it is a remote possibility and I certainly cannot equate that with reasonable medical certainty.
...
Mr. CORNWELL. And if the single-bullet theory is not correct, how many bullets, in your view, did strike the two occupants of the car?
Dr. WECHT. Of course, then--let me answer that, I believe that the President was struck definitely twice, one bullet entering in the back, and one bullet entering in the back of the head.

Wecht is more careful in his language when testifying for the record than for the TV cameras. Then he gets far more expansive and tends to conjecture all sorts of stuff he has no evidence for.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

Unfortunately, Ceril [sic] Wecht buys into the cowlick entry wound idea AND the idea that a bullet entered the back and exited the throat ...

You mean, 'Unfortunately for MicahJava', don't you?

In other words, even the leading conspiracy advocate with the expertise to dispute the autopsy conclusions [Cyril Wecht] agrees with those autopsy conclusions.

Where does that leave amateur forensic pathologists like yourself?

Out in the cold, I would say.

Hank

 

[Tolls]

Tolls, the nature of the brain damage doesn't make sense with the EOP entry wound exiting the top-right side of the head. It only makes sense if the missile that struck the EOP brushed past the cerebellum and hit the floor of the skull. The large head wound would then be created by a separate missile.

And?
I am picking on that one quote you seemed to think was important.
And yes, it was important, as it showed that there was a single entry point, exiting where everyone else has been saying.

If you want to show that there was more than one bullet then might I recommend not using, as part of your argument, quotes that state categorically that there was only the one bullet!

 

[HSienzant]

I forgot to add one more bit about Dr. Burkley. Here's a passage from Burkley's affidavit to the HSCA:

"7. I directed the autopsy surgeon to do a complete autopsy and take the time for necessary completion. I supervised the autopsy and directed the fixation and retention of the brain for future study of the course of the bullet or bullets."

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145280#relPageId=436&tab=page

And of course, that instruction was issued prior to the autopsy and prior to the subsequent study of the brain. How is that evidence for two bullets again? It's not. It's simply an attempt to be thorough in the instructions given. It's not a statement that Burkley believed in two head shots.

Hank

 

[HSienzant]

Photographs? You mean the red spot? Well, I don't think there's any proof that red spot correlates to the depressed fracture on the X-rays 10 centimeters above the external occipital protuberance. The scalp is being pulled back in the back-of-head photographs, and the red spot appears to be at least 3 centimeters above the external occipital protuberance. Dr. Humes, Dr. Finck, and photographer John Stringer never recognized that red spot as the entry wound they saw, instead suggesting it was just a bit of blood. Dr. Boswell is the only one who told HSCA and the ARRB that he thinks the thinks the red spot was a tear in the scalp related to the large head wound. I tend to go with Boswell's interpretation.

X-Rays? Here's a list of some experts who examined the X-rays and never identified a specific location for the entry wound (some of them have noted the depressed fracture at the cowlick, but never specifically said it could be an entry):

Dr. Fred Hodges

Dr. Robert McMeekin

Dr. Alfred Olivier

Dr. Norman Chase

Dr. G.M. McDonnel

Dr. David O. Davis

Dr. Douglas Ubelaker

Dr. John J. Fitzpatrick

Dr. Robert Kirschner

Dr. David Mantik has explained that the cowlick spot on the X-rays could just be an ordinary fracture related to the large head wound.

Dr. Peter Cummings used to subscribe to the cowlick entry theory, but later changed his mind and decided the X-rays could be consistent with an entry low in the head, by default making the cowlick spot just a fracture related to the large head wound.

And of course, the radiologist at Kennedy's autopsy Dr. John Ebersole never agreed with the cowlick entry wound theory, nor did any other professional at Kenendy's autopsy who examined the X-rays.

How many of the above are qualified forensic pathologists?

Can you post that list?

Hank

 

[Reheat]

I am far from being your typical conspiracy theorists. For anyone who knows of my participation in the 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists fiasco knows I was prominent in defeating parts of that stupid supposition.

For years I believed in the Warren Commissions conclusion of the lone assassin. But, I was always bothered by the Dallas Surgeons observations of the wounds to JFK's head and the obvious entry wound to the throat area, consequently I rejected it based on the forensic evidence observed at the Bethesda Naval Hospital Pathologists who performed the autopsy. I think I've changed my mind. I previously merely labeled it as another typical conspiracy theorist's delusions.

I do believe I've changed my mind. I just sat thru the youtube (yea I know) video of Douglas P. Horne's synopsis of his book. Horne was a prominent researcher on the ARRP review beginning in 1993. His presented evidence is overwhelming. Of all of the questions generated he's answered with one exception. The one exception is how the Secret Service knew about the Zapruter video before it reached the Time/Life organization. That question he doesn't address. He provides justification for his other suppositions and conclusions.

JFK's assassination changed America forever. That era began the distrust of Government. Maybe that was justified....

The entire video is very long.. It's about 6 hours duration, so it takes a long time to watch the entire thing.

 

[Tolls]

You do realise very few people are going to bother with a you tube vid?
Especially 6 hours worth.

We've been over pretty much everything in this thread and its predecessors, but if you have something new (or at least something you think is new) then present away. It'll make a nice change from Micah.

Note...there was no throat entry wound.