Mr. CORNWELL. Do you have a memory of hearing any shots while you were in Dealey Plaza?
Mr. McLAIN. I only remember hearing one.
Mr. CORNWELL. And approximately where were you when you heard that shot?
Mr. McLAIN. I was approximately halfway between Main and Elm Streets on Houston.
Mr. CORNWELL. So you would have heard it sometime after the picture was taken in exhibit F-671, the last one on the right?
Mr. McLAIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. And before you got to the corner and turned the corner from Houston onto Elm; is that correct?
Mr. McLAIN. That's correct.
Mr. CORNWELL. When you heard the shot, what, if anything, did you look at or what did you do?
Mr. McLAIN. I Just looked up the street and the only thing was a bunch of pigeons flew out behind the school book depository.
Mr. CORNWELL. So you heard the shot, your memory was, looking up, seeing the school book depository in front of you, and the pigeons fly off?
Mr. McLAIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. CORNWELL. After you heard this shot, would it be accurate to state that you continued on motorbike, made the corner from Houston onto Elm, and started down Elm Street?
Mr. McLAIN. Yes, sir.
McLain didn't lie about anything.
I am not claiming that he was lying. I am claiming he was mistaken and I present facts and arguments for this.
More importantly the recording has not one clear example of a gunshot. It is nothing more than an acoustic Rorschach test.
Wrong. It has four impulse patterns with a binary coifficient between 0.6 - 0.8, which translates into statistical significance and less than 5% chance for each pattern not being echo-patterns from a rifle fired from behind the limo.
A fifth impulse pattern was detected, this time from in front of the limo with a binary coifficient of 0.8. In order to really secure/or refute this pattern as an echo-pattern from a rifle they decided to do a sonar analysis of it. Doing this, it was shown that the probability for this being random static/noise and not a rifle shot from the picket fence on the knoll, was a devastating P = 1/100 000.
On top of all this was the order in the topographical data: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. If some or all of the patterns was random statics/noise, they would have been all over the place, like for example: 3, 5, 1, 4, and 2. They were not. The were placed in perfect order AND showing that the mike was traveling with an average speed of ca 11 mph between the first and the last impulse pattern, which incidently happened to be the average speed of the motorcade on Elm Street!
So, no, his is NOT an acoustic Rorschach test (although Rorschach tests have scientific merit), it is a very careful scientific investigation performed by the two at the time world leading teams on ballistic acoustics, BBN and Weiss & Ashkenasy from Queens College, NY.
BBN: solved the Kent State shooting showing that it was the National Guard who started the shooting. They developed the Boomerang system used by US Armed forces to instantly detect snipers in urban warfare.
W&A: developed the software to the sonar systems in US Navys nuclear submarines.
They were wrong?
Then there is the real-world problem of applying the 5-shot fallacy to the assassination.
At least 5 rifle shots, yes. It could have been more, with silencers and/or from other positions not tested for.
Only two shots struck JFK, both came from behind, both came from the same rifle.
Well, how do you know this?
A third shot (likely the first) missed,
How do you know this?
and a fragment from that bullet struck James Tague,
It could as well have been a piece of concrete when a bullet hit the curb stone just in front of him. The curb stone with a bullet mark that FBI tried to litterally ’cover up’ with cement.
They were caught.
which is important because if you look at the line of fire from any other vantage point in Dealey Plaza those other two shots you think existed would have likely hit someone on the sidewalk.
What? Your chain of reasoning is so far just fantasies based on, well, you tell me?!?
The impact of these phantom missiles would have certainly been noticed.
The majority of the witnesses reported hearing three shots, yes. This could easily be explained by the tight spacing between two of the first three and 4.8 seconds after these, the two last shots.
That said, the acoustical evidence has to be assessed own its own merits and as such it is a slam dunk and scientific proof, if such has ever been shown before.