JFK Conspiracy Theories: It Never Ends

[Walter Ego]

A couple of questions. If there was indeed a second shooter from the knoll, wouldn't the Zapruder film show some evidence of it? Mind you, we know that three shots came from the same general place. A 4th shot from the other direction of Zapruder would certainly caught his and Mrs. Sitzman's attention as it would have sounded a whole lot different. Wouldn't the camera have jiggled as a reflex?

Welcome to the forum.

As I noted above, Zapruter was standing practically in front of the Grassy Knoll (you can even see a section of the stockade fence in the last frames of the Z film as he pans to the right). You'd think he and his secretary, Mrs. Sitman, would remember the sound of a high-powered rifle being fired almost directly behind them but both remember three shots coming from the direction of the TSBD.

Since both of the bullets that struck JFK have been accounted for, where did the presumed grassy knoll bullet go? Surely, based on the evidence, if it was indeed shot it must have missed. Why did none of those on the knoll ever react to a shot that came from there?

Let me quote my own post #53.

No trace of any bullets/bullet fragments/bullet shells OTHER THAN THOSE COMING FROM OSWALD'S 6.5-MILLIMETER MANNLICHER-CARCANO RIFLE were discovered anywhere in Dealey Plaza, the limousine, the TSBD, Parkland Hospital, or in the victims.

Also, why did Oswald kill Tippet? What was his grand role in all this? Or was Oswald in the theater the whole time after skipping out of work and just carrying a .38 for crap and giggles?

Why indeed. He also pulled his gun on one of the officers trying to arrest him in the movie theater. Oswald was the only employee of the TSBD who was inside the building at the time of the assassination who fled the scene. He returned to his rooming house, got his pistol, killed a police officer who stopped to question him and hid in the movie theater (sneaking past the box office and not paying for a ticket), all actions betraying a consciousness of guilt in the killing of JFK.

 

[EventHorizon]

How interesting. And now for the benefit of one who has actually done some serous homework on the subject, what was the one single piece of evidence that convinced you to change your mind. This is a question the Lone Nutters on this board have great difficulty with. Perhaps you can enlighten. Evidence, mind you. Not generalized minutia, hyperbole or ad hominem attack which seems to be the standard Lone Nutter tac.

This is why I'll doubt that you'll ever get it (until you take your blinders off). There was no one single piece of evidence that convinced me. That's not the way it works. It was a combination of everything. The "magic bullet" explanatiopn (actually my favorite part of that is if you watch the stabilized version of the Zapruder film you can actually see Kennedy and Connally react to being hit by the same bullet). The fact that the Zapruder film shows Kennedy's head move forward slightly as the fatal bullet hits and then the front of his head explodes. The fact that eyewitnesses place Oswald in the window. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also the common sense stuff. Nobody would plan an execution like this. Nobody would trust people as insane as Oswald and Ruby to be involved. It's also the most convoluted and risky way to eliminate JFK. To put multiple gunmen in front of multiple witnesses some of whom surely have cameras is just not something that would be done. Hell, I'd think it would be a lot easier to just fix the election that was coming up in less than a year.

All of those things put together are just a small part of the reason I stopped believing in a conspiracy. This is why your "one best piece" of evidence is ridiculous. Any one of them can be discounted. But when you combine them it shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that one crazy person assassinated one powerful person. It's natural to want to believe that there's a reason somebody so admired by so many was killed. It's not easy to think that one lunatic with a gun can forever alter the course of history, but sometimes bad people randomly do bad things. Sad but true.

 

[I Ratant]

As long as we're discussing Moorman.. Here is the photograph.
Taken Z-315-316...
And a close up of JFK's head... no wound in the rear visible.. and the 3 guys on the steps...
And Zapruder... altered his stance from a relaxed standing position to a crouch..
This screws up Dr. Alvarez's analysis of the Z-film trying to shoehorn the acoustic "evidence" into wiggles he found in the positioning of the images in the film, attributing these to the camera being jostled by the bullet flights and the noise from the shots.
As he did not know the open microphone was at the Trade Mart, and not on a motorcycle in the motorcade, his conclusion is a pretty good demonstration of forcing the data to fit the conclusion.

 

[Tomtomkent]

So why do we have to supply a "single best" piece of evidence while RP himself expects twenty pieces of testemony to convince us (with an extreme close up of Officer Tippets head)?

Why is there not a single best piece of evidence for this conspiracy?


Oh and Rob, about your evidence that "proved" a conspiracy. If LHO wasnt holding the rifle, or planning to kill the president, how does two guys "conspiring" with him prove anything? Were they in cahoots with a plan he wasnt planning? Is that what your "two words" proved?

 

[NateHevens]

Okay... so... I don't post often. I also haven't been through this thread, so if this video's been posted already, forgive me.

I want to start off by saying that I don't believe the conspiracies. I did, for a very long time. Then I actually visited the museum. I actually got to walk up to the window and look out. I could see right where JFK was shot. This was the beginning of my doubt in the conspiracy.

Anyways...

I'm right now watching the following YouTube video:



I'm about 33 minutes into it as I type this. Is there anything (videos, perhaps) that debunks this video or the stuff in it? I'm not looking to have my skeptical stance confirmed. I just want to see both sides.

Anyone?

 

[I Ratant]

Looking at the source on the Youtube, it's a massive brain fart.
It contains so much material from the CTwinkies, with really far out linkings to events long in the future relative to 11/22/63, a seriously disturbed and frightened person assembled this stuff.
Sure does beat any of the published novels for breadth of smear, but it is newer.

 

[NateHevens]

Looking at the source on the Youtube, it's a massive brain fart.
It contains so much material from the CTwinkies, with really far out linkings to events long in the future relative to 11/22/63, a seriously disturbed and frightened person assembled this stuff.
Sure does beat any of the published novels for breadth of smear, but it is newer.

I'm now about an hour in, and it's surely a fascinating video... the rhetoric is thick and extremely cheesy ("devils"... he's calling them "devils").

Where did you get that screen capture? I see it's from Google video, but is it the same video as what I'm watching on YouTube?

And now I feel exceptionally stupid, but what do you mean by "CTwinkies"?

 

[I Ratant]

I'm now about an hour in, and it's surely a fascinating video... the rhetoric is thick and extremely cheesy ("devils"... he's calling them "devils").

Where did you get that screen capture? I see it's from Google video, but is it the same video as what I'm watching on YouTube?

And now I feel exceptionally stupid, but what do you mean by "CTwinkies"?

.
The screen capture is from the first video that popped up on Youtube when I looked for "JFK II". There's more there.
Looks like a 9-11 truther subset of videos there.
CTwinkie, CTwit... other derogatory terms come to mind.

 

[NateHevens]

Looking at the source on the Youtube, it's a massive brain fart.
It contains so much material from the CTwinkies, with really far out linkings to events long in the future relative to 11/22/63, a seriously disturbed and frightened person assembled this stuff.
Sure does beat any of the published novels for breadth of smear, but it is newer.

.
The screen capture is from the first video that popped up on Youtube when I looked for "JFK II". There's more there.
Looks like a 9-11 truther subset of videos there.
CTwinkie, CTwit... other derogatory terms come to mind.

ConspiracyTwinkie? ConspiracyTwit? I think I got it.

I'm wondering if it's all different uploads of the same video. Interesting.

I'm just wondering if there's been any attempt to debunk it or the... ehem... "facts" presented...

 

[Walter Ego]

I'm about 33 minutes into it as I type this. Is there anything (videos, perhaps) that debunks this video or the stuff in it? I'm not looking to have my skeptical stance confirmed. I just want to see both sides.

Try the ABC-BBC documentary The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy. Linked here.

The best debunking books are Gerald Posner's Case Closed and Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Posner's book is a good history of the assassination and summery of the case and he debunks most of the popular conspiracy theories. It also has the virtue of being about of third of the length of the Bugliosi book. Reclaiming History is encyclopedic, however, and is recommended for the truly obsessed.

 

[I Ratant]

ConspiracyTwinkie? ConspiracyTwit? I think I got it.

I'm wondering if it's all different uploads of the same video. Interesting.

I'm just wondering if there's been any attempt to debunk it or the... ehem... "facts" presented...

.
Just for the JFK stuff, there hasn't been anything new in the conspiracy field since the HSCA findings, the main difference there was HSCA accepted a possible GN shooter, based on the analysis of the dicta-belt recording.
That was then debunked not long after that, as being channel cross talk between the two channels used by the Sheriff, with one channel assigned to the motorcade, and the other to the units assigned to traffic control at the Trade Mart, where the luncheon was scheduled. The motorcade was going there after leaving Dealey Plaza.
It was noted by the Sheriff at the time that a three-wheeler motorcycle AT the Trade Mart had an stuck open microphone, which was picking up the noises at the Trade Mart, such as car doors slamming as the luncheon guests arrived, and the talk on the first channel heard from the car radios of the Sheriffs at the Trade Mart, listening to the talk from the motorcade.
This had a couple results.... When the motorcade began to speed up to get to the hospital, the Chief Sheriff in the motorcade made a couple of broadcasts, which the open mic on the three-wheeler picked up and were recorded on the dicta-belt, AFTER all the shots had been fired. It is AFTER all the shots had been fired and the motorcade was going past the Trade Mart to Parkland Hospital the "impulses" from the car doors slamming on the dicta belt were transmorgified into "gun shots" by the Twinkies, who had paid no attention to the crosstalk which put the definite event time on the dicta-belt as being after the shots had been fired.
Also, the motorcade with sirens blasting passed the Trade Mart, and this is also on the dicta-belt, which says the microphone could not have been -in the motorcade-, as it's kinda impossible for a motorcycle to pass itself.
Only the dedicated invincibly ignorant defend the dicta-belt recording as being from Dealey Plaza.

 

[vtbub]

If any conspiracy exists, it would have to run through Oswald. It's his gun, it's his bullets, it's his actions and reactions after the shooting that completely implicate his guilt. ALL the evidence points to him and nothing points to really anything else.

The only thing missing out of the stuff presented as proof of a conspiracy that Mr. Prey has not trotted out yet is the limo driver firing the gun, perhaps maybe the looniest of the looney theories.

Seriously, Oswald would have squealed like a greased pig if anyone had put him up to this and certainly he would have had legal help and not left to his own devices during the time Fritz and company had him under questioning. He wanted the attention. He bragged about shooting at General Walker. He had Marina take pictures of him and his rifle. He wanted to be somebody. Really, does that sound like someone that would be entrusted by the CIA, Teamsters, Castro, Anti-Castro, NWO, Reptillians, or the KGB would trust as their point man?

You have to wonder if Jack Ruby ever regretted sparing Mrs. Kennedy a return trip to Dallas to testify at Oswald's trial. The Dallas PD was so far in over their head with Kennedy's death AND losing Tippet that they made a ton of mistakes. If they had made the transfer on Saturday night or when planned that Sunday, Ruby is nowhere there.

Anyone that seriously thinks that these two people could have been in cahoots must also think Thelma and Louise is non-fiction.

No one has been able to tie Oswald to anything outside of maybe that visit described earlier and even that proves nothing. If you can't tie anything to Oswald, then you have nothing.

 

[Walter Ego]

It's natural to want to believe that there's a reason somebody so admired by so many was killed. It's not easy to think that one lunatic with a gun can forever alter the course of history, but sometimes bad people randomly do bad things. Sad but true.

Your sentiment was eloquently expressed by William Manchester, author of Death of a President.

Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. I share their yearning. To employ what may seem an odd metaphor, there is an esthetic principle here. If you put six million dead Jews on one side of a scale and on the other side put the Nazi regime — the greatest gang of criminals ever to seize control of a modern state — you have a rough balance: greatest crime, greatest criminals.

But if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn't balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President's death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something.

A conspiracy would, of course, do the job nicely. Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatever that there was one.

(New York Times, February 5, 1992)

And Jacqueline Kennedy speaking of her husband.

He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights . . . . It's — it had to be some silly little Communist.

(Manchester, Death of a President, p. 407)

The conspiratorial thinkers would like to right the lopsided equation. The president of the world's most powerful country could not have been brought down by a nobody like Oswald. Nineteen hijackers with box cutters could not have pulled off the most devastating terrorist attack on America. Reality must be reconstructed if necessary to prove otherwise.

 

[Noztradamus]

Also, why did Oswald kill Tippet? What was his grand role in all this? Or was Oswald in the theater the whole time after skipping out of work and just carrying a .38 for crap and giggles?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Reflex. Here LHO is thinking he's pulled of the wet job of the century, when he's called over by a cop

http://pbenjay.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/kennedy-tippett.gif

OMG. It's ZombieJFK! What's it going to take to kill him?

 

[Tomtomkent]

Reflex. Here LHO is thinking he's pulled of the wet job of the century, when he's called over by a cop

http://pbenjay.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/kennedy-tippett.gif

OMG. It's ZombieJFK! What's it going to take to kill him?

Well the likeness was good enough for CTs to look at Tippets autopsy photos and think it was evidence JFK was shot from the front. And possibly to have 20 odd people at Parkland get confused. Which is apparently less likely than a faked autopsy....

 

[Robert Prey]

If any conspiracy exists, it would have to run through Oswald. It's his gun, it's his bullets, it's his actions and reactions after the shooting that completely implicate his guilt. ALL the evidence points to him and nothing points to really anything else.

The only thing missing out of the stuff presented as proof of a conspiracy that Mr. Prey has not trotted out yet is the limo driver firing the gun, perhaps maybe the looniest of the looney theories.

Seriously, Oswald would have squealed like a greased pig if anyone had put him up to this and certainly he would have had legal help and not left to his own devices during the time Fritz and company had him under questioning. He wanted the attention. He bragged about shooting at General Walker. He had Marina take pictures of him and his rifle. He wanted to be somebody. Really, does that sound like someone that would be entrusted by the CIA, Teamsters, Castro, Anti-Castro, NWO, Reptillians, or the KGB would trust as their point man?

You have to wonder if Jack Ruby ever regretted sparing Mrs. Kennedy a return trip to Dallas to testify at Oswald's trial. The Dallas PD was so far in over their head with Kennedy's death AND losing Tippet that they made a ton of mistakes. If they had made the transfer on Saturday night or when planned that Sunday, Ruby is nowhere there.

Anyone that seriously thinks that these two people could have been in cahoots must also think Thelma and Louise is non-fiction.

No one has been able to tie Oswald to anything outside of maybe that visit described earlier and even that proves nothing. If you can't tie anything to Oswald, then you have nothing.

"His gun"? How do you know that? "His bullets" How do you know that?
Oswald had "ties" to FBI,, CIA, Naval Intell, Army intell, Jack Ruby, Mafia,
anti-Castro Cubans and a host of others.

 

[Robert Prey]

This is why I'll doubt that you'll ever get it (until you take your blinders off). There was no one single piece of evidence that convinced me. That's not the way it works. It was a combination of everything. The "magic bullet" explanatiopn (actually my favorite part of that is if you watch the stabilized version of the Zapruder film you can actually see Kennedy and Connally react to being hit by the same bullet). The fact that the Zapruder film shows Kennedy's head move forward slightly as the fatal bullet hits and then the front of his head explodes. The fact that eyewitnesses place Oswald in the window. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also the common sense stuff. Nobody would plan an execution like this. Nobody would trust people as insane as Oswald and Ruby to be involved. It's also the most convoluted and risky way to eliminate JFK. To put multiple gunmen in front of multiple witnesses some of whom surely have cameras is just not something that would be done. Hell, I'd think it would be a lot easier to just fix the election that was coming up in less than a year.

All of those things put together are just a small part of the reason I stopped believing in a conspiracy. This is why your "one best piece" of evidence is ridiculous. Any one of them can be discounted. But when you combine them it shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that one crazy person assassinated one powerful person. It's natural to want to believe that there's a reason somebody so admired by so many was killed. It's not easy to think that one lunatic with a gun can forever alter the course of history, but sometimes bad people randomly do bad things. Sad but true.

Typical and Predictable. No single piece of evidence, indeed. The Magic Bullet, whether real or imagined did not Kill JFK. The fatal shot or shots to the head did -- the single piece of evidence you choose to avoid.
"Lunatic with a gun"??? What makes you think LHO was a lunatic? Do you know what a "patsy" is?

 

[Robert Prey]

Try the ABC-BBC documentary The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy. Linked here.

The best debunking books are Gerald Posner's Case Closed and Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Posner's book is a good history of the assassination and summery of the case and he debunks most of the popular conspiracy theories. It also has the virtue of being about of third of the length of the Bugliosi book. Reclaiming History is encyclopedic, however, and is recommended for the truly obsessed.

The best debunking of Poser's 'Case Closed" is the Bug Man's "Reclaiming History." The Bug Man indicts himself and his own internal sanity by his crusade to indict George W. Bush for War Crimes.

 

[Robert Prey]

So why do we have to supply a "single best" piece of evidence while RP himself expects twenty pieces of testemony to convince us (with an extreme close up of Officer Tippets head)?

Why is there not a single best piece of evidence for this conspiracy?


Oh and Rob, about your evidence that "proved" a conspiracy. If LHO wasnt holding the rifle, or planning to kill the president, how does two guys "conspiring" with him prove anything? Were they in cahoots with a plan he wasnt planning? Is that what your "two words" proved?

Two or more equals conspiracy. Obviously.

 

[Robert Prey]

Oswald was the only employee of the TSBD who was inside the building at the time of the assassination who fled the scene..

Factually incorrect.