Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK

[RKP5637]

Watching a documentary on this now, hard to just walk away and label it CT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Error:_The_Shot_That_Killed_JFK

Watching this now:

Australian investigator Colin McLaren created a 90-minute documentary and book[20] based on and supporting Donahue's theory, both titled JFK: The Smoking Gun. The documentary aired on Australian and American television on November 3, 2013.[21][22][23] The documentary features re-enactments, archival footage, and new interviews with Menninger, with Donahue's daughter, and with witnesses to the shooting. A one-hour abridged version of this documentary aired in the UK on November 13, 2013, entitled JFK's Secret Killer: The Evidence.[24]

[Schema Thing]

1. Well, that's certainly one I'd never heard before today.

[RKP5637]

4. Me neither, it's very well done, chilling to watch, lots of evidence presented. I'm not

a CT type individual, but to me a lot of strange stuff surrounds JFK's death. If you get a chance, try to catch this documentary.

[stopbush]

42. Occam's Razor rules this idiocy out in quick order.

What's more likely?

1. That an assassin (Oswald) aiming at a target with a rifle equipped with a high-powered scope, who had already taken two shots at JFK, whose aim improved with each shot, and who with his third shot struck JFK in the head - ie: just a few inches above where he had just hit him with his second shot - was the shooter who was aiming at JFK and whose shot hit JFK in the head,

OR,

2. a secret service agent riding in a car behind the president happened to accidentally discharge his weapon, and with all of the directions in Dealey Plaza that an UNAIMED BULLET could have gone, and with all of the people in Dealey Plaza BESIDES JFK who might have been struck by such an errant bullet, THAT BULLET happened to hit JFK in the head, leaving no trace of itself anywhere after hitting JFK?

If you picked Answer #2, then I've got a bridge for sale.

[rickford66]

48. I dissagree

Several ballistic experts tried to duplicate Oswald's shots. Only one succeeded after a few tries and he's the one who wrote the book. Two bullets were found almost intact. The fatal bullet, the third one, exploded in JFKs skull as the AR15 ammo is meant to. Two different types of ammo were fired. Have you read the book or are you like the priests who wouldn't look through Galileo's telescope? Occam's Razor would state that the likely happening is what the facts lead to.

[stopbush]

52. You're wrong on the facts, or you're making shit up.

1 Numerous people have duplicated Oswald's shot, with accuracy and in half the time it took Oswald. Don't forget, Oswald had anywhere from 8 to 11 seconds to take his three shots. One test shooter for the WC reproduced the three shots with accuracy in 4.6 seconds. One shooter in Britain did it in 3.8 seconds.

2. Only ONE bullet was found intact, and that was the bullet that hit JFK and Connally and was found on a stretcher at Parkland (CE399). This was the second bullet shot by Oswald. That bullet was matched ballistically to Oswald's gun to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world.

3. The bullet that hit JFK in the head was recovered as two large fragments in the limo - ballistics tests matched those bullet fragments to Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world. The bullet did not "explode" inside JFK's head. Whoever told you that was lying. It broke into fragments because it impacted the back and front of JFK's skull, and in that order.

4. The three shell casings found on the floor of the TSBD were matched to Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all other firearms in the world.

5. The bullet that was found on the Parkland stretcher and the fragments found in the limo were matched to the exact inventoried and numbered lots of ammo that were drawn from and sold to Oswald by the Western Cartridge Company.

6. The first bullet fired by Oswald was never found.

Just because you are unaware of these facts does not make them non-factual.

[rickford66]

61. Have you read the book?

The first bullet hit the pavement and was the fragments found in the limo. The second bullet (the magic bullet) was found on the stretcher. The fatal bullet exploded into numerous fragments. Some of which remained in the brain. The experts who duplicated Oswald's shooting practiced and were under no pressure that an assassin would be. The third casing found in the snipers nest was easily explained. Oswald had the empty casing in the gun to keep it clean. Anyway, I'm convinced about what happened and it doesn't matter what anyone else believes. The Warren Commission only called witnesses that supported their original theory about the lone assassin. And I am not making shit up. I'm only repeating the facts uncovered by a ballistics expert and the evidence he studied. Why don't you read the book and shoot down every one of his statements?

[DanTex]

62. Did the book mention the large bullet fragments that were found in JFK's car

and were matched to JFK's rifle? Probably not. I wonder why? Could it be that the book was trying to ignore evidence that the head shot came from Oswald's rifle? That's a little harder to explain than the shell casings, don't you think? One bullet missed, the other was the "magic" bullet, and the third hit JFK in the head, and then broke into two large fragments and bunch of small ones. The bullet that missed was not found. The other two were traced to Oswald's rifle, to the exclusion of all others. That leaves zero shots left for the accidental AR-15.

Did the book mention the three TSBD employees that were standing in the window one floor down from Oswald, and who testified that they heard three shots from above them? One of them, a gun guy, even heard the sound of reloading and of shell casings hitting the ground. Wonder why they omitted that evidence?

Did the book mention the fact that the HSCA had a panel of photographic experts examine the Zapruder film, and found that the angle of JFK's head was such that the bullet trajectory was lined up with Oswald? Probably not. The guy who came up with the accidental AR-15 story was a gun expert, but had no expertise in analyzing photographs.

Also, despite the fact that many people have reproduced Oswald's shot, doing it even faster and with more accuracy than he did, you still question whether he could have done it. But you are ready to believe that an AR-15 went off by accident, and of all places it could have gone, it hit JFK directly in the head. Did they do any experiments to see how unlikely it would be to swing an AR-15 around at random and then score a direct hit?

About the fact that the WC only called witnesses that supported their original theory, yes, you are making that up.

[rickford66]

67. If you read the book ...

you would have learned about all the accidental discharges that occur, even in the safe environment of gun shops. The author goes into great historical documentation of the AR15. The bullet that was never found is the one that exploded in JFKs brain. The fragments in the limo were from the shot that hit the pavement and the third shot was the magic bullet. If you're not going to read the book and only criticize it then we have no more to say about it. I will say in parting that accidents do happen.

[DanTex]

68. Wow, the book actually claims that the bullet hit the pavement, broke in half

and then both halfs of it happened to land in JFK's vehicle! Even more impossible to believe than the idea that of all places an accidental discharge could go, it just accidentally happened to hit JFK right in the head. Two struck-by-lightning coincidences within seconds of each other!

I saw the documentary, and it didn't say anything about the bouncing bullet fragments, which was probably a good call, because that would have changed the genre from documentary to comedy.

And how about the three witnesses directly below Oswald who heard all three shots? How does the book dismiss them? And then the fact that nobody actually heard the AR-15 go off, even though there were multiple people in the car, who obviously would have heard it.

And how about the fact that photography experts determined that JFK's head was aligned with Oswald, and not the secret service agent. The person who reasoned that the head was aligned with the secret service AR-15 was not a photography expert but a gun expert, and was also coincidentally writing a book peddling this conspiracy theory.

About your claim that I need to read the book, have you read the Warren Commission report? Because you seem utterly convinced that it is mistaken, and yet you don't seem to have read it? From what you've described, and from what I've seen in the film, there isn't much actual new evidence, just a selective reading of the evidence already available, combined with wild and implausible speculation.

[stopbush]

63. Wrong again.

You're delusion.

You are welcome to your fantasies.

Why don't you read the WCR and find out how your vaunted author is lying to you.

[arely staircase]

64. call it the marvin theory

[Logical]

2. I counter this with this seasons Nova. A real science show. FFS, will this shit ever end? n-t

[RKP5637]

6. I doubt it, it will go on and on ... much like 9/11. n/t

[Logical]

7. I agree. I understand people loving the thrill of a CT but it gets old. n-t

[sabrina 1]

9. What people love are facts. When they feel they have been lied to about the facts, they have

a natural need to find out why. I saw the documentary recently the OP is talking about, and unless someone is committed to keeping their eyes closed, no one can watch that and continue to believe in the supremely flawed, for so many reasons, WC findings.

[RKP5637]

11. I agree so much, I just don't think the real story has/will ever come out ... there

were just too many that wanted him gone for various reasons. And now so much time has passed.

In doing good, he had made so many enemies. I don't think this is the irrefutable story, but then who am I to know, we all have such limited information.

Guess what I'm trying to say, there seem to be so many loose ends. I was around DC then, I can't think of anyone I knew that believed the WC report except those pushing it. Of course, we were just college guys, but all thought it was a cover up.

[sabrina 1]

12. The Deniers will, sooner or later, simply have to accept the fact that people just don't believe

the story they were told by the WC, period. And all these attempts to silence people have failed. Eg, why is this a topic that has to have its own forum, or is banned completely on Progressive forums, such as Daily Kos? Why is that?

It doesn't stop people from talking about it if they want to, so I don't get why there is so much effort to end any discussion of this crime, or to try to denigrate what is the MAJORITY of people who believe they never were told the truth?

I don't know the truth. But that documentary, among others, provided a lot of information I didn't know, I've learned a lot in the past couple of years about what went on with the WC eg, that I never knew before.

Thanks for the OP, I hope some day we'll find out what really happened and I believe we will.

[RKP5637]

15. Those who know the truth are masters of deception. We have so much misinformation and

psycops in this society it's hard to know what is going on ... who might hold unequivocal truths, etc. So much occurs behind a veil, and so much of the populace is information limited. It makes for an environment to create much deception. Like you, I do hope one day we find out what really happened.

[Logical]

13. You dont realize how any story can go either way they want it to go......

They have a motive, to sell books. And to do that they convince you they are right.

60 minutes lies all the time. Same difference.

The NOVA, presented on PBS, explained it scientifically. I trust them more than someone selling a book.

[zappaman]

14. It's stunning how some people can believe the most ridiculous things.

"I seen it on the video!'


No, Mermaids Do Not Exist



This week, Animal Planet aired two fake documentaries claiming to show scientific evidence of mermaids. I say “fake documentaries” because that’s exactly what The Body Found and The New Evidence are. The “scientists” interviewed in the show are actors, and there’s a brief disclaimer during the end credits. However, the Twitter conversation surrounding the show (#Mermaids) reveals that many viewers are unaware that the show isn’t real. (Sample Tweets: “After watching the documentary #Mermaids the body found … I believe there are mermaids!!!” and “90% of the ocean is unexplored and you’re telling me #mermaids don’t exist”—which has been retweeted more than 800 times.) It is, after all, airing on a network that claims to focus on educating viewers about the natural world. “The Body Found” was rightfully described “the rotting carcass of science television,” and I was shocked to see Animal Planet air a sequel.

As a marine biologist, I can tell you unequivocally that despite millennia of humans exploring the ocean, no credible evidence of the existence of mermaids has ever been found. Some claim that manatees are the source of the legend, but you’d have to be at sea an awfully long time to think that a manatee is a beautiful woman. Sure, new species are discovered all the time, but while a new species of bird or insect is fascinating, it doesn’t mean “anything is possible,” and it is certainly not equivalent to finding a group of talking, thinking humanoids with fish tails covering half of their bodies. The confusion generated by “The Body Found” got to be so significant that the United States government issued an official statement on the matter.

When I started angrily posting about this on Facebook and Twitter, many of my nonscientist friends asked me why it matters if people believe in mermaids. It matters because the ocean is extremely important. It provides jobs for tens of millions of people and food for billions. However, many marine resources are being overexploited and mismanaged, leaving us in serious danger of losing them forever. Policy solutions can help, but if you are so ignorant about what is really happening in the ocean that you believe that there are organisms that are half human and half fish, you're almost certainly unaware of the important problems, much less how to solve them. Even if you don’t believe in mythical creatures, you may be unaware of the severity of the crises facing our oceans. Now that we’ve established that mermaids aren’t real, here are 5 other important things about the ocean that everyone should know...


http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/05/mermaids_aren_t_real_animal_planet_s_fake_documentaries_misrepresent_ocean.html

[Logical]

16. I 100% agree. Even videos that support my side I do not 100% trust.....

You need lots of sources and facts to make a decision.

I guarantee a talented documentary director could tell either side of a story. And make it believable.

Critical thinking skills are lacking in this country.

[whistler162]

25. That just goes to prove you are part of

the great merpeople conspiracy.

[zappaman]

28. Damn

You got me.

[RKP5637]

32. ... hmmm ... looks fishy to me! lol, n/t

[Niceguy1]

37. I don't think such beliefs hurt

...its an opportunity to protect them from pollution. ..

[RKP5637]

17. I'll see if I can find that airing archived on the net, NOVA, it would be interesting to watch. n/t

[Logical]

18. It aired this month. Try this link......

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cold-case-jfk.html

[RKP5637]

19. Thanks!!! n/t

[sabrina 1]

22. Well, if everyone lies all the time, why would you think that only the WC was telling the truth?

How much money have people who believe in the WC findings made selling books 'proving' that Oswald was a 'lone gunman'?

Do you trust those who wrote books supporting the 'lone gunman' theory? Or did those authors not take any money for the books they wrote?

[Logical]

41. Watch the Nova show. Get back to me. n-t

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. People generally aren't aware of the facts.

When it comes to the Kennedy assassination most people just seem to think "well, the Warren Commission was flawed!" without being able to explain why or how. The best illustration of this ignorance of the facts comes from the very frequent citations of the findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations as some sort of definitive "proof" of conspiracy. The people saying "but see, the HSCA disagrees with the Warren Report!" seem to be generally ignorant of the fact that the HSCA confirmed in every particular the major findings of the Warren Report (that one bullet struck both Kennedy and Connally, that the shot that killed Kennedy came from behind, that both of those shots were fired by Oswald from the TSBD).

[sabrina 1]

23. People have explained where the WC was flawed. But some people would rather ignore those

facts and just go on believing the WC got it right, despite all the evidence that has surfaced demonstrating just how flawed it was.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. Not really, they haven't.

All of the major findings of the Warren Commission have been repeatedly validated by forensics and ballistics.

[DanTex]

33. "The WC was flawed." Funny how they never mention any specifics.

And, more importantly, CTers will never take the further step of trying to explain how the (few) errors made by the WC change in any way the conclusion that Oswald and Oswald alone shot JFK.

For example, one flaw in the WC report is that the autopsy drawings they published were inaccurate. Also, the WC erred by sealing the autopsy photos out of concern for the privacy of the Kennedy family. They should have released the photos, grisly as they were, rather than the drawings, which were made from the memories of the autopsy surgeons and not from the photos. Mistake.

But, the photos were eventually released, and reviewed thoroughly by experts in subsequent investigations, and the photos in fact support the lone shooter theory even more conclusively than the drawings.

[zappaman]

36. Even funnier when someone claims to have read all 26 volumes of the WCR

and STILL can't say what was in error!

[Historic NY]

60. +1

[DanTex]

21. Speaking of being lied to about the facts...

This particular documentary lies repeatedly about the facts. For example.

The documentary claims that Oswald only shot 2 of the 3 shots fired. But they neglect to mention the three witnesses standing directly below Oswald who heard 3 shots fired above them, inside the building. They also neglect to mention that nobody heard any shots fired from the car with the Secret Service agent who supposedly shot JFK by accident. That includes the people who were sitting in the car, who were asked about this when the book came out, and who all said that obviously they would have noticed if an AR-15 went off right next to them and they didn't.

Another fact they neglect to mention is that bullet fragments from JFK's head shot were found in his car, and matched ballistically to Oswald's gun. A pretty important fact to consider when pondering a theory that this shot actually came from a Secret Service agent's AR-15, wouldn't you agree?

The thing is, anyone even slightly interested in the facts of the JFK assassination would, at the very least, know about the witnesses who heard the shots, as well as the ballistic matches. Which means that the documentary makers assumed that the audience would either be ignorant of the basic facts of the case, or would be willing to entertain an obviously false narrative. In other words, it was made for people who are anxious to believe a conspiracy theory, any conspiracy theory.

[RKP5637]

39. The part that bothers me in all of this is surely someone would have noticed an

an AR-15 went off right next to them. That, to me, would have come immediately out!

[zappaman]

40. Well some people claim there is a "puff of smoke" in a picture

showing the fence behind the grassy knoll.

I hope you will help fund my upcoming documentary that proves once and for all, what that "puff of smoke" really was...

[The Midway Rebel]

26. That's hilarious coming from a person who suggested we not be distracted by the forensic science.

People like facts that agree with their personal conspiracy theory.


You refusal to acknowledge the forensic science is a case in point.

[stopbush]

43. So, was the SS Agent in on the "conspiracy" to kill JFK?

Because if he wasn't, then belief in this particular POS theory rather destroys the whole conspiracy thread, does it not?

Or, are we to believe that there WAS a conspiracy to kill JFK, a conspiracy that involved the mob, the CIA, the FBI, the Cubans and who knows who else, and yet with all their planning, and even with the fact that Oswald WAS shooting at JFK as part of a conspiracy, the president was actually killed accidentally by a stray bullet fired from a guy who had nothing to do with the conspiracy?

Yeah, I can see how that's less flawed than accepting the evidence in WCR, which - let's remind ourselves again - Sabrina 1 has never read.

[backwoodsbob]

45. really?

I saw the same docudrama and thought it was laughably stupid.
A ss agent blew the presidents head off from 40 feet away and there is no provable evidence?Not one photo or video of this amazing event?

[GoneFishin]

3. That BS is a limited hangout. For decades they have been peddling the Lee Harvey Oswald

nonsense, and they know that people don't believe it no matter how many talking heads they pay to regurgitate it into the MSM. This is their new BS story. The idea that a security guy just picked up a gun and accidentally happened to blow off the head of the most important guy within 500 miles is crap. And then everyone in authority around him was so loyal that they would all agree to risk their own careers by being complicit in a huge conspiracy to protect this guy. Bullshit. It doesn't explain many, many loose ends. It's nonsense.

[RKP5637]

5. Yeah, you touched on the part that I don't see either, "... And then everyone in authority

around him was so loyal that they would all agree to risk their own careers by being complicit in a huge conspiracy to protect this guy." To me, it was just too big an event for something like that to work.

[DanTex]

8. Of course. An AR-15 went off by accident and nobody noticed. One of the more absurd CTs.

It's a testament to the filmmakers that they were even able to make something so preposterous seem believable...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4083978

[RKP5637]

10. Yeah, the part I have difficulty with in all of this is it would have been so blatantly

obvious. It's one thing to have the grassy knoll and all behind bushes, etc., but my god, the guy right behind him accidentally shooting him, it seems there would have been endless witnesses to that, as well as all of the cameras running. And as another poster said, it's hard to imagine all of the secret service would have sworn to and been able to keep something so big a secret ... and to risk their careers. I agree, makes no sense.

[rickford66]

46. Yup, hard to imagine.

Except witnesses did say they heard the shot and saw the flash and smelled the gun powder. They saw the AR15 held by the SS agent, even though the SS insisted they did not carry the AR15 at that time. They weren't taken seriously and weren't called as witnesses at the Warren Commission. Connolly always claimed to be shot by the second bullet, the so called magic bullet, after hearing the first shot that hit the pavement and turning to look to his right. If you read the book, the facts lead to only one conclusion. There are no assumptions needed. Oswald for whatever reason fired two shots at JFK. One first missed and the second wasn't fatal. The SS agent in the following car accidently fired the AR15 causing the fatal injury. Of course the SS couldn't admit killing the president they were protecting. It completely explains the strange actions of the SS in the Dallas hospital and the autopsy back in DC. Of course they were probably horrified. People have said they were threatened because they knew evidence was altered or tampered with. I'm an engineer and am trained to believe the facts. I've read almost every book about this as I was 17 when it took place. Every book makes a number of assumptions or presents possible scenarios with the exception of Mortal Error. Just the facts as Sgt. Joe Friday would say.

[The Midway Rebel]

27. That show should just be called "Error" nt

[RKP5637]

29. lol, n/t

[zappaman]

30. This is bullshit.

Everyone knows it was THE DRIVER who shot JFK.
Here is a website that proves it!

Greer passed the gun in Zapruder before the shot and it's seen after the shot in frame 319. The passenger, Roy Kellerman reaches way to his left and retreives the gun after jfk is assassinated. He apparently braced his left arm on the seat and grabbed the gun with his right hand. The arrows indicate his head and upper right arm.

http://thedriverkilledkenendy.blogspot.com/

If it's on the web, it must be true!

[RKP5637]

34. Yep, there's a flavor/version for everyone! n/t

[treestar]

31. Of all the CTs, that's the craziest

That isn't even a good, juicy conspiracy!

[RKP5637]

35. Where's Alex Jones when we need him. lol n/t

[zappaman]

38. That's actually a good question...

so I poked around his website to see what he thought.
It looks like he, like many DUers, blames the CIA.
Although I'm pretty sure he blames the CIA for everything...

Dummy.
Doesn't he know the BFEE is behind everything???

[duffyduff]

44. George Hickey sued St. Martin's Press over that idiotic book.

It was settled out of court in favor of Hickey in 1998:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-02-03/news/1998034023_1_hickey-secret-service-president-john-f

Hickey, who lives in Abingdon, filed a libel suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. He has received a confidential monetary settlement in the case, according to attorneys representing Hickey and St. Martin's Press, which published the book.

"We're very satisfied with the settlement," said Mark S. Zaid, Hickey's attorney in Washington, who called the book's claims "ridiculous."

"To think that someone could have fired an AR-15 rifle on that day and that no one would have noticed, of the hundreds of people that were watching on either side of the street, just bends the imagination," Zaid said.

David N. Kaye, chief attorney for St. Martin's, said yesterday that the book "never said Mr. Hickey did anything wrong" and instead portrayed his role in "a tragic accident."

The decision to settle the case was made because "lawyers are expensive and we have no quarrel with Mr. Hickey," Kaye said.

Amazing the same old b.s. keeps getting recycled.

[cherokeeprogressive]

47. Is it idiocy to think...

Oswald was simply hoping to hit Kennedy somewhere between the shoulder blades? A wound like that would have certainly killed him. Given the eleventy thousand posts I've seen about the inaccuracy of the Carcano rifle Oswald used, is it hard to believe he was shooting for center-mass (at least what was visible from behind) and hit Kennedy in the right side of the head?

And have I simply missed it... or has anyone here at DU asked the question: Who wanted LBJ to be President? After all, it was less than 9 months later that he went on the radio and gave his "Gulf of Tonkin" speech that inflamed a nation and allowed him to ramp up a war that ended with over 58,000 dead American Men and Women, and fucked up the country for a generation. A YEAR after that, LBJ joked... "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

[Spider Jerusalem]

49. "Eleventy-thousand posts about the inaccuracy"...

all of them untrue. Fact: Oswald's rifle was tested. It was found to be "very accurate, in fact, as accurate as current military rifles" (ie, as accurate as the M-14).

Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. We fired this weapon from a machine rest for round-to-round dispersion. We fired exactly 20 rounds in this test, and the dispersion which we measured is of conventional magnitude, about the same that we get with our present military rifles, and the standard deviation of dispersion is .29 mil.
Mr. EISENBERG. That is a fraction of a degree?
Mr. SIMMONS. A mil is an angular measurement. There are 17.7 mils to a degree.
Mr. EISENBERG. Do I understand your testimony to be that this rifle is as accurate as the current American military rifles?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. As far as we can determine from bench-rest firing.
Mr. EISENBERG. Would you consider that to be a high degree of accuracy?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes, the weapon is quite accurate. For most small arms, we discover that the round- to-round dispersion is of the order of three-tenths of a mil. We have run into some unusual ones, however, which give us higher values, but very few which give us smaller values, except in selected lots of ammunition.
Mr. McCLOY. You are talking about the present military rifle--will you designate it?
Mr. SIMMONS. The M-14.
Mr. McCLOY. Is it as accurate as the Springfield 1906 ammunition?
Mr. SIMMONS. I am not familiar with the difference between the M-14 in its accuracy and the 1906 Springfield. These are very similar in their dispersion.
Mr. McCLOY. At a hundred yards, what does that amount to? What is the dispersion?
Mr. SIMMONS. Well, at a hundred yards, one mil is 3.6 inches, and 0.3 of that is a little more than an inch.

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/simmons.htm

[cherokeeprogressive]

50. My example was actually meant to be "worst case". It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that

Oswald was hoping to hit Kennedy between the shoulder blades (which he pretty much had already done) which would have certainly killed him, and would NOT have been a difficult shot at 88 yards, even at a target moving slowly in a straight line.

Working the bolt action and trying to bring the crosshairs to rest in the middle of his back in a hurry could have resulted in a shot that went high and wide by 13" or so, hitting Kennedy in the right side of the head.

I took two shots with a 30.06 at my first buck, and completely missed with the second. Luckily, the first hit a lung and the heart (after nicking a rib and deflecting) and the buck took about two steps and fell. Could Oswald have had a moment of "President fever"?

[nyquil_man]

51. I guess the head snap to the rear was meaningless after all. nt

[greyl]

53. If you try to catch up on the 22 years of scientific investigation since Stone's JFK,

you'll discover that the head moved forward first. Not back and to the left.

Not back and to the left.

[cherokeeprogressive]

55. The "back and to the left" thing has ALWAYS seemed to me to be a muscular/nerve reaction.

If you watch closely from frame 313 on, his whole upper torso moves backward after 313. To me it seems to be possibly one of those sad things that happens when the human brain gets scrambled in an instant.

[nyquil_man]

56. I'm aware that his head moves forward.

Then again, I think Oswald did all the shooting. So I'm crazy as hell.

I simply find it interesting that, after years of "back and to the left," a critic of the lone gunman theory would embrace a theory which has all of the shots coming from the rear.

Hell, Donahue, the man on whose theory Mortal Error is based, even upholds the single bullet theory, another source of endless ridicule for those critics.

Edit: Wrote "lone gunman theory" when I meant to write "single bullet theory."

[greyl]

58. Ah, I take it all back! Very sorry 'bout misunderstanding you. nt

[nyquil_man]

59. Quite all right.

I sometimes forget that sarcasm doesn't translate well into text.

[duffyduff]

65. The book was a fabrication and the subject of a lawsuit. See my post upthread.

I don't know why these fairy tales keep getting recycled.

[nyquil_man]

66. I know that too.

The story is a pretty major concession, though. In one fell swoop, it abandons "back and to the left," "magic bullet theory," and "pristine bullet" as anti-WC talking points.

My point is that, if someone is willing to accept that Kennedy was shot entirely from behind, it's not much of a leap to the lone gunman theory. That's especially true when it's demonstrated that Hickey could not have done what he's accused of doing.

Given that, I'm surprised it's finding such acceptance.

[Spider Jerusalem]

54. Yep

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

http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100shot5.html

[nyquil_man]

57. That'll teach me to add a sarcasm tag.