Witness Data and the Perils of Majority RuleMajority Rule is good for determining our government. Bad for determining if Evolution is true or false. Bad for determining the shot pattern at Dealey Plaza.
Witnesses are heavily influenced by what they think is going on. If they hear a loud sound, what will they think it is? If attending a large Fourth of July picnic, a firecracker. If watching a motorcycle race, a backfire. If invading Omaha Beach on D-Day, a gunshot. The same sound will be interpreted differently depending on what the witness thinks is happening.
What we perceive is influenced by what we believe. Look at the following picture:
Tell a group they are about to see a picture of a young woman and most will see a young woman. Tell them they are about to see an old woman and they will see an old woman.
How people interpret their senses is heavily influenced by what they believe is going on.
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Much is made of the witnesses hearing two shots right together at the end. But what does this mean?
Some witnesses reported that with the first shot or two, they thought it was just backfires or firecrackers. But it appears that even the people who report only hearing gunshots, must have thought at the time they were hearing something else. This is evident in the Zapruder film. Up until z312, most everyone is acting normally, clapping their hands and just looking at the motorcade. The only people who seem to be reacting like shots are being fired are the people in the limousine, the four standing Secret Service agents in the follow up car, Howard Brennan and possibly Rosemary Willis.
Clearly most people thought the first two shots were not gunshots. Why is that? Because they didn't sound like rifle shots but instead sounded like backfires or firecrackers? No. It was because people were not expecting to hear gunshots. They thought they were watching an ordinary motorcade. When they heard a gunshot, most of them dismissed it as a backfire or a firecracker and continued concentrating on their only one close up view of a President and the First Lady they expect to get in their lives. In the chaos that followed, some even forgot about the 'backfire' they heard earlier.
Before z312, there was a strong bias to interpret a loud noise as not being a rifle shot. This is pretty much undeniable.
But as the Zapruder film shows, after z312, based on what they saw, the head exploding, everyone who saw that, knew that gunshots had been fired. Mr. Altgens froze and did not immediately take another picture as he was planning to. Others dived to the ground. No one saw JFK's head explode and thought nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
Did this change the way people perceive things? Did this cause people to interpret any loud sound as a gunshot? This is certainly plausible.None of the three shots only produced one sound, a sharp bang. All produced multiple sounds. But it was the z312 shot that produced the most sounds and sounds that were most distinct from the others.
* the separation of the 'Crack-Thump' was greatest with this shot for witnesses near the limousine, up to about an eighth of a second
* more people were near the bullet as it passed overhead for the z312 shot. For example, Charles Brehm had this bullet pass overhead while neither the z153 nor the z222 bullet passed over his head
* there was the loud sound of the bullet striking JFK's skull
* there was the loud sound of a bullet fragment striking and denting the chrome windshield frame
* there was the loud sound of a bullet fragment cracking the windshield.
The fragment that dented the chrome frame must have made a loud noise, audible to everyone in Dealey Plaza. Imagine how loud a noise you would have to make with one blow of a heavy hammer to make a dent in a chrome frame. A metal fragment, slamming into the chrome at 700 MPH, hard enough to even put a dent into it, is going to make some noise.Below shows two pictures. The bottom picture shows CE349, the dent in the windshield frame:
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LoginIt was at z312, when JFK's head exploded, that people realized that shots were being fired. They were no longer inclined to interpret loud noises as backfires, or firecrackers or fragments striking the limousine. They were inclined to interpret loud noises as gunfire.
Before z312, people tended to interpret a loud noise as a backfire or a firecracker. They were disinclined to interpret it as a gunshot. After z312, the opposite was probably true. A loud 'Bang' or 'Crack' was likely to be interpreted as a gunshot.What people think is going on can cause all kinds of distortions. How they interpret sounds. How they perceive the passage of time. Time might seem to pass more quickly, or more slowly, between z153 through z222 than z222 through z312, depending on whether they think this is a normal motorcade or a growing realization is starting to build that something out of the ordinary may be happening. Making it perilous to rely on 'Majority Rule' to determine what actually happened. That the gap between the first and second shot must have been greater than the gap between the second and the third.
People will be influenced by what they think is going on. That is why so many heard the first two rifle shots as backfires or firecrackers.**************************************************
Many witnesses report the shots being well spaced out, with at least two seconds between each shot. But many report the last two shots as being very close together.
Clearly, one of two things happened:
Possibility 1: There were two shots close together. Some were able to correctly distinguish the two shots. Others were not.
Possibility 2: There was only one shot at the end but it produced multiple sounds, causing some witnesses to mistakenly believe that two shots occurred almost together.
If Possibility 1 is true, it was quite a coincidence that two shots happened so close together. So close, that many witnesses heard them as one shot. Without strong evidence to the contrary, one should reject coincidences.
Possibility 2 requires no coincidence. There were no two shots that just happened to fired together. Just one shot that produced multiple noises that some witnesses interpreted as multiple shots.
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What are the logical absurdities we get into if we use 'Majority Rules'?If we go with 'Majority Rules' and use the Zapruder film, we could have to conclude that no shots were fired before z312. While JFK and Connally may act like they are wounded and may even believe they are wounded, clearly the vast majority of the people watching the motorcade do not think that shots have been fired. Therefore, up until z312, no shots have been fired.
A strong preponderance of the witnesses, way over 75%, clearly do not think shots have been fired and having so many witnesses being wrong is just plain unthinkable.If we go with 'Majority Rules' we should be logically consistent. 75% thought the last two shots were close together. Many of them very close. So we should believe there were two shots right around z312. But we should also believe there were no shots before z312 because clearly the vast majority of the witnesses show no reaction to any shots before then.
