The First Shot

[Tom Graves]

You ALL talk about who is looking where. What you ALL fail to recognize is the obvious. NONE of these same people is looking UPWARD. They may look (L), (R), or Back/Backward, but nobody has their head tilted. A tilted head would be required if they were looking Upward. Especially when considering that Elm St runs downhill. Whatever has attracted their attention is roughly at ground level.   

Dear Sonderführer Storing,

As Roselle and Scearce pointed out in their 2020 article, a loud and unexpected sound that comes from behind you and over your head is the hardest to locate.

https://www.acsr.org/post/estimating-occult-timing-of-surprise-gunshot-sounds-in-silent-film-via-observed-start-of-human-vol?fbclid=IwAR12nBxuwJNQk5YVStu8jKxu-wnyIprRvzLSpJ7mLurtZpzj7DMU0LQeof8

Especially, one would think, in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.

D'oh!

-- Tom

[Jack Nessan]

A straight-forward, common sense analysis.
The Altgens6/Zapruder analysis of the movements of the Secret Service agents is extremely strong evidence supporting a first shot aroundz222/z223.
As is the 40+ witnesses describing JFK reacting to the first shot, as seen after he emerges from behind the Stemmons sign.
As is the statements of all ten occupants of the Vice Presidential car and it's follow-up car placing their vehicles on Elm Street at the time of the first shot.

There is another extremely sound method of determining when the first shot occurred, using the observations of the eye-witnesses stood on Elm Street.
I did an analysis of their statements focussing on a single, salient point - had the Presidential passed their location at the time of the first shot. It's a really simple and solid way of determining where the limo was on Elm Street at the time of the first shot.



The statements of the witnesses pictured above show, unanimously, that JFK had passed their position at the time of the first shot [statements lifted from Pat Speer's website]:

JUNE DISHONG: [taken from a letter written on the day of the assassination]
                        "His arm in the air waving… He drops his arm as they go by, possibly 20 feet. Suddenly--a sound. Gun shots? So hard to tell above the clamor of the crowd. The president bent forward into his wife’s lap as his arm slipped off the side of the car. Jackie circled him with her arm. Another shot. Panic among the people. Woman with children. Parents pushing them to the ground. No one knows where the shots are coming from. A cry. The President has been shot. A third shot, people scatter. I can't believe what I have seen.


PEGGY BURNEY: [A first person account  published in the Dallas Times-Herald the day after the assassination]
                         "When the President's car made the curve around the corner, he was smiling and waving...he was happy and Jackie was happy and smiling as they passed. The car had passed about 15 feet beyond me when I heard the first shot. I did not realize it was a shot; I thought it was a backfire. The President ducked; instinctively I told myself 'something is happening,' but nobody knew what."



JEAN NEWMAN: [ From a statement to the Dallas Sheriff’s Department on the day of the assassination]
                       "I was standing right on this side of the Stemmons Freeway sign, about halfway between the sign and the edge of the building on the corner… The motorcade had just passed me when I heard something that I thought was a firecracker at first, and the President had just passed me, because after he had just passed, there was a loud report, it just scared me, and I noticed that the President jumped, he sort of ducked his head down, and I thought at the time that it probably scared him too."


ERNEST BRANDT: [Oral History interview performed for the Sixth Floor Museum, 5-12-94]
                          "He was kind of casually smiling…acknowledging the crowd and waving casually. Nothing had happened by the time the limo was exactly opposite us, from the curb straight out to the street. Nothing had happened. But I was still watching Kennedy from the back...And of course, all I could see above the back seat was his shoulders, his neck, and head…I think the limousine was probably about 60 or 70 feet past us, three or four seconds I guess from the time. It wasn't moving real slow but yet not real fast either, y'know. And--60 or 70 feet past us, then BAM! the first shot was fired and boy it just reverberated around Dealey Plaza something terrible."

[11-22-95 article in the Dallas Morning News]
"Ernest Brandt, a salesman, watched from the curb as President John F Kennedy's motorcade turned down the Elm Street slope toward Stemmons Freeway... "Kennedy's limo was about 15 to 20 feet past us when the first shot was fired. I was still looking at him and I saw his arms come up."

[July 2000 hand-written, 3-page letter from Brandt to researcher Don Roberdeau published in part on Roberdeau's Men of Courage website and posted in total on the alt.assassination.JFK newsgroup in 2009]
 "President Kennedy was about 15 feet from me when the FIRST SHOT WAS FIRED!!! He was SLIGHTLY PAST ME at a "ONE O'CLOCK POSITION" in relation to my location on the NORTH SIDE of the Elm street curb.



JOHN TEMPLIN: [7-28-95 Oral History interview for the Sixth Floor Museum]
"Well, as the limo drew even with us, well, the president was waving and, of course, grinning. He had just a great big smile on his face...And just about, I would say, thirty feet past us, we heard what I personally thought was a motorcycle backfire, and I... the president kind of threw his shoulders up a little bit and kind of laid his head back on the back of the seat, and I thought, well, he’s just playing and playing the crowd and acting silly, you know.



All five witnesses are unequivocal that JFK had passed their position at the time of the first shot. It is interesting to note that most of them note that JFK was waving and smiling just before the first shot, as we see him doing as he passes behind the Stemmons sign in the Z-film.
The best representation of where these witnesses were stood in relation to where the limo was at specific Z-frames is Don Roberdeau's map. When we map their positions in Dealey Plaza compared to the limo position at various Z-frames it becomes apparent that the first shot cannot have taken place any earlier than z222/z223.

To locate JFK's position when the first shot took place, Locate the Chisms. The first shot took place right before the car reached them.

“John Chism - And just as he got just about in front of me, he turned and waved to the crowd on this side of the street, the right side; at this point I heard what sounded like one shot...”
 
The Chisms appear to be standing in front of the middle of the Stemmons sign. Z214- Z218? Based on the Bronson film.

[Royell Storing]

Dear Sonderführer Storing,

As Roselle and Scearce pointed out in their 2020 article, a loud and unexpected sound that comes from behind you and over your head is the hardest to locate.

https://www.acsr.org/post/estimating-occult-timing-of-surprise-gunshot-sounds-in-silent-film-via-observed-start-of-human-vol?fbclid=IwAR12nBxuwJNQk5YVStu8jKxu-wnyIprRvzLSpJ7mLurtZpzj7DMU0LQeof8

Especially, one would think, in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.

D'oh!

-- Tom

  "...hardest to locate"? "....echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza"?  Those quotes defeat your personal observation/opinions regarding the direction that you believe eyewitnesses were looking. You just shot yourself in the foot, and you don't even know it.

[Andrew Mason]

Dear Sonderführer Storing,

As Roselle and Scearce pointed out in their 2020 article, a loud and unexpected sound that comes from behind you and over your head is the hardest to locate.

https://www.acsr.org/post/estimating-occult-timing-of-surprise-gunshot-sounds-in-silent-film-via-observed-start-of-human-vol?fbclid=IwAR12nBxuwJNQk5YVStu8jKxu-wnyIprRvzLSpJ7mLurtZpzj7DMU0LQeof8

Especially, one would think, in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.

D'oh!

-- Tom

I am not sure why you think that Roselle and Scearce's speculations on how difficult it might be to recognize source direction of a gunshot sound are of any value.  They even admit that this comment was speculative.

The fact is that human brains rely on both ears to determine sound source. The brain detects time differences between the arrival of a sound wave at each ear to determine lateral position of the source.  Our ability to detect that a sound is coming from behind instead of the front is facilitated by the shape of our ears.  Here is a scientific paper that explains how this occurs  I expect that this is an important survival mechanism that has been highly conserved over millions of years.

The problem with detecting an actual source arises when there are nearby reflective surfaces that cause multiple wave fronts to arrive at the ears at slightly different times. Nevertheless, most witnesses, particularly those near the corner of Elm and Houston, had little difficulty in determining the direction of the source. For example, Dearie Cabell instinctively looked directly up from where she was facing (which was to her right toward the right front seat) and saw the rifle in the 6th floor window as they were already making the turn.  She said (7 H 486):

Mrs. CABELL.. I heard the shot, and without having to turn my head, I jerked my head up.
Mr. HUBERT. Why did you do that?
Mrs. CABELL. Because I heard the direction from which the shot came, and I just jerked my head up.
Mr. HUBERT. What did you see?
Mrs. CABELL. I saw a projection out of one of those windows. Those windows on the sixth floor are in groups of twos.
Mr. HUBERT. In which window did you see the projection?
Mrs. CABELL. I have always been a little confused about that, but I think it was the first window.