When Was JBC Hit?

[Charles Collins]

It is interesting that Connally did not recall hearing the shot that hit him, as he describes the shots he did hear as being "very loud" and that he immediately recognised them as rifle shots:


"I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot."
"...once I heard the shot in my own mind I identified it as a rifle shot,"

Equally, he is certain about the headshot:

"...the third shot sounded, and I heard the shot very clearly."
"It was a very loud noise, just that audible, very clear."

When asked about the time gap between hearing the first shot and when he was hit by the second shot, it is clear he is describing a "split second", that is to say, a time gap of less than one second.

Mr. SPECTER: "What is the best estimate that you have as to the time span between the sound of the first shot and the feeling of someone hitting you in the back which you just described?"

Governor CONNALLY: "A very, very brief span of time. Again my trend of thought just happened to be, I suppose along this line, I immediately thought that this--that I had been shot. I knew it when I just looked down and I was covered with blood, and the thought immediately passed through my mind that there were either two or three people involved or more in this or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle. These were just thoughts that went through my mind because of the rapidity of these two, of the first shot plus the blow that I took, and I knew I had been hit, and I immediately assumed, because of the amount of blood, and in fact, that it had obviously passed through my chest. that I had probably been fatally hit."

The following is lifted from the Pat Speers website -

(12-13-63 FBI report on a 12-11 interview, CD188, p. 3-5) "When Governor Connally was asked about the elapsed time between the first and last shot he remarked “Fast, my God it was fast. It seemed like a split second. Just that quick” and he snapped his fingers three times rapidly to illustrate the time and said “unbelievably quick…"

A very, very brief span of time
Two or three people involved
Automatic rifle
My God it was fast
A split second
Unbelievably quick

Connally appears to be describing two shots, less than one second apart. He hears the first "very loud" rifle shot but not the second. Instead, after less than one second, he is aware of the impact of a second shot. We know there wasn't initially two shots less than a second apart so what is he describing?
It is well known that when a person recalls a traumatic event, the memory of that event can be distorted in various ways. John Connally was sat in the limo, probably thinking about the the Trade Mart as it was clear the parade was coming to an end. He was then shot through the torso, a massively traumatic, life-threatening injury. The worst person to ask to give an accurate account of this event would probably be Connally himself. The following quotes are from a research article entitled "Does Time Really Slow Down during a Frightening Event?"  [Chess Stetson, Matthew P. Fiesta, David M. Eagleman. Published: December 12, 2007https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001295]:

"Observers commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during a life-threatening event."

"Our findings suggest that time-slowing is a function of recollection, not perception: a richer encoding of memory may cause a salient event to appear, retrospectively, as though it lasted longer."

"Temporal judgments – such as duration, order, and simultaneity – are subject to distortions."

The distortion of "temporal judgements" when trying to recollect a traumatic event are commonplace and it is in this light that JBC's recollections should be viewed. JBC is genuinely recalling events to the best of his ability, the problem being that his memory of the event is subject to various distortions.
When he is describing hearing the first shot and feeling the second shot less than a second later, he is actually describing the same shot. The "split second" time gap is caused by the fact it takes human beings a little time to become consciously aware of what is happening:

"Human thought takes time to form, and so the “right now” that we’re experiencing inside our skulls is always a little later than what’s going on in the outside world. It takes 500 milliseconds, or half a second, for sensory information from the outside world to be incorporated into conscious experience."

[ https://nymag.com/speed/2016/12/what-is-the-speed-of-thought.html#:~:text=Human%20thought%20takes%20time%20to,be%20incorporated%20into%20conscious%20experience. ]

JBC is hit
100 milliseconds later the sound of the shot arrives
400 milliseconds after that JBC becomes aware of being shot
In terms of z-frames the difference between being shot and becoming aware of it is approximately 9 frames.
If, as I propose, the first shot passed through JBC by z223, we should expect him to become consciously aware of being shot around z232.
JBC is hit at z223
The sound of the shot reaches him @ z225
He becomes consciously aware of being shot from z232 onwards
It is no coincidence that, after careful examination of specific Z-frames Connally identifies somewhere around z231 - z234 as the moment he is hit.
His recollections of the event are of someone 'projecting back' to this traumatic moment. His memories are not a 'video record' of what happened. His memory is 'stretching out' this split second moment:

"Trauma memories – like all memories – are malleable and prone to distortion...After a traumatic experience, intentional remembering (effortful retrieval) and unintentional remembering (intrusive mental imagery) can introduce new details that, over time, assimilate into a person’s memory for the event..."
[Memory Distortion for Traumatic Events: The Role of Mental Imagery]

It is also no coincidence that around z232 is the only time JBC is looking slightly left as this is the position he remembers being in when he first became aware of being shot:

"I was turning to look back over my left shoulder into the back seat, but I never got that far in my turn. I got about in the position I am in now facing you, looking a little bit to the left of center, and then I felt like someone had hit me in the back."

In this extreme close up we see JBC turning left until he is facing " a little bit to the left of center" : 



It is at this moment JBC becomes aware that he is hit.

Great post! This also helps explain my personal experience with the snake striking at my leg. Frankly, I had already jumped backwards before I knew what was happening. There was nothing voluntary about my jump backwards. It happened automatically and so quickly that it was before any thoughts could form in my mind. I believe that is what JBC was trying to describe when he said he instinctively turned and the time between the sound of the shot and when he felt the impact was very very short. 500 miliseconds, hmmm.

[Andrew Mason]

It is interesting that Connally did not recall hearing the shot that hit him, as he describes the shots he did hear as being "very loud" and that he immediately recognised them as rifle shots:


"I heard what I thought was a shot. I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot."
"...once I heard the shot in my own mind I identified it as a rifle shot,"

Equally, he is certain about the headshot:

"...the third shot sounded, and I heard the shot very clearly."
"It was a very loud noise, just that audible, very clear."

When asked about the time gap between hearing the first shot and when he was hit by the second shot, it is clear he is describing a "split second", that is to say, a time gap of less than one second.

Mr. SPECTER: "What is the best estimate that you have as to the time span between the sound of the first shot and the feeling of someone hitting you in the back which you just described?"

Governor CONNALLY: "A very, very brief span of time. Again my trend of thought just happened to be, I suppose along this line, I immediately thought that this--that I had been shot. I knew it when I just looked down and I was covered with blood, and the thought immediately passed through my mind that there were either two or three people involved or more in this or someone was shooting with an automatic rifle. These were just thoughts that went through my mind because of the rapidity of these two, of the first shot plus the blow that I took, and I knew I had been hit, and I immediately assumed, because of the amount of blood, and in fact, that it had obviously passed through my chest. that I had probably been fatally hit."

When asked about the time between the first and third shots he said it was a "very brief span of time", 10-12 seconds (4H134):

Mr. SPECTER. What is your best estimate as to the time span between the first
shot which you heard and the shot which you heretofore characterized as the
third shot?
Governor CONNALLY. It was a very brief span of time; oh, I would have to
say a matter of seconds. I don’t know. 10, 12 seconds. It was extremely rapid,
so much so that again I thought that whoever was firing must be firing with an
automatic rifle because of the rapidity of the shots ; a very short period of time.

So, the question is if a "very brief span of time" is 10-12 seconds in JBC"s mind, how much is a "very, very brief span of time"? 

[Dan O'meara]

When asked about the time between the first and third shots he said it was a "very brief span of time", 10-12 seconds (4H134):

Mr. SPECTER. What is your best estimate as to the time span between the first
shot which you heard and the shot which you heretofore characterized as the
third shot?
Governor CONNALLY. It was a very brief span of time; oh, I would have to
say a matter of seconds. I don’t know. 10, 12 seconds. It was extremely rapid,
so much so that again I thought that whoever was firing must be firing with an
automatic rifle because of the rapidity of the shots ; a very short period of time.

So, the question is if a "very brief span of time" is 10-12 seconds in JBC"s mind, how much is a "very, very brief span of time"?

As usual, you take a piece of what I have posted and ignore the rest of it that actually answers your query, as if it didn't exist.
I posted the following quotes from "Does Time Really Slow Down during a Frightening Event?"  [Chess Stetson, Matthew P. Fiesta, David M. Eagleman. Published: December 12, 2007https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001295]:

"Observers commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during a life-threatening event."

"Our findings suggest that time-slowing is a function of recollection, not perception: a richer encoding of memory may cause a salient event to appear, retrospectively, as though it lasted longer."

"Temporal judgments – such as duration, order, and simultaneity – are subject to distortions."

I then went on to note that:

"The distortion of "temporal judgements" when trying to recollect a traumatic event are commonplace and it is in this light that JBC's recollections should be viewed. JBC is genuinely recalling events to the best of his ability, the problem being that his memory of the event is subject to various distortions."


What you have pointed out is a perfect example of one of the "temporal distortions" that occurs to the memory of someone who is recalling a traumatic, life-threatening event. As I pointed out in the other part of my post that you have tried to pretend doesn't exist, Connally is going out of his way to describe the incredibly short gap that exists between the moment he heard the first shot - a loud noise that he immediately recognised as a rifle shot  - and the moment he was aware of feeling the impact of a shot:

A very, very brief span of time
Two or three people involved
Automatic rifle
My God it was fast
A split second
Unbelievably quick

Why would Connally think three people were taking the shots?
Why would he think someone was using an automatic rifle?
It is because he literally experienced a "split second" between the two events.
The point is - he shouldn't have experienced them as two separate events because they were part of the same event...he heard the first shot and was hit by it.
Because his memory has slowed down the event he can discern this "split second" gap as two separate events.
The rapidity of events is in contrast to his recollection of "10 to 12 seconds", but this recollection of how long the shooting took has been distorted. He remembers it as being much longer than it actually was. As happens regularly when a person is recalling a traumatic event, time has slowed down.

[Charles Collins]

As usual, you take a piece of what I have posted and ignore the rest of it that actually answers your query, as if it didn't exist.
I posted the following quotes from "Does Time Really Slow Down during a Frightening Event?"  [Chess Stetson, Matthew P. Fiesta, David M. Eagleman. Published: December 12, 2007https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001295]:

"Observers commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during a life-threatening event."

"Our findings suggest that time-slowing is a function of recollection, not perception: a richer encoding of memory may cause a salient event to appear, retrospectively, as though it lasted longer."

"Temporal judgments – such as duration, order, and simultaneity – are subject to distortions."

I then went on to note that:

"The distortion of "temporal judgements" when trying to recollect a traumatic event are commonplace and it is in this light that JBC's recollections should be viewed. JBC is genuinely recalling events to the best of his ability, the problem being that his memory of the event is subject to various distortions."


What you have pointed out is a perfect example of one of the "temporal distortions" that occurs to the memory of someone who is recalling a traumatic, life-threatening event. As I pointed out in the other part of my post that you have tried to pretend doesn't exist, Connally is going out of his way to describe the incredibly short gap that exists between the moment he heard the first shot - a loud noise that he immediately recognised as a rifle shot  - and the moment he was aware of feeling the impact of a shot:

A very, very brief span of time
Two or three people involved
Automatic rifle
My God it was fast
A split second
Unbelievably quick

Why would Connally think three people were taking the shots?
Why would he think someone was using an automatic rifle?
It is because he literally experienced a "split second" between the two events.
The point is - he shouldn't have experienced them as two separate events because they were part of the same event...he heard the first shot and was hit by it.
Because his memory has slowed down the event he can discern this "split second" gap as two separate events.
The rapidity of events is in contrast to his recollection of "10 to 12 seconds", but this recollection of how long the shooting took has been distorted. He remembers it as being much longer than it actually was. As happens regularly when a person is recalling a traumatic event, time has slowed down.

I can attest that the super-slow motion memory of watching that snake strike at where my leg had just been is a very real phenomenon. It is quite understandable to me that, due to this phenomenon, JBC might think that a second shot was what hit him. However, in reality, it was the same shot that hit JFK. If I remember correctly, JBC even acknowledges that he could be wrong in his book. I will try to find that passage when I get a chance.

[Andrew Mason]

As usual, you take a piece of what I have posted and ignore the rest of it that actually answers your query, as if it didn't exist.

Actually, JBC said in this interview that there was more than half a second between the first and second and estimated there were 2 seconds between them - at 2:25 of this 1966 statement:

[Andrew Mason]

I can attest that the super-slow motion memory of watching that snake strike at where my leg had just been is a very real phenomenon. It is quite understandable to me that, due to this phenomenon, JBC might think that a second shot was what hit him. However, in reality, it was the same shot that hit JFK. If I remember correctly, JBC even acknowledges that he could be wrong in his book. I will try to find that passage when I get a chance.

I recall seeing an interview when JBC was asked if it was possible that he and JFK were hit on the second shot and he admitted it was possible, but he also said that the best witness - Nellie - didn't believe it because she saw JFK reacting before he (Gov. Connally) was hit.

The interview was for the CBS 1967 4 part special "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report" hosted by Walter Cronkite.  David Von Pein's site has all four parts: http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/05/cbs-news-inquiry-warren-report.html

The part referred to is in Part 2, at the 52 minute mark:

[Charles Collins]

I recall seeing an interview when JBC was asked if it was possible that he and JFK were hit on the second shot and he admitted it was possible, but he also said that the best witness - Nellie - didn't believe it because she saw JFK reacting before he (Gov. Connally) was hit.

The interview was for the CBS 1967 4 part special "A CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report" hosted by Walter Cronkite.  David Von Pein's site has all four parts: http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/05/cbs-news-inquiry-warren-report.html

The part referred to is in Part 2, at the 52 minute mark:

Thank you, that is most likely where I remember seeing Connally say that he thought the SBT is possible. I looked in his book at the chapter titled six seconds in Dallas and didn’t find it there.