A History of the Single-Bullet Theory Follies

[Tim Nickerson]

Oh, well, that settles it! Frazier said that CE 399, a virtually undeformed bullet, could have made the "very irregular tear," shaped like an H, 1.5 inches high, 1.75 inches wide on the right side of the H, 1.25 inches on the left side of the H, with a 1-inch wide crossbar tear connecting the sides of the H, so it must be true--never mind that the exit hole in Connally's coat was only 0.5 inches high (i.e., just half an inch high) and 0.38 inches wide and was nearly perfectly circular!

Did you stop to think about this before you posted it? Why not try thinking for yourself instead of blindly accepting every factoid the FBI peddled?

Now think, just think: How could the same bullet that tore a 1.5-inch x 1.75-inch/1.25-inch H-shaped hole in the shirt have then torn a hole in the coat that was 200% smaller in height and width than the hole in the shirt? How would that work?

Look at these high-quality, close-up photos of the holes in Connally's coat and shirt:

https://share.google/meleOhNbOCbAGaReB

What exactly are you saying? That the hole in the jacket and the hole in the shirt were not caused by the same object? That is what you're saying, even though you don't realize it.

I notice you once again declined to face the fact that we know that no bullet exited the shirt slits because there was no hole in the tie and there is no way a bullet exiting the slits could have magically weaved around the body of the knot and then nicked the top of the knot near the left edge. Ignoring this hard physical evidence will not make it go away.

The bullet never passed through the necktie. Nor did it magically weaved around the body of the knot. It grazed the left side of the knot, leaving a nick in it.

[Lance Payette]

My fellow CTers, we can't just keep saying the SBT is nonsense. We know it's nonsense, of course, notwithstanding the umpteen medical and forensic experts who think it isn't, but still: we do have to have our own theory of CE 399, do we not? I mean, there it is, daring us to explain it. So, let's collectively don our tinfoil propellor beanies and attempt to explain it, OK?

1. It can't be the bullet that barely penetrated JFK's back and fell out to be discovered in the back seat by Landis and/or on a stretcher at Parkland by Tomlinson, can it? CE 399 has suffered some serious damage to its fanny, so it can't have simply penetrated an inch or two - on its fanny, no less - and dropped out, can it?

2. Do we think it went through JFK's back and throat and then did ... well, what? Hit the windshield frame, perhaps? Would this scenario account for its curious condition and curious provenance? Think, people.

3. We don't think it caused all of Connally's wounds, do we? If we think that, aren't we splitting hairs in rejecting the SBT? I mean, if it inflicted all of JBC's wounds, the SBT isn't much of a stretch - is it?

4. Was it a post-assassination plant? How would that have worked - was it prepared in advance or in the short time before it was discovered by Landis and/or Tomlinson? How and why would anyone have done that? What was the necessity for a bullet like CE 399 at all? What does it add to the case against the patsy? Why did the conspirators plant such an oddly pristine bullet that would inevitably raise so many questions? Think, people.

I have seen all of the foregoing scenarios suggested. Our heroes, Gary Aguilar and Tink Thompson of "The Magic Bullet: Even More Magic Than We Knew" fame, seem to favor the plant hypothesis - which, I must confess, seems to me the most implausible of all. If a gun were held to my head (a poor choice of words indeed), I think I'd opt for #1. Aren't we kind of painted into the corner of #4 because none of the other choices really works? Am I missing a choice #5?

Help me out here, my fellow beanie wearers. I eschew all the technical stuff and simply like to go to bed at night with some level of confidence that what we believe actually makes sense. What do we believe about CE 399 that actually makes sense?

[Michael T. Griffith]

My fellow CTers, we can't just keep saying the SBT is nonsense. We know it's nonsense, of course, notwithstanding the umpteen medical and forensic experts who think it isn't, but still: we do have to have our own theory of CE 399, do we not? I mean, there it is, daring us to explain it. So, let's collectively don our tinfoil propellor beanies and attempt to explain it, OK? [SNIP]

PRIVATE MEMO FOR FELLOW LONE-GUNMAN THEORISTS, NOT TO BE POSTED ON A PUBLIC FORUM

The above post by our fellow WC believer, Lance Payette, is a helpful model to follow in order to avoid facing inexplicable facts that we just have to trust will one day be explained. Of course, I am mainly referring to the fact that JFK's tie had no hole through it, that the tie knot was undeniably centered on the collar band, that the front shirt slits had no fabric missing and no metallic traces around them, and that the nick on the tie knot was only a few millimeters deep and was located on the upper surface of the knot. I know that to a rational mind these facts seem to self-evidently destroy our beloved SBT, since it seems undeniable that any bullet exiting the slits could not have avoided tearing through the tie, but, again, we must have faith that one day these facts will be explained.

I also recommend Lance's fine reply because it pretends that those who reject the SBT must be wearing "tinfoil propellor beanies," which diverts attention away from the fact that our theory of the shooting is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world, and that even three members of the WC rejected our beloved SBT.

Now, I realize that Lance failed to acknowledge that a number of forensic, ballistic, scientific, and medical experts have rejected the SBT. I also realize that Lance failed to mention the stark contradictions between the first version of the SBT (posited by the WC and our beloved Dr. John Lattimer), the HSCA's version of the SBT, and the current Z224-lapel-flip version of the SBT. When pesky SBT doubters point out these facts, let us trot out Lance's line about tinfoil propellor beanies.

In addition, Lance has the right idea when he skillfully falls back on the tactic of pretending that SBT doubters must provide an alternative explanation that we find acceptable before we should feel any obligation to explain the contradictions in our versions of the SBT. After all, yes, our own experts have admitted that JFK's Z225 reaction proves he was hit by no later than Z221, but maybe one day science will discover that our current knowledge of human reaction times, though established by numerous scientific tests, is inaccurate--maybe one day science will discover that humans can react 300% more rapidly than all scientists now say they can!

Please note how Lance adroitly avoided dealing with the fact that Connally himself, the man who actually experienced the wounding, insisted he was not hit before Z229. Never mind that he reached this conclusion after studying high-quality prints of the Zapruder frames under high magnification for Life magazine. Connally was not a forensic expert. Just because he knew himself better than anyone else and was the one who felt the bullet's impact does not mean we have to accept his rejection of the idea that he was hit before Z229. After all, he didn't know about the Z224 lapel flip, and we must have faith that a lapel can flip up and down in 55 milliseconds (1/18th of second). Surely this happens all the time, or at least some of the time.

I also direct your attention to Lance's commendable avoidance of the fact that Connally's back wound was the same width as JFK's head wound (1.5 cm), which might seem to an unbiased and unindoctrinated observer to prove that the bullet was not tumbling but struck the back at a slightly horizontal angle. We know that the bullet must have struck the rib bone sideways and then hit the wrist bone sideways, in order to explain how CE 399's nose emerged undamaged. Dr. Robert Shaw must have somehow, someway been mistaken when he said the bullet created only a narrow wound path through Connally's chest. After all, even doctors make mistakes sometimes.

Additionally, I can't speak highly enough of Lance's wise avoidance of the confusing, baffling, mysterious subject of the SBT wound ballistics tests. Allow me to suggest that perhaps our brother Tom Graves goes a bit too far when he argues that wound ballistics tests are worthless unless they exactly duplicate the original bullet's trajectory, speed, and impact angle. Making that argument might make us look unscientific and amateurish, not to mention desperate. Lance's approach of simply ignoring the wound ballistics tests seems a safer and wiser course of action.

When pesky SBT doubters point out that no bullet in any wound ballistics test has emerged looking like CE 399 after doing even half of its alleged damage, and that even bullets merely fired into cotton wadding emerged with the same or greater deformation as CE 399, I again recommend reciting Lance's line about tinfoil propellor beanies.

Another point worthy of commendation is Lance's avoidance of the 2023 Knott Laboratory SBT trajectory analysis, coupled with his avoidance of the substantial contradictions between the pro-SBT trajectory analyses. The uninitiated don't need to know that the Knott Lab analysis was the most sophisticated SBT trajectory study ever done. We would prefer that they never even learn of its existence. It will only confuse them.

Yes, if the Knott study had not found the SBT to be impossible but had endorsed it, we would be noting that Knott Lab is a respected forensic engineering reconstruction firm and that its SBT analysis was the first study that included a digital replica of Dealey Plaza based on a laser scan of the plaza and millions of data points. But, somehow the Knott scientists reached the tinfoil-hat conclusion that the SBT is impossible. Go figure. We know better.

I suggest picking one of the post-2007 pro-SBT trajectory studies and not mentioning any of the others. If you choose Dale Myers' SBT study, please be sure not to mention Robert Harris's response to it. Plus, to avoid confusing the uninitiated, I would not cite Myers' study as a response to the Knott Lab study, just in case mentioning the Knott analysis leads some folks to Google more information about the Knott analysis. 

Needless to say, Lance's summary dismissal of the bizarre notion that CE 399 was planted is the way to go. We all know that federal agents and local police never plant evidence, never alter evidence, and never fabricate evidence. I feel sorry for those who think they live in a world where government personnel do such things to cover up wrongdoing. We, the enlightened, know better.

Now, mind you, if any pesky WC critics start trotting out cases where federal and/or local law enforcement personnel have been caught planting, altering, or faking evidence, label those critics as anti-American and recite Lance's line about tinfoil propellor beanies. Just because there may be hundreds of cases where government personnel have faked/altered/planted evidence does not mean we should think for one second that CE 399 was planted. This just could not have happened.

Finally, I stress that this memo is to be kept private and not shared in a public forum. The uninitiated might come away thinking that we are knowingly deluding ourselves, that we resemble a cult that refuses to face hard facts that refute our position. But this is only how it looks to those who have not bravely embraced our enlightened theory of the shooting. Remember, good friends, 1/4 to 1/3 of the Western world agrees with us.