A WC Apologist's Stunning Blunder on the Backyard Rifle Photos and the HSCA PEP

[Mitch Todd]

30.4 mm divided by 15.5 mm is 1.96 mm (133-A), and 32.1 mm divided by 15.2 mm is 2.11 mm (133-B). If these are the final b/a ratio for the two photos, or if 2.11 and 1.96 constitute the two numbers in the b/a ratio (2.11/1.96), then the difference is only 0.15. 0.15 mm is only 0.0059 inches, or 59/10000ths of an inch. This would explain why the PEP said the numbers in question proved that the camera moved only "slightly" downward between exposures, that the change in the camera's vertical position was "very small."

[...]

If we read further in the PEP report, we learn that the PEP experts were not certain about the degree of vertical camera movement based only on the vertical measurements.
[...]

Oh, here we go again.

MG: 30.4 mm divided by 15.5 mm is 1.96 mm (133-A), and 32.1 mm divided by 15.2 mm is 2.11 mm (133-B)

No! No! No! No!!! You don't even know Jr High arithmetic.

30.4mm divided by 15.5mm is 1.96, not 1.96mm. Likewise, 32.1mm divided by 15.2mm is 2.11, not 2.11mm.


MG: the PEP experts were not certain about the degree of vertical camera movement based only on the vertical measurement

To do so would require a very precise survey of the backyard. They didn't have that, and the HSCA probably wasn't going to pay for it. The PEP already showed what they needed to when they demonstrated the parallax in the background of CE133a compared to CE133b.

[John Mytton]

Oh, here we go again.

MG: 30.4 mm divided by 15.5 mm is 1.96 mm (133-A), and 32.1 mm divided by 15.2 mm is 2.11 mm (133-B)

No! No! No! No!!! You don't even know Jr High arithmetic.

30.4mm divided by 15.5mm is 1.96, not 1.96mm. Likewise, 32.1mm divided by 15.2mm is 2.11, not 2.11mm.

 

I made a simple example;

5mm goes into 10mm twice.



And 10mm divided into 5 parts means each part equals 2mm.



Griffith applies this level of self-serving logic to every one of his conspiracy theories and, because he is so full of himself, he refuses to accept that his analysis is constantly deeply flawed.

JohnM

[Michael T. Griffith]

Oh, here we go again.

MG: 30.4 mm divided by 15.5 mm is 1.96 mm (133-A), and 32.1 mm divided by 15.2 mm is 2.11 mm (133-B)

No! No! No! No!!! You don't even know Jr High arithmetic. 30.4mm divided by 15.5mm is 1.96, not 1.96mm. 32.1mm divided by 15.2mm is 2.11, not 2.11mm.

Okay, but let's back up and reestablish some basic facts so we don't miss the forest for the trees: Surely you will agree that the 30.4 mm and 32.1 mm numbers are indisputably measurements, and that the difference between them is only 1.7 mm, or only 0.06 inches, or 3/50ths of an inch, right?

The PEP said these numbers were the measurements of "the vertical distance from the center of the . . . gate bolt or latch to the bottom edge of the screen of the screen door in the background" of 133-A and 133-B (6 HSCA 178), and that the measurements were made to calculate "vertical parallax." So clearly the 30.4 mm and 32.1 mm numbers are indisputably the measurements of the vertical distances between the named background objects in 133-A and 133-B, before the scaling distances were factored, right?

And there can be no doubt that the scaling distance for 133-A was found to be 15.5 mm, and that the scaling distance for 133-B was found to be 15.2 mm, right?

Alright, so we're back to the same question I've been trying to get you to answer for days now: Again, all these numbers were introduced as "the results" of the measurements of the vertical distances between the gate bolt and the screen in the backgrounds, and the PEP specified these measurements were done to calculate vertical parallax: "Vertical parallax was calculated by measuring the vertical distance" from the gate bolt to the bottom edge of the screen door "in the background" (6 HSCA 178).

Ok, so where are the measurements for the vertical parallax after the scaling distances were applied? If the answer is that the PEP simply failed to provide them, let's put that on the table.

If the answer is that the scaling distances were applied merely in order to ratio the measurements, that the 30.4 mm and 32.1 mm numbers are the vertical parallax numbers, that 2.11 and 1.96 are ratios, then what does it say about the "very small" vertical camera movement if that movement was determined by these ratios?

This, then, would explain the PEP's conclusion that the camera moved only "slightly" downward between exposures, even though it was supposedly handed back and forth twice between exposures, and even though Oswald would have to put down the rifle and newspapers, take the camera, forward the film, hand the camera back to Marina, pick up the rifle and newspapers, and then resume posing. No one can really believe that photos taken in this manner would have only microscopic differences in the distances between background objects.

McCamy told the HSCA that the measured distances between background objects in the photos were "ratioed against another dimension here" so that "mere scale wouldn't change these things" (2 HSCA 416). Based on this, said McCamy, "we find that there has been some vertical movement also, very small, but it is there" (2 HSCA 416). They had to use computers and high magnification/microscopes to determine the distances between background objects and to determine the degree of camera movement.

MG: the PEP experts were not certain about the degree of vertical camera movement based only on the vertical measurements.

To do so would require a very precise survey of the backyard. They didn't have that, and the HSCA probably wasn't going to pay for it. The PEP already showed what they needed to when they demonstrated the parallax in the background of CE133a compared to CE133b.

What? This is an evasive circular argument. It also misses the main point. The PEP didn't need a survey of the backyard to determine the horizontal parallax. Why would they have needed a survey to determine the vertical parallax? Furthermore, as I noted in my reply, the PEP said they were able to establish the existence of vertical parallax based on their finding that the small black rectangle on the bottom edge of the upper horizontal part of the fence appears more elongated in the vertical direction in 133-A than it does in 133-B.

The main point is that photos taken with a cheap handheld camera that was handed back and forth twice between exposures would show far greater differences in the distances between background objects and would exhibit much more horizontal and vertical camera movement between exposures.

Finally, I again note the damning fact that the PEP did not publish any measurements to determine if the camera moved angularly in any direction, i.e., if there was any pitch, yaw, or roll in the camera’s position between exposures. The PEP’s silence on this issue implies the wildly unlikely assumption that there was no pitch, yaw, or roll in the camera’s position after being handed back and forth twice. This would have required the camera to be held perfectly horizontally and perfectly vertically for each picture, with no tilt in any direction whatsoever between exposures.

Only photos taken by a professional photographer using a high-quality camera and a sturdy tripod will not contain indications of any angular camera movement between exposures, and only photos taken in this manner will contain only tiny differences in the distances between background objects.

[Tommy Shanks]

Let's try again. Maybe Michael Griffith would care to explain why and how Lee Oswald gave George DeMohrenschildt a signed copy of one of the backyard photographs in 1963, if the photos themselves are the obvious forgeries Griffith insists.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Let's try again. Maybe Michael Griffith would care to explain why and how Lee Oswald gave George DeMohrenschildt a signed copy of one of the backyard photographs in 1963, if the photos themselves are the obvious forgeries Griffith insists.

I've answered the argument several times, and this argument has been addressed in numerous books going back to the 1980s. Yet, here you are repeating it as if it is some kind of credible argument. This is another perfect example of the merry-go-around that lone-gunman theorists operate here. You guys just keep repeating debunked arguments over and over and over again, and you either aren't aware of the answers to them or you choose to ignore them.

The picture suspiciously just turned up in the DeMohrenschildts' belongings. Some family members voiced the suspicion that the photo was planted among their belongings. No one ever claimed that Oswald handed the photo to George DeM or to anyone else in the family. The small amount of handwriting on the back of the photo could have been easily forged, and the date is written in a format that Oswald never, ever, ever used.

Now, let's try again: How about if you explain how a cheap, top-view, side-lever-activated handheld camera that was allegedly handed back and forth twice between exposures could have produced photos (1) that have such tiny differences in the distances between background objects that they could only be measured photogrammetrically with the aid of computers and microscopes, (2) that show the horizontal and vertical camera movement between exposures was "slight" and "very small," and (3) that allegedly show there was not the slightest tilt/angular movement in the camera's position (i.e., no yaw, pitch, or roll whatsoever) between exposures?

And, how about you find me a single photo with a watermark whose edge forms a virtually straight line across the chin? I ask because the PEP claimed that the obvious retouching line across the backyard figure's chin is really just the edge of a watermark, a nonsensical proposition that was rejected by every photographic expert I interviewed. The experts I interviewed had over 100 years of combined experience in photography, and every one of them said they had never seen a watermark with an edge that formed a nearly straight line.

Speaking of the backyard figure's chin, how about you explain why the PEP omitted the Penrose measurements for the chin, even though the chin had long been identified as a key indicator of forgery?

And, of course, how about you explain why no one has yet been able to duplicate the impossible variant shadows seen in the backyard photos? Do you know what happened when the PEP tried to duplicate just the variant nose shadow with a plastic model of a head? They had to tilt and rotate the model's head so the face was no longer looking at the camera, and then they had to shift the camera's position just to reacquire a frontal view of the face. When Congressman Fithian called McCamy on this unrealistic manipulation, PEP member McCamy conceded that "a number of assumptions" would be necessary to "interpret the Oswald photograph" from the reenactment. Uh, yeah, that's putting it mildly.

Have you even read my article yet?

The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JiOqKWO-XJSO-z_lk6bSgUBXq_vD1yZs/view

[Tommy Shanks]

"Harrison Livingstone was one of the most serious, thorough researchers in the research community."

This quote from Michael Griffith should tell you everything you need to know. In actual fact, Livingstone was complicit in selling stolen JFK autopsy photos to tabloids and in his books, printing the most outlandish and unsupported conspiracy theories in said books and at one point even resorted to quoting members of a pre-Internet JFK assassination forum on the network Prodigy as if they somehow lent credence to his lunatic ramblings.

[Michael T. Griffith]

We continue to see lone-gunman theorists cite the writing on the back of the DeMohrenschildt copy of the backyard rifle photos as evidence against Oswald, while saying nothing about the problematic and suspicious nature of this photo and its backside writing, even though these issues have been raised by skeptics for decades. Here is some of what investigative journalist Anthony Summers wrote about the DeM photo over two decades ago in his best-selling book Not in Your Lifetime:

In 1967, more than three years after the Kennedy assassination, George de Mohrenschildt would say he had come upon fresh and “very interesting information.” While sorting luggage retrieved from storage, he said, he had come across another copy of the by then famous photograph of Oswald holding his guns and leftist magazines. On the back of this copy of the photograph there were two inscriptions.

One, which Assassinations Committee examiners found to be in Oswald’s handwriting, read, “To my friend George from Lee Oswald,” along with a date—“5/IV/63.” Given the time frame involved, this must refer to 5 April 1963, though it is written not in the order Americans write the date—month/day/year—but day first, European-style. Nor would Americans use the Roman numeral IV for the numeral 4. A check of the dozens of letters and documents written by Oswald produces not one example of a date written like the one on the back of the photograph.

The second inscription, which is written in Russian Cyrillic script, translates as “Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha!!!” (see Photo 17). Expert testimony to the Assassinations Committee was that the ironic slogan—clearly directed at Oswald—had been written and then rewritten in pencil—but not, document examiners said, by either Oswald, Marina, or George de Mohrenschildt. Nor, by implication, by Jeanne—whose parents had been Russian—since the experts said it was written by someone unfamiliar with Cyrillic script. (pp. 192-193)

So the damning statement "Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha!" was not written by George or Jeanne DeMohrenschildt, nor by Marina, nor by Oswald himself, and was written by someone who was unfamiliar with Russian Cyrillic script! Well, now, how about that?! Who, then, could have written that statement, which has been endlessly cited by WC apologists as evidence against Oswald in the Walker shooting?

When the HSCA asked Marina if she recognized the handwriting of the statement, she said it looked like it was written by a foreigner who was trying to copy Russian:

No, I don't. That is what I was discussing with my lawyer. We tried to find out if that was written by me. I mean as I told him, that my handwriting does change a few times a day. I do not write same way, you know, in the morning and maybe at night, so it is hard for me to claim even my own handwriting, but you have certain way of writing, habit of writing certain letters, so I know for sure that I could not, I do not write certain letter that way. So at first I thought it was maybe my handwriting, but after I examine it, I know it is not. . . .

This letter "ha," in the first word after "o," this is something like maybe foreigner would try to write it, you know, to copy Russian language.(2 HSCA 242-243)

Here's a real kicker: Marina said the inscription sounded like something she would write. In fact, she used the phrase "ha-ha" in the Russian handwritten narrative of her life story. But, even a layman looking at the handwriting of the two uses of the phrase can see that the handwriting of the "ha-ha-ha!" on the DeM photo is different from Marina's handwriting.

Now, gee, who would have known that Marina used that phrase, and who would have written that phrase on the back of a strangely high-quality copy of 133-A and then put it in the DeMohrenschildts' belongings?

Obviously, the small amount of handwriting identified as Oswald's on the back of the photo could have been easily forged, which would, among other things, explain (1) the use of a date format that Oswald never used, and (2) the fact that the damning "hunter of fascists" statement was not written by Oswald or Marina, nor by either of the DeMohrenschildts.

This is a good example of the fact that when you look below the surface of the case against Oswald, time and time again you find that the "evidence" is riddled with problems and inconsistencies.

Finally, at the risk of seeming to kick an already deceased horse, in this case the absurd claim that the backyard photos contain "massive parallax," allow me to briefly note some of the microscopic differences in the distances between background objects as determined by the PEP's measurements to determine horizontal parallax.

The “a” distance was the distance from the left edge of the foreground post to the left edge of the picket to the left of it in 133-A and 133-B, and it was measured at three levels.

LOWER LEVEL
133-A:   6.8 mm
133-B:   6.0 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.8 mm, or 0.03 inches, or 3/100ths of an inch.

MIDDLE LEVEL
133-A:   6.5 mm
133-B:   6.4 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.1 mm, 0.003 inches, or 3/1000ths of an inch.

UPPER LEVEL
133-A:   7.0 mm
133-B:   5.9 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 1.1 mm/0.04 inches or 1/25th of an inch. This was the largest of the differences in the horizontal parallax measurements. The naked eye cannot a detect a difference of 1.1 mm/0.04 inches in the distances between background objects. To detect a difference of just 1/25th of an inch in the distances between the same objects in two photos, a person would need the aid of high magnification or a microscope.

Let's continue by looking at the measurements of the "b" distance in 133-A and 133-B, and this distance, too, was measured at three levels. The "b" distance was the distance from the right edge of the foreground post to the right edge of the picket to the right of it.

LOWER LEVEL
133-A:   9.0 mm
133-B:   9.5 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.5 mm, 0.019 inches, or 19/1000ths of an inch.
 
MIDDLE LEVEL
133-A:   9.3 mm
133-B:   10.0 mm (6 HSCA 178)

That's a difference of just 0.7 mm, 0.027 inches, or 27/1000ths of an inch.

It is no wonder that the PEP said they found that the camera moved only "slightly" to the left between exposures. And, mind you, we're talking about photos that were supposedly taken with a cheap top-view, side-lever-activated camera that was allegedly handed back and forth twice between exposures.

The odds are astronomically remote, in reality zero, that the camera's horizontal position would have changed only slightly after being handed back and forth twice, especially since Oswald would have had to put down the rifle, put down the newspapers, take the camera, forward the film, hand the camera back to Marina, pick up the rifle and the newspapers, and then resume posing--again, twice. 

And this is not to mention that the PEP remained revealingly silent about the camera's angular movement between exposures, i.e., pitch, yaw, and roll. We are left to infer the wildly implausible proposition that the camera did not tilt in the slightest degree between exposures.