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

[Michael T. Griffith]

There's no point arguing with Griffith. He believes every long-debunked conspiracy theory and appears immune to logic except when calling out the lies of Fletcher Prouty. Never mind that Marina admitted to taking the backyard photos, that Oswald gave a copy of one of them to George DeMohrenschildt, etc. In conspiracy land, why should any of that matter?

Once again you post claims that are years behind the information curve and prove that you've read nothing but pro-WC material.

First off, I note that you said nothing about the impossibly tiny differences in the distances between background objects in the photos, which is the focus of the thread.

Now, let's take a look at your claims.

Marina only "admitted" to taking the backyard pictures after she was held for weeks by the Secret Service and threatened with deportation. She later said she did not take the backyard rifle photos.

Oswald did not give a copy of one of the backyard rifle photos to DeMohrenschildt. The DeMohrenschildt family believed the photo was planted in their belongings. They never said Oswald gave it to them.

The date on the back of the photo, supposedly written by Oswald, was in a format that he never, ever used.

Are you aware of any of the other problems with the 133-A DeMohrenschildt photo? I discuss them in my article on the backyard photos, which apparently you still haven't bothered to read.

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

Are you aware of the huge problems with the provenance of the backyard rifle photos? I'm guessing the answer is No.

I'm actually surprised that you guys are siding with Mytton after he so utterly discredited himself on the HSCA PEP's parallax measurements of the backyard rifle photos. He was so unbelievable clueless that he missed the whole point of the measurements and failed to do basic subtraction to realize the microscopic differences in the distances between the background objects revealed by the measurements. Even worse, in his reply in this thread he has again doubled down on his embarrassing lack of knowledge and distortion of the known facts. He can't seem to process that the PEP members themselves admitted that the differences are "very small," yet he is still claiming they are large. I would think you guys, for your own credibility, would ditch someone who has so thoroughly discredited himself on the backyard photos.

Anyway, here are some articles you should read if you want to know the full story about the backyard rifle photos:

A highly technical analysis by David Josephs of the indications of forgery in the backyard photos, along with a detailed look at their problem-riddled provenance
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-backyard-photographs

Two less-technical articles on the indications of forgery in the backyard photos and the problems with the photos' origins
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-parts-1-3

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-part-4

[John Mytton]

Once again you post claims that are years behind the information curve and prove that you've read nothing but pro-WC material.

First off, I note that you said nothing about the impossibly tiny differences in the distances between background objects in the photos, which is the focus of the thread.

Now, let's take a look at your claims.

Marina only "admitted" to taking the backyard pictures after she was held for weeks by the Secret Service and threatened with deportation. She later said she did not take the backyard rifle photos.

Oswald did not give a copy of one of the backyard rifle photos to DeMohrenschildt. The DeMohrenschildt family believed the photo was planted in their belongings. They never said Oswald gave it to them.

The date on the back of the photo, supposedly written by Oswald, was in a format that he never, ever used.

Are you aware of any of the other problems with the 133-A DeMohrenschildt photo? I discuss them in my article on the backyard photos, which apparently you still haven't bothered to read.

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

Are you aware of the huge problems with the provenance of the backyard rifle photos? I'm guessing the answer is No.

I'm actually surprised that you guys are siding with Mytton after he so utterly discredited himself on the HSCA PEP's parallax measurements of the backyard rifle photos. He was so unbelievable clueless that he missed the whole point of the measurements and failed to do basic subtraction to realize the microscopic differences in the distances between the background objects revealed by the measurements. Even worse, in his reply in this thread he has again doubled down on his embarrassing lack of knowledge and distortion of the known facts. He can't seem to process that the PEP members themselves admitted that the differences are "very small," yet he is still claiming they are large. I would think you guys, for your own credibility, would ditch someone who has so thoroughly discredited himself on the backyard photos.

Anyway, here are some articles you should read if you want to know the full story about the backyard rifle photos:

A highly technical analysis by David Josephs of the indications of forgery in the backyard photos, along with a detailed look at their problem-riddled provenance
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-backyard-photographs

Two less-technical articles on the indications of forgery in the backyard photos and the problems with the photos' origins
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-parts-1-3

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-part-4

I'm actually surprised that you guys are siding with Mytton after he so utterly discredited himself on the HSCA PEP's parallax measurements of the backyard rifle photos.

Maybe, it's because that those siding with me can actually comprehend the following comparison, I simply took the same two photos(CE133A and CE133B) that the HSCA compared and then demonstrated that the difference between the gate latch and the rear screen door is relatively far in excess of 1mm, it's not exactly rocket science.



JohnM

[John Mytton]

Oh, "laughable," huh? That's odd, because former Scotland Yard photographic expert Malcolm Thompson was convinced that the backyard figure's chin is different than Oswald's chin. Your cherry-picked photos ignore other photos that show an obvious difference in the chins.

Yes laughable!
I took two images with similar overhead lighting and directly compared them to each other and proved beyond all doubt that the square chin is caused by the resulting shadow.
I redid my previous GIF to include the actual backyard photo and the similarity is conclusive.



By the way, the popular conspiracy theory that the bottom of Oswald's chin was removed and the upper portion of Oswald's face was composited on to someone else's chin is easily disproven by microscopically examining the consistent original grain structure, because a composite photo would be detectable due to the mismatch of the photo grain.



JohnM

[Michael T. Griffith]

Maybe, it's because that those siding with me can actually comprehend the following comparison, I simply took the same two photos (CE133A and CE133B) that the HSCA compared and then demonstrated that the difference between the gate latch and the rear screen door is relatively far in excess of 1mm, it's not exactly rocket science.

LOL! You're still ignoring the HSCA PEP's gate-bolt-to-screen parallax measurements! You're right: It's not exactly rocket science--it's a matter of doing basic subtraction! But your goofy graphic simply ignores the parallax measurements, and then you compound your blunder by claiming that the difference is "far in excess of 1 mm." Uh, no, it is not.

Let's do the math, shall we? How about math, instead of your ridiculous graphical fabrications? Here are the parallax measurements, straight from the PEP report:

133A: gate bolt to screen =30.4 mm. scaling; dist.=15.5 mm
30.4/15.5=1.96
133B: gate bolt to screen=32.1 mm, scaling dist.=15.2 mm
32.1/15.2=2.11 (6 HSCA 177-180)

Okay, so the 133B measurement, i.e., the larger of the two, is 2.11 mm, and the 133A measurement, the smaller number, is 1.96 mm.

Alright, so what is 2.11 mm minus 1.96 mm? Answer: 0.15 mm

So, no, the gate-bolt-to-screen difference between 133A and 133B is not "far in excess of 1 mm." It is only 0.15 mm. 0.15 mm is 85% smaller than 1 mm. It is only 0.005905512 inches. Expressed as a fraction, this microscopic difference is 59/10000ths of an inch. You need a micrometer just to measure such a tiny distance. It cannot be measured or discerned with the naked eye.

This is twice now that you've committed this same amazing blunder of failing to do basic subtraction to get the difference between the two measurements. Incredible.

Yes laughable! I took two images with similar overhead lighting and directly compared them to each other and proved beyond all doubt that the square chin is caused by the resulting shadow. I redid my previous GIF to include the actual backyard photo and the similarity is conclusive.

I don't know how in the world anyone takes you and your zany graphics seriously. You don't even know what your own side's experts have claimed on this issue, much less what skeptical experts have said. FYI, the HSCA PEP experts claimed that the backyard figure's chin "vanishes in shadow." They acknowledged that the chin in the backyard photos looks different than the chin in undisputed Oswald photos, but they said this was because the bottom part of the backyard figure's chin is concealed by shadows.

Do you know who Malcolm Thompson was? He ran the Police Forensic Science Laboratory Identification Bureau of Scotland Yard for 25 years. He was also a president of the Evidence Photographers International Council and a fellow of the Institute of Incorporated Photographers, the Royal Photographic Society, and the Institute of Professional Investigators.   Here's what he said about the backyard figure's chin vs. Oswald's chin:

I have seen photographs of Oswald and his chin is not square.
He has a rounded chin. Having said that, the subject in this picture has a square
chin but again it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to appreciate that
from the upper lip to the top of the head is Oswald and one can only conclude
that Oswald's head has been stuck on to a chin, not being Oswald's chin.

And Thompson didn't buy the HSCA PEP's explanation for the chin difference, by the way.

By the way, the popular conspiracy theory that the bottom of Oswald's chin was removed and the upper portion of Oswald's face was composited on to someone else's chin is easily disproven by microscopically examining the consistent original grain structure, because a composite photo would be detectable due to the mismatch of the photo grain. JohnM

Oh, really? "Easily detectable," hey? Are you sure about that?

Once again you show you don't know what you're talking about. As former NSA photographic expert Brian Mee explained to me, and as Malcolm Thompson noted, you could thwart any grain-structure analysis by making a photocopy of the composites. The compositing of one person's chin onto the image of another person's face would be undetectable in a photocopy. Thompson made the point that even a computer analysis would likely be unable to detect forgery in photocopied composites.

Furthermore, how do you explain the obvious line that runs across the backyard figure's chin? It is a nearly straight line for most of its length. It begins on one side of the neck, crosses the chin, and ends on the other side of the neck. The PEP tried to explain it away with the claim that it was the edge of a watermark. Every photographic expert I interviewed rejected that explanation, noting they had never seen a watermark with an edge that was virtually straight.

You know, if I were a WC apologist, and I saw another WC apologist making the kinds of horrendous gaffes that you're making, I would steer clear of your threads, not to mention your arguments. But I've noticed that you guys, much like members of a cult, tend to stand by each other no matter how embarrassingly bad your arguments are and no matter how thoroughly you get refuted.

[John Mytton]

Do you know who Malcolm Thompson was?

What, the same Malcom Thompson who after thoroughly embarrassing himself with his half-assed lame examination of the backyard photos was forced to retract his amateurish Griffithesque analysis and deferred to the superior HSCA analysis? That Malcom Thompson? Hahaha!

Malcolm Thomson the British forensic photography expert who publicly questioned the authenticity of the backyard picture was shown a preliminary summary of the panel's report and asked to comment. He was also offered an opportunity to appear before the committee to express his views.  After studying the reports Thomson deferred to the panel's conclusions that the photographs revealed no evidence of fakery He noted the thoroughness of the panel's investigation and emphasized that his earlier comments were based upon examination of copies of the photographs rather than the original material.
https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol6/pdf/HSCA_Vol6_4B1_Backyard.pdf

Try again Griffith!

JohnM

[John Mytton]

My previous graphic showing the vertical parallax between CE133a and CE133B demonstrated a massive difference between the gate latch and the rear screen door and definitively proved that the two backgrounds were taken from two distinctly different positions and thus rules out a common background with Oswald pasted in.



Now let's examine the horizontal parallax. Griffith always shows the difference in measurements but doesn't show where these differences originated from? Well dear reader that will become very clear.
In the following extract from the HSCA Photographic Panel(PP) we can see that for measurement "a" the PP measured the distance from the "left edge of the foreground post to the left edge of the picket to the left of it" and the lower measurement in CE133A came to 6.8mm, and 6.8mm is about half the width of your pinky finger or a little over a quarter of an inch!!



For reference, here is CE133A and only a charlatan would suggest that the real world distance from the camera perspective, measured from the left edge of the post to the left edge of the picket fence is 6.8mm, so where does this lead us? The HSCA measurements came from a much smaller photo and when scaled to the actual objects size, the measurements obviously scale upwards as well, which makes Griffiths microscopic movement allegation truly delusional.



So in conclusion Oswald's camera moved in all axis, up and down, left and right and also a slight rotation, just as one would expect to see in the real world.

Just what Griffith is actually alleging is a bit of a mystery, even if his initial misunderstanding was somehow correct there is still camera movement therefore the backgrounds by definition are different which makes a common background a non starter and this also rules out a stationary tripod taking all three photos.

Here are the full frame photos from Oswald's camera, Marina's technique got better as she progressively took the photos, in 133B she cut off Oswald's feet and later in 133A she centred Oswald and captured his whole body and we know there is a time span between photos because of the movement of the shadows on the background objects, like the pair of power cable shadows on the foreground post. Marina has never denied taking the backyard photos and Marina testified that she was hanging up diapers and not bouncing all over the backyard, so as Oswald advanced the film for her while she was standing in roughly the same spot, the amount of parallax movement within the photos is totally consistent with the way the photos were taken.
And finally, for the critics of the parallax shifting between photos, have any of you actually replicated the shots under similar circumstances? Because your guesses and speculation about what your biased mind thinks should have happened is a waste of everyone's time.



Mr. RANKIN. How did it occur? Did he come to you and ask you to take the picture?
Mrs. OSWALD. I was hanging up diapers, and he came up to me with the rifle and l was even a little scared, and he gave me the camera and asked me to press a certain button.

JohnM

[Michael T. Griffith]

My previous graphic showing the vertical parallax between CE133a and CE133B demonstrated a massive difference between the gate latch and the rear screen door and definitively proved that the two backgrounds were taken from two distinctly different positions and thus rules out a common background with Oswald pasted in.

Now let's examine the horizontal parallax. Griffith always shows the difference in measurements but doesn't show where these differences originated from? Well dear reader that will become very clear.

In the following extract from the HSCA Photographic Panel(PP) we can see that for measurement "a" the PP measured the distance from the "left edge of the foreground post to the left edge of the picket to the left of it" and the lower measurement in CE133A came to 6.8mm, and 6.8mm is about half the width of your pinky finger or a little over a quarter of an inch!!

For reference, here is CE133A and only a charlatan would suggest that the real world distance from the camera perspective, measured from the left edge of the post to the left edge of the picket fence is 6.8mm, so where does this lead us? The HSCA measurements came from a much smaller photo and when scaled to the actual objects size, the measurements obviously scale upwards as well, which makes Griffiths microscopic movement allegation truly delusional.

So in conclusion Oswald's camera moved in all axis, up and down, left and right and also a slight rotation, just as one would expect to see in the real world.

Just what Griffith is actually alleging is a bit of a mystery, even if his initial misunderstanding was somehow correct there is still camera movement therefore the backgrounds by definition are different which makes a common background a non starter and this also rules out a stationary tripod taking all three photos.

Here are the full frame photos from Oswald's camera, Marina's technique got better as she progressively took the photos, in 133B she cut off Oswald's feet and later in 133A she centred Oswald and captured his whole body and we know there is a time span between photos because of the movement of the shadows on the background objects, like the pair of power cable shadows on the foreground post. Marina has never denied taking the backyard photos and Marina testified that she was hanging up diapers and not bouncing all over the backyard, so as Oswald advanced the film for her while she was standing in roughly the same spot, the amount of parallax movement within the photos is totally consistent with the way the photos were taken.
And finally, for the critics of the parallax shifting between photos, have any of you actually replicated the shots under similar circumstances? Because your guesses and speculation about what your biased mind thinks should have happened is a waste of everyone's time.

Mr. RANKIN. How did it occur? Did he come to you and ask you to take the picture?
Mrs. OSWALD. I was hanging up diapers, and he came up to me with the rifle and l was even a little scared, and he gave me the camera and asked me to press a certain button.

JohnM

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Even when you are demonstrably, self-evidently wrong, mathematically wrong, you won't admit it, and then you continue to post arguments that you must know are misleading and inaccurate. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel and repeat all the facts I've presented in previous replies, facts that you keep dancing around, but I'll quickly recap the essential facts:

-- The HSCA photographic experts said the parallax measurements found that the differences between objects in the background were "VERY SMALL." But you say they're "massive."

-- The HSCA photographic experts also admitted that the "VERY SMALL" differences proved that the camera moved only "SLIGHTLY" between exposures, a practical impossibility given the way these photos were allegedly taken (cheap camera with a top-view view finder and a side lever for a button handed back and forth so Oswald could forward the film).

-- 133-A DeM is large, high-quality photo and was clearly made from a different negative than 133-A. Some of the other prints made were 5 x 9. So we're not talking about "tiny photographs."
And, again, the HSCA experts acknowledged that the differences between the background objects in photos are "VERY SMALL."

Every photographic expert I interviewed said such tiny differences between background objects would be difficult to achieve with photos taken by a professional photographer using a modern camera. Mr. Mee said the differences should have been much greater if the photos had been taken in the manner claimed by the WC.

-- Before she was threatened with deportation, Marina Oswald repeatedly said she never saw Oswald carrying or holding a rifle. And, years later, no longer under threat deportation, she said she did not take the backyard rifle photos.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Even when you are demonstrably, self-evidently wrong, mathematically wrong, you won't admit it, and then you continue to post arguments that you must know are misleading and inaccurate. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel and repeat all the facts I've presented in previous replies, facts that you keep dancing around, but I'll quickly recap the essential facts:

-- The HSCA photographic experts said the parallax measurements found that the differences between objects in the background were "VERY SMALL." But you say they're "massive."

-- The HSCA photographic experts also admitted that the "VERY SMALL" differences proved that the camera moved only "SLIGHTLY" between exposures, a practical impossibility given the way these photos were allegedly taken (cheap camera with a top-view view finder and a side lever for a button handed back and forth so Oswald could forward the film).

-- 133-A DeM is large, high-quality photo and was clearly made from a different negative than 133-A. Some of the other prints made were 5 x 9. So we're not talking about "tiny photographs."
And, again, the HSCA experts acknowledged that the differences between the background objects in photos are "VERY SMALL."

Every photographic expert I interviewed said such tiny differences between background objects would be difficult to achieve with photos taken by a professional photographer using a modern camera. Mr. Mee said the differences should have been much greater if the photos had been taken in the manner claimed by the WC.

-- Before she was threatened with deportation, Marina Oswald repeatedly said she never saw Oswald carrying or holding a rifle. And, years later, no longer under threat deportation, she said she did not take the backyard rifle photos.

I should add that you, John Mytton, have compounded your blunder because you apparently have not realized that the parallax measurements were already adjusted for scale to take into account the differences in magnification, which is why the scaling distances were part of the calculations to determine the differences in distance between objects. We know this because the HSCA PEP said this in fairly plain English in their report:

To establish scale, that is to take into account differences in
magnification, these measurements were related to the distance
from the left edge of one picket to the left edge of the next
measured in a horizontal direction This scaling distance was
measured on the two center pickets of the four that appear to
constitute the gate at the level of the lower edge of the top
horizontal member. (6 H 178-179)

Moreover, we see in the PEP's calculations for the gate-bolt-to-screen distances that each measured distance was divided by the scaling distance. Let's see the calculations as they appear in the HSCA PEP's report:

133A gate bolt to screen=30.4 mm. scaling dist. =15.5mm
30.4/15.5=1.96
133B gate bolt to screen=32.1 mm. scaling dist. =15.2 mm
32.1/15.2=2.11 (6 HSCA 179)

So the difference in the 133-A and 133-B gate-bolt-to-screen distances, with the scaling distance already factored in, is 0.15 mm, a microscopic distance, a distance that cannot be discerned or measured with the naked eye. Humm, could this be why the PEP said they found "VERY SMALL" differences in the distances between background objects in the photos?

Furthermore, I mention in my article, "The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos," that the calculations that determined the difference in the 133-A and 133-B gate-bolt-to-screen distances included adjustment for scaling distance:

Gate bolt to screen adjusted for scaling distance: 0.15 mm
(1.96 mm in 133-A vs. 2.11 mm in 133-B) (p. 10)

And right below the above statement, I then quote the calculations as they appear in the HSCA PEP's report. But somehow you missed this. Of course, I suspect you either didn't my article or only briefly skimmed over it. That seems to be the norm for you folks.

Even though your blunder has been exposed beyond any rational denial, I suspect you will not admit your error. But, perhaps, just perhaps, you will stop making the ridiculous claim that there are "massive" differences in the distances between the background objects in the photos.