Undeniable Proof of Fraud: The Impossible JFK Autopsy Brain Photos

[Michael T. Griffith]

The JFK autopsy brain photos are among the most powerful, undeniable evidences of fraud in the JFK autopsy materials. Not realizing the enormous implications of his admission, Dr. Michael Baden, the chairman of the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel (FPP), revealed to WC apologist Vincent Bugliosi that the autopsy brain photos show only 1-2 ounces of brain matter missing. However, we know that bits of JFK's brain were blown onto 16 surfaces, that the skull x-rays show a large amount of missing brain tissue, and that numerous witnesses said a substantial portion of JFK's brain was missing.

In 1975, Dr. Fred Hodges, then the chief of neuro-radiology at the John Hopkins medical school, was asked to examine the JFK autopsy materials for the Rockefeller Commission. Among other things, he noted in his report that a "goodly portion" of the right brain was "missing":
         
AP and two lateral views show. . . . A goodly portion of the right brain is apparently missing and the anterior part of the right cranial cavity contains air. ("Kennedy-Connally Shooting," report prepared for the Rockefeller Commission, April 1975, p. 2, available at https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=32027#relPageId=3)

In 1992, none other than Dr. James Humes, the chief JFK autopsy doctor, admitted to JAMA that "two thirds of the right cerebrum had been blown away" (Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA], May 27, 1992, p. 2798).

Dr. David Mantik, a radiation oncologist and physicist, confirmed via OD measurements that only about 30% of the right side of the brain is present in the autopsy skull x-rays:

But here is the real problem: according to chief pathologist James Humes, “Two thirds of the right cerebrum had been blown away.”16 Such a major loss of brain tissue was confirmed by many other witnesses—at Parkland and at Bethesda. Furthermore, my own optical density measurements (made directly from the extant skull X-rays at the Archives) confirmed that only about 30% of the right brain remained. (JFK Assassination Paradoxes, 2022, p. 5)

Lone-gunman theorists have imploded when trying to deal with the unsolvable problem of the autopsy brain photos. Oddly enough, in response to the numerous accounts of a large amount of missing brain matter, chief WC apologist Vincent Bugliosi made the fatal blunder of relying on Dr. Michael Baden, the FPP chairman, who revealed to Bugliosi that the brain photos show only 1-2 ounces of brain tissue missing. Said Bugliosi,

"Contrary to the myth," Dr. Michael Baden told me, people who have said that the president lost a good part of his brain “are absolutely wrong.” Baden says he saw the photographs taken of the president’s brain at the time of the autopsy, and under his direction the HSCA’s medical illustrator, Ida Dox, drew a diagram of the brain viewed from the top. (See sketch in photo section of book.) As Baden said in his testimony before the HSCA, the diagram “represents extensive damage and injury to the right top of the brain” (1 HSCA 304). (“It’s an exact depiction,” he told me.)

Note the words “damage and injury” as opposed to saying a large part of the brain was “missing.” And, indeed, the autopsy report says nothing about any significant part of the brain being missing.

[Quoting Baden] "Basically, the president's whole brain was still there. The right hemisphere was severely damaged and torn, but less than an ounce or two of his brain was actually missing from the cranial cavity." (Endnotes for Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, W. W. Norton, 2007, pp. 283-284)

Only a drawing of one of the autopsy brain photos has been released, but several experts have been allowed to view all the brain photos at the National Archives. Baden got to view them at length as part of the HSCA FPP's review of the medical evidence. Dr. Mantik and Dr. Michael Chesser have also seen all the brain photos. They have confirmed Baden's statement that the brain photos show only a very small amount of missing brain tissue, no more than 2 ounces. This proves those photos cannot be of JFK's brain, since the autopsy x-rays show only about 30% of the right half of the brain to be present, or, as Dr. Hodges put, they show "a goodly portion" of the right side of the brain to be missing. 

Here are just a few of the eyewitness accounts regarding the amount of brain matter that was missing from the JFK's brain:

Floyd Riebe, who assisted John Stringer with taking photos at the autopsy, said that less than half the brain was present:

Q: Did you see the brain removed from President Kennedy?
A: What little bit there was left, yes.
Q: Were any photographs taken of the brain?
A: I think I did some when they were putting it in that stainless steel pail.
Q: When you say that there was not much left, what do you mean by that?
A: Well, it was less than half of a brain there. (Deposition of Floyd Albert Riebe, ARRB, 5/7/1997, pp. 43-44)

From Clint Hill's 11/22/1963 report, in which he describes what he saw at very close range as he rode on top of the limo's back seat on the way to Parkland--part of the brain was gone and there was a wound in the right-rear part of the head:
         
As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of his brain was gone. (11/22/1963 report, p. 3)

When interviewed by CBS News in 2013, Clint Hill repeated his account of seeing a large amount of missing brain:
         
Scott Pelley: What did you see?
         
Clint Hill: Brain matter, blood, bone fragments all come out of the wound.… Then Mrs. Kennedy came up on the trunk. She was trying to grab some of that material and pull it back with her.… I got a hold of her and I put her in the backseat. … And when I did that, his body fell to its left into her lap. His face--is head was in her lap. The right side of his face was up. I could see his eyes were fixed. I could see an area through the skull that there was no brain matter in that area at all. So I assumed it was a fatal wound. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/agent-who-jumped-on-jfks-limo-recounts-fateful-moments/)

Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the Parkland doctors, told the WC that at least a third of the brain had been blasted out:
         
You could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue, had been blasted out. There was a large amount of bleeding, which was occurring mainly from the large venous channel in the skull which had been blasted open. (6 H 33)

Secret Service agent Sam Kinney, who rode in the follow-up car, stated in a recorded interview with Vincent Palamara that brain matter splattered "all over" his windshield and arm:
         
The back of that Lincoln would be directly in front of me. Well, I had brain matter all over my windshield and arm. That's how close we were. (19:33-19:47 in video)

In 2003, Dr. Robert Grossman, one of the Parkland doctors, wrote that Jackie's dress was splattered with brain tissue and blood:
         
Her face was very white and she appeared to have been crying. She was wearing a light-colored dress. The lap of her dress was covered with blood and brain tissue. (https://www.deseret.com/2003/11/22/19797270/neurosurgeon-recalls-examining-the-dying-jfk)

From FBI agent Francis O'Neill's ARRB interview:
         
Mr. Gunn: Earlier in the deposition we referred to your observation of the brain being removed during the course of the autopsy Do you recall that?
         
Mr. O'Neill: Yes.
         
Mr. O'Neill: [After some discussion about removal procedures] "... Now once again too this is just a portion of it [the brain] because the rest of it was--you know, really gone. And it was a very, very large portion of it. . . .
         
Mr. Gunn: "Do you have any sense of what percentage of the brain was missing at the time it was removed from the cranium?
         
Mr. O'Neill: . . . It was--Oh well, more than half of the brain was missing. (ARRB Deposition of Former FBI SA Francis O'Neill, 9/12/1997, pp. 74-75)

Mortician Tom Robinson, who witnessed the autopsy and who helped to reassemble JFK's skull after the autopsy, said that the amount of brain missing in the back of the head was about the size of a closed fist:

Robinson said that he saw the brain removed from President Kennedy's body and that a large percentage of it was gone "in the back," from the "medulla," and that the portion of the brain that was missing was about the size of a closed fist. He described the condition of the brain in this area as the consistency of "soup." (Meeting Report, ARRB, 6/21/1996, p. 2)

Jack McNairy, who saw the limousine up-close at Parkland Hospital, said in a video-taped interview that there was "gray matter" splattered over a large part of the back seat:

As I looked around, I saw that there was gray matter splattered here [pointing to the inside of the rear passenger door to the right JFK's seat] and along the back of the front seat.

Patrolman H. B. McClain, who helped Jackie get out of the limousine at Parkland Hospital, said in a video-taped interview that there was "matter" splattered all over the inside of the right-hand side of the car:

I could see what looked like a piece of skull, some hair, and matter splattered all over inside the car. It was all on the right-hand side of the car, except the part of the skull--it was laying right in the middle.

JFK's brain matter was splattered onto 16 surfaces:

•   The back seat of JFK’s limousine.   

•   The right-rear passenger door of the limo.   

•   The trunk/rear hood of the limo.   

•   The front seat of the limo (per Roy Kellerman).   

•   Roy Kellerman's coat ("it was all over my coat").   

•   The back of William Greer's coat (per Greer himself, and per Kellerman).   

•   Governor Connally's clothes.   

•   Nellie Connally's clothes.   

•   Officer Martin's clothes.   

•   Officer Hargis's clothes.   

•   Officer Martin's motorcycle.   

•   Officer Hargis's motorcycle.   

•   Sam Kinney's clothes (riding in the follow-up car).   

•   The windshield of the follow-up car.   

•   The drapes of JFK’s emergency room cart.   

•   Jackie's dress (she said JFK's brains were "all over me").

In my book A Comforting Lie: The Myth that a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy, I devote an entire chapter to the issue of the JFK autopsy brain photos vs. the skull x-rays, the eyewitness accounts of a substantial amount of missing brain matter, and the splattering of brain matter onto 16 surfaces.

[Tommy Shanks]

Notice that barely anybody bothers to even reply to you as you continually trot out scroll-length posts about subjects nobody asked about? Give it a rest with the David Mantik idolatry. His claims of x-ray forgery are total nonsense.

[Tom Graves]

Notice that barely anybody bothers to even reply to you as you continually trot out scroll-length posts about subjects nobody asked about? Give it a rest with the David Mantik idolatry. His claims of x-ray forgery are total nonsense.

I suspect that "former" KGB counterintelligence officer Vladimir Putin pays him very well, indeed, to do it.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Notice that barely anybody bothers to even reply to you as you continually trot out scroll-length posts about subjects nobody asked about?

You're acting like a Flat Earther who's been confronted with satellite photography and with geographic-topographic measurements of the Earth.

Of course you WC apologists haven't "asked about" the hard science and the massive anecdotal evidence that the autopsy brain photos are fraudulent.

Give it a rest with the David Mantik idolatry. His claims of x-ray forgery are total nonsense.

LOL! Yeah, you'd rather rely on a chiropractor ("Dr." Chad Zimmerman) than on a board-certified radiation oncologist who routinely used optical-density (OD) measurements to make his diagnoses, who's had several articles on medical science published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and who also holds a doctorate in physics and taught physics at a major university.

And never mind that Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist, has confirmed Dr. Mantik's OD measurements with his own independent OD measurements, hey? Just never mind that, right? You do realize that OD measurement is a recognized science, right? Right? Never mind that Dr. Fred Hodges and even Dr. Humes both said a large part of the right brain was missing, just as Dr. Mantik's OD measurements confirm, hey?

And what about all the other evidence I cited? What about Dr. Hodges' analysis of the skull x-rays? What about Humes's admission to JAMA that 2/3 of the right cerebrum was blasted away? What about the eyewitness accounts of a large amount of missing brain or significant brain splatter provided by mortician Tom Robinson, Clint Hill, Dr. Grossman, Floyd Riebe, Sam Kinney, Robert McClelland, Francis O'Neill, Officer McClain, and Jack McNairy? I notice you said nothing about any of this evidence, nor about the 16 surfaces onto which bits of JFK's brain were blown.

Again, dealing with you guys is similar to dealing with members of a cult, with 9/11 Truthers, with Moon-landing deniers, etc. You know full well that you cannot explain how in the world the brain photos could be of JFK's brain given that the skull x-rays show about 2/3 of the right brain to be missing, given the numerous accounts of a large amount of missing brain, and given that bits of JFK's brain were blown onto 16 surfaces.

[Tom Graves]

The JFK autopsy brain photos are among the most powerful, undeniable evidences [sic] of fraud in the JFK autopsy materials. Not realizing the enormous implications of his admission, Dr. Michael Baden, the chairman of the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel (FPP), revealed to WC apologist Vincent Bugliosi that the autopsy brain photos show only 1-2 ounces of brain matter missing.

Dear Comrade Griffith,

Is GROK "hallucinating"?

ME: Are the photos [of JFK's skull and/or brain] that are held in the National Archives, and which seem to support Baden's view that the damage was limited, viewable by the public?

GROK: No, the JFK autopsy brain photographs held in the National Archives are not viewable by the public. While the broader JFK Assassination Records Collection—established under the 1992 JFK Records Act and encompassing over 5 million pages of documents, X-rays, and select photos—has been largely declassified and made freely accessible online or in person since the late 1990s (with full release mandated by 2017), the autopsy photographs, including the 14 brain photos, remain restricted due to an agreement with the Kennedy family. This stems from a 1966 deposit where the family donated the materials with conditions limiting access to protect their privacy, a policy upheld by a 1994 federal court ruling (Katz v. National Archives) under the Freedom of Information Act's privacy exemption (Exemption 6). Of the approximately 38-52 total autopsy images in the Archives, only about 9-11 (mostly black-and-white body and wound photos) are in the public domain, available via sources like the Internet Archive or books such as Robert Groden's The Killing of a President (1993). The brain photos, showing the formalin-fixed organ with limited damage as described by Dr. Baden, are available only to authorized researchers (e.g., via the HSCA in 1977 or ARRB in 1998) with family consent or court approval, and even then, under strict non-disclosure rules preventing reproduction or public sharing. No public exhibitions, online galleries, or reproductions exist for them.

ME: If they aren't viewable by the public, how do you know they support Baden's view?

GROK: My knowledge of the JFK autopsy brain photos supporting Dr. Michael Baden's description—showing the brain largely intact with only minor fragmentation (about 1-2 ounces of tissue missing from the right hemisphere due to the exit wound)—comes from Baden's own public statements and expert analyses, not from direct public viewing of the images. As chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Forensic Pathology Panel in 1977-1979, Baden and his nine-member team of pathologists were granted special access to the restricted materials in the National Archives, including the 14 color brain photographs (taken post-autopsy after formalin fixation). They reviewed these alongside X-rays and autopsy reports under non-disclosure conditions but issued a detailed public report (HSCA Volume VII, Appendix) confirming the brain's condition aligned with a single rear-entry bullet causing limited damage, consistent with the Warren Commission's findings. Baden elaborated on this in subsequent interviews and writings, such as his 1989 book Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner, where he described the photos as depicting "the whole brain...still there," with only superficial lacerations and small fragments absent, refuting conspiracy claims of massive tissue loss (e.g., half the brain missing, as alleged in some theories). He reiterated this in a 2007 interview with author Vincent Bugliosi for Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (endnote 441, p. 1006), stating the images showed no evidence of extensive destruction, only the expected trauma from a high-velocity exit wound in the right parietal-occipital region. These accounts are corroborated by other authorized reviewers, like the 1968 Clark Panel and 1975 Rockefeller Commission pathologists, who similarly described minimal brain disruption in their declassified reports (now public). While the photos themselves remain sealed—per a 1966 Kennedy family agreement upheld in a 1994 federal ruling (Katz v. National Archives) and unaffected by the 2025 JFK records releases, which focused on documents and did not alter autopsy image restrictions—Baden's firsthand observations, as a credentialed expert, provide the evidentiary basis for this conclusion. No credible disputes from panel members or subsequent ARRB (1994-1998) interviews with autopsy participants challenge his summary. [emphasis added]

-- Tom

[Michael T. Griffith]

A key fact to remember about the autopsy materials is that they were originally sealed by executive order for 75 years, so the plotters assumed no one would see the autopsy photos and x-rays until 2038. Similarly, all the unpublished HSCA materials, including the unpublished interviews with the autopsy witnesses and the Parkland witnesses, were originally sealed for 50 years, so no one was supposed to see them until 2029.

This could very well explain why the 6.5 mm object had not yet been added to the AP skull x-ray when the autopsy doctors reviewed the autopsy materials for five hours in 1966. They said nothing about the object in their report on the review. They could not have missed it. It is the most obvious, readily visible "fragment" on the AP x-ray. If they did see it during their review and chose to say nothing about it, this would be a damning, revealing omission. The first time anyone mentioned seeing the 6.5 mm object was when the Clark Panel examined the autopsy materials and issued their report in 1968, and this was also when the rear head entry wound's location was moved upward by an astonishing 4 inches.

But then along came Oliver Stone's movie JFK, which caused such a furor that it led to the passage of the 1992 JFK Records Act and to the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB).

But WC apologists seem to live in a world where the 1992 JFK Records Act and all the ARRB disclosures never happened.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Dear Comrade Griffith,

Is GROK "hallucinating"?

ME: Are the photos [of JFK's skull and/or brain] that are held in the National Archives, and which seem to support Baden's view that the damage was limited, viewable by the public?

GROK: No, the JFK autopsy brain photographs held in the National Archives are not viewable by the public. While the broader JFK Assassination Records Collection—established under the 1992 JFK Records Act and encompassing over 5 million pages of documents, X-rays, and select photos—has been largely declassified and made freely accessible online or in person since the late 1990s (with full release mandated by 2017), the autopsy photographs, including the 14 brain photos, remain restricted due to an agreement with the Kennedy family. This stems from a 1966 deposit where the family donated the materials with conditions limiting access to protect their privacy, a policy upheld by a 1994 federal court ruling (Katz v. National Archives) under the Freedom of Information Act's privacy exemption (Exemption 6). Of the approximately 38-52 total autopsy images in the Archives, only about 9-11 (mostly black-and-white body and wound photos) are in the public domain, available via sources like the Internet Archive or books such as Robert Groden's The Killing of a President (1993). The brain photos, showing the formalin-fixed organ with limited damage as described by Dr. Baden, are available only to authorized researchers (e.g., via the HSCA in 1977 or ARRB in 1998) with family consent or court approval, and even then, under strict non-disclosure rules preventing reproduction or public sharing. No public exhibitions, online galleries, or reproductions exist for them.

ME: If they aren't viewable by the public, how do you know they support Baden's view?

GROK: My knowledge of the JFK autopsy brain photos supporting Dr. Michael Baden's description—showing the brain largely intact with only minor fragmentation (about 1-2 ounces of tissue missing from the right hemisphere due to the exit wound)—comes from Baden's own public statements and expert analyses, not from direct public viewing of the images. As chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Forensic Pathology Panel in 1977-1979, Baden and his nine-member team of pathologists were granted special access to the restricted materials in the National Archives, including the 14 color brain photographs (taken post-autopsy after formalin fixation). They reviewed these alongside X-rays and autopsy reports under non-disclosure conditions but issued a detailed public report (HSCA Volume VII, Appendix) confirming the brain's condition aligned with a single rear-entry bullet causing limited damage, consistent with the Warren Commission's findings. Baden elaborated on this in subsequent interviews and writings, such as his 1989 book Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner, where he described the photos as depicting "the whole brain...still there," with only superficial lacerations and small fragments absent, refuting conspiracy claims of massive tissue loss (e.g., half the brain missing, as alleged in some theories). He reiterated this in a 2007 interview with author Vincent Bugliosi for Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (endnote 441, p. 1006), stating the images showed no evidence of extensive destruction, only the expected trauma from a high-velocity exit wound in the right parietal-occipital region. These accounts are corroborated by other authorized reviewers, like the 1968 Clark Panel and 1975 Rockefeller Commission pathologists, who similarly described minimal brain disruption in their declassified reports (now public). While the photos themselves remain sealed—per a 1966 Kennedy family agreement upheld in a 1994 federal ruling (Katz v. National Archives) and unaffected by the 2025 JFK records releases, which focused on documents and did not alter autopsy image restrictions—Baden's firsthand observations, as a credentialed expert, provide the evidentiary basis for this conclusion. No credible disputes from panel members or subsequent ARRB (1994-1998) interviews with autopsy participants challenge his summary. [emphasis added]

-- Tom

Is this some kind of joke? Or, do you suffer from a severe reading comprehension problem? Did you miss the part where I noted that Dr. Mantik and Dr. Chesser have seen the autopsy brain photos at the National Archives and have confirmed Dr. Baden's statement that they show virtually no missing brain tissue, no more than 1-2 ounces of missing tissue? Did you somehow miss that?

That's the whole point: The brain photos show a brain that has virtually no missing tissue, yet we know from the skull x-rays that about 2/3 of the right brain were blown away, as Dr. Fred Hodges confirmed for the Rockefeller Commission, as Dr. Humes himself admitted to JAMA, and as Dr. Mantik confirmed with OD measurements of the x-rays, and that pieces of brain matter from JFK's brain were blown onto 16 surfaces.

You're so emotionally determined not to see evidence that destroys your fiction that you somehow missed this simple devastating point, the whole point of my OP. Yes, Baden was correct, and the fact that the autopsy brain photos show a brain with only 1-2 ounces of missing tissue proves that the brain in the photos cannot possibly be JFK's brain.

[Tom Graves]

The brain photos show a brain that has virtually no missing tissue, yet we know from the skull x-rays that about 2/3 of the right brain were blown away, as Dr. Fred Hodges confirmed for the Rockefeller Commission, as Dr. Humes himself admitted to JAMA, and as Dr. Mantik confirmed with OD measurements of the x-rays, and that pieces of brain matter from JFK's brain were blown onto 16 surfaces. Yes, Baden was correct, and the fact that the autopsy brain photos show a brain with only 1-2 ounces of missing tissue proves that the brain in the photos cannot possibly be JFK's brain.

Dear Comrade Griffith,

If true, was it an honest slipup, or the work of one of your "twenty to thirty" multi-tasking bad guys?

-- Tom