Did LHO fire a shot that missed everything? If so, when did he fire it?

[Tom Graves]

When one accepts the reality of the Single Bullet Theorem, i.e., that JFK and JBC were struck by CE-399 at approximately Z-222, then one can speculate on whether or not it was Oswald who had fired the earlier, missing-everything, shot, and if so, when he fired it.

Since three spent shells that had been fired from Oswald's Carcano were found in the Sniper's Nest about an hour after the assassination, since the Carcano, with Oswald's prints on it, was found on the sixth floor, and since Oswald was seen on the sixth floor near the Sniper's Nest by Charles Givens at about 12:05 and by Roy Truly and Officer Baker in the second floor lunchroom about 90 seconds after the final shot, we can reasonably assume that that it was Oswald who had fired all three shots.

Now the only remaining question is when he fired the missing-everything shot.

Brian Roselle and Kevin Scearce point out in their 2020 study that an involuntary "startle" reaction to a loud, unexpected sound like a gunshot does not involve a major L-R head rotation, but "flexion" movements (bending the head and neck forward and downward), instead.

They also point out that seven prime witnesses (including five passengers in the limo: JFK, Jackie, JBC, Nellie, and Kellerman) quickly turned their heads within half-a-second of each other between Z-142 and Z-149, indicating that Oswald's missing-everything shot was at hypothetical Z-124, half-a-second before Zapruder resumed filming at Z-133 and 2.02 seconds before Croft took his photo at Z-161.

Rhetorical question: Can even three of those passengers be shown to have turned their heads quickly within half-a-second of each other in any other part of the Zapruder film up to Z-222?

I haven't looked yet, but I rather doubt it.

https://d7922adf-f499-4a26-96d4-8ab2d521fa35.usrfiles.com/ugd/d7922a_e280e26982b44f2c97c6e6e27026e385.pdf

[Benjamin Cole]

The Tague shot caused some problems for the WC. They seemed to treat the Tague shot as a LHO miss, not a ricochet. I gather the HSCA subscribed to this also.

There are witness accounts of a bullet strike on the asphalt behind the JFK limo, and of one near the Elm Street curb, near a manhole.

Like everyone says, witness accounts.....

The Tague shot seems to hold water, as the FBI tested the apparent bullet strike on the curb, and found lead.

Also Tague reported the strike contemporaneously.

If the Tague shot was a straight shot from LHO, it indicates one shot passed yards and yards over the top on the JFK  limo.

[Tom Graves]

The Tague shot caused some problems for the WC. They seemed to treat the Tague shot as a LHO miss, not a ricochet. I gather the HSCA subscribed to this also.

There are witness accounts of a bullet strike on the asphalt behind the JFK limo, and of one near the Elm Street curb, near a manhole.

Like everyone says, witness accounts.....

The Tague shot seems to hold water, as the FBI tested the apparent bullet strike on the curb, and found lead.

Also Tague reported the strike contemporaneously.

If the Tague shot was a straight shot from LHO, it indicates one shot passed yards and yards over the top on the JFK  limo.

Brian Roselle has shown at "JFK Truth Be Told" that Tague could have been struck by a piece of concrete knocked off the curb by a bullet fragment from the fatal headshot.

[John Corbett]

The problem is there is simply no definitive proof of when the first shot was fired. For years I have believed that the first shot was fired at or about Z151 because of the badly blurred frame Z158. That was based on the 7 frame lag time between the shot fired at or about Z311 and the blurring at Z318. That also works for the second shot fired at Z220 with a badly blurred Z227. Recently in another thread, another poster showed that there was also blurring and Z155 which shows a camera jump from Z154-155. There was a similar jump from Z226-227 and from Z317-318. This has caused me to reconsider my belief the first shot was fired at Z151. It seems to me now that the jump/blurring at Z154-155 is more indicative of the first shot fired at Z148. I am always willing to reconsider previously held beliefs when confronted by evidence the calls into question those beliefs. Moving the first shot from 151 to 148 is a small but significant adjustment.

If my previous conclusion was wrong, and it seems to me likely it was, I think I know why I erred. Dale Myers believed JBC's head turn at Z164 was an immediate reaction to a shot at Z160. It would have taken about 2 frames for the sound of that shot to reach JBC's ears which leaves only 2 frames, roughly 1/9 of a second for JBC to react. That seems too fast to me. I knew about the blurring that occurs when a cameraman holding a motion picture camera hears a loud gun shot, so I started working backward from Z164 and found a blurred frame at Z158 and that became the basis for my theory of a Z151 shot 7 frames earlier. My mistake was in not working farther backward to see if there was a better match. It now appears to me that Z155 is more likely the instant Zapruder heard the first shot causing the jump/blurring at that frame. That puts the first shot being fired at Z148.

I have always made the disclaimer that blur analysis is not 100% conclusive because other things could cause Zapruder to jiggle his camera but to me, the best evidence is the first shot was fired at Z148. If somebody thinks they have more compelling evidence of that first shot at another time, I am more than willing to consider it.