"Overthinking" (or maybe not?) the Walker attempt

[Andrew Mason]

Jack Nessan really should pay me a royalty on every copy of Phantom Shot he sells, but I cannot help but be struck by the fact that Oswald manages to put two pretty precisely-placed bullets into JFK after supposedly having gone through all sorts of hypothetical gyrations and managing to miss the entire limousine - and no one can agree on exactly when he did that. Two shots seems to me to be favored by Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor, and Mrs. Occam agrees. I don't quite understand the near-desperation to preserve the three-shot scenario. There doesn't seem to be any reason the evidence demands this.

It seems to me that the best evidence, including the Gloria Calvery group, places the first shot just about where the three-shot narrative places the second shot. If the three-shot scenario were correct, it seems to me the second and third shots would be the bang-bang sequence that Bowers and others described. Is this perhaps the real motivation for insisting on an early missed shot?

I can certainly agree that there is way too much evidence against a missed first shot to make it even a remote possibility. A missed first shot is a fantasy.  There is also abundant, consistent evidence that the head shot was the last shot.  If the bullet through JFK’s neck went on to strike JBC it had to have happened on the first shot. The second shot SBT is a fantasy. 

But there is also abundant, consistent evidence that there were three distinct loud noises. And given the number of witnesses who reported hearing three shots (132 according to the HSCA study), many of whom reported hearing a shot a pause and then two more distinct shots, it is difficult to understand how they could have imagined a shot that did not occur. It is much easier to understand how a few witnesses might not have been counting the number of shots and  thought there were only two (17) or weren’t sure whether it was 2 or 3 (7).

[John Corbett]

I can certainly agree that there is way too much evidence against a missed first shot to make it even a remote possibility. A missed first shot is a fantasy.  There is also abundant, consistent evidence that the head shot was the last shot.  If the bullet through JFK’s neck went on to strike JBC it had to have happened on the first shot. The second shot SBT is a fantasy. 

Everything you believe is a fantasy.

But there is also abundant, consistent evidence that there were three distinct loud noises. And given the number of witnesses who reported hearing three shots (132 according to the HSCA study), many of whom reported hearing a shot a pause and then two more distinct shots, it is difficult to understand how they could have imagined a shot that did not occur. It is much easier to understand how a few witnesses might not have been counting the number of shots and  thought there were only two (17) or weren’t sure whether it was 2 or 3 (7).

There is also an abundance of witnesses who said the shots came from the GK. Ear witnesses are as unreliable as eye witnesses. Some of them get it right and some of them get it wrong.

[Andrew Mason]

There is also an abundance of witnesses who said the shots came from the GK. Ear witnesses are as unreliable as eye witnesses. Some of them get it right and some of them get it wrong.

Most witnesses said they were not sure where the shot sounds came from and expressed confusion. Only a few expressed confusion about the number of shots.   

The human ear and brain is not a reliable instrument for determining sound direction in the Dealey Plaza reverb chamber.  The human ear and brain is a reliable instrument for hearing and recalling three well spaced loud noises over several seconds.

[John Corbett]

Most witnesses said they were not sure where the shot sounds came from and expressed confusion. Only a few expressed confusion about the number of shots.   

The human ear and brain is not a reliable instrument for determining sound direction in the Dealey Plaza reverb chamber.  The human ear and brain is a reliable instrument for hearing and recalling three well spaced loud noises over several seconds.

I guess that's as good an excuse as any for you to cherry pick which of the earwitness accounts you choose to accept. I have a unique approach to eye and ear witness accounts. I look for evidence which either corroborates or refutes what those witnesses have told us.

The human brain is not equipped with a DVR. It does not perfectly record sights and sounds. It gets some things right and jumbles others. I agree with what Dale Meyers said on the recently aired ABC program Truth and Lies: The JFK Assassination. He said if you have three witnesses to an event, you will get three versions of that event.