After I first began to study the JFK case, I came across conspiracy theorist Harrison Edward Livingstone's rejection of the HSCA's acoustical evidence. When he cited the alleged Decker "hold everything" crosstalk, I didn't know enough to see any problem with it.
However, when Livingstone stressed that one of his reasons for rejecting the acoustical evidence was that the shots could not be heard with the naked ear on the dictabelt, my acoustical training led me too see a potential red flag. I knew that if the DPD radio system included Automatic Gain Control (AGC) circuitry, the AGC would have prevented the shots from being recorded loudly enough to be heard with the naked ear.
This was my first hint that the case against the acoustical evidence might not be nearly as strong as "everyone" seemed to think it was.
However, I remained skeptical of the acoustical evidence until I obtained a copy of the HSCA volumes and read the testimony and reports of the committee's acoustical scientists.
When I later read the NRC/NAS panel's critique of the acoustical evidence, one of the first things I realized was that the panel did not even address several key items of evidence that the BBN and Queens College acoustical scientists had documented.
I was like, "Wait a minute. How can you guys claim to have refuted the acoustical evidence when you haven't even mentioned some of the key scientific findings that support it?" I was referring, of course, to the gunfire N-waves, complete with muzzle blasts and muzzle-blast echoes in the correct timing and order, and the gunfire windshield distortions on the dictabelt.
I also recognized that the panel had acknowledged that their own calculations showed there was a 93% probability that the timing-movement correlations identified by the BBN scientists occurred because the tape recorded gunfire in Dealey Plaza. I noticed that the panel made this admission as obliquely as possible and oddly said nothing about its obvious importance.
I further recognized that the panel had acknowledged that their own calculations showed there was a 77.7% probability that the dictabelt's 144.9 impulse pattern was caused by gunfire from the grassy knoll. Here, too, I noticed that the panel made this admission as obliquely as possible and said nothing about its obvious importance.
I thought, "Ok, 77.7% isn't as high as '95% or higher,' but it's still pretty high." This, of course, was before I learned that the panel's calculations included two outright errors, and that the "95% or higher" probability was actually closer to 99%.
I wondered how the panel could dismiss the acoustical evidence given these admissions and given their failure to address several key scientific findings that supported the acoustical evidence.
Topic: Acoustic Evidence (Read 19183 times)