JFK Assassination Forum
The JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => Topic started by: Tom Graves on August 09, 2026, 02:37:26 AM
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Andrew Mason and the equally lame HSCA mistakenly believe JFK was hit by a bullet around Z-190.
LOL!
ME: Just speaking of JFK, on what grounds other than so-called "acoustical analysis" and so-called "camera blur" did the HSCA conclude that he was hit by a bullet around Z-190?
Perplexity AI: Beyond acoustics and the claimed camera-blur response, the HSCA relied chiefly on Kennedy’s apparent bodily reaction near Z-200 and on a trajectory reconstruction that assumed the impact was near Z-190.
The remaining grounds
Kennedy’s apparent reaction: The photographic panel thought Kennedy’s right hand stopped waving and his head began moving left at roughly Z-193–200, before the Stemmons sign obscured him. The HSCA treated this as compatible with an impact some frames earlier, around Z-190. But this was interpretive visual evidence of reaction—not direct evidence of the instant of impact.
Single-bullet trajectory reconstruction:
Thomas Canning’s trajectory work used the limousine occupants’ positions at frame 190 and showed that the line from the sixth-floor southeast window could pass through Kennedy’s back/neck wound course and toward Connally. In his testimony, Canning explicitly said he “related the back neck trajectory to the positions at Zapruder frame 190.” That makes it a consistency demonstration for Z-190, not an independent derivation of Z-190.
Medical, ballistics, and bullet-lead evidence:
These were used to establish the broader proposition that Kennedy’s nonfatal back/neck wound and Connally’s wounds were caused by one bullet, and that the fatal head hit was another bullet. They could support the proposition that a nonfatal Kennedy hit occurred before Z-312; they did not date it to frame 190.
Connally’s later visible reaction: The committee read Connally’s behavior after he emerged from behind the sign as consistent with a wound earlier in the interval. But it acknowledged no scientific measure of the latency between impact and a visible reaction. This therefore offered, at most, compatibility with the proposed timing.
Bottom line
If the question is whether the HSCA had evidence independently fixing JFK’s first hit at approximately Z-190, the answer is essentially no. Its location at Z-190 rested principally on its acoustical synchronization, supplemented by perceived Kennedy reaction and blur; medical, CE 399/fragment, and trajectory evidence were used to validate a single-bullet scenario at that selected time, rather than to establish the time itself.
ME: What "apparent bodily reaction near Z-200"?
Perplexity AI: The HSCA photographic panel meant this: at about Z-200, Kennedy’s movements appeared to “freeze”; his right hand abruptly stopped in the middle of its wave, and his head moved rapidly from his right toward his left, in Jackie Kennedy’s direction. The panel concluded that, by the time he disappeared behind the Stemmons sign at Z-207, he was displaying a reaction to what it called a “severe external stimulus.”
Crucially, the panel did not say these movements proved a bullet impact at Z-190. It reasoned that an apparent reaction around Z-200 was compatible with a hit some fraction of a second earlier, and—when coupled with the asserted acoustic timing—“appeared” to place the first hit at approximately Z-190.
ME: The reason JFK's head was turned so far to his right from Z-180 to Z-200 was because he was looking at (and waving to) Mary Woodward and her three journalism colleagues. (Woodward and JFK had met several times before he became president.)
Perplexity AI: Woodward’s own account is that she and her three colleagues called out, “Please look this way,” and that both JFK and Jackie looked toward them and waved. She was on the north side of Elm, visible in the Zapruder film, and located in front of/just west of the Depository.
At about Z-180–200, JFK’s strongly rightward head turn and continuing right-hand wave are therefore naturally explained as his attention to the Woodward group. Relative to the limousine’s forward longitudinal axis, Woodward was roughly side-on—about 70–80 degrees, perhaps approaching 90 degrees depending on the exact frame and her precise place in the four-woman group.
That matters for the HSCA photographic-panel claim. A cessation or alteration of the rightward wave/head orientation around Z-200 has a non-ballistic explanation: JFK may simply have been ending an interaction with identifiable acquaintances as the car moved past them. The visual change can be real without, by itself, identifying a gunshot impact or supporting a Z-190 timing. The “freeze” interpretation is consequently not an independent forensic indicator of impact. (emphasis added)
ME: How important was the Z-190 "camera blur" deemed before the so called "acoustical evidence" arrived?
Perplexity AI It was not an important pre-acoustics reason to prefer Z-190. The formal HSCA blur analysis was itself undertaken in relation to the acoustic results—essentially as a check whether Zapruder’s panning errors could be associated with the alleged shot times identified on the Dictabelt.
The committee said it studied the blurs “in an effort to determine whether” they resulted from Zapruder’s possible startle reaction to gunshots. Its finding was only that the blur cluster at Z-189–197 “may reasonably be attributed” to a startle reaction; it did not identify a bullet impact, or even a gunshot, at a particular frame. (Emphasis added)
The trajectory material is more revealing about the sequence: it states that the photographic/trajectory work at Z-190 proceeded “based on the acoustics results” and the camera-blur study, along with the panel’s visual observations.
So, before the acoustical analysis arrived, the Z-190 blur was not an established, independent piece of timing evidence against the Z-207–222 alternative. At most it was a visible irregularity in Zapruder’s camera movement. After the acoustics purportedly put a shot at Z-188–191, the blur at Z-189–197 could be interpreted as Zapruder reacting to that putative shot and became corroborative.
The ordering is therefore:
Alleged acoustic shot near Z-190 → look for a corresponding startle/panning blur → blur judged compatible with that shot.
Not:
Preexisting blur → independent proof that JFK was hit at Z-190.
The HSCA’s cautious wording — “may reasonably be attributed”— is significant. Even in the final report, it treated the blur as compatible corroboration, not as a stand-alone basis for an early impact. (Emphasis added)
. . . . . . .
"Case Closed"
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There were a lot of smart guys at the HSCA. But smart is not infallible.
My layman's review of the Z-film shows a strike on JFK some frames before he balls his fists.
The experts say the human body reacts at about 1/10th of second, so likely JFK is struck as he is "behind the sign" meaning the Stemmons Freeway sign.
Gov. JBC is bolt upright and appears uninjured as he reappears from behind the sign, at Z-222, but JFK is visibly in agony. This is a good reason to conclude JBC was not struck by the same slug that struck JFK.
JBC thereafter will makes a 180-degree turn in his seat to look for JFK. Again, this does not mesh with JBC already being shot through the chest and wrist at the same time as JFK.
The HSCA bought into the SBT, but maybe they were wrong.
JBC appears struck a ~Z-295 and then JFK at Z-313.
But caveat emptor and draw your own conclusions.
Connally: I was knocked over, just doubled over by the force of the bullet. It went in my back and came out my chest about 2 inches below and the left of my right nipple. The force of the bullet drove my body over almost double and when I looked, immediately I could see I was just drenched with blood. (1 HSCA 42)
When does this happen?
I have reasonable doubts about the SBT.
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Andrew Mason and the equally lame HSCA mistakenly believe JFK was hit by a bullet around Z-190.
LOL!
ME: Just speaking of JFK, on what grounds other than so-called "acoustical analysis" and so-called "camera blur" did the HSCA conclude that he was hit by a bullet around Z-190?
Perplexity AI: Beyond acoustics and the claimed camera-blur response, the HSCA relied chiefly on Kennedy’s apparent bodily reaction near Z-200 and on a trajectory reconstruction that assumed the impact was near Z-190.
The remaining grounds
Kennedy’s apparent reaction: The photographic panel thought Kennedy’s right hand stopped waving and his head began moving left at roughly Z-193–200, before the Stemmons sign obscured him. The HSCA treated this as compatible with an impact some frames earlier, around Z-190. But this was interpretive visual evidence of reaction—not direct evidence of the instant of impact.
Single-bullet trajectory reconstruction:
Thomas Canning’s trajectory work used the limousine occupants’ positions at frame 190 and showed that the line from the sixth-floor southeast window could pass through Kennedy’s back/neck wound course and toward Connally. In his testimony, Canning explicitly said he “related the back neck trajectory to the positions at Zapruder frame 190.” That makes it a consistency demonstration for Z-190, not an independent derivation of Z-190.
Medical, ballistics, and bullet-lead evidence:
These were used to establish the broader proposition that Kennedy’s nonfatal back/neck wound and Connally’s wounds were caused by one bullet, and that the fatal head hit was another bullet. They could support the proposition that a nonfatal Kennedy hit occurred before Z-312; they did not date it to frame 190.
Connally’s later visible reaction: The committee read Connally’s behavior after he emerged from behind the sign as consistent with a wound earlier in the interval. But it acknowledged no scientific measure of the latency between impact and a visible reaction. This therefore offered, at most, compatibility with the proposed timing.
Bottom line
If the question is whether the HSCA had evidence independently fixing JFK’s first hit at approximately Z-190, the answer is essentially no. Its location at Z-190 rested principally on its acoustical synchronization, supplemented by perceived Kennedy reaction and blur; medical, CE 399/fragment, and trajectory evidence were used to validate a single-bullet scenario at that selected time, rather than to establish the time itself.
ME: What "apparent bodily reaction near Z-200"?
Perplexity AI: The HSCA photographic panel meant this: at about Z-200, Kennedy’s movements appeared to “freeze”; his right hand abruptly stopped in the middle of its wave, and his head moved rapidly from his right toward his left, in Jackie Kennedy’s direction. The panel concluded that, by the time he disappeared behind the Stemmons sign at Z-207, he was displaying a reaction to what it called a “severe external stimulus.”
Crucially, the panel did not say these movements proved a bullet impact at Z-190. It reasoned that an apparent reaction around Z-200 was compatible with a hit some fraction of a second earlier, and—when coupled with the asserted acoustic timing—“appeared” to place the first hit at approximately Z-190.
ME: The reason JFK's head was turned so far to his right from Z-180 to Z-200 was because he was looking at (and waving to) Mary Woodward and her three journalism colleagues. (Woodward and JFK had met several times before he became president.)
Perplexity AI: Woodward’s own account is that she and her three colleagues called out, “Please look this way,” and that both JFK and Jackie looked toward them and waved. She was on the north side of Elm, visible in the Zapruder film, and located in front of/just west of the Depository.
At about Z-180–200, JFK’s strongly rightward head turn and continuing right-hand wave are therefore naturally explained as his attention to the Woodward group. Relative to the limousine’s forward longitudinal axis, Woodward was roughly side-on—about 70–80 degrees, perhaps approaching 90 degrees depending on the exact frame and her precise place in the four-woman group.
That matters for the HSCA photographic-panel claim. A cessation or alteration of the rightward wave/head orientation around Z-200 has a non-ballistic explanation: JFK may simply have been ending an interaction with identifiable acquaintances as the car moved past them. The visual change can be real without, by itself, identifying a gunshot impact or supporting a Z-190 timing. The “freeze” interpretation is consequently not an independent forensic indicator of impact. (emphasis added)
ME: How important was the Z-190 "camera blur" deemed before the so called "acoustical evidence" arrived?
Perplexity AI It was not an important pre-acoustics reason to prefer Z-190. The formal HSCA blur analysis was itself undertaken in relation to the acoustic results—essentially as a check whether Zapruder’s panning errors could be associated with the alleged shot times identified on the Dictabelt.
The committee said it studied the blurs “in an effort to determine whether” they resulted from Zapruder’s possible startle reaction to gunshots. Its finding was only that the blur cluster at Z-189–197 “may reasonably be attributed” to a startle reaction; it did not identify a bullet impact, or even a gunshot, at a particular frame. (Emphasis added)
The trajectory material is more revealing about the sequence: it states that the photographic/trajectory work at Z-190 proceeded “based on the acoustics results” and the camera-blur study, along with the panel’s visual observations.
So, before the acoustical analysis arrived, the Z-190 blur was not an established, independent piece of timing evidence against the Z-207–222 alternative. At most it was a visible irregularity in Zapruder’s camera movement. After the acoustics purportedly put a shot at Z-188–191, the blur at Z-189–197 could be interpreted as Zapruder reacting to that putative shot and became corroborative.
The ordering is therefore:
Alleged acoustic shot near Z-190 → look for a corresponding startle/panning blur → blur judged compatible with that shot.
Not:
Preexisting blur → independent proof that JFK was hit at Z-190.
The HSCA’s cautious wording — “may reasonably be attributed”— is significant. Even in the final report, it treated the blur as compatible corroboration, not as a stand-alone basis for an early impact. (Emphasis added)
"Case Closed"
This is a mix of comedy, amateurish dismissal of scientific evidence, error, and distortion.
Any serious JFKA researcher knows that testing has proved the validity of the HSCA's blur analysis of the Zapruder film. Testing has found that when people are holding a camera and they hear a shot, they will invariably, as in every single time, jiggle the camera, even if they know the shot is coming.
Based on its blur analysis of the Zapruder film, the HSCA's photographic experts determined that the strong blur episode between Z189 and Z197 indicated a shot was fired "between frames 181 and 192." After correlating this blur episode with other evidence, such as Willis slide 5, the panel concluded the shot was fired just before Z190.
Such non-absolute statements as "may reasonably be attributed" are standard phraseology in credible, careful, scholarly reports that deal with scientific evidence. The corollary is that the strong blur event at Z189-197 "may not reasonably be attributed" to a non-gunfire reaction.
The extant Zapruder film never shows JFK and Jackie turning to the right and then waving at Woodward and her friends. Such an event is simply nowhere to be seen in the current version of the film. When Jackie does turn her head to the right, she does so very rapidly and starts looking intently at JFK, beginning in Z202, and she is still staring intently at him when she reemerges into view at Z221.
Canning's SBT trajectory analysis is a joke. Look at where he had to position Connally on the seat to make the trajectory line up with the sixth-floor window. Connally's position in Canning's diagram bears no resemblance to his position in Z186-190. And notice that Canning's diagram shows JFK sitting virtually straight upright, where the FPP admitted that JFK would have had to be leaning nearly 60 degrees forward to make the upward-tunneled back wound line up with the sixth-floor window. Besides, did you miss the news that the most advanced, sophisticated SBT trajectory analysis ever done, Knott Lab's 2023 analysis, proves the SBT is impossible?
FYI, in a paper published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in 1971, physicist Don Olson and criminal justice professor Ralph Turner concluded that JFK begins to react to a shot in Z194 and that this reaction continues until he disappears behind the freeway sign. Olson was a professor of physics at the University of California, while Turner was a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University. I quote from their analysis:
First, a general trend in the frames 194 to 206 may be noted. Beginning as early as frame 194, the President's body seems to undergo a motion forward and to the left. This motion, which can be visually approximated to be on the order of six or seven inches, seems to begin in frame 194 and continues through about frame 200. The President seems to move away from the seat back and tilt to the left, away from the window ledge. . . .
On the interval 194-200 the President's body is seen to narrow somewhat to the view, indicating that he not only leans to the left front, but also is rotated to the left. The rotation of the shoulders begins as early as frame 195. His head comes around at 200-202. By frame 204 the President is facing almost directly forward.
As the President moves and rotates to the left, his right arm is pulled back into the car. While his elbow has been resting outside the car, it comes up noticeably at frame 195. The President’s elbow can be seen to cross the chrome strip on the side of the car at frames 198-199. As President Kennedy disappears from view behind the sign, his right arm seems to be in a particularly unusual position—the clearly visible gray of his suit coat indicating that his right arm and elbow have been raised at least to the level of his chin. (“Photographic Evidence and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, 16:4, October 1971, pp. 410-411)
You see, here's the problem for WC apologists: You can't admit that JFK was hit at right around Z190 because the sixth-floor gunman's view of JFK would have been obstructed by the oak tree from Z166 to Z210.
There would have been a split-second break in the oak tree's foliage at Z185 that would have given the sixth-floor gunman 55 milliseconds, or 1/18th of a second, to aim and fire at JFK. Ah, but the human brain requires 166 milliseconds, or 1/6th of a second, to register and react to visual data from the eyes. No wonder even the WC was skeptical of the idea that the alleged lone gunman would have fired at Z185.
Thus, you guys find yourselves in the awkward position of having to trash the HSCA Photographic Evidence Panel's finding that JFK was hit at around Z190, and its finding that someone was moving boxes in the sixth-floor window within 2 minutes after the assassination (i.e., when Oswald could not have been there), yet you cite that same panel as an infallible, final authority when it comes to the backyard rifle photos.
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This is a mix of comedy, amateurish dismissal of scientific evidence, error, and distortion.
And, by God, only MTG is allowed to do that.