In 1997, the ARRB discovered during its deposition of Jerrol Custer, a Bethesda Hospital X-ray technician who was on duty that night, that Dr. Ebersole had indeed seen Mantik’s alleged “6-millimeter object” during the autopsy - a “half circle that appears to be the lightest part of the film […] in the right orbital superior” - after Custer pointed it out to him as a possible bullet fragment. This suggests that the “6.5-millimeter object” already appeared on the X-ray before the body was dissected and was not added later, as Mantik suggests.
Anything to see the Emperor's New Clothes, hey? Just a few questions about these paragraphs of labored denial:
* If Custer's claim is true, why didn't Ebersole mention the 6.5 mm object when he spoke with the HSCA medical panel?
* Why didn't Ebersole tell this story when Dr. Mantik interviewed him and specifically asked him about the 6.5 mm object?
* Why did the autopsy doctors tell the ARRB that they did not see the object on the autopsy x-rays during the autopsy?
The autopsy doctors surely would have noticed it. If Ebersole had already seen it and had concluded it was an innocent artifact, surely he would have said so to the autopsy doctors when they noticed it.
* Pray tell, what could have caused an accidental artifact that was perfectly round except in its bottom-left section? We just saw that an acid drop could not have done this and that a metal disk could not have done it either. So what could have caused the accidental formation of an artifact that measures, oh so conveniently, 6.5 mm, and that is perfectly round for 3/4 of its shape? Do tell.
* Why doesn't this innocent-accidental artifact appear on the lateral skull x-rays?
* How do you explain the optical density measurements? I notice you said nothing about this hard scientific evidence.
* If "one first assumes that the autopsy team had a hidden agenda." Factually false. It is not necessary to assume that the autopsy doctors "had a hidden agenda" to recognize the logical implications of the evidence regarding the 6.5 mm object. The autopsy doctors were military officers who were subject to superior orders. Dr. Finck admitted at the Clay Shaw trial that a senior military officer prohibited him from dissecting the back wound. We now know that every military member at the autopsy was threatened with a court martial if they disclosed what they had seen at the autopsy.
Yes, which is why I gave that Hofstadter quote, viz.: "The paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures or ambiguities... It believes it is up against an enemy who is as infallibly rational as he is totally evil, and it seeks to match his imputed total competence with its own, leaving nothing unexplained and comprehending all of reality in one overreaching consistent theory."
So, many unanswerable questions. The M.O. of conspiracists.
My point is that the title of this thread is blatantly wrong. Your biased view just doesn’t “like” the explanation.
So, many unanswerable questions. The M.O. of conspiracists.
My point is that the title of this thread is blatantly wrong. Your biased view just doesn’t “like” the explanation.
Read: They are perfectly valid and logical questions about your absurd arguments, but you can't provide rational, believable answers to them. Why can't you answer the question "how do you explain the OD measurements?"? It's only "unanswerable" if you have no rational, credible explanation for them.
If Ebersole had seen the object and had concluded it was an innocent artifact, surely, surely he would have mentioned this to the autopsy doctors, who could not have failed to see if it had been there during the autopsy, and Ebersole would have had no conceivable reason not to mention this to the HSCA and to Mantik. You guys just refuse to use common sense and logic.
How could a 3/4-perfectly round innocent artifact magically form on the AP x-ray and not show up on the lateral x-rays? Why is this an "unanswerable" question?
You says it's "unanswerable" to ask why the autopsy doctors insisted that they never saw the 6.5 mm object during the autopsy. Why is that? Nobody denies that the object is brazenly obvious on the AP x-ray. It is nonsensical to claim that Ebersole missed it, but it is even sillier to claim that he saw it but said nothing about it to the autopsy doctors, and that for some unknown reason Ebersole said nothing about this to the HSCA or to Mantik.
Your non-reply reply is so typical of the M.O. of lone-gunman theorists: When confronted with hard scientific evidence that you can't explain away, you float downright silly arguments that don't even address the scientific evidence itself but that rely on a load of hypotheticals that make no sense.
Because the explanation is ridiculous. I was going to title the thread "LNers Can't Rationally, Credibly Explain the 6.5 mm Object. . . ." but I thought that would be too polemical for a title.
My point is that the title of this thread is blatantly wrong. Your biased view just doesn’t “like” the explanation.
This quote perfectly describes people like you who still insist on believing the lone-gunman myth. When you're confronted with facts that refute your myth, you accuse anyone who doesn't agree with you of being paranoid. Rather than use the same common sense and logical analysis that any good police detective uses to solve a crime, you lamely and dogmatically insist that the veritable mountain of evidence that points to conspiracy is all just and mole hill of thousands of innocent amazing coincidences.
Let's just keep in mind that the last formal U.S. Government investigation into JFK's death, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded that there were two gunmen, that four shots were fired,
that Jack Ruby lied about how he entered the DPD HQ basement, that the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke in "terrible" and "hardly recognizable Russian" but that the real Oswald "spoke fluent Russian,"
that the autopsy photos do not match the camera-lens combination that was used for the autopsy (this finding was suppressed but was discovered by the ARRB among the sealed HSCA materials),
that the eyewitness accounts of seeing puffs of smoke above the firing point identified on the grassy knoll are credible,
| (https://www.jfkassassinationgallery.com/albums/userpics/10001/normal_Atkins_Newmans.jpg) Notice how Mrs. Newman is shielding her child from the direction of the Depository | (https://www.jfkassassinationgallery.com/albums/userpics/10001/normal_stoughton.jpg) No garden towards the knoll | (http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pFd5u1tNLCWLE9h9zLRKlfLELvQ5e4Ss) Portion of landscaped area (camera-right) between Newmans and Depository |
that the FBI and the CIA misled and withheld information from the Warren Commission, that military intelligence destroyed information about Oswald that should not have been destroyed,
that Sylvia Odio's story is credible,
and that the committee "established an association of an undetermined nature between Ferrie, Shaw, and Oswald less than 3 months before the assassination."
And you people still refuse to come to grips with the hard scientific evidence that the autopsy skull x-rays have been altered. Your abject refusal to deal credibly with this evidence is on full display in the thread "Clear Evidence of Alteration in the JFK Autopsy Skull X-Rays."
But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation." What kind of "explanation" is that? Organ initially compared the known, established science of OD measurement to "seer stones." But, after I documented that OD measurement is a recognized science, he back-peddled and said he wasn't questioning the science, just Mantik's use of it. Okay, Mantik's measurements have been published for years now, yet no scientist has challenged their validity, and the only scientist who did his own OD measurements found that his measurements mirrored Mantik's.
Grasping for anything, WC apologists cite the fact that Dr. Fitzpatrick, the ARRB forensic radiologist, told Doug Horne that he disagreed with Dr. Mantik's research on the autopsy x-rays. Yet, Fitzpatrick failed to offer any explanation for the OD measurements, for the 6.5 mm object, for the white patch, and for the presence of emulsion under the T-shaped inscription on the left lateral x-ray, which is a physical impossibility unless this x-ray is a copy. When Dr. Mantik attempted to engage Fitzpatrick in a discussion on these matters, he declined.
Simply claiming that the 6.5 mm object is an innocent artifact does not explain the object. That is not an "explanation." That is merely a claim. HOW could an object that is perfectly round in 3/4 of its shape be formed on the AP skull x-ray during a presidential autopsy? HOW? Beyond this basic question, there is the glaring issue of the object's size and placement: it is perfectly positioned over the image of a smaller, genuine fragment, and it is exactly 6.5 mm in size, the precise diameter of the ammo that Oswald allegedly used. The least implausible of Sturdivan's three theories--that a stray metal disk somehow ended up on the table just before the AP x-ray was taken--is not only unprecedented (no one has yet identified another case where such a far-fetched scenario occurred), but it requires one to believe that the radiologist or his assistant spotted the disk before they took the lateral x-rays were taken but did not retake the AP x-ray after spotting the disk, a preposterous idea.
The conspiratorial explanation is a credible, scientifically supported explanation because it not only identifies the 6.5 mm object as an artifact that was created intentionally over the image of a smaller, genuine fragment, but it includes a proven method by which the object could have been placed there; it explains the OD measurements; and it provides a logical explanation for why the autopsy doctors failed to mention the object in their report and in their repeated testimonies. THAT is an explanation.
Q: Are you able to identify any metal fragments in the head?
A: Sure.
Q: And you're pointing toward the flecks?
A: Towards the black area. Towards the top of the skull. Here. That's the only way that can be, this fragment. There's no way an artifact will show up like that.
Q: Now, what is supporting those metal fragments, if there is no brain in the cranium? Where are they resting?
A: They have to be resting on the bone itelf somewhere. That's the only thing I can possibly think of, unless there's enough tissue there in that region to hold them. (p. 133)
Q: Let me draw your attention to what appear to be some flecks in what I would say is above the right eye socket.
A: Mm-hmm.
Q: -- and going towards the back. Are you able to identify whether those flecks arc artifacts or metal fragments?
A: They are metal fragments. Artifacts do not come in an irregular form like this. Not in that - in that traveling projection like that. It just doesn’t. Not that many in that one area. (p. 135)
Q: Can you identify in the X-ray any brain shadow?
A: No.There’s no brain shadow that I can see. Maybe portions - very small. But this is all empty. Anything -
Q: Do you know where the bullet fragment was located on the body?
A: Right orbital ridge, superior.
Q: How do you know it was in the right orbital ridge, rather than at the back of the skull?
A: Because of the protruding eyeball.
Q: Did you see the fragment removed?
A: No, I did not. Can I inject something here? This area, I pointed out to Dr. Ebersole as a fragment. And he called it an artifact. I said, "How about these fragments up here?" This is when he told me to mind my own business. (p. 115)
I went back and checked Custer's 10/28/97 ARRB interview. It is not clear that Custer was referring to the 6.5 mm object when he discussed Ebersole's reference to an artifact. Custer's actual words suggest that he called Ebersole's attention to an "area" that contained fragments, i.e., the right frontal region, and that when he said that Ebersole "called it an artifact," the "it" was the area, not an individual fragment.
Importantly, Custer said the area was behind the superior right orbital ridge (i.e., just above the right socket), which is right next to the cloud of fragments. However, the extant AP skull x-ray shows the 6.5 mm object to be on the back of the skull, on the rear outer table. Custer was an experienced x-ray technician, and it seems unlikely that he would have mistaken an object behind the right orbital ridge for an object on the rear outer table of the skull.
Plus, Custer's comments later in the interview suggest that Custer was using the term "fragment" to refer to the cloud of fragments in the right frontal part of the skull, near the top of the skull; this cloud of fragments is the collection of metal flecks that constitutes most of the high fragment trail on the extant skull x-rays.
As many people sometimes do, Custer may have intermittently used a singular noun, in this case "fragment," as a collective noun to describe a collection of the same kinds of objects, in this case the cloud of tiny fragments in the right frontal region. If Ebersole identified the right-frontal cloud of fragments as an artifact, this would explain why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail, and why the autopsy doctors never mentioned the high fragment trail in their WC testimony, even though the high fragment trail, with its huge cloud of fragments in the right frontal region, is impossible to miss.
Later in the interview, Custer appears to return to Ebersole's artifact conclusion and seems to challenge it by stating his opinion that it was unlikely that the numerous metal flecks in the right frontal region were an artifact. The interviewer adds context by asking Custer what is holding those fragments if there's no brain in that area on the x-rays:
With these statements in mind, let's go back and read Custer's comment about Ebersole's artifact conclusion in its full context:
One can easily read "this area . . . a fragment" and "these fragments up here" as referring to the same thing: the cloud of metal flecks in the right frontal region near the top of the skull.
When Custer was specifically asked about the location of the "semi-circular" large "metal fragment," he said he could not identify its location on the x-ray he was being shown (p. 133). This suggests that he may not have been referring to this object when he mentioned Ebersole's artifact conclusion, since he was clear that that the area he pointed out to Ebersole was behind the right orbital ridge.
As mentioned, if this interpretation is correct, it clears up a number of issues. It explains why the autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail. It explains why the autopsy doctors said nothing about the high fragment trail in their WC testimony. If Ebersole told them that the right-frontal cloud of fragments was an artifact, their failure to say anything about it makes sense.
Humes mentioned that he saw 30-40 tiny fragments on the skull x-rays, but he said those fragments ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, several inches lower than the cloud of fragments on the extant x-rays. Finck reported, in writing, to General Blumberg that he saw the same low fragment trail. However, no such fragment trail appears on the extant x-rays.
I should add that Dr. Mantik and Custer met several times to discuss the autopsy and the autopsy x-rays, and during all those discussions, never once did Custer claim that Ebersole identified the 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.
But you didn't even address the OD measurements in your "explanation."
There is no reason to address Mantik’s work. The answer was explained to you in an earlier post. Here is a repeat. I have underlined some of this for emphasis. [RIDICULOUS "ANSWER" SNIPPED]
We can therefore safely conclude that the “object” on the X-ray is just what many experts said it was, an artifact, and that Mantik is seeing monsters in his bedroom closet.
Steve Galbraith: And: "Our meeting had been conducted primarily in Russian but Oswald, possibly from the strain of being overly excited, often experienced difficulties in finding the proper Russian word and would switch to English. His pronunciation was bad, and he really mangled the grammar....."
It seems that Oswald, for whatever reason, was having problems speaking Russian while in Mexico City.
Thus the explanation for the "broken Russian" that the CIA translator Tarasoff heard. And all three men were emphatic in saying the man they met was Oswald not an impostor.
Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above, and have listened to a recording of his voice. These special agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald.
And I already proved that that "answer" makes no sense and raises even more questions than Sturdivan's acid-drop and stray-metal-disk theories, questions that you ducked by complaining that they were "unanswerable."
Furthermore, this supposed "answer" does not even mention Dr. Mantik's and Dr. Chesser's mutually corroborating sets of dozens of OD measurements. You guys are so blinded by your lone-gunman dogma that you can't see the forest for the trees. You constantly paste haughty, pretentious "answers" that are riddled with errors and comical illogic.
Let's look at another gem of silliness and error in Gagne's pseudo-academic answer:
What?! For your and Gagne's information, until Larry Sturdivan came out with his 2005 book, not a single lone-gunman theorist claimed that the 6.5 mm object was an artifact but adamantly declared that it was a bullet fragment. I recall many debates with WC apologists in online forums, before Sturdivan's book was published, where lone-gunman theorists insisted over and over again that "of course" the object was a bullet fragment because, gee, all the experts on the Clark Panel, on the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and on the HSCA's medical panel said it was.
But after Sturdivan, to his great credit, explained why it was a physical impossibility for the 6.5 mm object to be a bullet fragment (using the same argument that skeptics had been making for years, by the way), WC apologists slowly began to adopt his position. WC critics have long argued that the object had to be an artifact, and now, because of Sturdivan, LNers agree. The only difference is that we say the artifact was added to the AP x-ray after the autopsy, whereas you say that somehow, some way, by a means you can't explain, the artifact was accidentally, and thus innocently, added to the AP x-ray.
No one is putting words in Custer's mouth. His own words clearly suggest that he was using "fragment" as a collective noun to refer to the cloud of tiny fragments near the right orbit and that he was associating Ebersole's artifact conclusion with that fragment cloud. Even David Von Pein, of all people, says, "I'm not 100% sure Jerrol Custer was referring to the now-famous 6.5 mm object." When one read Custer's words, one sees that it is entirely possible that Custer was not referring to the 6.5 mm object and that "artifact" referred to the area of the fragment cloud that Custer pointed out to Ebersole.
As I mentioned, this would explain why the autopsy doctors, incredibly, said nothing about the fragment cloud/high fragment trail in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. It would also explain why Ebersole said nothing about the 6.5 mm object to the HSCA and why he refused to discuss it with Dr. Mantik.
And I repeat that in all the numerous times that Dr. Mantik spoke with Custer about the autopsy and the x-rays, Custer never once claimed that Ebersole identified a single circular/6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy.
Here's another example of pitiful blindness and bias, this one from Steve Galbraith in his most recent reply:
OR, the man spoke such horrible Russian because he was not the real Lee Harvey Oswald! But, no, the same Oswald who was cool, calm, and collected when challenged by a gun-toting police officer less than 2 minutes after supposedly just having shot the president of the U.S.--according to you, this same Oswald was so "overly excited" while talking on the phone to get a visa that he temporarily lost his fluency in Russian and spoke in such bad Russian that he couldn't even pronounce his words correctly and "mangled" the grammar.
UH-HUH. Well, all the CIA had to do was produce the surveillance photo of the man who entered the Cuban Consulate. And the FBI agents who viewed the photos and heard the recording of the supposed Oswald said the man was not Oswald, as Hoover informed LBJ:
Finally, allow me to address Jerry Organ's erroneous claim that Oswald did not speak Russian well. Organ is making this bogus claim because the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City spoke "terrible" Russian, "hardly recognizable" Russian.
Mrs. Natalie Ray, a native of Stalingrad, Russia, met Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union. She told the WC that Oswald's conversational Russian was "just perfect." She complimented Oswald while speaking in her own broken English: "I said, 'How come you speak so good Russian? I been here so long and still don't speak very well English." When WC attorney Liebeler ask her, "You thought he spoke Russian better than you would expect a person to be able to speak Russian after only living...there only 3 years?", she replied, "Yes; I really did."
George de Mohrenschildt, another native Russian speaker, praised Oswald's skills in the Russian language. He told the WC that Oswald "had remarkable fluency in Russian.... he preferred to speak Russian than English any time. He always would switch from English to Russian."
Peter Gregory, a native of Chita, Siberia, told the WC that "I thought that Lee Oswald spoke [Russian] with a Polish accent, that is why I asked him if he was of Polish descent. . . . It would be rather unusual . . . for a person who lived in the Soviet Union for 17 months that he would speak so well that a native Russian would not be sure whether he was born in that country or not."
Gregory's son, Peter Paul Gregory, was a graduate student in Russian language and literature at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s. He conversed with Oswald and later told the WC that Oswald "was completely fluent. He understood more than I did and he could express any idea . . . that he wanted to in Russian."
Other witnesses spoke of Oswald's good command of Russian, including George Bouhe,
Mrs. Teofil Meller, Elena Hall, and Mrs. Dymitruk.
So the "Oswald" who called the Soviet Consulate in MC clearly was not the real Oswald.
| (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/walkernote1.jpg) | (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/walkernote2.jpg) |
Surely you're not comparing what you do with good police work? LOL! You dispute every bit of the "first day evidence" and 48-hour-evidence found by the Dallas Police Department and the FBI.
We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did.
Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand. (Dallas Morning News, 6 Nov 1969; for more info on this, see Don Thomas, "Rewriting History: Bugliosi Parses the Testimony," https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Rewriting_History_-_Bugliosi_Parses_the_Testimony.html)
The "second gunman" finding (not accept by all of the Committee's members) was largely based on acoustical analysis (a science then in its early stages). The HSCA acoustics findings were overturned in 1982 by the National Research Council. In science, a theory can be challenged by subsequent analysis.
The Justice Department in 1988 reviewed the HSCA findings, finding "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman" and "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy in … the assassination of President Kennedy".
"The acoustic evidence that was the sole objective, scientific support for the existence of a conspiracy in the HSCA investigation was debunked." -- Larry Sturdivan, 2005
The opposite is true. Oswald didn't speak fluent Russian.
"Lessons took place in a second-floor room after work ... Shushkevich just worked on verbs, and occasionally tried to teach this American colloquial Russian....Their lessons proceeded without great enthusiasm, and Oswald found Russian difficult. He did get to a point where he could achieve understanding if Shushkevich spoke slowly, used gestures, wrote words on pieces of paper, and sometimes brought out a dictionary." -- Stanislav Shushkevich, engineer at the Minsk Factory (Norman Mailer, "Oswald’s Tale" 1995)
You mean where Blakey wrote to the Secretary of Defense: "Our photographic experts have determined that this camera, or at least the particular lens and shutter attached to it, could not have been used to take JFK's autopsy pictures."? That simply means that if the Graphic View camera provided by the DoD was the 1963 one, then the lens was different. Or there was a additional or different camera used in 1963 that the DoD was not aware of. This does nothing to undermine how the HSCA determined authenticity of the autopsy photographs.
The HSCA authenticated the Backyard Photographs using, in part, the actual camera that took the photos. Most critics didn't accept that either.
LNers have long acknowledged the Oswald connection to 544 Camp Street. But what Oswald-Shaw connection did the HSCA publish? The CAP picnic photo was accepted by LNers. They didn't go around saying it was faked.
No problem with "hard scientific evidence". Problem with non-peer-reviewed Mantik's "hard scientific evidence". You likewise push forward hardened over-dramatized conclusions rather than focus on a single element and "drill down".
Unlike other evidence, optical density data are as “theory free” as possible, as this data deals only with physical measurements. To reject alteration of the JFK skull X-rays is to reject basic physics and radiology. Dr. Mantik has a PhD in physics and has practiced radiation oncology for nearly 40 years; he is thus eminently qualified in both physics and radiology.
We've drilled-down on your claims many times here (ie: the Brehm boy in the Zfilm) and, rather than concede you were proven wrong, you posted more deflections in the form of cut-n-paste "conclusions".
Some of what Mantik believes:
- The Zapruder film is faked ("Special Effects in the Zapruder Film: How the Film of the Century was Edited" 1998)
- Witnesses say Kennedy was struck in the head by two separate shots
- The limousine is stopped in the Moorman Photo
You're lying and misleading again. Now, you knew when you wrote this tripe that I was referring to honest detectives and policemen dealing with genuine evidence in an ethically handled case, which is not what we had with the Dallas Police Department and the FBI in the JFK case.
As you well know, or certainly should know, Dallas Police Department Chief Jesse Curry
admitted to the Dallas Morning News in a 1969 interview that they did not have any proof that Oswald shot JFK:
We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did.
Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand.
(Dallas Morning News, 6 Nov 1969; for more info on this, see Don Thomas,
"Rewriting History: Bugliosi Parses the Testimony," https://www.mary-ferrell.
org/pages/Essay_-_Rewriting_History_-_Bugliosi_Parses_the_Testimony.html)
To get some idea of the questionable, suspicious, and contradictory nature of the evidence against Oswald, see my article:
Faulty Evidence: Problems with the Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R1CZaCZfLA5QFjTCHNINcKxTH4cBiPfw/view
The refusal of WC apologists to face the facts about the 6.5 mm object is similar to the refusal of a small band of Nixon diehards who still refuse to believe that the 18-minute gap in the 6/20/72 Watergate tape resulted resulted from a deliberate criminal act. When people don't want to admit the occurrence of a criminal act, virtually no amount of evidence will cause them to change their minds. As long as the innocent explanation is theoretically possible, they will cling to it, no matter how wildly improbable and ridiculous it is.
It is theoretically possible that Rose Mary Woods accidentally erased five different segments of the 6/20/72 Watergate tape by mistakenly pushing the "record" button and then holding her foot on the dictabelt machine's pedal for a total of 18.5 minutes while allegedly talking the phone. It's also possible that Ms. Woods was telling a white lie when she said she could not have erased more than 5 minutes of the tape. After all, maybe she didn't want to admit that she had gabbed on the phone for 18.5 minutes. Yes, this is theoretically possible, but it defies common sense and reason; the fact that the erasure was not continuous but was split into five segments suggests to logical people that the erasure was not accidental.
WC apologists' "explanation" for the 6.5 mm object is even more unbelievable than the tale that Ms. Woods accidentally caused the 18.5-minute gap on the 6/20/72 tape. At least the Woods story includes a plausible method by which the 18.5 minutes could have been erased--it's very unlikely that this method occurred, but it could have happened.
However, of the three explanations for the 6.5 mm object offered by WC apologists, only one of them is even theoretically possible. Two of the three explanations (acid drop and stray metal disk in x-ray cassette) are physically impossible. That only leaves the theory that the AP skull x-ray was taken while there was a "stray metal disk" lying on the autopsy table. But WC apologists can't identify what kind of disk it could have been, can't identify a disk that was 6.5 mm in diameter, can't explain how a neatly defined notch would have been chipped from the disk, can't explain why the disk/object does not appear in any of the other skull x-rays, etc., etc.
For many years, LNers insisted that the 6.5 mm object was a bullet fragment. Skeptics pointed out that no FMJ bullet in the known history of forensic science had sheared off a fragment while penetrating a human skull and had deposited the fragment on the outer table of the skull. WC apologists replied that the esteemed forensic experts on three government medical panels (Clark Panel, Rockefeller Commission panel, HSCA medical panel) had identified the 6.5 mm object as a bullet fragment. Critics noted that those experts did not cite a single case where an FMJ bullet had deposited a fragment in this manner, and that the autopsy doctors did not mention the object in the autopsy report or in their WC testimony. Yet, lone-gunman theorists continued to insist that the object was a bullet fragment.
Firearms and ballistics expert Howard Donahue came along in the 1990s and noted, as conspiracy theorists had been arguing for years, that it was extremely unlikely that an FMJ bullet would deposit a fragment on the outer table of the skull while striking it, and that forensic science knew of no FMJ bullet that had ever behaved in this manner. LNers rejected Donahue's perfectly valid arguments, noting that Donahue also posited an accidental fatal shot from a Secret Service agent riding in the follow-up car, and once again citing the fact that three government medical panels had concluded the 6.5 mm object was a bullet fragment.
Later in the 1990s, Dr. David Mantik first published his optical density (OD) measurements done on the autopsy skull x-rays at the National Archives and noted that the OD readings proved that the 6.5 mm object was not metallic. Dr. Mantik reported that he was even able to duplicate how the object could have been added. I remember very well presenting the OD evidence to LNers in online forums, and every single one of them dismissed this hard scientific evidence and repeated the point that "all those experts" on the Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and the HSCA's medical panel had said the object was a bullet fragment.
Then, along came wound ballistics expert and former HSCA consultant Larry Sturdivan with his 2005 book The JFK Myths. Using the same essential argument that critics had long been using, Sturdivan explained in his book why the 6.5 mm object simply could not be a bullet fragment. This time, since Sturdivan was (and is) an ardent lone-gunman theorist and a staunch WC defender, WC apologists began to change their minds. Nowadays, most LNers have ditched the bullet-fragment claim and acknowledge that the 6.5 mm object is an artifact.
However, WC apologists claim that the artifact was created accidentally, with no criminal intent. But, as mentioned, their only theoretically possible innocent explanation is that a metal disk somehow got onto the autopsy table, that nobody noticed it (including the radiologist and the x-ray technician when they were preparing to x-ray the skull), that the AP x-ray was taken while the disk was on the table, and that the 6.5 mm object is the image of that disk. Yet, as also mentioned, WC apologists can't identify what kind of disk it could have been, can't identify a disk that was 6.5 mm in diameter, can't explain how a neatly defined notch would have been chipped from the disk, can't explain why the disk/object does not appear in any of the other skull x-rays, etc., etc.
Of course, this far-fetched theory also requires us to believe that the disk just happened to be in the right position to cause its x-rayed image to perfecty overlay the image of a small genuine fragment on the outer table of the skull.
This far-fetched theory also requires us to believe that someone noticed the disk after the AP x-ray was taken and that it was removed from the table before the lateral x-rays were taken. But this naturally begs the question of why the radiologist and/or the x-ray tech would not have retaken the AP x-ray in order to get an x-ray that did not include an artifact that so clearly looked like a bullet fragment.
In addition, this far-fetched theory fails to explain why the radiologist, Dr. Ebersole, said nothing about the 6.5 mm object in his HSCA testimony and why he refused to discuss the object with Dr. Mantik. Nor does this theory explain why the x-ray technician, Jerrol Custer, in his many interviews with Dr. Mantik, never claimed that Dr. Ebersole identified a 6.5 mm object as an artifact during the autopsy and why Custer never claimed that he himself saw the 6.5 mm object during the autopsy.
The refusal of WC apologists to face the facts about the 6.5 mm object is similar to the refusal of a small band of Nixon diehards who still refuse to believe that the 18-minute gap in the 6/20/72 Watergate tape resulted resulted from a deliberate criminal act. When people don't want to admit the occurrence of a criminal act, virtually no amount of evidence will cause them to change their minds. As long as the innocent explanation is theoretically possible, they will cling to it, no matter how wildly improbable and ridiculous it is.
It is theoretically possible that Rose Mary Woods accidentally erased five different segments of the 6/20/72 Watergate tape by mistakenly pushing the "record" button and then holding her foot on the dictabelt machine's pedal for a total of 18.5 minutes while allegedly talking the phone. It's also possible that Ms. Woods was telling a white lie when she said she could not have erased more than 5 minutes of the tape. After all, maybe she didn't want to admit that she had gabbed on the phone for 18.5 minutes. Yes, this is theoretically possible, but it defies common sense and reason; the fact that the erasure was not continuous but was split into five segments suggests to logical people that the erasure was not accidental.
WC apologists' "explanation" for the 6.5 mm object is even more unbelievable than the tale that Ms. Woods accidentally caused the 18.5-minute gap on the 6/20/72 tape. At least the Woods story includes a plausible method by which the 18.5 minutes could have been erased--it's very unlikely that this method occurred, but it could have happened.
However, of the three explanations for the 6.5 mm object offered by WC apologists, only one of them is even theoretically possible. Two of the three explanations (acid drop and stray metal disk in x-ray cassette) are physically impossible. That only leaves the theory that the AP skull x-ray was taken while there was a "stray metal disk" lying on the autopsy table. But WC apologists can't identify what kind of disk it could have been, can't identify a disk that was 6.5 mm in diameter, can't explain how a neatly defined notch would have been chipped from the disk, can't explain why the disk/object does not appear in any of the other skull x-rays, etc., etc.
For many years, LNers insisted that the 6.5 mm object was a bullet fragment, an FMJ bullet fragment.
Then, along came wound ballistics expert and former HSCA consultant Larry Sturdivan with his 2005 book The JFK Myths. Using the same essential argument that critics had long been using, Sturdivan explained in his book why the 6.5 mm object simply could not be an FMJ bullet fragment. This time, since Sturdivan was (and is) an ardent lone-gunman theorist and a staunch WC defender, WC apologists began to change their minds. Nowadays, most LNers have ditched the bullet-fragment claim and acknowledge that the 6.5 mm object is an artifact.
Lone-gunman theorists still refuse to come to grips with the hard scientific evidence that the 6.5 mm object was added to the JFK autopsy anterior-posterior (AP) skull x-ray, even though this fact has been confirmed by scores of optical density (OD) measurements, and even though the ARRB forensic radiologist admitted that there is no object on the lateral skull x-rays that corresponds in density and brightness to the 6.5 mm object on the AP skull x-ray.
The 6.5 mm object is the largest and most obvious non-bone object on the AP skull x-ray. A first-year medical student would have no problem quickly identifying it as the largest apparent bullet fragment on the AP x-ray. The object appears to be located on the rear outer table of the skull. The Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission’s medical panel, and the HSCA’s medical panel, not having the benefit of OD measurements, logically concluded that the object was a bullet fragment.
The problems with the 6.5 mm object start with the fact that, incredibly, the autopsy doctors did not mention the object in the autopsy report. They did not mention it during their Warren Commission testimony. They said nothing about it in their HSCA testimony. When the ARRB asked them about the object, they said they did not see it during the autopsy. They did not see it during the autopsy because it was added to the AP x-ray after the autopsy.
Since the nose and tail of the supposed single headshot bullet were found in
JFK’s limousine, any fragments on the rear outer table of the skull would have
had to come from the internal cross-section of the bullet. However, Oswald allegedly
used full-metal-jacketed (FMJ) bullets, and FMJ bullets have never been known
to deposit fragments from their cross-section at the entry site when they hit a
skull. Never. This fact led HSCA ballistics expert (and lone-gunman theorist)
Larry Sturdivan to acknowledge that the 6.5 mm object could not be a bullet
fragment (Sturdivan, The JFK Myths: A Scientific Investigation of the Kennedy
Assassination, Paragon House, Nook Edition, 2005, pp. 168-170).
Dr. David Mantik and Dr. Michael Chesser have done OD measurements on the 6.5 mm object. These measurements prove that the object is not metallic. The OD measurements and high-magnification analysis of the object reveal that it is a ghosted image that was added to the x-ray via double exposure. Dr. Mantik has even able to duplicate the method that was used to add the object.
The 6.5 mm object was ghosted over the image of a small genuine fragment on the back of the head. The small genuine fragment is on the right side of the object (viewer’s left). There is also a very tiny metallic fleck in the right side of the object (viewer’s left). The OD measurements confirm that the small fragment on the viewer’s left side of the object is metallic.
Most lone-gunman theorists cite Larry Sturdivan's far-fetched explanations for the 6.5 mm object. Sturdivan has offered three explanations: one is that a drop of acid somehow fell on the AP x-ray film and created the 6.5 mm object; one is that a stray metal disk somehow got stuck on the x-ray film cassette; and the third is that a stray metal disk fell the autopsy table and was not noticed when the AP x-ray was taken.
Leaving aside the question of where a drop of acid would have come from in the first place, since when do drops of acid include a well-defined notch that disrupts an otherwise perfectly round shape? The 6.5 mm object has a notch missing on its bottom right side (viewer’s right), but the rest of it is perfectly round. This is one of several problems with the acid-drop theory. The fatal problem with the theory is that if the 6.5 mm object were caused by an acid drop, the x-ray film's emulsion would be visibly altered at this site, but the emulsion is completely intact (Mantik, JFK Assassination Paradoxes, p. 150).
That leaves the stray-metal-disk theories. First of all, what kind of metal disk would have been present that could have somehow dropped onto the autopsy table or gotten stuck in an x-ray film cassette during a presidential autopsy? Anyway, if a metal disk had been inside the film cassette, it would have produced a dark area at the spot of the 6.5 mm object, not a transparent one.
If a metal disk had been lying next to JFK's head on the autopsy table when the AP x-ray was taken, it would appear on the lateral x-rays as well, but it does not. Of course, it goes without saying that if the radiologist and/or the x-ray technician had noticed a disk lying on the autopsy table after they took the AP x-ray, they would not have taken the lateral x-rays until they retook the AP x-ray.
For more information on the 6.5 mm object as hard scientific evidence that the JFK autopsy AP skull x-ray has been altered, see the following studies:
The John F. Kennedy Autopsy X-Rays: The Saga of the Largest “Metallic Fragment” (Dr. Mantik)
https://themantikview.org/pdf/The_JFK_Autopsy_X-rays.pdf
A Review of the JFK Cranial Autopsy X-Rays and Photographs (Dr. Chesser)
https://assassinationofjfk.net/a-review-of-the-jfk-cranial-x-rays-and-photographs/
Dr. Mantik’s response to Pat Speer’s critique of his research on the JFK autopsy materials (includes several pages dealing with the 6.5 mm object)
https://themantikview.org/pdf/Speer_Critique.pdf
The Suspicious 6.5 mm “Fragment” (yours truly)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QXCUhA5i4FmCic2nLDOnwMdCNSOa1Q10/view
JFK Autopsy “Bullet Fragment” X-Ray Was Faked (Jim Marrs)
This is a good summary in layman’s terms of the scientific evidence regarding the 6.5 mm object.
https://www.naturalnews.com/050959_jfk_assassination_x-ray_evidence_forensic_analysis.html
It was interesting that it [Baden's description of the 6.5 mm object] was phrased that way, ducking the obvious fact that it cannot be a bullet fragment and is not that near to their [the HSCA medical panel's] proposed entry site. A fully jacketed WCC/MC bullet will deform as it penetrates bone, but it will not fragment on the outside of the skull.
When they break up in the target, real bullets break into irregular pieces of jacket, sometimes complete enough to contain pieces of the lead core, and a varying number of irregular chunks of lead core. It cannot break into circular slices, especially one with a circular bite out of the edge. (The JFK Myths, pp. 184-185)
The "6.5 mm" fragment seen in the AP view is the 7 x 2 mm fragment that Humes removed from above and somewhat behind the President's right eye.
Posted by: Charles Collins:
To believe Mantik’s theory, one would have to believe that Jerrol and Ebersole processed the X-rays back on 11/22/63 and that there was no “6.5-millimeter” artifact on that X-ray. (This is because Mantik claims it was added later.) However, neither Ebersole or Jerrol have said anything like: “Wait a minute, I don’t remember seeing that artifact on the X-ray during the autopsy.”
Posted by: Jerry Organ:
I doubt that "WC apologists" have been promoting an "acid drop". Pat Speer did some actual research on the matter of artifacts on x-ray and found this image from the 1969 book "Radiography in Modern Industry". "A drop of fixer" -- not "acid". It's something to consider, as is the idea it was an artifact recognized as such on the night of the autopsy.
Posted by: Jerry Organ:
"Since it is not seen on the lateral x-rays, it is by definition an artifact. An artifact may be a real object or a defect in film processing ... The term does not mean that it is an artificial object." -- Dr. Chad Zimmerman to Vincent Bugliosi, letter dated March 15, 2006
Posted by: Jerry Organ:
Maybe I missed something, but I can't see where the 1991 "Conspiracy of One" or the 1993 book "Case Closed", for example, promote the 6.5 mm object as a sheared bullet fragment.