You posted a virtually identical reply in the thread "LNers Can't Explain the Two Back-of-Head Bullet Fragments," and I answered that reply in detail. Yet, here you are again repeating the same claims about Olivier's test while ignoring the facts that I presented to you in my response. Most of my comments below come from my response in that thread.
As for Dr. Olivier's testimony and his exhibits, do you have any clue how many scholars have examined Olivier's testimony and CE 857 and CE 859 and have noted the glaring holes in his claims? Did you ever ask yourself why Olivier would have showed fragments from only one of the 10 FMJ test shots into skulls? Now why do you suppose he would have done that? What about the fragments from the FMJ bullets fired into the nine other skulls? Hey?
Did you notice that Olivier and Arlen Specter had to go "off the record" after Specter asked Olivier if all the fragments in CE 859 were in CE 857 and after Olivier said they were "supposed to be"? Let's read:
Mr. Specter. Are all of the fragments on 859 contained within 857?
Dr. Olivier. They are supposed to be, photographed and placed in the box. If they dropped out they are supposed to be all there.
(Discussion off the record.)
(5 H 88)
Now, gee, why did they have to go off the record after Olivier gave that answer? Humm? Because there's an obvious difference between the number of fragments seen in CE 857 and the number seen in CE 859? CE 859 shows more fragments than are seen in CE 857.
Yet, even CE 859 shows at least 40% fewer fragments than the autopsy skull x-rays show. The skull x-rays show about 40 tiny fragments just in the right-frontal region alone. To the viewer's left of this fragment cloud we see a number of other fragments that are larger in size than the cloud fragments and that extend upward to a point at least 1 inch from the cowlick site. Not one of the bullets in Olivier's test deposited a "snowstorm" of tiny fragments in the right-frontal region and then created a trail of fragments that ranged upward from that fragment cloud. Not a single one.
In addition, there are at least two fragments on the back of the skull in the autopsy skull x-rays, one in the outer table and another between the galea and the outer table. Not a single one of the bullets in the Olivier's test deposited fragments on or above the outer table. Not a single one.
In Olivier's test, the skulls were coated with a gelatin thick enough to simulate scalp, and the skulls were also filled with gelatin to simulate brain tissue (5 H 87). Yet, the fragmentation pattern created by Olivier's FMJ bullets bears no resemblance to the pattern seen in the JFK autopsy skull x-rays.
As many scholars have noted, Olivier misrepresented his own test data and failed to mention serious contradictions between the wounds in the test skulls and JFK's head wounds. Physicist Howard Roffman noted one of the contradictions:
Ten skulls were fired upon with "Oswald's" rifle under conditions duplicating only those under which Oswald allegedly fired. Only one skull was subsequently shown to the Commission; the bullet that struck it "blew out the right side of the reconstructed skull in a manner very similar to the head wound of the President" (R87). This persuaded the "expert" to conclude--contrary to his beliefs nurtured by prior experience--"that the type of head wounds that the President received could be done by this type of bullet" (R87).
The pictures of this test exhibit printed by the Commission show a gelatin-filled skull with the bone of the entire right side missing (17H854). However, the gelatin underlying this missing bone is completely intact, so utterly undisturbed that it still bears the various minute impressions of the skull that once covered it. This gelatin was supposed to simulate the tissues within the skull (5H87). Yet those tissues, according to the autopsy report, were "lacerated," "disrupted," and "extensively lacerated" (16H981, 983). Obviously, even upon its entering the bony vault of the skull, the test bullet was not capable of producing the extensive damage attributed to it by the Commission. (Presumed Guilty, Associated University Press, 1975, pp. 112-113)
Dr. Don Thomas, a former research scientist for the U.S. Government:
The results also demonstrate another problematic aspect of both Lattimer's and Olivier's experimental results. Contrary to the statements of both men, neither set of experiments resulted in skull damage that resembled Kennedy's head wound. The top right side of Kennedy's cranium was burst open, but the President's face was intact. In Lattimer's and Olivier's skulls, parts of the face were destroyed (Fig. 10.3), which is only to be expected from bullets entering the back of the head. (Hear No Evil, MFF Press, 2010, p. 364)
And, as we have discussed, the 10 bullets that were fired into skulls in Olivier's test produced only about 30 fragments, for an average of three fragments per bullet. Not one of them blew up into dozens of fragments. Not one of them magically deposited two fragments (much less two mid-section fragments) on the outer table of the skull. Remember that Olivier told Howard Donahue that the FMJ bullets in his test only broke into a few fragments each.
I once again invite you to cite a single case in the known history of forensic science where an FMJ bullet struck a a human skull and (1) shattered into dozens of fragments, (2) left two fragments 1 cm below or 9 cm above the entry point, and (3) also ejected its nose and tail from the skull. Find me just one case where this has occurred. Just one.
The give-away is the test skull x-rays from Olivier's test. Even a layman can see that the fragmentation caused by Olivier's FMJ bullets bears no resemblance to the fragmentation seen in the JFK skull x-rays, as I've explained previously.
In the Failure Analysis wound ballistics test, the FMJ bullets only broke into a few fragments.
And, as proved earlier, DiMaio categorically ruled out FMJ bullets in cases where x-rays show a large concentration of dozens of small fragments (he used the term "lead snow storm").
Dr. Olivier said that CE 857 and CE 859 were "supposed to" contain the same fragments, but obviously they do not. This is when Specter took the conversation off-the-record. Now, gee, why do you suppose Specter felt the need to do that?
So it's not 58 fragments in total. It's fewer than 40 fragments, and there is considerable doubt, given the test skull x-rays, that those exhibits contained only fragments from one bullet, not to mention the fact that at least 20 of them were sizable fragments and that the fragmentation pattern they produced in the test skull x-rays bears no resemblance to the pattern seen in the JFK skull x-rays.
Are you ever going to you explain the fact that the x-rays of the test skull show minimal fragmentation?
The skull x-rays from Olivier's test refute your argument. They show minimal fragmentation. CEs 857, 858, and 859, even ignoring the questions about their validity, do not prove your claim. Lattimer's test produced no more than 23 fragments, 8 of which were sizable, which bears no resemblance to the fragmentation seen in the JFK skull x-rays. The FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis test behaved in the same way that Olivier told Donahue the FMJ bullets in the WC test behaved: they broke into no more than a few fragments.
Crucially, not one of the FMJ bullets in Olivier's test deposited a fragment on the outer table of the skull, yet the JFK skull x-rays show a 6.5 mm object placed over the image of a smaller genuine 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment on the outer table of the skull.
Even Sturdivan acknowledged that if the 6.5 mm object was an FMJ bullet fragment, it would have had to come from the cross-section, and that there is no way this could have happened in this case. I've already quoted Sturdivan's statement that the 6.5 mm object cannot be from the cross-section of an FMJ bullet, and his statement that no FMJ bullet would deposit fragments on the outer table of the skull. Let's read him again, shall we?
I’m not sure just what that 6.5 mm fragment is. One thing I’m sure it is not is a cross-section from the interior of a bullet. I have seen literally thousands of bullets, deformed and undeformed, after penetrating tissue and tissue simulants. Some were bent, some torn in two or more pieces, but to have a cross-section sheared out is physically impossible. (David Mantik, JFK Assassination Paradoxes, KDP, 2022, p. 21)
In his 2005 book The JFK Myths, Sturdivan explains the 6.5 mm object seen on the autopsy x-rays cannot be from an FMJ bullet in response to Dr. Michael Baden's attempt to use the object as evidence for the debunked cowlick entry site:
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. (pp. 184-185, emphasis added)
Even Larry Sturdivan now admits that the 6.5 mm object is a superimposed image; he argues that it was superimposed by accident, but he has no rational theory for how this alleged accident could have occurred (pp. 184-188).
There is no way the alleged FMJ head-shot bullet could have deposited the circular 6.5 mm object and the McDonnel fragment from its nose on the outer table of the skull, especially since a good chunk of this bullet's nose was allegedly recovered from the limousine. And, pray tell, how would those fragments have ended up 1 cm below the alleged entry point?
Can you name one expert who has ever denied the existence of the small back-of-head fragment seen on the lateral x-rays, the fragment that's at the same vertical level as the 6.5 mm object seen on the AP x-ray? Everyone from the Clark Panel to the HSCA FPP to Dr. Sturdivan to Dr. Riley to Dr. Aguilar to Dr. Mantik, etc., etc., has acknowledged the existence of this fragment, and Dr. Mantik and Dr. Chesser confirmed with multiple OD measurements that the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment is metallic.
This is the back-of-head fragment that the Clark Panel and the HSCA FPP erroneously identified as the partner image of the 6.5 mm object seen on the AP x-ray. Even Dr. Fitzpatrick and Dr. Sturdivan have admitted that back-of-head fragment seen on the lateral x-rays cannot be the partner image of the AP x-ray's 6.5 mm object because it is neither as large nor as dense as the 6.5 mm object. Nobody but nobody has ever denied this fragment's existence.
Regarding the McDonnel fragment and the other smaller back-of-head fragments, you still don't seem to understand the basics on this issue. Let me repeat, again: There is a 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment inside the 6.5 mm object--again, that's the fragment that Dr. Fitzpatrick and Dr. Sturdivan admit cannot be the partner image of the 6.5 mm object seen on the AP x-ray. There is also the McDonnel fragment, which is slightly to the left of the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment--and I should add that WC apologists have avoided dealing with this fragment as if it were the Black Death.
The fragment is 6.3 x 2.5 mm, not 6.5 x 2.5 mm. Horizontally, most of the fragment is only about 1.8-2.0 mm in width. It is less than half the size of the 6.5 mm object. See Dr. Mantik's diagram of the fragment. Again, Dr. Mantik and Dr. Chesser both confirmed with multiple OD measurements that the 6.3 x 2.5 fragment is metallic, and even Sturdivan and Fitzpatrick and Riley have acknowledged that it cannot be the partner image of the 6.5 mm object seen on the AP x-ray.
Why didn't the autopsy doctors extract this fragment? The better question is, Why didn't they even mention it in the autopsy report? They most likely saw it but did not dare acknowledge it (1) because they could not associate it with the EOP entry site, since it's about 9 cm (3.5 inches) above the EOP entry wound, (2) because they could not associate it with the low fragment trail described in the autopsy report (i.e., the EOP-to-right-orbit fragment trail), and (3) because it did not line up with the high fragment trail (which trail they also failed to mention in the autopsy report).
One could also ask, Why didn't the autopsy doctors mention the brazenly obvious high fragment trail seen on the lateral skull x-rays? That trail is at least 2 inches above the EOP entry site and is concentrated in the right frontal region. They said nothing about it (1) because it was a separate fragment trail from the low fragment trail that they described in the autopsy report, and (2) because they could not associate it with the EOP entry site.
Sibert and O'Neill's brief entry about a rear-head fragment must have resulted from hearing the autopsy doctors talk about the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment. The autopsy doctors chose to suppress the fragment's existence because of the severe problems it posed for their scenario of the shooting. Being at/near the rear "juncture of the skull bone," the fragment was far too high to be associated with the EOP entry site, and there was no other entry wound that could account for its presence at/near the lambda.
So, they opted to suppress its existence. As they did with the high fragment trail, they did not mention the back-of-head fragment in the autopsy report; however, they did not realize that Sibert and O'Neill mentioned the fragment in their 11/26/23 report. This could be one of the reasons that Sibert and O'Neill's report was not included in the WC volumes and was suppressed for years.
The 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment is indeed the second-largest fragment on the x-rays, second only to the 7 x 2 mm fragment near the right orbit, which is why Sibert and O'Neill said the back-of-head fragment was the second-largest fragment.
As for your comment that in Dr. Lattimer's test, one of the FMJ bullets broke up into "two larger fragments," I again ask, how does this comment address the fact that the x-rays of the skulls from Lattimer's test show no fragments in the skulls? Did you not notice that Lattimer specified that the two fragments that you mention were recovered from outside the skull ("after passing through a skull")?! Do you even read the text in the images that you post before you post them?
I notice that you snipped and ignored the point that not one of the FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis test broke up into numerous fragments. I might add, as I discuss in my article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds," that the FMJ bullets in the HSCA's test likewise failed to behave like the ammo that hit JFK in the head. Side-view photos of the HSCA gelatin blocks showed that all of the FMJ bullets punched straight, relatively narrow channels through the gelatin, drastically different from the brain damage that JFK suffered. And I would again note that you still have not explained the fact that no FMJ bullet in the history of forensic science has deposited two bullet fragments on or above the outer table when penetrating a skull.
You realize that Dr. Russell Morgan was a member of the Clark Panel and that he was regarded as one of the best radiologists in the world at the time, right? He was the only radiologist on the panel. But, nah, according to you he had no business talking about what the x-rays showed about the kind of ammo that was used!
I think some follow-up to these points will be helpful.
Howard Donahue, a court-certified ballistics and firearms expert, met with Dr. Alfred Olivier in the spring of 1969. Donahue wanted to talk with Olivier about the head-shot wound ballistics test that Olivier conducted for the Warren Commission (WC) in 1964. In that test, 10 FMJ bullets were fired into human skulls. The skulls were wrapped and filled with ballistics gelatin to simulate both the scalp on the skull and the brain matter inside the skull. The gelatin on the outer surface of the skull was "trimmed down to approximate the thickness of the tissues overlying the skull, the soft tissues of the head" (5 H 87).
Olivier told Donahue that "in each case" the bullets broke into "only two or three large fragments," and that the bullets did not "disintegrate or explode." Olivier even showed Donahue the skulls from the test, and Donahue noted that the resulting exit wounds were "nowhere close to where Kennedy's exit wound was located." I quote from Bonar Menninger's book
Mortal Error, which Menninger wrote with Donahue to tell the story of how Donahue came to formulate the mortal-error theory of the assassination:
Donahue needed more data. He'd already concluded that the slug [the head-shot bullet] -- by virtue of its disintegration on impact -- showed all the characteristics of a small-caliber, high-velocity, soft-nosed round. But what about the Warren Commission's test firings? Did the Carcano test bullets disintegrate in a similar fashion? Donahue didn't think so. The doctor who'd conducted the flawed analysis of the single-bullet theory -- the shots through goat meat and cadavers -- Dr. Alfred Olivier up at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal, had done the head-shot tests as well. What could be learned from Olivier?
In the spring of 1969, Donahue made a phone call to Edgewood. Luckily, Olivier was still employed there. Donahue got Olivier on the line and, without going into detail, explained that he was a weapons expert who'd been investigating the assassination. He said he'd be very interested in seeing the results of Olivier's head-shot test firings firsthand. Would it be possible to come and visit him? Olivier said he didn't see why not, and the two set an appointment for the following week.
Edgewood is located an hour or so north of Baltimore on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The compound is part of the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds, a sprawling facility where in the 1960s the instruments of war -- everything from artillery rounds to napalm -- were tested and refined.
Olivier was a veterinarian by training and responsible for studying the effects of gunshots on animals in the arsenal's wound ballistics lab. Donahue found Olivier to be a friendly man with graying hair and wire-rimmed glasses. The men exchanged pleasantries. Donahue asked about the doctor's attempts to duplicate the President's head wounds. Olivier explained he had test-fired Carcano rounds into ten human skulls filled with gelatin. The gelatin simulated the human brain.
"Did the bullets break up?" Donahue asked.
"Yes, they did," Olivier replied.
"How big were the fragments? I mean. . . . How many were there?"
"Well, in each case, I could find only two or three large fragments, but together they seemed to account for the bulk of the bullet's mass."
"So the bullets didn't disintegrate or explode, as far as you could see?" Donahue asked.
"No," Olivier replied, "they did not."
Donahue asked if any of these fragments had somehow been deposited on the outside table of the skull.
"No," Olivier said. "Actually, I have the skulls here. I brought them out in anticipation of your visit. Would you like to see them?"
Olivier began pulling human skulls out of two plastic bags. Donahue quickly made a mental note. Olivier had obviously fired his shots into the skulls slightly above and to the right of the external occipital protuberance. . . .
Predictably, the resulting exit wounds were nowhere close to where Kennedy's exit wound was located. Most were in the face of the skull, shattering the bones in the forehead area. (Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK, St. Martin's Press, 1992, pp. 83-84).Yet, the transcript of Olivier's WC testimony has Olivier saying that all the bullet fragments in CE 857 came from one bullet and were recovered from a single skull from the head-shot test, which is a physical impossibility for an FMJ bullet and which contradicts what Olivier told Donahue about his test.
Furthermore, CE 857 shows 19-21 fragments plus two large fragments. Even if we assume that all those fragments came from a single bullet, this would not duplicate the behavior of the ammo that hit JFK's head. The JFK head-shot ammo deposited over 30 tiny fragments in the right-frontal region, deposited several fragments to the left (viewer's left) of the right-frontal fragment cluster, deposited two fragments slightly behind and above the right orbit at least 1 inch from any other fragment, deposited a lone fragment in the left side of the skull, and deposited several fragments and a few particles on the rear outer table of the skull.
It gets worse, and more suspicious. CE 857 and CE 859 are supposed to show the same fragments from the same bullet recovered from the same skull, but they clearly do not show this. CE 859 shows 32-35 fragments, at least five of which are 10-20 mm wide and 10-20 mm long, but the two large fragments seen in CE 857 are not shown.
Even WC counsel Arlen Specter noticed this obvious discrepancy and asked Olivier about it. Olivier said the two exhibits were supposed to contain the same fragments, and then suggested that some of the fragments may have "dropped out," presumably before the exhibits were photographed. At that point, Specter felt compelled to hold an off-the-record discussion with Olivier. When they came back on the record, nothing more was said about the obvious conflict between the two exhibits:
Mr. SPECTER. Are all of the fragments on 859 contained within 857?
Dr. OLIVIER. They are supposed to be, photographed and placed in the box. If they dropped out, they are supposed to be all there.
(Discussion off the record.) (5 H 88)We should keep in mind that Olivier worked for the Army, so he could have been ordered to misrepresent his test results. If he had refused, he could have been fired. Notice that not one word was said about the fragmentation of the nine other bullets in Olivier's test, a very odd and suspicious omission, especially since Olivier was never asked if the supposed fragmentation of the one test bullet was representative of the behavior of the other test bullets.
Physicist Howard Roffman noted way back in 1976 that the released skull x-rays from Oliver's head-shot test show bullet fragmentation that is very different from the fragmentation seen in the JFK autopsy skull x-rays:
These x-rays depict gelatin-filled human skulls shot with ammunition of the type allegedly used by Oswald. They were classified by the government and remained suppressed until recently; they are printed here for the first time ever. What they reveal is that Oswald1s rifle could not have produced the head wounds suffered by President Kennedy. The bullet that hit the president in the head exploded into a multitude of minuscule fragments. One Secret Service agent described the appearance of these metal fragments on the X rays: "The whole head looked like a little mass of stars." The fragmentation depicted on these test x-rays obviously differs from that described in the president's head. The upper x-ray reveals only relatively large fragments concentrated at the point of entrance; the lower reveals only a few tiny fragments altogether. This gives dramatic suppressed proof that Oswald did not fire the shot that killed President Kennedy.(Presumed Guilty, A. S. Barnes, 1976, pp. 155-157; pp. 156-157 show the released skull x-rays from Olivier's test)Roffman also noted that the bullet fragmentation seen in the JFK autopsy skull x-rays is not the type fragmentation that would be caused by an FMJ bullet:
The only solid observation that can be made on the basis of fragmentation depicted in the head x-rays is that a bullet striking the head fragmented extensively, leaving pieces of metal, for the most part "the size of dust particles," concentrated toward the frontal portion of the brain. This type of fragmentation is not consistent with the type of full-jacketed military ammunition that the Commission says was used. The construction and composition of full-jacketed bullets obviates any such massive break-up. As noted previously, when military ammunition fragments, it is usually in such a manner that the core separates from the jacket. The core may undergo further break-up, although its metallic composition does not permit the creation of numerous dust-like particles. (Presumed Guilty, pp. 117-118.)
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