MG: No, he said he didn't see the two men behind the fence during the shooting. You guys brush them aside, but two of Bowers' friends said he didn't publicly reveal everything he saw. And, naturally, you dismiss journalist Penn Jones' report that Bowers' wife told him on the record that her husband was told not to talk.
Which side of the fence is "behind," from Bowers' perspective? Bowers told both Thompson and Lane that one of the men kept disappearing from his view behind the fence. The only way that would work was that the man was on the south side of the fence. In his interview for Lane's film, in a bit left of the cutting room floor for some reason, Bowers is clear that he saw no one north of the fence at the time of the shooting. And (again!) if you've read Thompson's books, you know he gives short shrift to Bowers' "friends."
So all of his friends were just lying, and Jones just fabricated his wife's statement. Okay, thanks for sharing. I think there is good reason to believe that Bowers did not want to publicly share everything he saw. You disagree. We'll agree to disagree.
MG: LOL! Bowers certainly didn't think they were "looking for a place to park." They certainly didn't act like they were just "looking for place to park."
Have you actually read Bowers' account? Have you ever been in that parking lot? I have. There would have been no need to spend several minutes "probing," as Bowers put it, if they were merely looking for a parking spot. That lot is quite small. They could have spotted a parking place in a matter of seconds.
Bowers said that the first car was driving around "as if he was searching for a way out, or was checking the area." Checking the area is indeed what someone would do if they were looking for a parking spot. Or, since this was one of the cars with out-of-state plates, it might have just been someone unfamiliar with Dallas streets taking a wrong turn and was looking for the way back to pavement. But, when you read Bowers' testimony, there's nothing more than three cars driving around in a parking lot. Nothing special at all in itself. To make anything more out of it, you have to project sinister motive. But that is just your own projection.
So 25 minutes before the motorcade arrived, three cars -- not one, not two, but three cars in the space of 25 minutes -- just happened to take the one and only short extension road into the parking lot behind the knoll and were merely looking for a way out of the parking lot once there or were just looking for a parking space! Please tell me you don't work in law enforcement, because you'd never solve a crime.
Bowers said the first car seemed to be "searching for a way out" or to be "checking the area" (6 H 285). Needless to say, "checking the area" is not the same as just looking for a parking space, since the car "circled the area in front of the tower, and to the west of the tower" (6 H 285). No car merely looking for a parking space would have done that.
And, of course, "searching for a way out" bears no resemblance to looking for a parking space. Moreover, as someone who has spent considerable time in Dealey Plaza, I can tell you that any car that turned west onto Elm Street and came to the extension road would have been immediately able to see from the top of the extension road that the road led into a parking lot. So the idea that three cars in a row "made a wrong turn" when they took the extension road is far fetched.
The parking lot is rather small, as Bowers mentioned ("a small amount of parking area of the employees" [6 H 285]). So no one would have needed to spend several minutes ("three or four minutes") driving around in front of the tower and west of the tower to look for a parking space, nor would anyone have needed several minutes to discern that there was no other exit from the parking lot. They would have been able to see in a matter of seconds that the extension road was the only entrance and exit.
Bowers said the second car spent "3 or 4 minutes cruising around the area" and that it "did probe a little further into the area than the first car" (6 H 286). Bowers added that the driver "seemed to have a mike or telephone or something" that he was "holding something up to his mouth with one hand and he was driving with the other, and gave that appearance" (6 H 286). When Ball asked how Bowers could tell that, Bowers said the car came "very close to the tower" (6 H 286).
"Just looking for the way back" or "looking for a place to park"?! Really? And, of course, there was nothing the least bit unusual about a driver "looking for the way back" or "looking for a place to park" to be talking into a microphone while driving around for "three or four minutes," right? "Nothing to see hear," right? Again, please tell me you don't work in law enforcement.
Bowers said the third car arrived 7-9 minutes before the shooting,
spent even more time driving around the small parking lot, "probed" one spot at the tower in the process, and
paused just above the assassination site before driving out of Bowers' sight:
Mr. BALL. Did you see another car?
Mr. BOWERS. Third car, which entered the area, which was some seven or nine minutes before the shooting. . . .
Mr. BALL. What did it do?
Mr. BOWERS. He spent a little more time in the area. He tried -- he circled the area and probed one spot right at the tower in an attempt to get and was forced to back out some considerable distance, and slowly cruised down back towards the front of the School Depository Building. . .
The last I saw of him he was pausing just about in -- just above the assassination site. (6 H 286)Are you kidding? "Just looking for the way back" or "looking for a place to park"?! To repeat, if the cars had merely been looking for a way to leave the parking lot after all three supposedly accidentally entered it, they would not have needed to spend several minutes "checking" and "probing" the lot. They would have been able to discern in a matter of seconds that the extension road was the only way out of the lot. Ditto for trying to find a parking space.
To anyone whose thought process is not chained down by the lone-gunman theory, it is obvious that the cars were doing a recon. Bowers clearly thought so, and for good reasons.
MG: And never mind that the area had been sealed off since 11:00 and that there had been virtually no movement in the area since then, which is why the three cars' strange behavior caught Bowers' attention, right?
The area was never "sealed off" until after the assassination. That is just Bowers' inference or yours. The officers stationed in and around Dealey Plaza said that they didn't stop traffic until a few minutes before the motorcade arrived. No one was going to split the downtown of a major American city in two for an hour and a half (beginning a half-hour before the President even landed!) for a motorcade.
Bowers:
Mr. BALL. Close to noon, did you make any observation of the area around between your tower and Elm Street?
Mr. BOWERS. Yes; because of the fact that the area had been covered by police for some 2 hours. Since approximately 10 o’clock in the morning traffic had been cut off into the area so that anyone moving around could actually be observed. (6 H 285)Bowers in his 1966 filmed interview:
Well, for some time that morning, since perhaps 10:00 in the morning, we had had the area pretty well sealed off. Policemen had been stationed on the triple underpass as well as other strategic corners in the area. There was very little traffic moving into this area at this time. . . .
After 11:00 or 11:30, there was practically no movement in the area whatsoever.MG: Oh, yeah, sure it is. You don't even know what you're talking about, and I can tell you've read next to nothing on the subject.
I've read and written quite a bit on the acoustic analysis. Enough that I was name-checked in Michael O'Dell's response to Thomas. You're the guy who has no idea what he's talking about.
Uh-huh, we'll see in a moment who doesn't know what he's talking about.
MG: The BBN acoustical scientists used the same methods and scientific principles in analyzing the DPD dictabelt that they used when they analyzed the audio recording of the 1970 Kent State shooting.
As far as I've ever been able to find, the BBN methodology used for the Dictabelt has never been thoroughly tested in a controlled environment, so we have no idea if it really works as well as Barger, et al, would have us believe. Just from the match data that Barger presented in HSCA exhibit F-367 implies that the BBN method isn't very sensitive to source location, which is of course critical to the analysis.
Hogwash. And you claim to know what you're talking about with the acoustical evidence?
In the Kent State case, Dr. Barger and his team used a combination of waveform physics, sound-speed calculations, vector triangulation, and an onsite reenactment to identify the location and timing of the numerous shots that were fired. They identified the shock waves and muzzle blasts of the rifle fire. By measuring the precise time-delay intervals between the arrival of the shock waves and the arrival of the muzzle blasts, the BBN scientists were able to mathematically calculate which National Guardsmen were the first to fire shots.
Does any of this sound familiar? Huh? If you had read the reports that the BBN and Queens College acoustical scientists submitted to the HSCA, you would know these were the same methods and principles that those scientists used to analyze the DPD dictabelt. Dr. G. Paul Chambers, a physicist who has worked with NASA, with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, and with the Naval Research Laboratory, recognizes this fact. I quote from his explanation of the intricate correlations between the dictabelt impulse patterns and the impulse patterns from the Dealey Plaza test firing and how the HSCA's acoustical scientists established them:
The HSCA commissioned the acoustics firm of Bolt, Beranek, & Newman (BBN) to perform a scientific analysis on the Dictabelt recording. This firm had previously successfully utilized acoustical analysis to determine the events that transpired during the Kent State shooting in 1970. Their acoustical analysis was later used as evidence presented to a grand jury to determine which national guardsman had fired first. BBN was also pointed by Judge John J. Sirica to serve on a panel of technical experts to analyze President Richard Nixon’s Watergate tapes.
Led by their chief scientist, Dr. James Barger, BBN converted the sounds on the tapes [the Channel 1 tape and the Channel 2 tape] to digitized waveforms. They then ran the waveforms through electronic filters to eliminate repetitive background noise like the sound of the motorcycle pistons firing. The firm then examined the processed waveforms for “sequences of impulses.” Their analysis indicated that there were six sequences of interest, spaced together within an eleven-second period recorded on channel 1, which could be consistent with the sounds of gunshots. . . .
Weiss and Aschkenasy reviewed Barger’s analysis and conclusions. They found that Barger’s analysis was valid and his conclusions supported by the evidence on the tape. They concurred with his recommendation to conduct live-fire tests in Dealey Plaza to determine the origin and direction of the gunshots, and they approved his plan for acoustical reconstruction. . . .
In Dealey Plaza, the sounds of gunshots would produce similar echoes. When recorded and captured on a specialized electronic device like an oscilloscope that converts sound patterns into pictures, these echoes appear as “acoustical waveforms” and appear as unique signatures of sound-producing events. In the case of a rifle shot in Dealey Plaza, the acoustical signatures would differ based on the origin, direction, and velocity of the shot, as well as the location of the recording microphone. The echo patterns would depend on the timing of sound reflections off building or other structures and obstructions in the plaza. . . .
A recording was made of the sounds received at each microphone during each test shot, making a total of 432 recordings of impulse sequences. . . . Each recorded impulse sequence was then compared with each of the six impulse patterns on the channel 1 Dictabelt recording to see the degree to which significant points in each impulse pattern matched. . . .
The time of the arrival of the impulses, or echoes, in each sequence of impulses was the characteristic being compared, not the shape, amplitude, or any other characteristic of the impulses or sequences. . . .
When the BBN team performed their analysis of the acoustical waveforms, they found something extraordinary. When they compared the impulse sequences from the acoustical reconstruction to the sequences on the original Dictabelt recording, they found a number of significant matches. When the locations of the microphones that recorded matches in the reconstruction were plotted on a graph of time versus distance, it was found that the location of the microphones that recorded matches were clustered around a line on the graph that was consistent with the known speed of the motorcade (11 mph). . . .
Of the thirty-six microphones placed along the motorcade route, the one that recorded the sequence of impulses that matched the third impulse on the 1963 dispatch tape [the dictabelt tape] was farther along the route than the one that recorded the impulses that matched the second impulse on the dispatch tape.
The locations of the microphones were consistent with the distance a motorcycle traveling at about 11 mph would cover in the elapsed time between impulses on the dispatch tape. . . . Applying a statistical formula, Barger estimated that since the microphones clustered around a line representing the speed of the motorcade, there was a 99 percent probability that the Dallas police dispatch tape did, in fact, contain impulses transmitted by a microphone in the motorcade in Dealey Plaza during the assassination. . . .
Weiss and Aschkenasy, specialists in sonar applications . . . examined Dealey Plaza carefully to determine which structures were most likely to have caused the echoes recorded by the microphone in the acoustical reconstruction that had exhibited a match to the shot from the grassy knoll. They verified and refined their identifications of echo-producing structures by examining the results of the 1978 reconstruction [the test firing in Dealey Plaza]. This approach allowed them to look for matches in the data with a 1 ms [millisecond] correlation. . . . Matches at this level of temporal precision substantially reduced the possibility that a match could occur as a result of random noise.
In Dealey Plaza, echoes from gunshot test patterns arrive in two discrete [different] clusters, differing in time by about 190 ms. Echoes originating from structures along Elm Street arrive within 85 ms, while echoes from structures farther back on Houston Street arrive in the last 95 ms of a typical 370-ms-duration test pattern. In addition, a “muzzle blast” is usually prominent at the beginning of a gunshot acoustical pattern, while an N-wave (a shock wave traveling faster than the speed of sound due to the rifle bullet exceeding the sound barrier) arrives prior to the muzzle blast. The waveform identified as the grassy knoll shot is shown in figure 13. The presence of an N-wave in this waveform was consistent with the acoustical signature of a supersonic rifle bullet. (Chambers, Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination, 2010, pp. 96-102)The military uses the same scientific principles and methodology to acoustically locate gunfire today that the HSCA's acoustical scientists used. In fact, Dr. Barger, as I've pointed out, developed patented new technology for the military and police forces to acoustically locate gunfire.
No, they don't! The HSCA analysis used a correlative methodology comparing a test recording against a library of recordings of test shots. Modern shot location detection systems use either epicentric methods, stereophonic methods, or a combination of stereophonic+shockwave detection and only operate on live acoustic input. Like I said, you're the guy who doesn't know what he's talking about.
LOL! Uh, partner, this nonsense is further proof that you are the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. One, the HSCA analysis included shockwave detection and muzzle-blast and muzzle-blast-echo interval timing identification, just as present-day military systems use. Have you not read Weiss and Aschkenasy's HSCA report on their sonar analysis of the 144.9 impulse pattern, for starters?
Now, of course, in terms of the equipment used in present-day operations vs. what the HSCA's acoustical scientists used, obviously there is a difference, but the core scientific principles used are the same.
I have the advantage of having had basic acoustical training in my training to be a signals interceptor in the military. I also have the advantage of having done technical editing of classified and unclassified military manuals on signals detection and direction-finding equipment for several years. Now, just to be clear, I'm not claiming to be an acoustical scientist, but I do know a whole lot more about acoustics than your average Joe knows.
BTW, the new research done by BBN scientists, including Dr. Barger, from 2015-2018 proves that the dictabelt's impulse patterns were recorded in Dealey Plaza during the assassination and debunks the NRC/NAS's claim that the Decker "hold everything" transmission is crosstalk.
At best, the latest bit of face-saving from BBN shows that PCC is so dependent on the assumptions input into it that it can't prove or disprove anything.
What?! So PCC analysis "can't prove or disprove anything"?! Gee, that's not what Linsker and his colleagues said about their PCC test! They claimed it proved that the Fisher "I'll check" transmission is not crosstalk! Have you not even read their article? You have no clue what you're talking about, do you? I think you're using words whose definition you don't even understand.
At best, you're clumsily trying to whitewash the fact that Linsker et al. botched, or rigged, their PCC test by using the ridiculous sample-width window of 512, which was guaranteed to produce inaccurate results loaded with extraneous data, and they used that window for all three potential crosstalk transmissions. As Dr. Barger explained to Thompson, this is not how an actual PCC test is done, noting that a 512 window is "a much coarser measurement tool."
Linsker and his buddies also made the false assumption that the NRC/FBI playback contains no skips, when in fact it contains at least four skips.
Linsker and his colleagues declined to publish the raw data of their PCC test of the Fisher transmission, but they claimed that the test showed the Fisher transmission was not crosstalk because the obtained PCC peak was not at the "expected speed warp." This was pure hokum, and they surely knew it, or should have known it.
As they should have known, the actual speed warp at any given moment would be a small deviation from the expected speed, and the computer in a PCC analysis overcomes this problem by comparing the two recordings at increments of warp. It starts with the "expected" speed and then samples iteratively at 1% too fast, then 1% too slow, and then 2% too fast, then 2% too slow, etc., etc. In this case the "expected" speed warp was 1.08, and so the computer sampled at warps between 0.85 to 1.14. The best match, or highest peak, was found at a speed warp of 1.12, about 4% off from expected. This proves it is irrelevant that the peak was found at a different speed warp than the expected speed. This is exactly why the computer makes the comparison iteratively at increments of speed warp that deviate from the expected speed. Long story short, when Linsker et al. tested cross-talk instances that they favored, they ignored their "not at the expected speed warp" excuse for rejecting the Fisher transmission as crosstalk and assumed that the "correct" speed was whatever speed generated the highest peak.
The most charitable assumption we can make is that Linsker et al. botched their PCC test because not one of them was an acoustical scientist.
The heterodyning that accompanies and corresponds exactly with the channel 1 "I'll check it" proves that it's a native channel 1 transmission and not crosstalk.
LOL! I guess you didn't read my previous comments on this point. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll just quote part of what I said to Barber when he floated this argument:
Did you miss the fact that
even Bowles admitted that the Fisher "I'll check" transmission is crosstalk? Again, did you even read my reply or did you just glance at it before you rubber-stamped Corbett's inane reply?
Did you miss the fact that Dr. Mullen's PCC test proved that the Fisher "I'll check" transmission is actual crosstalk and that the Decker "hold everything" transmission is nothing but an overdub that was not even recorded at the same speed as the acknowledged crosstalk transmissions?
As for your spurious argument that the Fisher transmission can't be crosstalk because it is accompanied by heterodyne tones,
I take it you're unaware that heterodyne tones also occur near and during the Decker transmission. So, according to you, the Decker transmission can't be crosstalk. You would have known better than to repeat the heterodyne argument if you had read Dr. Thomas's research or Dr. Thompson's research.
BTW, Linsker and his colleagues tried to conceal the fact that even their own incompetently done PCC test disqualified the Decker transmission as crosstalk if they accepted the heterodyne argument (Thompson,
Last Second in Dallas, p. 512).
This whole erroneous heterodyne argument started with the NRC/NAS panel because they didn't understand the relationship of the transmitters and didn't understand how broadcasts can be superimposed from one channel onto another. They wrongly assumed that the Channel 2 broadcast had been picked up over the motorcycle's transmitter, i.e., its open microphone, but the broadcast was actually picked up by another transmitter, most likely a police unit parked at the Trade Mart where police officers had gathered for JFK's expected arrival.
MG: I notice you haven't laid a finger on any of the evidence that the HSCA's acoustical scientists documented in support of their findings (the timing-movement correlations, the sonar analysis that verified the grassy knoll shot, the windshield-distortion correlations, and the presence of N-waves, muzzle blasts, and muzzle-blast echoes in the correct order and interval and only when the microphone was in position to record them).
I only have so much time to devote to these exchanges, and your dedicated posts on the matter are so full of misunderstandings, misapprehensions, and misrepresentations that I'd be pulling 24/7 shifts to devote justice to each and every one of your "points." By the way, an "N"-wave is a waveform so-named mererly because it is shaped like a capital letter "N," and are not unique to shock waves.
LOL! Oh my goodness! Even the NRC/NAS panel did not float this comical gaffe, but many WC apologists, knowing little or nothing about the acoustical evidence, continue to make this erroneous argument -- and here you are repeating it. You clearly don't understand the N-wave evidence that the HSCA's acoustical scientists identified and explained.
This "N-waves are not unique to shock waves" argument started with one of the three dissenting HSCA congressmen, Congressman Edgar, and Weiss and Aschkenasy debunked it (5 HSCA 609-610). Yes, random noise can create a waveform that resembles an N-wave when displayed on an oscillogram (an oscilloscope printout),
but that waveform is not going to include the waveforms of a muzzle blast and then muzzle-blast echoes, much less a muzzle blast and muzzle-blast echoes that occur in the correct order and interval. Never.
I'm guessing you don't know that the N-waves on the dictabelt include these key traits: muzzle blast followed by muzzle-blast echoes, and each phenomenon occurs in the right order and interval. For a sound wave to be an N-wave, it must come before the muzzle blast, and it must do so in the very small and specific timeframe of 10-30 milliseconds, and then the muzzle blast will come after the N-wave, and then the muzzle blast will be followed by its own echo. Weiss and Aschkenasy explained how these groups of impulses appear in the graphical representation of one of the test-firing shots:
The first waveform appearing in the graph, the large peak at the left-hand side, corresponds to the supersonic shockwave [N-wave] of the rifle bullet. The second large peak is the waveform of the muzzle blast. Following it, with generally diminishing heights, are the waveforms of the echoes of the muzzle blast. The delay time of each echo was determined by direct measurement of the distance from the leading edge of the muzzle blast waveform to that of the echo. (8 HSCA 24)And Weiss and Aschkenasy's sonar analysis proved that all 26 of the echo patterns of the grassy knoll test shot matched with the 26 echo patterns of the dictabelt’s 144.9 impulse pattern (8 HSCA 27-29).
There is also the fact that the N-waves on the dictabelt not only include a muzzle blast and muzzle-blast echoes, but they occur only when the microphone was in position to record them.
MG: I think one of the first things people will notice is that you ignore the fact that five of the reactions are supported by the recognized science of blur analysis (I only mention four blur events in the article because I don't mention that a marked blur episode occurs around the time of the Z313 headshot, since no one questions that Z313-317 shows a reaction to a shot).
Is blur analysis actually a "recognized science" and who recognizes it as such?
Huh, I guess you haven't read the HSCA PEP's report? Are you aware that testing has proven that people doing filming will always, always jiggle the camera when they hear a gunshot, even if they know the shot is coming? CBS established this fact in one of their tests.
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