JFK Assassination Forum

What Hickey says doesn't establish the bullet caused his hair to fly up. The bullet would have arrived before the sound because the bullet was traveling almost twice the speed of sound.

The difference in bullet speed (2000 fps) and speed of sound (1127 fps) means that over a distance of 233 feet from muzzle to target the difference in arrival times is 233(1/1127-1/2000)=90 ms or about 2 frames.  So if the bullet sound coincided with the hair flying up, as Hickey said, and that hair motion began at z273 then the bullet arrived 90 ms or almost 2 frames earlier ie. at z271.

I broke down what can be seen in this documentary and many others.

https://jfkassassinationdocumentaries.wordpress.com/2015/09/23/death-in-dealey-plaza-program-content/

Studies have shown that even when witnesses were confident about their recollections, they could still be wrong. I don't care if the witnesses were clear in their mind. That doesn't mean what they remember was accurate.

I was asking whether you think a statement containing details that YOU clearly remembered would be reliable.  Apparently not.

One might correctly remember one and not the other.
For the record, I didn't remember either. I was not in Dealey Plaza when the shooting took place. I was in 7th grade math class.
I have said on a number of occasions that I might or might not remember specific details about an event. That makes me the same as the other 8 billion people on the planet.

I wasn’t asking whether you would have remembered those details.  I asked whether, assuming that you gave a statement containing details that you did remember clearly in your mind, you would maintain your statement was not reliable.  I thought it was a rhetorical question.

Apparently, you would make a statement to police authorities containing details that you could not recall with any clarity.

Why would anyone provide a statement mentioning details that they did not remember?

I would suggest you greatly overestimate the general populace's ability to perceive accurate details of an event, especially a shocking event that happens with no warning and lasts less than 10 seconds.

I would suggest that you underestimate the honesty of innocent average citizens when making statements to police.  You seem to think most would volunteer details that they did not really remember.  And then when the vast majority of the witnesses reported the same details that you think they couldn’t remember, you are ready to conclude that the agreement on those details could be just a random coincidence.

It's hard to forget something you didn't notice in the first place. Most people did hear 3 shots but some only remembered hearing 2. I find it probable that the one they either didn't hear or didn't remember hearing was the first shot. For whatever reason, that shot didn't seem to register with them.

If they could hear, they heard them. They just were not counting them or afterward could not remember anything that enabled them to say how many there were, such as a shot grouping of one, pause and then two close together.

….
Do you have a better explanation for why some of the witnesses such as Jackie or Clint Hill only remembered 2 shots?

Many of those who recalled only two shots were occupied doing other things (Landis, Hill, Darnell, Jackie) so their minds were focused on what they were seeing. Jean Newman wasn’t occupied that way but seemed to be really focused on watching Jackie.

 There aren’t that many who recalled exactly two. The 17 total mentioned in the HSCA report aren’t identified. There are not nearly that many in Stuart Galanor’s list of 218 witnesses and there are some listed there as 2 shot witnesses whose statements mention 3 (e. g. Thomas Johns, Royce Skelton).

Your whole premise is based on the assumption that these head movements were all cause by the same stimulus and that stimulus was Oswald's first shot. That doesn't seem very compelling proof to me of a shot at virtual Z124. I'd also like to know how you pinpointed it at the instant. I've explained how I have arrived at my conclusion the first shot was fired at Z148. Maybe you have explained it before but I'm not going to search the archives to find it. It would be a needle in the haystack for me to do it. Please give us the Reader's Digest version of how you reached your conclusion as to the specific time of the first shot.

ME: Explain in 100 words or less how Roselle and Scearce determined that the first, missing everything, shot occurred about half-a-second before Zapruder resumed filming at Z-133.

Thought for 7s

GROK: Roselle and Scearce (2020) used human reaction-time science on the silent Zapruder film to time the first (missed) shot.

acsr.org

They distinguished fast involuntary startle reflexes (e.g., ~0.06–0.2 sec flinch) from slower voluntary “surprise” reactions (conscious head turns/looks to locate the sound source). Using brake perception-reaction time (PRT) models from traffic studies—adjusted for total surprise—they estimated median perception time to initiate voluntary movement at roughly 0.5–1+ sec (varying with expectancy).

https://d7922adf-f499-4a26-96d4-8ab2d521fa35.usrfiles.com/ugd/d7922a_e280e26982b44f2c97c6e6e27026e385.pdf

In early frames, they identified near-simultaneous voluntary reactions by 7 witnesses (JFK, Jackie, the Connallys, Kellerman, Hickey, Rosemary Willis) starting ~Z140–Z150 (e.g., rapid leftward head turns then right). Subtracting typical surprise PRT placed the gunshot sound ~½ sec earlier—at hypothetical Z-124, just before Zapruder restarted filming at Z-133 after his ~17-sec pause.

jfk-assassination.net

This fits eyewitness timing, earwitness patterns, and a pre-tree miss. (≈85 words)

. . . . . . . .

I know you love jiggles, John Corbett, so just for giggles I'd like to share with you what someone by the name of Herb Huskr just posted:

Three synchronized film clips:

1) Elsie Dorman

2) Secret Service reenactment

3) Zapruder clip

Shown with three dubbed-in gunshot sounds at the following times in the three different montages:

Montage 1:  "Z-107" Z-219 and Z-310

Montage 2:  "Z-124" Z-219 and Z-310

Montage 3: Z-160  Z-219 and Z-310

When we watch and listen to montage 2, we see that Dorman, who at a distance of 35 feet was subjected to about 135 dB from the muzzle blast of Oswald's Carcano (whereas Zapruder, at 275 feet, was subjected to only about 119 dB, and Phil Willis at 130 feet was subjected to about 125 dB), was so startled by the sound of the first shot at "Z-124" that she stopped filming altogether (her finger slipped off the button). Then she resumed filming a couple of seconds later and at approximately Z-222 jiggled her camera like all get out and stopped filming again. Interestingly, she doesn't jiggle her camera at right after the Z-313 head shot. Could it be due to her having become habituated to the nearby muzzle blasts? Seems logical to me.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/553546571932211/user/100003268844965