The HSCA concluded that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, and that there were four shots.

Question: On what basis did the HSCA conclude that?

Answer: A Dictabelt recording of a stick-open microphone on a three-wheeler police motorcycle miles from Dealey Plaza.

So why doesn’t Clint Hill react to a Z150 of Z170 or a Z190 1sr shot?  John C .  argues the 1st shot missed JFK. OK so maybe since Clint  was keeping his eye on JFK and saw no movement of JFK.But  How Ciint and the other SS agents don’t hear this loud report of the rifle  fire seems improbable imo.

Or If a  Z190 shot which hits  JFK there would be some neurological response in just a 1/2 sec or less if Dans posted info is valid which would cause JFK to move earlier and thus Clint Hill seeing that earlier movement should have reacted quicker and in Altgens Z255 photo ,  One of Hills feet should be more off the running board at least.

Clint Hill actually sees JFK "grab at himself" after the first shot.
He saw the moment JFK's arms flew up and he slumped to the left.
In the "When Was JFK Hit?" thread I demonstrated that the first moment we see the beginnings of this reaction in the Z-film is z225.
It is a neuromuscular/reflex reaction to a shot passing through him at z222/223.
Altgens 6 shows Hill apparently looking directly at JFK as he begins to slump to the left. This picture is taken about one and three quarter seconds after the first shot. In three seconds from this moment JFK will be hit in the head as Hill tries to get onto the limo.

Hill is fully aware of the first shot and JFK being hit by it (the idea that Hill and all the other Secret Service agents on board just ignore a missed first shot is too silly to contemplate).
He is about to react to it.
So, let's forget about first shots at z160 or earlier because we would have to believe that Hill (in Altgens 6) stood there gawking at JFK for over five seconds at least.
Even in Andrew's scenario of z190, Hill stands there for over three and a half seconds and still shows no sign of reacting.
It's an eternity in such an intense situation.
When shots are fired people react very quickly.




Landis, Hickey and Ready have all spun around to their right and rear as a result of the first shot, just as they reported doing so.
Hill is staring at JFK who is reacting to being shot.
Was the first shot 3.5 seconds before this pic was taken, or 1.75 seconds?

This below is Z-248.



There is likely a consensus that JFK has been struck at this point. JFK appears to be reacting to something, that appears to be a painful blow.

Gov. JBC is a different story. By JBC's account, he is beginning to turn around to see what has happened to JFK. JBC has heard a gunshot, which he says he recognized as a rifle shot.

In Z-248, JBC is holding in his right hand his Stetson hat. JBC's wrist appears uninjured. This is an image of what happened to JBC's radius bone:



There is a large hole in JBC's radius, where a slug smashed through, passing from the dorsal to the ventral side, in the wrist-adjacent part of his arm.

This is what Gov. JBC told the HSCA:

Connally: I was knocked over, just doubled over by the force of the bullet. It went in my back and came out my chest about 2 inches below and the left of my right nipple. The force of the bullet drove my body over almost double and when I looked, immediately I could see I was just drenched with blood. (1 HSCA 42)

Obviously, in Z-248, JBC is not doubled over. JBC is holding his Stetson, in what appears to be an uninjured wrist.

I have reasonable doubts about the SBT-LNT. The SBT-LNT are theories, and Arlen Specter developed the SBT working on the premise that there was a lone gunsel, who fired three times, and one shot missed. If one adheres to those premises, the SBT is the result.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

The X-Ray of the wrist injury is NOT Connally's.
It is either profoundly ignorant or deceptive of you to present it as such.
It is an image of what ACTUALLY happens when a bullet passes through a radius.

This is the actual X-Ray of Connally's wrist injury



Note, there is no hole passing through the bone. No hole that represents the passage of a bullet through the bone. The bone has fractured, nothing more.
The image you posted is pure disinformation whether it was done accidentally or not.
I have zero doubt that now you have seen the real X-Ray it will still not change your opinion.
So much for "caveat emptor".

I'm sure Greg is an intelligent and hardworking guy who is kind to stray dogs, but in my opinion his ideas on virtually every issue are indeed lunatic fringe stuff.

Good grief Lance, what are you on about? You are the first and only person to my knowledge that has ever accused me of being lunatic fringe. I've said some stupid things, may be wrong on some things, but you're just out of line and I don't think you know what you are talking about.

"on virtually every issue"? Wow.

Do you mean my defense of Ruth Paine? In which I argued the shocking idea that one possible interpretation of a woman for whom no proof has ever been shown in her entire life of criminal wrongdoing or any proof of the suspicions against her might conceivably be because she is innocent? Of the vast quantity of attacks and defamations of her from the conspiracy community, to its utter and deep shame? I knew Ruth Paine and I'm serious on this. Yes it goes against majority thinking (among readers of JFK forums), but does that make it lunatic fringe? Or a minority dissenting argument? My major paper on Ruth Paine, https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1686

Do you mean my argument that Dallas businesswoman Edith Whitworth at the Furniture Mart really saw Oswald and Marina in her store on the morning of Nov 11, 1963, Veterans Day, with Lee inquiring where to find a gunsmith? This is another minority opinion, but anyone who reads the paper can see it's not lunatic fringe territory, whether one agrees or disagrees. I admit the theoretical possibility that I could be wrong (I don't think so on this one though) but that is not what lunatic fringe makes. Here's that paper: https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1450 .

Do you mean the companion paper I wrote to that, in which I argued that Oswald next went down the street to the Irving Sport Shop and had Dial Ryder there reinstall the scope back on the Mannlicher-Carcano? Don't kneejerk opinions based on surface reaction to the conclusion; read the argument and see this is not lunatic fringe territory in the least. Here's that paper, https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1485 .

Do you mean my original first effort in the JFKA area, my interview with John Curington (the late HL Hunt aide), and comments in my footnotes and introduction there? No one else other than you has ever called that lunatic fringe. Most have found it highly interesting. And don't jump to conclusions that I believe everything Curington said. I think you jump to a lot of conclusions without knowing what you are talking about, concerning me. Here's that paper. https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1514.

How about this short piece that Larry Hancock published on his blog, a piece of original research I did on an uninvestigated report of an Oswald aptitude test showing a poor score in motor coordination which the Texas Employment Commission counselor who had that test done on Oswald believed correlated, in her anecdotal experience, with poor rifle markmanship ability, and which she attempted to bring to the attention of the Warren Commission and the FBI, and the FBI refused to investigate it? I broke that story, Larry published it in 2025, and it was missed before. More lunatic fringe there? Here's that one: https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1749

How about the utterly shocking argument I made that the phone call Dean Andrews in New Orleans received regarding legal counsel for the arrested Oswald in Dallas, the weekend of the assassination, did not come from Clay Shaw, but came from Marcello circles via Marguerite Oswald in Dallas seeking a lawyer for her son. Original argument and research through and through in that paper, not everyone will agree, all matters Garrison arouse strong opinions. I'm in the camp negative on Garrison's prosecution methods. Is that lunatic fringe to take a contrarian opinion to the majority CT view favorable to Garrison? Here's my Dean Andrews paper: https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1690

Or do you mean the original research I did developing a first-ever study of the Odell Estes story, making cases for some Dallas-New Orleans mob and Ruby/Carousel Club connections in the summer of 1963 that have not been brought out before? Yes, there is plenty of room for differences of opinion on specifics in this paper because by its nature, the evidence is fragmentary. All I did in that paper is to make cases for some things. Is there anything in this paper that is "lunatic fringe"? https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1710 .

I have no track record of "lunatic fringe" in any non-JFKA area that anyone has accused me of. Nobody I've ever heard of thinks I'm lunatic fringe except your name-calling. What is the bee in your bonnet here? You have repeated this a few times, and its just off the wall, uncalled-for. I've always treated you respectfully to my knowledge. How would you like to have someone say "virtually every issue" you say anything about is "lunatic fringe"?

I have done quite a bit of reading and research on studies of the conspiracy-theory phenomenon, current research on it. Don't think you are the only one who has.

I have just a bit of conceptual difficulty with a shot that misses everything followed by two longer shots that are pretty much right on the money.

Here's a possible explanation that you might not have thought of....

Oswald's Carcano rifle, per the FBI's firearms expert Robert Frazier, fired bullets high and to the right when using the 4-power scope. [See Frazier's Warren Commission testimony, at 3 H 404-405.]

If this was also the case when Oswald was shooting at JFK on November 22, and Oswald for some reason forgot this quirk about his scope when he squeezed off his first shot that day (if he used the scope at all, which is also debatable, of course), that could be at least a partial explanation as to why his first shot missed and (possibly) struck the nearby oak tree, a tree that would have been to Oswald's RIGHT if he was aiming a little to the tree's left through the scope just as JFK's car was nearing it from LHO's point-of-view (as illustrated in CE888 and CE875).

The Bottom Line (concerning the "missed shot"):

Nobody can know for certain what happened to that bullet. And nobody can know for certain whether the "oak tree" theory is accurate or not.

But, given the overall evidence (which certainly indicates that three shots and only three shots were fired during the assassination, with all three of those shots coming from Oswald's Sniper's Nest in the TSBD and from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, with two of those three bullets striking the victims in the limousine), I think the best guess re: the one missed shot is that that bullet did, indeed, hit the oak tree (which is a tree that was located to the RIGHT of Oswald at the time he fired that shot at approx. Z160, which fits in pretty well with a misaligned scope that might very well have been aiming "HIGH AND TO THE RIGHT" during the shooting, although that's another thing we'll never know for sure; it's quite possible that the scope became misaligned when Oswald dropped the gun amongst the boxes after the assassination).

More:
https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/07/missed-shot-controversy.html