JFK Assassination Forum

When one accepts the reality of the Single Bullet Theorem, i.e., that JFK and JBC were struck by CE-399 at approximately Z-222, then one can speculate on whether or not it was Oswald who had fired the earlier, missing-everything, shot, and if so, when he fired it.

Since three spent shells that had been fired from Oswald's Carcano were found in the Sniper's Nest about an hour after the assassination, since the Carcano, with Oswald's prints on it, was found on the sixth floor, and since Oswald was seen on the sixth floor near the Sniper's Nest by Charles Givens at about 12:05 and by Roy Truly and Officer Baker in the second floor lunchroom about 90 seconds after the final shot, we can reasonably assume that that it was Oswald who had fired all three shots.

Now the only remaining question is when he fired the missing-everything shot.

Brian Roselle and Kevin Scearce point out in their 2020 study that an involuntary "startle" reaction to a loud, unexpected sound like a gunshot does not involve a major L-R head rotation, but "flexion" movements (bending the head and neck forward and downward), instead.

They also point out that seven prime witnesses (including five passengers in the limo: JFK, Jackie, JBC, Nellie, and Kellerman) quickly turned their heads within half-a-second of each other between Z-142 and Z-149, indicating that Oswald's missing-everything shot was at hypothetical Z-124, half-a-second before Zapruder resumed filming at Z-133 and 2.02 seconds before Croft took his photo at Z-161.

Rhetorical question: Can even three of those passengers be shown to have turned their heads quickly within half-a-second of each other in any other part of the Zapruder film up to Z-222?

I haven't looked yet, but I rather doubt it.

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

Put rhetorically, at what point other than between frames Z-142 and Z-149 do JFK, Jackie, JBC, Nellie, and Kellerman quickly turn their heads within half-a-second of each other?

Note: The turning of their heads signifies their conscious decisions to do so and therefore are not their "startle reactions."

That is pretty simple to explain because humans perceive sound direction not source direction.

The perceived direction of a sound is something your brain figures out by itself from the time difference between the arrival of a sound wave front at the left ear and the arrival of that same wave front at the right ear.  The brain then interprets that to be the same direction as the source. That is how we evolved. And on the buildingless, treeless African savannah that was a pretty good way to determine the sound source. The problem is that this time difference is skewed if sound wave fronts are arriving from multiple directions.
 
In Dealey plaza with all the concrete surfaces including large pillars and curved pergola walls, the direction of the sound waves was not necessarily the direction of the source of the sound: the SE 6th floor TSBD.

So there were many witnesses whose brain told them where it appeared the sound came from.  Few of those far away from the corner of Houston and Elm could identify a specific location of the source. Within those 38 witnesses there is a large range in where they thought the shots came from.  Many admitted confusion about where the sounds came from e.g. Powers thought it came from his right or from the underpass. Mary Woodward also thought the sounds came from “possibly behind her” or from the right where the underpass was located.

The fact that the witnesses in different locations and differed on where they perceived the source was located but almost all thought three shots appeared to them to come from the same direction tells you that the sounds reaching their ears came from more than one direction.

It's all earwitness evidence and it is all subject to error by large numbers of people. Anyone who bases their beliefs primary on what earwitnesses said has a very shaky foundation.

I choose to believe the witnesses whose account jibe with the Z-film which is probably a minority of the witnesses.

When you say "the preponderance of all the rest of the evidence" you really mean the preponderance of the witnesses accounts of the shooting. You rarely if ever offer hard evidence to support you beliefs. Since you seem to place most of your faith in the witnesses over the forensic evidence, explain this:

https://22november1963.org.uk/jfk-assassination-documents/grassy-knoll-witnesses

Witnesses to Shots from the Grassy Knoll
Here is a list, in alphabetical order by surname, and no doubt incomplete, of those witnesses to President Kennedy’s assassination who claimed that one or more shots came from the general direction of the grassy knoll:
Victoria Adams
Danny Garcia Arce
Virginia Baker (née Rackley)
Jane Berry
Charles Brehm
Ochus Campbell
Faye Chism
John Chism
Harold Elkins
Ronald Fischer
Buell Wesley Frazier
Dorothy Garner
Jean Hill
Sam Holland
Ed Johnson
Dolores Kounas
Paul Landis
Billy Lovelady
Austin Miller
A.J. Millican
Luke Mooney
Thomas Murphy
Jean Newman
William Newman
Kenneth O’Donnell and David Powers
Roberta Parker
Frank Reilly
Arnold Rowland
Edgar Smith
Joe Marshall Smith
Forrest Sorrels
James Tague
Roy Truly
Harry Weatherford
Seymour Weitzman
Otis Williams
Mary Woodward
Abraham Zapruder

How do you suppose 38 earwitnesses pointed to the same wrong location as the source of the shots? Did these witnesses corroborate each other?

That is pretty simple to explain because humans perceive sound direction not source direction.

The perceived direction of a sound is something your brain figures out by itself from the time difference between the arrival of a sound wave front at the left ear and the arrival of that same wave front at the right ear.  The brain then interprets that to be the same direction as the source. That is how we evolved. And on the buildingless, treeless African savannah that was a pretty good way to determine the sound source. The problem is that this time difference is skewed if sound wave fronts are arriving from multiple directions.
 
In Dealey plaza with all the concrete surfaces including large pillars and curved pergola walls, the direction of the sound waves was not necessarily the direction of the source of the sound: the SE 6th floor TSBD.

So there were many witnesses whose brain was confused about where exactly it appeared the sound came from.  Few of those far away from the corner of Houston and Elm could identify a specific location of the source. Within those 38 witnesses there is a large range in where they thought the shots came from.  Many admitted confusion about where the sounds came from e.g. Powers thought it came from his right or from the underpass. Mary Woodward also thought the sounds came from “possibly behind her” or from the right where the underpass was located.

The fact that the witnesses in different locations differed on where they perceived the source was located but almost all thought three shots appeared to them to come from the same direction tells you that the sounds reaching their ears came from more than one direction and those directions differed depending on where the witness was located

Dear Comrade Storing,

I'm not talking about James' Lego Cars.

I'm talking about his excellent overlay of a frame from the Couch clip and a frame from the Weigman clip.

Have you seen it yet?

If so, do you think he's improperly aligned them with each other?

-- Tom

. . . . . . .

EDIT:  Oops, it looks as though I was wrong about the tire and hubcap on Storing's MYSTO "ABANDONED" GETAWAY CAR in the Wiegman clip. I thought those two women I referred to were standing on the "island," but now I realize they were standing in the street near it, so the camera's perspective of the area visible between their lower legs isn't high enough to show a tire on a car parked next to the "island," much less its hubcap.

        The above is proof that even the Denier's are subject to occasional flashes of reality. No matter how hard You or anyone else tries, you simply can Not conjure a parked car alongside the Island on the Wiegman Film. There is No Car There. Not Yet!