Unfortunately, there are still CIA officials who apparently don't want all the JFKA files released... It is very possible there are agents out there - active or retired - tasked to keep the issues confused with a flood of "this or that," and "he said, she said," along with a boatload of ad hominems to keep the matter from being rationally discussed and settled...

I've been intrigued by the idea that Oswald was trying to achieve two things with the first shot; Checking the scope, which he probably didn't trust, by aiming at a fixed object (possibly the manhole cover); and standing well back from the window.

By standing well back from the window the sound would be less obvious to people on the street, and would also create a sense of doubt or confusion when the next two shots came, as proved the case.

The lady "manning" the TSBD switchboard on the second floor testified that the first shot "sounded like a cannon and shook the west side of the building".

All speculation of course, but it could explain why many people missed the sound of the first shot.

There was a guy on McAdams' website who used to argue that Oswald's first shot was a zeroing shot but that never made sense to me because it is impractical.
For starters, Oswuld would have to be able to see where the shot struck to know what kind of adjustment was needed to the scope. How could he do that with the recoil of the rifle moving the scope off the intended target. Even if he could see that, he would then have to take the time to adjust the scope. By the time he did that, the target would be long gone. Normally, when zeroing a rifle, you would do that from a bench rest to eliminate human error from the equation. You are also probably going to do the process multiple times.

It would have been nice for Oswald to have a perfectly zeroed rifle, but hardly necessary. He wasn't in a shooting competition. He just needed to be able to shoot a man at ranges of 88 yards and less. He seems to have done alright.

There are a number of YouTube videos that show how to zero a scope, and they all use a 3 shot process and a bench rest. Oswald only had 4 rounds and a limited time to fire them.

Wow, that's an ugly, hateful comment, a comment that seems to voice a death wish. I'm a bit surprised the moderators didn't jump on this comment.

You keep repeating this silly, phony dodge. As I've noted before, this lame evasion denies the very reason for and value of the fields of forensic science and wound ballistics.

i tried my best to explain the obvious to you but I just can't figure out how to dumb it down enough for you to understand.

Are you ever going to explain the fact that the most frequently encountered bullet designs in clinical and forensic practice are FMJ bullets, lead bullets, and semi-jacketed bullets?

No shit.

It is hilarious that you keep pretending that most gunshot cases involving FMJ bullets happen during wartime. No, every year a sizable percentage of gunshot cases involve FMJ ammo. Gee, maybe that's why forensic sources have much to say about the behavior of FMJ bullets, just as they have much to say about the behavior of lead ammo and semi-jacketed bullets, hey? 

The only thing relevant to this discussion are FMJ bullets fired by rifles into skulls und yes, most of those occur during wartime. Homicides committed with rifles are   a small fraction of all homicides and of those, are committed with FMJ bullets, and a still smaller fraction involve gunshot wounds to the skull. I guess you aren't bright enough to know that FMJ, bullets fired from handguns aren't going to behave like those fired from rifles.

Speaking of which, are you ever going to explain why forensic sources, such as DiMaio's internationally recognized handbook Gunshot Wounds, state that FMJ bullets will not shatter into dozens of small fragments when striking bone and that if x-rays show dozens of tiny fragments this rules out FMJ ammo?

Why is it you never quote these sources. Why do you always give us your spin on what they say?

Are you ever going to explain why the Failure Analysis headshot wound ballistics test failed to produce a single FMJ bullet that shattered into dozens of tiny fragments, much less an FMJ bullet that deposited several small fragments on the rear outer table of the skull upon penetration?

Since you don't quote these studies, i see no point in responding to your version of what these studies have concluded, given the number of times you completely misrepresent these results.

I do find it ironic that you would cite Failure Analysis given that they conclude almost four decades ago that the shots that hit JFK were fired from the 6th floor sniper's nest.

I was unable to find an online source for the Failure Analysis study, but in searching for it, I did come across this more recent study by Science Direct:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0379073822000949

Are you ever going to explain the fact that FMJ bullets are designed not to break apart into multiple fragments in order to increase the degree of penetration? If you read forensic sources you'll learn that only FMJ bullets that are traveling at a high velocity have any chance of breaking up into multiple fragments. Humm, could this be why the skull x-rays from the WC's headshot wound ballistics test show minimal bullet fragmentation?

All you ever do is present your dumbass conclusions. Quote a competent source if you expect me to respond.

Apparently you are clueless about the fact that SBT defenders cite this very fact -- i.e., that FMJ bullets are designed not to shatter in order to increase their penetrating power -- as evidence that a single FMJ bullet could penetrate seven layers of human skin, smash 4 inches of rib bone, and shatter a radius bone without losing its structure, with its lands and grooves remaining intact, and while losing less than 4 grains of its substance. Of course, they're doing so to defend an impossible scenario that goes well beyond what an FMJ bullet can endure before incurring substantial damage, as every single SBT wound ballistics test has proven.

You seem to get dumber with each post. you are comparing an FMJ bullet that passed through soft tissue of two torsos und tumbled before striking bone to one that struck nose first into a skull without passing through another object first.

Furthermore, you still have not explained the fact that every expert who has commented on the velocity of the ammo that hit JFK's head as indicated by the damage to the skull has said that the damage shows the ammo was traveling at a high velocity, whereas the alleged murder weapon was not a high-velocity rifle.

Every forensic expert who has seen the medical evidence and commented on it has concluded that JFK was shot from above end behind in the head and upper back and the only recovered bullets had been fired by Oswald's Carcano rifle, but you don't care.

This issue of the behavior of the ammo that hit JFK's head is a shining example of the refusal of WC apologists to face facts. WC critics began raising this issue in the 1970s, and Howard Donahue, a court-certified firearms and ballistics experts, brought the issue to the forefront in the 1990s. Lattimer and then Fackler tried to explain the issue with their own headshot wound-ballistics tests, but both tests failed to duplicate the fragmentation seen in the JFK autopsy skull x-rays. Indeed, in Fackler's Failure Analysis test, the FMJ bullets failed to fragment at all. They suffered visible deformation, but did not fragment.

And still you refuse to quote your sources.

The simple, demonstrable fact of the matter is that the ammo that hit JFK's head could not have been FMJ ammo.     

We only have your dumbass opinion on that because you steadfastly refuse to ever quote your sources. The reason for that is obvious. If you actually quoted your sources, you wouldn't be able to misrepresent their findings.

Andrew Mason and the equally lame HSCA mistakenly believe JFK was hit by a bullet around Z-190.

LOL!

ME: Just speaking of JFK, on what grounds other than so-called "acoustical analysis" and so-called "camera blur" did the HSCA conclude that he was hit by a bullet around Z-190?

Perplexity AI: Beyond acoustics and the claimed camera-blur response, the HSCA relied chiefly on Kennedy’s apparent bodily reaction near Z-200 and on a trajectory reconstruction that assumed the impact was near Z-190.

The remaining grounds

Kennedy’s apparent reaction: The photographic panel thought Kennedy’s right hand stopped waving and his head began moving left at roughly Z-193–200, before the Stemmons sign obscured him. The HSCA treated this as compatible with an impact some frames earlier, around Z-190. But this was interpretive visual evidence of reaction—not direct evidence of the instant of impact.

Single-bullet trajectory reconstruction:

Thomas Canning’s trajectory work used the limousine occupants’ positions at frame 190 and showed that the line from the sixth-floor southeast window could pass through Kennedy’s back/neck wound course and toward Connally. In his testimony, Canning explicitly said he “related the back neck trajectory to the positions at Zapruder frame 190.” That makes it a consistency demonstration for Z-190, not an independent derivation of Z-190.

Medical, ballistics, and bullet-lead evidence:

These were used to establish the broader proposition that Kennedy’s nonfatal back/neck wound and Connally’s wounds were caused by one bullet, and that the fatal head hit was another bullet. They could support the proposition that a nonfatal Kennedy hit occurred before Z-312; they did not date it to frame 190.

Connally’s later visible reaction: The committee read Connally’s behavior after he emerged from behind the sign as consistent with a wound earlier in the interval. But it acknowledged no scientific measure of the latency between impact and a visible reaction. This therefore offered, at most, compatibility with the proposed timing.

Bottom line

If the question is whether the HSCA had evidence independently fixing JFK’s first hit at approximately Z-190, the answer is essentially no. Its location at Z-190 rested principally on its acoustical synchronization, supplemented by perceived Kennedy reaction and blur; medical, CE 399/fragment, and trajectory evidence were used to validate a single-bullet scenario at that selected time, rather than to establish the time itself.

ME: What "apparent bodily reaction near Z-200"?

Perplexity AI: The HSCA photographic panel meant this: at about Z-200, Kennedy’s movements appeared to “freeze”; his right hand abruptly stopped in the middle of its wave, and his head moved rapidly from his right toward his left, in Jackie Kennedy’s direction. The panel concluded that, by the time he disappeared behind the Stemmons sign at Z-207, he was displaying a reaction to what it called a “severe external stimulus.”

Crucially, the panel did not say these movements proved a bullet impact at Z-190. It reasoned that an apparent reaction around Z-200 was compatible with a hit some fraction of a second earlier, and—when coupled with the asserted acoustic timing—“appeared” to place the first hit at approximately Z-190.

ME: The reason JFK's head was turned so far to his right from Z-180 to Z-200 was because he was looking at (and waving to) Mary Woodward and her three journalism colleagues. (Woodward and JFK had met several times before he became president.)

Perplexity AI: Woodward’s own account is that she and her three colleagues called out, “Please look this way,” and that both JFK and Jackie looked toward them and waved. She was on the north side of Elm, visible in the Zapruder film, and located in front of/just west of the Depository.

At about Z-180–200, JFK’s strongly rightward head turn and continuing right-hand wave are therefore naturally explained as his attention to the Woodward group. Relative to the limousine’s forward longitudinal axis, Woodward was roughly side-on—about 70–80 degrees, perhaps approaching 90 degrees depending on the exact frame and her precise place in the four-woman group.

That matters for the HSCA photographic-panel claim. A cessation or alteration of the rightward wave/head orientation around Z-200 has a non-ballistic explanation: JFK may simply have been ending an interaction with identifiable acquaintances as the car moved past them. The visual change can be real without, by itself, identifying a gunshot impact or supporting a Z-190 timing. The “freeze” interpretation is consequently not an independent forensic indicator of impact. (emphasis added)

ME: How important was the Z-190 "camera blur" deemed before the so called "acoustical evidence" arrived?

Perplexity AI It was not an important pre-acoustics reason to prefer Z-190. The formal HSCA blur analysis was itself undertaken in relation to the acoustic results—essentially as a check whether Zapruder’s panning errors could be associated with the alleged shot times identified on the Dictabelt.

The committee said it studied the blurs “in an effort to determine whether” they resulted from Zapruder’s possible startle reaction to gunshots. Its finding was only that the blur cluster at Z-189–197 “may reasonably be attributed” to a startle reaction; it did not identify a bullet impact, or even a gunshot, at a particular frame. (Emphasis added)

The trajectory material is more revealing about the sequence: it states that the photographic/trajectory work at Z-190 proceeded “based on the acoustics results” and the camera-blur study, along with the panel’s visual observations.

So, before the acoustical analysis arrived, the Z-190 blur was not an established, independent piece of timing evidence against the Z-207–222 alternative. At most it was a visible irregularity in Zapruder’s camera movement. After the acoustics purportedly put a shot at Z-188–191, the blur at Z-189–197 could be interpreted as Zapruder reacting to that putative shot and became corroborative.

The ordering is therefore:

Alleged acoustic shot near Z-190 → look for a corresponding startle/panning blur → blur judged compatible with that shot.

Not:

Preexisting blur → independent proof that JFK was hit at Z-190.

The HSCA’s cautious wording — “may reasonably be attributed”— is significant. Even in the final report, it treated the blur as compatible corroboration, not as a stand-alone basis for an early impact. (Emphasis added)

"Case Closed"

This is a mix of comedy, amateurish dismissal of scientific evidence, error, and distortion.

Any serious JFKA researcher knows that testing has proved the validity of the HSCA's blur analysis of the Zapruder film. Testing has found that when people are holding a camera and they hear a shot, they will invariably, as in every single time, jiggle the camera, even if they know the shot is coming. 

Based on its blur analysis of the Zapruder film, the HSCA's photographic experts determined that the strong blur episode between Z189 and Z197 indicated a shot was fired "between frames 181 and 192." After correlating this blur episode with other evidence, such as Willis slide 5, the panel concluded the shot was fired just before Z190.

Such non-absolute statements as "may reasonably be attributed" are standard phraseology in credible, careful, scholarly reports that deal with scientific evidence. The corollary is that the strong blur event at Z189-197 "may not reasonably be attributed" to a non-gunfire reaction.

The extant Zapruder film never shows JFK and Jackie turning to the right and then waving at Woodward and her friends. Such an event is simply nowhere to be seen in the current version of the film. When Jackie does turn her head to the right, she does so very rapidly and starts looking intently at JFK, beginning in Z202, and she is still staring intently at him when she reemerges into view at Z221.

Canning's SBT trajectory analysis is a joke. Look at where he had to position Connally on the seat to make the trajectory line up with the sixth-floor window. Connally's position in Canning's diagram bears no resemblance to his position in Z186-190. And notice that Canning's diagram shows JFK sitting virtually straight upright, where the FPP admitted that JFK would have had to be leaning nearly 60 degrees forward to make the upward-tunneled back wound line up with the sixth-floor window. Besides, did you miss the news that the most advanced, sophisticated SBT trajectory analysis ever done, Knott Lab's 2023 analysis, proves the SBT is impossible?

FYI, in a paper published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in 1971, physicist Don Olson and criminal justice professor Ralph Turner concluded that JFK begins to react to a shot in Z194 and that this reaction continues until he disappears behind the freeway sign. Olson was a professor of physics at the University of California, while Turner was a professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University. I quote from their analysis:

First, a general trend in the frames 194 to 206 may be noted. Beginning as early as frame 194, the President's body seems to undergo a motion forward and to the left. This motion, which can be visually approximated to be on the order of six or seven inches, seems to begin in frame 194 and continues through about frame 200. The President seems to move away from the seat back and tilt to the left, away from the window ledge. . . .

On the interval 194-200 the President's body is seen to narrow somewhat to the view, indicating that he not only leans to the left front, but also is rotated to the left. The rotation of the shoulders begins as early as frame 195. His head comes around at 200-202. By frame 204 the President is facing almost directly forward.

As the President moves and rotates to the left, his right arm is pulled back into the car. While his elbow has been resting outside the car, it comes up noticeably at frame 195. The President’s elbow can be seen to cross the chrome strip on the side of the car at frames 198-199. As President Kennedy disappears from view behind the sign, his right arm seems to be in a particularly unusual position—the clearly visible gray of his suit coat indicating that his right arm and elbow have been raised at least to the level of his chin. (“Photographic Evidence and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” Journal of Forensic Sciences, 16:4, October 1971, pp. 410-411)

You see, here's the problem for WC apologists: You can't admit that JFK was hit at right around Z190 because the sixth-floor gunman's view of JFK would have been obstructed by the oak tree from Z166 to Z210.

There would have been a split-second break in the oak tree's foliage at Z185 that would have given the sixth-floor gunman 55 milliseconds, or 1/18th of a second, to aim and fire at JFK. Ah, but the human brain requires 166 milliseconds, or 1/6th of a second, to register and react to visual data from the eyes. No wonder even the WC was skeptical of the idea that the alleged lone gunman would have fired at Z185.

Thus, you guys find yourselves in the awkward position of having to trash the HSCA Photographic Evidence Panel's finding that JFK was hit at around Z190, and its finding that someone was moving boxes in the sixth-floor window within 2 minutes after the assassination (i.e., when Oswald could not have been there), yet you cite that same panel as an infallible, final authority when it comes to the backyard rifle photos.