JFK's Head Snap and the Implausible Jet-Effect and Neurospasm Theories

[Michael T. Griffith]

From what I’ve seen, the WC apologists who post in this forum will never admit the validity of any fact or conclusion that refutes the lone-gunman theory, even if the evidence for that fact or conclusion is clear and compelling.

The 6.5 mm object on the autopsy AP skull x-ray is a good example of this refusal to acknowledge a fact and the conclusions that the fact clearly demands.

Obviously, the 6.5 mm object was planted on the AP x-ray after the autopsy in order to make it seem as though a 6.5 mm fragment had been deposited on the outer table of the skull, and in order to pad the case against Oswald, since Oswald allegedly used 6.5 mm ammo.

Scientifically, this is the only explanation that makes sense. We know from optical density measurements performed independently by three medical doctors that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic but that it is a ghosted image that was placed over the image of a small authentic fragment on the outer table of the skull at the rear of the skull. Dr. David Mantik, a radiation oncologist with a PhD in physics, has demonstrated how the object could have been placed on the AP x-ray using technology that was available at the time of the autopsy.

We also now know that the autopsy doctors each separately insisted to the ARRB that they did not see the 6.5 mm object on the night of the autopsy. They studied the x-rays carefully during the autopsy, since they were trying to find bullet fragments and recover them from the skull. The radiologist at the autopsy, Dr. John Ebersole, and the x-ray technician, Jerrol Custer, did not see the 6.5 mm object either.

The fact that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic is made especially clear by the fact that in order to have come from the alleged fatal head bullet, it would have to be from the cross-section of a full-metal-jacketed (FMJ) bullet, since the nose and tail of that bullet were supposedly found in the limousine. Forensic science knows of no case where an FMJ bullet has behaved in this manner. This fact is what led former HSCA ballistics expert Larry Sturdivan to conclude that the 6.5 mm object absolutely could not be a bullet fragment.

Forensic radiologist Dr. John Fitzpatrick examined the JFK autopsy skull x-rays for the ARRB. Dr. Fitzpatrick began his examination firmly believing that the autopsy materials were authentic and confident that he would prove them to be such. He was aware that some ARRB staff members believed that some of the autopsy materials had been altered. When he was given summaries of the research of Dr. Mantik and Dr. Robertson, he said he rejected their findings—even Dr. Mantik’s optical density measurements—because Mantik and Robertson were not forensic radiologists.

However, when Dr. Fitzpatrick examined the skull x-rays, he was profoundly disturbed by the 6.5 mm object. In fact, he extended his examination by an extra day just to study the 6.5 mm object further. He could never bring himself to call the object fake, but he observed that there was no corresponding object on the lateral skull x-rays:

No object directly and clearly corresponding to the bright, 6.5 mm wide radio-opaque object in the A-P X-Ray could be identified by the consultant on the lateral skull X-Rays. Although there is a mere trace of some additional density near the fragment bilocation at the vertex of the skull, the consultant did not feel this object was anywhere near the density/brightness required for it to correspond to the bright, radio-opaque object on the A-P X-Ray. After briefly speculating that the small metallic density behind the right eye in the lateral X-Rays might correspond to the bright radio-opaque density in the A-P X-Ray, this idea was abandoned because neither the locations nor the density/brightness of the 2 objects are consistent. (Meeting Report, ARRB, 2/29/96, Independent Review of JFK Autopsy X-Rays and Photographs By Outside Consultant-Forensic Radiologist, p. 2, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=145280&relPageId=225)

When Dr. Fitzpatrick met with ARRB staffers the day after he finished his examination of the autopsy x-rays, he remained troubled by the 6.5 mm object. He said the object “almost” looked like it had been “machined off” or “cut off” a bullet. He even floated the implausible speculation that the fragment had dropped off the skull before the lateral skull x-rays were made:

The following day, February 7, 1996, Dr. Fitzpatrick met with ARRB staff. . . .

He continued to be disturbed and puzzled by the fact that the large radio-opaque object in the A-P skull X-Ray could not be located on the lateral skull X-Rays. At one point he speculated that perhaps this fragment fell off of the President’s body before the lateral X-Rays were taken. He opined that the 6.5 mm radio-opaque object in the A-P skull X-Ray looked “almost as if it had been machined off, or cut off of a bullet.” (Meeting Report, ARRB, 2/29/96, p. 4)

Since Dr. Fitzpatrick was ardently determined not to even allow for the possibility that the autopsy x-rays had been altered, he never resolved the conflict between the AP and lateral x-rays regarding the 6.5 mm object. He never ventured to put in writing an explanation for why the 6.5 mm object does not appear on the lateral x-rays, which it would do if it were a bullet fragment. Nor did Dr. Fitzpatrick make any attempt to explain Dr. Mantik’s multiple sets of optical density measurements of the 6. 5 mm object, even though he was made aware of them and was also advised that Dr. Mantik held a PhD in physics. But he should be given credit for at least being willing to identify this striking conflict in the autopsy evidence.

Dr. Fitzpatrick's refusal to acknowledge that the 6.5 mm object is fake and cannot be a bullet fragment is a good example of what happens when you believe something so ardently, so passionately that you cannot abandon that belief even when you stare straight at clear, hard physical evidence that your belief is wrong.

[Joe Elliott]

From what I’ve seen, the WC apologists who post in this forum will never admit the validity of any fact or conclusion that refutes the lone-gunman theory, even if the evidence for that fact or conclusion is clear and compelling.

The 6.5 mm object on the autopsy AP skull x-ray is a good example of this refusal to acknowledge a fact and the conclusions that the fact clearly demands.

Obviously, the 6.5 mm object was planted on the AP x-ray after the autopsy in order to make it seem as though a 6.5 mm fragment had been deposited on the outer table of the skull, and in order to pad the case against Oswald, since Oswald allegedly used 6.5 mm ammo.

No, this is not obvious or compelling.

The object does not look like a bullet fragment. Why would conspirators plant evidence that does not look like a bullet fragment?

They make it look like the bullet passed all the way through the head. There is an entrance would and an exit wound (well really an explosive wound). They plant fragments in the car that make it appear the fragments exited the head. They damage the windshield frame and the windshield, to make it look list the fragments not only left the head but did so at great speed.

And then they decided to plant a fake fragment that doesn’t even look like a fragment? Why do this? Why would some fragments exit the head at great speed, dent the frame, crack the windshield and possibly wound Mr. Tague, while another sizeable fragment stays behind in the head? Why would the conspirators think that this would be a good idea?

And only do this for one X-Ray but not the others, to make it look like the ‘fragment’ magically disappeared? Why would they do this?


None of this makes sense. What does make sense? An object fell onto the head. Maybe out of someone’s pocket. They took an X-Ray without noticing the object. Before the next X-Ray, someone spotted the object and removed it. They knew it didn’t belong there. That is why this “object” only appears in one X-Ray. What was this object? It is impossible to tell from the X-Ray.

Is this really true? Impossible to say, but at least, this is a sensible hypothesis.


If this is evidence of a planted object in the head, or doctoring just one of the X-Rays, this doesn’t make sense. Did the conspirators plant the object, take an X-Ray, figured that is good enough and remove the object and took the rest of the X-Rays? Or did they ‘doctor’ one X-Ray, figured that was good enough, and didn’t bother doctoring the other X-Rays to be consistent?

None of this makes any sense, let along provides “compelling evidence”.

[Joe Elliott]

Planting a “6.5 mm” circular object to appear in an X-Ray does not make sense for the following reasons:

1.   First, it should be noted that one cannot reliably measure the size of an object in an X-Ray. The closer the object is to the source of the X-Rays, the larger it will appear. We really don’t know if the object really had a diameter of “6.5 mm”, or under 6 mm, or over 7 mm. Its apparent size is affected by whether it was resting on the outside on the near side of the head, or the far side, or somewhere in the middle.

2.   Second, planting such an object does not implicate Oswald. Lots of bullets are of that size. It is impossible to use an X-Ray of a bullet to identify it being fired from Oswald’s rifle, to the exclusion of all other rifles in the world, or even to identify it as a WCC/MC bullet, particularly when viewed “Lengthwise’.

3.   No need to implicate Oswald in this way, since as I recall one or both of the recovered large fragments from the head shot, and certainly CE-399, provided the evidence that they were fired from Oswald’s rifle, to the exclusion of all other rifles in the world. X-Rays are never used to prove this.

4.   The evidence shows, or were made to show, that at least two and probably three large fragments exited the head at a high speed. As evident from the large dent in the windshield frame and crack in the windshield. Why would a fourth large fragment remain in the skull? Does it make sense that the head would slow some large fragments by 950 feet per second and others by 1900 feet per second? Tiny fragments can be stopped by the head. They have a large surface area relative to mass. But large fragments? A quarter of an inch across? Why would the ‘fakers’ think that some large fragments would be stopped in the head while others wouldn’t and would exit at great speed.

5.   Why only have the fake evidence show up in only one X-Ray? Did they put the object in the head, take an X-Ray, figured that was good enough, remove it, and then take the rest of the X-Rays? Doctor one X-Ray, figured that was good enough and left the rest alone?

6.   Why plant an object that doesn’t look like a fragment of a bullet? A bullet would only look like that if it was not damaged, remained totally intact, stayed in the skull, and just happened to be X-Rayed lengthwise. But the other evidence, the presence of both entrance and exit wounds, the damage to the limousine’s windshield frame and windshield, show that didn’t happen.


Some other explanation must be true. People carry all sorts of objects in their pockets. Objects about a quarter of an inch across, and disk shaped, are pretty common. Would a breath mint show up? An Antacid? An Antacid commonly contains calcium, doesn’t it? That should show up in an X-Ray, I would think. Aspirin tablets are commonly that size. And pills, in general, or often disk shape to make them easy to shallow. Just a few possibilities. While moving and positioning the body for the X-Rays, something unnoticed might fall out and get X-Rayed. The technicians may then spot it, remove it and continue with their work. They might believe that the object would not shown in an X-Ray. In any case they needed to move things along so the Kennedy family can be allowed to leave with the body.

Speculation? Yes. As is speculating conspirators planted an object that makes no sense.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Another fact that should be mentioned is that all of the Parkland doctors’ treatment reports, written on the day of the assassination, described the large wound as being in the back of the head, using the terms “posterior,” “occipital,” and “occipital-parietal” to describe its location. Significantly, the treatment reports also state that there was considerable damage to the cerebellum and cerebellar tissue missing. This is crucial for two reasons: One, cerebellar tissue is located only in the back of the head, on the lower half of the back of the head. Two, cerebellar tissue is easily distinguished from other brain tissue.

In his video Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence, Doug Horne, former chief analyst of military records for the ARRB, presents the wound diagrams drawn for the HSCA and the ARRB by medical personnel and federal agents who got good, close, prolonged looks at JFK’s large head wound.

Horne also discusses the fact that two federal agents (Sibert and O’Neill) disputed the accuracy of autopsy photo F3, which shows the back of the head intact, when interviewed by the ARRB, and that Dr. John Ebersole also challenged the accuracy of the photo when interviewed by the HSCA. The fact that Ebersole challenged the photo was not known until the ARRB released the HSCA interview reports. Horne discusses the fact that in 2006 we learned that Dr. Robert O. Canada, who was the commanding officer of the treatment hospital at Bethesda Naval Hospital and who witnessed the autopsy, told historian Michael Kurtz that he saw a “very large, 3-5 cm wound in the right rear of the President’s head, in the lower right occipital region,” and that the wound was “clearly an exit wound.” Additionally, Horne reviews the evidence about the Harper fragment.

The discussion about these items and much more begins at 49:55 (the discussion runs about 20 minutes):

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/altered-history-exposing-deciet-and-deception-in-the-jfk-assassination-medical-evidence-part-1/

In Part 3, Horne presents an in-depth look at the scientific evidence that the autopsy x-rays and brain photos have been altered. By the way, Dr. Mantik took optical density measurements of the skull x-rays because those measurements are a key tool in radiation oncology, which is Dr. Mantik's field of specialization (he's a radiation oncologist). Horne's presentation of the scientific evidence is especially good because he explains the more technical points in layman's terms so that the average person can understand the evidence and can grasp just how powerful the evidence is. He also explains how the x-rays were altered.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/altered-history-exposing-deceit-and-deception-in-the-jfk-assassination-medical-evidence-part-3/

[Michael T. Griffith]

Dr. Snyder’s analysis is illogical. He claims that frame z313 is too blurry to get an accurate measure of how much the head moved forward between z312 and the blurry z313. Dr. Snyder’s solution? Compare the blurry z313 with z314.

If I may help out the confused Dr. Snyder, I think he meant to say that one should compare the non-blurry z312 with the non-blurry z314. I don’t know if this is necessary, but at least it’s a logical idea.

In addition, Dr. Snyder is just flat wrong that the WCC/MC bullet needs nearly all its momentum to push the head the amount reported by Itek.

I found some estimates of the mass of the human head as being 8 pounds, about 4 kilograms. I decided to make my own estimates. And I am sorry to report to the CTers of this forum that I did not do this by cutting my own head off but by measuring the circumference of my head. Both horizontally and vertically (over the top and under the chin). Assuming the same density of water (perhaps the density of bone is balanced by the sinuses) I came up with an estimate of 4.6 kilograms.

Doing some calculations, I find that moving a 4.6-kilogram mass forward with the momentum of a WCC/MC bullet going 1900 f/s, gives a calculated velocity of 1.3 meters per second. The observed Itek motion (which I recall was 2.1 inches) was 0.98 meters per second. So only about 75% of the momentum is needed, according to these calculations.

Further, there is no need to assume the entire head moved forward 2.1 inches. More likely, the head rotated forward, with the upper part of the head moving forward about 2.1 inches, and the lower part less.

All and all, by a rough estimate, only about half the momentum of the bullet is needed to move the head the observed amount in 55 milliseconds. This is inline with Ballistic Expert Larry Sturdivan’s estimate.

In actual truth, a WCC/MC bullet does have enough momentum to move JFK’s head forward about 2 inches in 55 milliseconds and still have enough momentum for its fragments to crack the windshield, dent the windshield frame, and slightly wound Mr. Tague. It is curious that the calculations are consistent with this hypothesis, as if this is exactly what happened.

By the way, my estimates and calculations:

•   Rough circumference of the head 60 to 70 cm, call it 65 cm.
•   Using the calculations for a sphere, volume of the head 4,600 cubic centimeters
•   Mass of the head 4.6 kilograms
•   Mass of the bullet 161 grains or 10.4 grams
•   Velocity of the bullet, 1900 f/s or 579 meters per second
•   Calculated velocity of the head after having 100% of the bullet’s momentum transferred, 1.31 meters per second
•   Observed velocity of the head in the Itek study, a movement of 2.1 inches in 55 milliseconds, or 0.98 meters per second

And this does not account for the head nodding forward, and not having the entire head move a full 2.1 inches forward.

And by the way, I would expect a real professional physicist to provide the basis of his calculations, as I did (a former high school physics student), like the estimated mass of the head, mass of the bullet, velocity of the bullet, calculated velocity of the head and the observed velocity of the head, and not just state “almost all the momentum is required”, with no numbers to back him up. Perhaps Dr. Snyder was having an off day.

Or perhaps all of your irrelevant, diversionary nitpicking does not lay a finger on any of Dr. Snyder's points. You really show yourself to be a blind, diehard, unreachable partisan when you stoop to questioning the competence of recognized, genuine scientists just because they don't buy the lone-gunman theory.

I notice you said nothing about the ballistics tests that he and Dr. DeSalles did, both of which showed that jacketed ammo does not produce a jet effect.

I notice you said nothing about the fact that good ole Dr. Lattimer claimed that in his ballistics test, the target objects were propelled toward the gun every single time, a result that nobody has ever seen or claimed to have seen in any other test.

I notice you said nothing about Dr. Snyder's points regarding the neuromuscular-reaction theory, such as his point, which other scholars have also made, that "since JFK is positioned facing to the left at the moment of the fatal head shot, any 'upward and backward lunge,' whatever its cause, would have pushed JFK to the right, not the left."

And I notice you said nothing about Dr. Snyder's point that after spending many paragraphs trying to prove that the motion of the head tells us nothing about the direction the bullet was traveling, Posner spins around and argues that the forward motion of the skull indicates a shot from the rear.

I should mention that Dr. Snyder did say that he was comparing Z312 to Z314. I mistyped 312 as 313. I've corrected this in the post.



And now to some of your comments about the 6.5 mm object:[/size]

Some other explanation must be true. People carry all sorts of objects in their pockets.

Yes, yes, there just "must" be some other explanation, instead of the obvious, scientifically demonstrated one.

Objects about a quarter of an inch across, and disk shaped, are pretty common. Would a breath mint show up? An Antacid? An Antacid commonly contains calcium, doesn’t it? That should show up in an X-Ray, I would think. Aspirin tablets are commonly that size. And pills, in general, or often disk shape to make them easy to shallow. Just a few possibilities. While moving and positioning the body for the X-Rays, something unnoticed might fall out and get X-Rayed. The technicians may then spot it, remove it and continue with their work. They might believe that the object would not shown in an X-Ray. In any case they needed to move things along so the Kennedy family can be allowed to leave with the body.

LOL!  So it has come to this?!  You are reduced to theorizing that Humes, Boswell, or Ebersole, for some reason, was holding an antacid or breath mint tablet during this part of the autopsy and accidentally dropped it under JFK's head, without anyone noticing, before the AP x-ray was taken!  Or, that someone else somehow dropped a pill under JFK's head and nobody noticed it!  And by amazing coincidence, the pill/tablet just happened to be 6.5 mm wide and thus became the largest "fragment" in the skull x-rays!!!  Yet, somehow, this pill or tablet appears only as a tiny fragment on the lateral skull x-rays!!!  This is the kind of silliness you must employ when you won't allow yourself to reach the obvious, logical, scientifically documented conclusion.

Let us review some facts about the scientific evidence of alteration in the autopsy skull x-rays:

* The 6.5 mm object is impossible to miss on the AP x-ray. It is the largest and brightest object on the x-ray. In fact, it is even brighter than JFK's fillings. That means it should be the densest "fragment," denser than the metallic fillings in JFK's death, but it is not. Think about that.

* The 6.5 mm object has no density itself, even though it is brighter than the dental fillings. Its only actual density comes from the small genuine fragment over which it was placed. So the object cannot be a pill or tablet or any other physical object. It is a ghosted image.  Three medical doctors with expertise in radiology have confirmed this fact with optical density (OD) measurements and via direct analysis of the object. It first occurred to Dr. Mantik to measure the object in this way because he uses OD measurements frequently in his work as a radiation oncologist.

* Dr. Mantik did OD measurements on comparison x-rays with genuine cross-sections from 6.5 mm bullets to act as control measurements for the OD measurements of the 6.5 mm object. The two sets of OD measurements are drastically different.

* Dr. Mantik found that with only modest magnification, one can clearly see the small genuine fragment inside/through the 6.5 mm object, precisely because the object is a ghosted image.

* The images of the 6.5 mm object are spatially compatible on the AP and lateral x-rays, even though the object is far larger and brighter on the AP view, which rules out the idea that the object is some kind of accidental artifact.

* The strange bright patch on the right-rear part of the head in the two lateral skull x-rays transmits 1,100 times more light than does the frontal region of the skull, which is a physical impossibility for a genuine x-ray. On a normal x-ray, the brightest part of the white region would only transmit 2-3 times more light than the frontal region. Even on other parts of the skull, on a normal x-ray the brightest area will be no more than 2-3 times brighter than the darkest area.

* OD measurements done on the same regions on undisputed JFK x-rays made in 1960 are wildly different from the OD measurements done on the lateral autopsy skull x-rays, which is a physical impossibility unless the autopsy x-rays have been altered. As Dr. Chesser notes,

In the lower occipital-temporal area a fracture terminates when it runs into the “white patch,” an area of the skull which appears impossibly dense compared to the same region on the skull x-ray taken in 1960. (https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/michael-chesser-houston-2017.pdf)

[Joe Elliott]

I notice you said nothing about the ballistics tests that he and Dr. DeSalles did, both of which showed that jacketed ammo does not produce a jet effect.

Irrelevant because while the jet effect sometimes causes targets to move in the opposite direction of the bullet, this did not happen in the case of JFK. So, I will ignore arguments against the ‘Jet Effect’ because I do not believe in the ‘Jet Effect’, in this case.

I notice you said nothing about the fact that good ole Dr. Lattimer claimed that in his ballistics test, the target objects were propelled toward the gun every single time, a result that nobody has ever seen or claimed to have seen in any other test.

You did not provide Dr Lattimer’s exact quote but I assume he was talking about this occurring with every test that he observed. And not a claim for every target ever hit by a rifle bullet.

I notice you said nothing about Dr. Snyder's points regarding the neuromuscular-reaction theory, such as his point, which other scholars have also made, that "since JFK is positioned facing to the left at the moment of the fatal head shot, any 'upward and backward lunge,' whatever its cause, would have pushed JFK to the right, not the left."

Which it may have during z312-z313. In the Zapruder film, and films in general, we can’t measure radial velocities, velocities to (JFK’s) left or right, very accurately. Only ‘tangential velocities’, velocities forward or backwards. And also, up or down. At least, not during just one frame interval. After z313, the motion of the body was governed by the ballistic neuromuscular spasm. So, JFK’s head may have been pushed to the left or right briefly before his muscles took over.

And now to some of your comments about the 6.5 mm object:[/size]

Yes, yes, there just "must" be some other explanation, instead of the obvious, scientifically demonstrated one.

LOL!  So it has come to this?!  You are reduced to theorizing that Humes, Boswell, or Ebersole, for some reason, was holding an antacid or breath mint tablet during this part of the autopsy and accidentally dropped it under JFK's head, without anyone noticing, before the AP x-ray was taken!  Or, that someone else somehow dropped a pill under JFK's head and nobody noticed it!  And by amazing coincidence, the pill/tablet just happened to be 6.5 mm wide and thus became the largest "fragment" in the skull x-rays!!!  Yet, somehow, this pill or tablet appears only as a tiny fragment on the lateral skull x-rays!!!  This is the kind of silliness you must employ when you won't allow yourself to reach the obvious, logical, scientifically documented conclusion.

I don’t know if you should be telling me what is a logical scientific conclusion is when you don’t believe in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Never-the-less, you claim that the logical scientific conclusion is that that this fragment was planted, even though:

•   The evidence indicates all the sizeable fragments (a quarter of an inch wide) exited the head at high velocity. Why would the conspirators think one of the large fragments should remain in the head?
•   Only the approximate size of this ‘fragment’ is known. Why did the conspirators think this would implicate Oswald’s rifle to the exclusion of all other rifles? This could never be done with an X-Ray.
•   Why does this ‘fragment’ not look anything like a real bullet fragment?

As far my hypothesis being a ‘goofy’ theory that something fell out of a technician’s pocket, well, we know something ‘goofy’ did happen.

Either something fell out of a technician’s pocket, and nobody noticed it immediately. That is a little goofy.

Or, conspirators planted something, that does not look like a bullet fragment, that should not have ended up resting in the head, that does not implicate Oswald’s rifle, and only did so for one X-Ray, but then removed it for the remaining X-Rays. That would be unbelievable goofy.

The logical explanation was the CTers got lucky. An object fell out of someone’s pocket and ended up in on of the X-Rays. The object did not look like a bullet fragment, but CTers had to make the most of it they could.

The object was round. Good, bullets are round too. At lease pristine bullets are. Well, at least when viewed through the axis of it. Of course, bullet fragments don’t look round, but you have to work with what you are given.

The object was roughly a quarter of a inch wide. Good. They could claim it was precisely 6.5 mm wide, although this is impossible to measure precisely with an X-Ray. The apparent size depends on how exact distance of the object from the X-Ray source. But, no matter. They could just claim it was exactly 6.5 mm across.

The misfortune for CTers, is that people don’t carry things that look like bullet fragments in their pockets. But they do carry a host of other things. Like pills that are often round and about a quarter of an inch across.

Let us review some facts about the scientific evidence of alteration in the autopsy skull x-rays:

* The 6.5 mm object is impossible to miss on the AP x-ray. It is the largest and brightest object on the x-ray. In fact, it is even brighter than JFK's fillings. That means it should be the densest "fragment," denser than the metallic fillings in JFK's death, but it is not. Think about that.

* The 6.5 mm object has no density itself, even though it is brighter than the dental fillings. Its only actual density comes from the small genuine fragment over which it was placed. So the object cannot be a pill or tablet or any other physical object. It is a ghosted image.  Three medical doctors with expertise in radiology have confirmed this fact with optical density (OD) measurements and via direct analysis of the object. It first occurred to Dr. Mantik to measure the object in this way because he uses OD measurements frequently in his work as a radiation oncologist.

If this is all true, why did the conspirators only modify one X-Ray? Why didn’t they modify all the X-Rays, so this ‘ghost’ object would appear in all of them, which it should, if the conspirators wanted people to think it was a real fragment.

[Joe Elliott]

Just a couple of points about the so called “6.5 mm” fragment image seen in just one X-Ray.

1.   I am guessing here, but I suppose that before the autopsy was done, they took the X-Rays first. I don’t think they would do the autopsy, removed the shattered skull and the brain, and then make the X-Rays. They would make the X-Rays first. The second thing I would guess, is that it is unusual for bodies to arrive in a big heavy coffin, like JFK did. JFK was placed in a big heavy coffin much earlier than most murder victims are because he was the President, and they wanted to maintain the dignity of the office.

Usually the bodies they receive would be shipped on a stretcher, with the body totally covered in sheets or a body bag. The body doesn’t get placed into a big heavy coffin until later, just before the body needs to be made ready for the funeral and burial.

So, the procedures would have been a bit unique that evening. They would have to bend over a lot more than usual to remove the body from a big heavy coffin. The technicians might have to bend over more and put more effort in removing the body from the coffin, to get the body on a stretcher which could be easily transferred around for making X-Rays and doing an autopsy. So, in this unusual setting, something unusual might happen. An object might fall out of a pocket, that usually would not fall out of a pocket, with the typical bodies that they receive.

An unusual change in procedures can cause unexpected events.



2.   If someone claimed, in a collection of paintings, that one of those paintings was a forgery, a painting made to look like the work of Rembrandt, and this was done so they could make a lot of money by selling a ‘Rembrandt’.

Question: What is the minimum I would need to make me accept this claim may be true?
Answer: It would have to look like a Rembrandt.

The painting in question can’t look like a Picasso, with offset eyes and weird psychedelic colors. It has to look like a Rembrandt. So, if you want me to accept it’s a forgery of a Picasso, great. But if you insist it’s a forgery of a Rembrandt, forget it. I will never be convinced.



Now someone claims this image in the X-Ray is faked to look like a fragment of a bullet from Oswald’s rifle.

Question: What is the minimum I would need to make me accept this claim may be true?
Answer: It would have to look like a bullet fragment.

It can’t look like something else. It can’t look like a common object someone might carry around in their pocket. It has to look like a bullet fragment.

Say that the conspirators wanted it to appear that President Kennedy carried an aspirin tablet inside his head, well, at least the evidence is consistent with this strange hypothesis. But to convince me it was planted to look like a bullet fragment? No. I’m not buying that.

[John Iacoletti]

Regardless of what you think it looks like, why would Jerrol Custer be instructed to tape bullet fragments to pieces of skull and then to x-ray them?