Back-and-to-the-left? Well yeah, but...

[StarmanSkye]

Great diagram, erosuplier;

I spent a good part of yesterday intrigued with the claims of 'The Great Zapruder Hoax' (google, youtube) esp. evidence of the Z-film being a faked dupe for the original which Z sold to Howard Hunt within 2-3 hrs of th shooting, allegedly showing a 'missing' 30 seconds just as the prez Limo makes a broad left-turn from Houston onto Elm, during which the fist ambush kill-zone shots 'missed' the critical head-shot (hitting him in the throat instead and another shot striking the Stemmons Fwy sign) and showing the 'missing' 2-seconds or so around Z 313-314 during which Greer was said to have come to a complete stop, allowing 2 head shots (the 'fake' only showing the single-shot and 'back and to the left' motion of Kennedy).

After grappling with the inconsistency in other films showing Mary Moorman standing on the grass and NOT in the street as she later claimed and that the film analyst uses as the basis for 'proving' alteration, I read a devestating critique by Brad Blackford that convincingly demonstrates the major claims of 'Great Zapruder Film Hoax' are quite bogus.

NOT that the Z film version we've all seen hasn't been manipulated to disguise the limo slowing and a second headshot, which I believe.

But I was especially intrigued by the yellow-painted curb stripes on the west side of Elm Street directly across from the Pagoda area of Dealy Plaza, and which residue apparently STILL can be seen. I wonder whther those stripes, 12 of them each 60 inches long, were painted by the conspirators as an aid for the shooters to dial-in and coordinate their kill-shots, so multiple shots occurring AT the same time and place would be 'heard' as single shots. Assuming at least 3 shooter teams and 3 to 4 'shots' heard, then this would explain some 9 to 12 actual shots fired.

Curiously, apparently initial worldwide news reports stated witnesses hearing 'automatic gunfire', tho later reports only reported people hearing 3 or 4 shots.

Have you or anyone heard/seen similiar speculation to explain how perhaps only a maximum of 4 shots were heard but there's evidence of many more?

Yes, it's damn easy to get info overload when studying the JFK assassination. But over time, familiarity makes certain details stand-out in one's mind.

I've probably seen almost every noteable JFK vid on google/youtube. I deeply doubt Oswald fired any shots that day, tho I'm less clear about whether he knew about the plot or to what extent.

[erosoplier]

As with Oswald's Backyard Photo. I tend to be agnostic about the Zapruder Film. More interesting to me is the apparent connection Abraham Zapruder had to George de Mohrenschildt. John Simkin at the Education Forum has been exploring this angle recently:

Zapruder’s history and connections are too weird!

But back to the film itself...

The Z film was promptly reproduced on the day, and rights sold by the next day. The more I think about it, the more claims of tampering start to sound like the video-fakery claims about the 9/11 event. I would have expected a union of concerned scientists to have sprung up to voice these concerns if there were any substance to them, but it seems fair to say that we’ve mostly seen only dodgy websites so far, and not very many concerned scientists. Certainly not any kind of consensus (beyond the conventional wisdom that the film is legit).

With so many people on the scene and filming at the moment of the assassination, it doesn’t seem likely that the people involved in the conspiracy would attempt to control that side of the situation, or could reasonably have hoped to control the capture of events on film on that day. There are claims that the Z film has been fiddled with, but it’s far more likely that the conspirators did what they did that day knowing that whatever was filmed, it wouldn’t contradict the narrative the conspirators would attach to the events of the day – that some guy shot and killed the president. Or, at least, they had their work cut out for them making their cover story stick, and the film evidence didn’t provide any additional problems for them in that regard.

Except it did, of course - when the public did finally see the Z film, it caused a furore and prompted the opening of another inquiry, which the conspirators wouldn’t have welcomed, you’d think. And here I’m starting to see why Jeff and others are so down on 9/11 researchers focusing on controlled demolition to the exclusion of all else, except the JFK assassination is an even more stark example. To me, based on the video evidence, the ”back and to the left” conspiracy theory seems to be categorically wrong, and assuming for a moment that it is wrong, you’ve got to admit it has proven to be a compelling distraction over the years. For decades, most of the people suspicious of the official story have been rallying around a false piece of information! And if you can get people bogged down in bickering about the mechanics of the event, they are that much further away from focusing on questions which pose a threat to the real powers behind the assassination – not the persons who pulled the triggers on the guns, but the people who sponsored the entire event, first permitting it, and then keeping the details of it concealed, year-in, year-out.

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One more thing, I’ve decided I don’t think “compression/recoil” is the best name for what is going on with the head-shot. It is actually extension, as much as compression, which causes the back-and-to-the-left movement. In a split second Kennedy’s head is forced much further forward than it is naturally able to move, and the back-and-to-the-left movement is merely his head springing back in response. Like the way a diving board springs back when you jump on it; or if you bend a sapling tree over so the tip touches the ground, and then let go. His spine at the neck was forced unnaturally forward by the bullet, and it sprung back as a result. Back and to the left.