Try to understand Lovelady's coworkers talked to him while they watched the motorcade.
Posted on 08/04/2004 5:09:23 AM PDT by BluegrassScholar
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - About a year from now, one of the most vexing mysteries in American history may finally be solved: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have begun work on a digital scanning apparatus that they believe will be able to reproduce sound from the only known audio recording of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.
The recording was made through an open microphone on a police motorcycle during Kennedy's motorcade into Dealey Plaza, where the president was shot to death. The sounds were captured onto a Dictaphone belt at police headquarters, but scientific analyses of them over decades proved anything but conclusive, fueling arguments about how many people were actually involved in killing the president.
The federal government's official inquiry into the assassination, the Warren Commission, concluded in 1964 that Oswald was a lone gunman, firing three shots from the Texas Book Depository building high above the plaza. But a House committee that investigated the shooting 15 years later concluded that four shots were fired, including three from the book depository and one from another location, giving rise to all manner of conspiracy theories.
Like old 78 r.p.m. records, the Dictaphone belt became worn and damaged through constant replay for analysis using a stylus. When it became property of the National Archives in 1990, the technical staff recommended that no further efforts be made to replicate its sounds through mechanical means.
That left preservationists with a daunting and historically important challenge: How could the sounds on the old plastic belt be captured for posterity, and if they could, would they provide unequivocal evidence of how many shots were fired?
Leslie C. Waffen, an archivist with the National Archives, said he believed not only that the sound could be captured but also that, using digital analysis to map the sounds, scientists could remove extraneous noise like static and distant voices to reveal gun shots.
"This is big," said Mr. Waffen, whose unit has custody of the belt as well as the original 8-millimeter home movie by Abraham Zapruder, which showed the assassination in color but utter silence. "That's why we called the experts in. They came up with a recommendation to do this."
After a June meeting of the National Archives Advisory Committee on Preservation, the job was left to Carl Haber and Vitaliy Fadeyev of the Berkeley laboratory, who have used a digital optical camera to replicate sounds on fragile Edison cylinders and long-play records. The process involves scanning the grooves of the Dictaphone belt electronically to create a digital image of the sound patterns.
Once that is achieved, Mr. Waffen said, the scientists could "clean it up, like peeling layers off an onion to get down to the sound floor" of the recording. And that, he said, could reveal how many shots were fired.
It is a question that has bedeviled government officials, law enforcement agents and historians since the actual event, leading to an array of conspiracy theories involving the mob, Fidel Castro, Lyndon B. Johnson, Russians or, as the film director, Oliver Stone, would have audiences believe, the "military industrial complex."
Among the strongest and most persistent alternative theories to the Warren Commission report has been the involvement of a second gunman on a sweep of land above the motorcade route that came to be known as the grassy knoll. It gained widespread currency after the 1979 Congressional investigation, which relied, in part, on a graphic comparison of the sounds on the Dictaphone belt and a test of gunshots in Dealey Plaza.
They produced evidence that four shots were fired, with indications that the first, second and fourth shots came from the book depository and the third came from the grassy knoll.
But three years later, in a subsequent acoustical analysis, the National Academy of Science concluded that the noise that others ascribed to gun shots was merely static or something else. That was the last time the belt was played.
Once it became the belt's custodian, the National Archives was faced with two questions: What should be done with it? And how could its evidence be accurately captured and made public?
For years, the questions were unanswered, until it became clear that new technologies might produce evidence that was unreachable through older, less sophisticated analytical methods that risked further damaging the belt.
The advisory commission concluded that the National Archives had a responsibility to provide a true copy of the sound, if not enhance it. That, the panel members said, could be left to the researchers.
"People want to know," said Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which opened in the book depository building in 1989. "The Warren Commission said it was one guy. The House Committee said it was Oswald and someone else. There hasn't been any resolution."
Mr. Waffen said it was about time to get one.
"Scientists have studied these sounds for 25 or 30 years and have still reached different conclusions," he said. "But with today's technology, we can get a better reading and answer the question, one way or the other."
And have supported a cottage industry that wouldn't exist if people could accept the simple truth that a lone antisocial leftwing nut killed the most powerful man in the world with a $20 gun.
Excellent diagram; it supports my contention that the "High Treason" diagram has the bullet coming from an angle that would place the shooter far from where Oswald actually was.
Correct - the last shot was the easiest; the first one was partially obscured by the tree (which it probably struck, sending the bullet fragment that nipped bystander James Teague (sp?) near the triple overpass), the second had a relatively pronounced downward angle, and the third - though farthest way - provided the easiest, most level angle.
Slightly when viewed by the human eye. Its got some material missing from the base, and is distorted in shape, to be sure.
However, none of the wounds attributed to this bullet account for what your photo documents. Seven wounds, one of which included a break of Connolly's (spelling) arm...and the "tip" isn't deformed?
I have no explanation for the damage to this bullet as your photo demostrates. I do know that after personally firing thousands upon thousands of round I don't buy the "magic bullet" theory for a minute.
Maybe there is a as yet unknown or unremarked upon cause for this "miraculous" bullet...but I haven't seen or heard one yet that casues me to think otherwise.
Thanks for the pic, btw.
"What's that damage on the tip? Do you see it? Do you also understand by the time the bullet hit bone it was keyholing and traveling sideways causing the damage to the rear?"
I've never seen this particular photo before today.
Hmmmm. thanks.
"I thought someone had discovered that this recording was actually made a few minutes AFTER the shots were fired?"
And,somwhere else,like the Trade Mart I thought.
Maybe there is a as yet unknown or unremarked upon cause for this "miraculous" bullet...but I haven't seen or heard one yet that casues me to think otherwise.
Consider this, especially the section entitled Why not Experiment? about 3/4ths of the way down the page.
Interesting link, thank you.
I'll be watching for the results of this latest set of tests.
Doubt anything will be resolved......(grin)
Badeye, Thanks for keeping an open mind. The first layer of "material" the second bullet went through was about six inches of flesh which included the hollow area of the windpipe. No bones were hit.
The bullet started at a little less than 2000 feet a second. That isn't a high velocity rifle bullet. After exited, it was probably going around 1600 to enter the Governor's back. It was going very slow by the time it hit the first rib bone and keyholed.
Where the Warren Commission failed was they hit a animal bone to simulate the wrist bone without figuring the drop off in velocity.
The final results was a shallow wound on the thigh and the bullet falls onto the strecher.
You're still going to have to remember the bullet was an outdated hole puncher made for massed troops. It was very heavily jacketed. If you want to try your own experiments, use a round nosed 30-30 around 1900-2000 feet a second. Bear in mind the copper levels in a civilian bullet will be a little softer than a military jacket which had levels of tin and nickel.
Remember the same type of bullet hit bone at 2000 feet a second giving different results during the third and final shot.
"Badeye, Thanks for keeping an open mind."
No choice, what happened that day in 1963 remains open to speculation, no matter what your currently held viewpoint is.
I do want to see the results of these audio tests.
That's what happens to bullets in Scotland.
( obscure reference alert )
According to the Mitrokhin Archive, the KGB considers its greatest propaganda triumph, blocking the fact that Kennedy was murdered by a lone Communist and casting suspicion on the CIA or "unknown conspirators".
Another dupe speaks.
He thought the whole thing up on a moment's notice, and did it all by himself.
President Kennedy was assassinated by a commie scumbag who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Conspiracy theorists should be beaten with sticks.
End of discussion.
Try to understand Lovelady's coworkers talked to him while they watched the motorcade.
But, but, but, I heard from my cousin's hairdresser's neighbor that......
PING to keep list handy
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