From: grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: RE: PBS SPECIAL
Date: 31 Dec 92 15:49:41 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
NNTP-Posting-Host: RIPPLE


In article <schuck.72506422@sfu.ca> Bruce Schuck writes:

>>1. How come the people on and near the triple overpass who looked over
>>at the grassy knoll/picket fence area *during the shooting* in order
>>to see if anyone was firing a gun from that location, did not see
>>anyone with a gun?  See, for instance, the testimony and statements
>>of Austin L. Miller, James Altgens, J.W. Foster, Lee Bowers.

>Bowers saw a flash from the area behind the picket fence, which was
>reasonably dark.

	Bowers said no such thing until he encountered Mark Lane.
	All he said at the time was that he saw some sort of
	commotion.  He saw two men in the general area and neither
	of them had guns.

>If you look at the pictures taken towards Zapruder which I have
>previously pointed out to you, you would notice it was relatively dark
>and shadowed by trees overhanging the picket fence.

	If you look at a good color photo, such as any of the
	Wilma Bond slides, you'll see that the "darkness" is
	merely an illusion caused by the limitations of cameras.
	In fact, the shade in that area was no different than the
	shade you can see in your backyard or local park on a
	sunny day.  The trees there (they looked to me like
	elm trees when I was at Dealy, though I'm no tree expert)	
	are very ordinary trees, rather small at that time, of
	little hindrance to the viewing of someone standing next
	to any of them.

	Said Austin Miller to the DPD on 11/22/63:

"I was something which I thought was smoke or steam coming from a
group of trees north of Elm off the railroad tracks.  I did not
see anyone on the tracks or in the trees."

	
>If *nobody* was shooting from the grassy knoll/picket fence why did
>people hear shots, see gunsmoke and smell gunsmoke in that area?

	Why did people next to the TSBD, like Mrs. Donald Baker,
	smell gunsmoke next to the TSBD?  Ralph Yarborough claimed
	he smelled the smoke all the way to the hospital.

	As for why people heard shots from the knoll I suggest
	a thorough reading of the psychoacoustic scientists'
	report done by BBN for the HSCA.  In a nutshell, there
	are a number of reasons why people misperceive the location
	from which gunshots are fired.  What the acoustic scientists
	found, though, is that it is extremely easy to localize
	the sound of a shot from the grassy knoll, but relatively
	more difficult to localize the sound of a shot from the
	TSBD.  It has to do with a number of factors, including
	the scattering effect of the sound rolling down the
	side of the TSBD.

	Of vital importance is that, even though a shot from the
	knoll is pretty easy to place, more people on the knoll
	placed the location of the shots at the TSBD rather than
	from the knoll, including Marilyn Sitzman and none other
	than Emmett Hudson, who was standing no more than a dozen
	feet from the alleged sniper location.  

        Deputy Sheriff John Wiseman, statement to DPD, 11/22/63:

"I ran on across Houston Street, then across the park to where
a policeman was having trouble with his motorcycle and I saw a
man laying on the grass.  This man laying on the grass said the
shots came from the building and he was pointing to the old
Sexton Building. [that's the TSBD]  I talked to a Marilyn Sitzman,
202 S. Lancaster who said her boss, Abraham Zapruder, RI 8 6071, had
movies of the shooting.  She said the shots came from that way and
she pointed also to the old Sexton building."

>The picket fence was about 5 feet tall and in shadows. It was perfect
>place to fire from.

	If you're about 8 feet tall and invisible.  And have an
	invisible rifle.  

>Contrary to your analysis, the TSBD was in plain site of several
>buildings across the street, and *nobody* saw anyone firing from the
>6th floor window.

	I should think you would avoid such conclusions, given 
	that no one saw anyone with a gun anywhere other than
	on the 6th floor of the TSBD.  Coincidentally, all the
	recovered bullet/fragment combinations that can be matched
	to a particular rifle match to Oswald's rifle, found on
	the 6th floor of the TSBD.

	Three witnesses, James Worrell, Amos Lee Euins, and
	Howard Brennan, saw the final shot being fired.  If it's
	smoke and flame you like, Worrell claims he saw smoke
	and flame coming from the rifle.  Malcolm Crouch and
	Tom Jackson saw the rifle being withdrawn into the
	window.  

	And still, no one saw a rifle anywhere else in Dealy
	Plaza.

>Also, *none* of the witnesses standing in front of the TSBD heard
>shots from above them. Most -- if not all -- heard shots from the
>grassy knoll area.

	On the contrary, of the 17 people in or near the TSBD
	who expressed an opinion about the source of the shots,
	13 heard thought they came from the TSBD.  The psychoacoustic
	panel explained, in great detail, why some people in front
	of the TSBD would misperceive the source of the shots.

>>And if you were hiding from someone, in the middle of a sunny day,
>>how much concealment would you expect to find standing next to a
>>small elm tree?

>Ever hear of shadows?

	This, of course, doesn't actually answer the question.  As
	mentioned before, you've got a few small trees, none of them
	exactly weeping willows, and a sunny day 1/2 hour after noon.
	If you think you could hide from someone in such conditions,
	then so much the better for your hide-and-seek partners.

>>The area behind the picket fence was also in the very plain view of
>>Zapruder and Sitzman who were about 15 feet away from the "badgeman"
>>location and about 45-50 feet away from the sniper location identified
>>by the HSCA and others.  Anyone looking west from the south side of
>>the TSBD could see behind the fence clearly.  And we could go on and
>>on.

>You know that the picket fence was *behind* Zapruder, even though you
>refuse to get a map and check this out for yourself.

	I've got maps and photos of Dealy Plaza.  I've also been
	there and stood where Zapruder stood.  That fence was to
	his right.  The whole point of this useless argument is
	to try to find some way to square Zapruder's testimony
	with the picket fence location.  When in fact, right, left,
	fore or aft, had a high-powered rifle firing supersonic 
	bullets been fired from either the "badgeman" location or
	the HSCA location, Zapruder and Sitzman would have been
	all but literally knocked off their feet.

	And the little panning jiggles show no evidence that they
	jumped up into the air at any point...

> >And only four people that day thought shots came from more than
>>one location.

>Several of the SS agents heard shots from the grassy knoll as well as
>*many* of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza. 

	21 witnesses out of 178 who heard shots thought they came
	from the general area of the knoll.  But this does not answer
	to: why did only 4 out of 178 hear shots from *more than
	one* location?

	The fact is, the picket fence area is a terrible place
	from which to shoot at Kennedy, no matter what.  It would
	be outright insanity to attempt a shot with the expectation
	of not being noticed.  You've got an unpredictable number
	of spectators, in unpredictable locations potentially 
	blocking the line of fire.  Any one of several hundred
	spectators or motorcade participants need only lift their
	eyes a few degrees to be looking down the barrel of the gun.

	You've got a parking lot that, at any time, could produce
	an unwanted witness driving in in a car.  You've got the
	numerous spectators no more than 30-40 yards away on the
	triple overpass looking right into the lot and behind the
	fence.   And so on.  It is very far from being a concealed
	place from which to fire secret, unnoticed shots.

	Even worse, there's no escape.  You can't run across the
	railroad tracks because there is zero concealment.
	You can't expect to hide in a car because (as happened
	in the event) the cars are liable to be searched.  And
	unless you can take yourself and the gun from the firing
	location to the car in which you are going to hide in
	a matter of nanoseconds, you aren't going to escape the
	prying eyes of the triple overpass spectators and cops
	as you open up the trunk of the car (or whatever) and
	seal yourself in.  Amazingly, the fact that numerous
	spectators and law enforcement officials ran over there
	immediately is taken as evidence that at least one shot
	was fired from the grassy knoll.  Typically ignored is
	the fact that, even though they got there very quickly
	(and in the case of Patrolman Foster, within a very
	few seconds) they never found a gun or a gunman or
	anyone else.  In the real world that would be taken
	to mean that there was no one back there murdering
	Presidents.  

	What is particularly interesting here is that, prior
	to the publication of the WCR, the popular place for
	the "second gunman" was on top of the triple overpass.
	Spectators who said they thought they heard shots from
	the area of the triple overpass were interpreted literally.
	Now, the area of the triple overpass means: grassy knoll.
	But no one now posits a gunman on the overpass for the simple reason
	that there were so many people there, and none of them
	happened to notice anyone standing next to them nonchalantly
	tossing off a few shots at the motorcade.
	
	And so the location of the second gunman had to be moved,
	and the best place is behind the picket fence.  Since you
	can at least pretend that this is a good place of concealment,
	the second gunman myth lives on, proof that if one only wishes
	hard enough for something to be true, and if the wish 
	represents something people want to believe anyway, why,
	one can get quite a few people to go along for the ride.

	
Joel Grant (speaking on his own behalf)