Dale Myers has added the following comments to his original May 8, 2008, article posted on his website:
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"In a recent post on the UK’s Education Forum, Mr. [Patrick J.] Speer writes,
“No one to my knowledge, including Myers, until this response, had ever suggested the images were distorted because the animation – the animation shown round the world to convince people the single-bullet trajectories worked, mind you – was shot at an angle from a computer monitor.”
Mr. Speer doesn’t seem to understand that in the real world
there is no need to acknowledge something that is self evident--
namely, that Discovery Channel viewers were watching a presentation
being given from a vantage point that was not perpendicular to the
presentation screen. This is obvious from the Discovery program
sequences that show a wide-angle view of the studio in which the
presentation was being given. Mr. Speer failed to note that fact and
now claims that the Discovery Channel and yours truly conspired to
deceive everyone about the single bullet theory.
The so-called distortions Mr. Speer refers to are of course the
unintended result of the Discovery Channel photographing the
presentation monitor at an angle and have nothing to do with the
alignments depicted in the actual images appearing on the monitor. And
the trajectory path superimposed over the videotaped sequence by
Discovery editors after the fact has no more relevance or accuracy to
the images below it (other than to illustrate, in very broad terms,
the path of the bullet*) than Mr. Speer’s own attempts to project two-
dimensional lines into three-dimensional space.
It’s unfathomable to me that anyone could swallow Mr. Speer’s
illogical rationale for dismissing the breadth of my work on the
single bullet theory, but in the world of conspiracy theorists bent on
embracing anyone and anything critical of the single bullet theory,
such idiocy is common place. (The UK’s Education Forum’s
administrator, John Simkin, applauded Speer, writing, “Congratulations.
I am sure all members have been very impressed with your work in this
area.”)
[Later....]
Mr. Speer further complains that the animated sequence I produced
in which Connally is shown sitting inboard of Kennedy by six
inches is equally deceptive because it shows Connally and the
jumpseat moving in unison. I explained in a recent email that Connally
and the jumpseat were moved as one for clarity.
According to Mr. Speer, “This is as good as a confession that
Myers knew the jumpseat was not 6 inches in from the door when he
created animation showing it to be 6 inches from the door… I wonder
how many [millions of viewers] would feel deceived to find out that
Connally's sitting comfortably in the middle of his seat was merely a
Myers invention designed to ‘clarify’ things for them? Some might call
this an out-and-out fraud perpetrated on the public.”
I don’t know how many ways to say it, but Connally was situated
six inches inboard of Kennedy at the time they were both hit.
Connally’s jumpseat, however, was fixed to a track in the floor of the
limousine, the outside edge of the jumpseat cushion measured at 2.5
inches from the inside door panel, according to body drafts produced
by Hess & Eisenhardt Company.
To demonstrate the difference between a rather common (and
inaccurate) drawing purporting to show Connally seated directly in
front of Kennedy at the time of the single bullet shot and their
actual positions as deduced from the Zapruder film and other
photographs, the models of Connally and the jumpseat were moved as a
single unit during presentations for ABC News and the Discovery
Channel.
The relationship between Connally and the jumpseat are
identical in both positions. Moving Connally and the jumpseat in
unison was simply easier than moving the two separately given the
television time available – especially given the fact that the
position of the jumpseat had absolutely no bearing on the single
bullet theory.
But for Mr. Speer, focusing on inconsequential minutia is
better than acknowledging his own obvious mistakes in photographic
analysis and logic. It also allows him to play the martyr for his
fellow conspiracy theorists and pretend he has actually proven
something." -- Dale K. Myers; May 2008
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* Which was just exactly my [DVP's] response to Mr. Speer regarding this very issue (when it surfaced in the following May 6, 2008, newsgroup exchange):
PATRICK SPEER WROTE:
The [video] clip at your link is most certainly the clip filmed at an angle now denounced by Myers as inaccurate. As you can see they start the trajectory line to the left of the monitor and superimpose it on Myers' distorted animation.
DVP WROTE BACK:
Merely to illustrate the obvious--i.e., that any bullet exiting John Kennedy's neck IS going to strike John B. Connally's body without a shred of a doubt. But the ENTIRE FULL-SCREEN CLIP (showing the trajectory line going back into the Sniper's-Nest window) isn't filmed at any skewed "angle", for Pete sake. In other words, it's not being filmed straight off a computer screen, kinescope-style. This seems quite obvious (to me anyway).
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I will add this (once again) regarding the "jump seat" topic:
There is definitely a discrepancy with respect to the exact
measurement of the jump seat that John Connally was sitting on when he
was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano bullet (CE399).
The Hess & Eisenhardt chart shows the seat to be "2.50 inches" inboard
of the right door (which is almost certainly the best possible source,
I would think, to rely on for the true distance between those two
points in the limousine, which Myers has, in fact, done in his 3D
computer model).
But there's also testimony from the Warren Commission (via Thomas J.
Kelley) and the HSCA (by Thomas Canning) indicating that the seat was
located 6 inches inside the door.
Author Vincent Bugliosi, via the quotes in his 2007 book "Reclaiming
History", quite obviously thinks the jump seat was a "half foot"
inboard of the right door, instead of the 2.5-inch measurement found
in the H&E body draft (schematic). Vince uses those exact words ("half
foot") at one point in his book. And in an Endnote on Page 344 of the
CD-ROM, VB says this (which certainly is at odds with the Hess &
Eisenhardt measurement):
"A six-inch gap separated Connally's jump seat from the right
door [6 HSCA 49]."
But, as Dale Myers has also pointed out, the exact location of the
seat on which John Connally was riding is NOT the most important
factor at all with regard to lining up the SBT trajectory in Dale's
three-dimensional computer model. It is the location of the two MEN
themselves (JFK & JBC) in "virtual space" that is the key factor.
And Dale's model, as he has fully explained already to Mr. Speer, has
been key-framed to the MEN THEMSELVES as they appear in the Zapruder
Film--and not to the SEATS of the two victims.
I'm still a bit confused myself about the precise jump-seat
measurement. As mentioned, there's definitely an official disagreement
there with respect to that measurement from the right-hand door.
But I'll also add a breath of CSA (Common Sense Air) to this Mountain-
Out-Of-A-Molehill discussion:
It couldn't BE more obvious that a bullet proceeding on a downward and
forward path exiting John Kennedy's throat had noplace else to go
except into Governor Connally's back -- REGARDLESS OF EXACT JUMP-SEAT
LOCALITY (be it 6 inches from the damn door, or 2.5 inches from it).
Pat Speer probably realizes that my last paragraph is 100%
true....which is probably why he decided to invent his own unique
"SBT" a while back, wherein Pat pretends that a non-existent bullet
hole was located at the "hairline" of JFK's body, with that bullet
being fired from a make-believe gunman firing a gun from a made-up
shooting location (the Dal-Tex Building), with this make-believe
bullet then exiting Kennedy's throat at a lesser right-to-left angle
than a Depository SBT bullet would.
You see, being a conspiracy theorist, Pat apparently thinks he doesn't
have to stay within the borders of something called "THE KNOWN
EVIDENCE IN THE CASE". Almost all conspiracists own this strange and
unique rulebook; just as nearly all "CTers" also adhere to the
following motto -- "ACCUSE NOW; PROVE NEVER".
And if Pat wants to respond to my last statement with a comment about
me being a hypocrite and insisting that Dale Myers hasn't been able to
stay within the "known evidence" either -- I'd fire back with:
Yes, he has (regardless of exact jump-seat placement).
Why?
Because, as Dale has said (and I have no reason to think he's lying
about this, mainly because it makes SO MUCH SENSE for this statement
printed below to be a truthful and accurate one, based on his computer
animation work):
"The location of the jumpseat has no bearing on the alignment of
ANY trajectory plotted in my computer reconstruction. The figures of
JFK and JBC were matched to the Zapruder film perspective, not to the
location of the jumpseat. Frankly, you could eliminate the entire
limousine from the reconstruction and the alignments of JFK and JBC
would still be valid since their position in space is based on
Zapruder's view of the scene and the relationship of JFK to JBC, and
their combined relationship to the TSBD and the surrounding buildings.
In short, the position and size of the jumpseat has no bearing on the
single bullet theory." -- Dale K. Myers; May 8, 2008
David Von Pein
May 10, 2008
