PRINTED BELOW IS ANOTHER EXCELLENT (AS USUAL) REBUTTAL BY DALE MYERS TO THE CONTINUOUS RIDICULOUS ATTEMPTS BY VARIOUS CONSPIRACY KOOKS (THIS TIME ROBERT HARRIS) TO UNDERMINE AND DEBUNK MR. MYERS' TOP-NOTCH ANIMATION WORK REGARDING THE JFK ASSASSINATION AND, IN PARTICULAR, THE SINGLE-BULLET THEORY:
[Quoting Dale Myers:]
"I’ve gotten more than one email in the last few days asking
about a video posted on YouTube over the weekend claiming to debunk my
computer animation work on the validity of the single bullet theory.
This latest video posting, entitled “Dale Myers or Voodoo Geometry
101,” arrives courtesy of conspiracy advocate Robert Harris who
manages to prove how little he knows about my computer work,
photography and geometric relations, and the Kennedy assassination in
general in less than six minutes.
The crux of Mr. Harris’ argument is that yours truly (that’s me)
falsified the geometric positions of Kennedy and Connally in order to
make it appear that the single bullet theory was valid and that the
single bullet shot traced back to Lee Harvey Oswald’s firing position
on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. In short,
according to Mr. Harris, my computer work is a transparent lie.
Never mind that Mr. Harris’ charges have been made numerous times in
the past by equally ignorant detractors and rebutted in detail on my
own website (see, FAQ: Computer Reconstruction of the JFK
Assassination) and here in this forum (see, Con Job: Debunking the
Debunkers).
The modern day pied pipers of the YouTube generation count on the
short attention spans and general ignorance of their audience to sell
their own brand of snake-oil and promote themselves as reliable
purveyors of truth via video on the Internet.
Of course, anyone can point a webcam at their own mug a pretend to be
someone of knowledge and responsibility. Hence, the wisdom of the
ancient axiom, “You get what you pay for.”
In this case, those who buy Mr. Harris’ free offerings are getting a
pig in a poke.
For instance, Mr. Harris makes the foolish claim that he can measure a
two dimensional still frame of a computer rendering of the
presidential limousine and it’s occupants (as culled from the
Discovery Channel program, “Beyond the Magic Bullet”) and determine
the angle of a three-dimensional trajectory from the sniper’s nest.
Apparently Mr. Harris never heard of (or understands) the underlying
principle of photogrammetry, which in essence shows that it is
impossible to project three dimensional lines in space onto two
dimensional photographs without taking into account the location and
angle of both known vantage points. By some wizardry unknown to human
science, Mr. Harris is able to do both.
Conspiracy guru Jack White found out the lessons of photogrammetry the
hard way when he took a beating in 1978 while trying to convince the
House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that multiple press
photographs of Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle depicted multiple
rifles of differing lengths. The “proof” Mr. White offered of the
multiple rifle cover-up were measurements he made on two-dimensional
press photographs.
As the HSCA photograph experts called to rebut Mr. White rightly
pointed out, the former advertising photographer failed to take into
account the relationship between the camera making the photograph and
the tilt of the rifle in three dimensional space. In fact, White had
never heard of the principle of photogrammetry.
Apparently, Mr. Harris never heard of Jack White’s boo-boo, because he
makes the same error. And he makes it more than once.
For instance, Mr. Harris claims that a comparison of a photograph of
the presidential limousine made early in the parade route with a
computer rendering of my limousine model shows that “Myers has jammed
the two men much more closely together than they really were.” Mr.
Harris claims that the distance between the back seat where the
president was seated and Governor Connally’s jumpseat were compressed
in my computer model by “a little over fifty percent.”
What is the evidence for the charge that I manipulated the dimensions
of the limousine to better serve the single bullet theory?
Mr. Harris offers nothing more that his own self-proclaimed expertise
at visually aligning two different photographs made from two
completely different angles in three dimensional space – [a] virtual
impossibility – along with an unsupported declarative statement:
“There is no way JFK’s legs could have been up against the back of
Connally’s car seat.”
In fact, Mr. Harris’ credibility on this last point is effectively
destroyed by the existence of numerous photographs taken throughout
the motorcade (a photograph on the back dust jacket of Bill Sloan’s
JFK: Breaking the Silence to name one) which shows exactly the
opposite to be true – Kennedy’s knees were comparatively tight to the
back of Connally’s jump seat.
In addition, Mr. Harris’ claim that “when the House Select Committee
on Assassinations depicted the victims they had to move Connally
considerably [more] to his left” than he appeared to be in other
photographs suggests that Mr. Harris doesn’t know that the HSCA
Photographic Panel mistakenly based Connally’s position on a line of
sight as seen in a photograph made by Hugh Betzner and that the HSCA
analysis failed to take into account the fact that Connally’s right
shoulder was below Betzner’s line of sight (as proven by the Altgens’
photograph) and hence Connally might have been seated further right
than the HSCA believed. My three dimensional analysis of the Zapruder
film bares this fact out.
Most importantly, Mr. Harris states, “The next scene from [Mr. Myers’]
presentation includes an amazing sleight of hand or pixels or
whatever. Watch closely folks, as Mr. Myers tries to hide the evidence
of his deception by slipping the victims back into a proper position.”
Here, Mr. Harris shows a clip from the Discovery program which
features my computer work in which the moment of the single bullet is
shown in wireframe and in solid form as the camera circles the
limousine and its occupants.
Mr. Harris then adds this, “Okay, notice two things here. First the
car and the background are all wireframes. Also, he still has Kennedy
and Connally close together, so that 18 degree bullet trajectory looks
pretty reasonable. But as the car rotates, notice that something
happens. The wireframes disappear and right in the middle of the
rotation, Mr. Myers switches to a totally different video. In this
video he positions President Kennedy and Governor Connally correctly.”
What Mr. Harris doesn’t know is that the two renderings (wireframe and
solid form) depict THE SAME MODEL.
That’s right folks, the wireframe model that he claims has been
“jammed together” in order to mislead the American public and
perpetuate the cover-up, is the exact same model (and in the same
position) as the solid form model which Mr. Harris says depicts
Kennedy and Connally correctly.
For you tech junkies, the model of the single bullet moment was simply
rendered in a 360 degree rotational view multiple times with a variety
of surface settings (wireframe, solids, etc.), and then combined with
simple dissolves pulled between the various layers.
At the end of his presentation, Mr. Harris proudly boasts, “People
like Myers have been playing this same game for years, misconstruing
the positions of the President and Governor Connally to make it appear
that the shot was fired from the sixth floor of the depository. But
the angles from there just don’t work.”
Of course, the only game players in this case are the conspiracy
diehards like Mr. Harris who refuse to accept the reality of what
happened in Dealey Plaza and prefer instead to prey on the young and
naïve who are more than happy to follow any video pied piper willing
to tell them whatever they want to hear about the Kennedy
assassination – truth be damned."
Dale K. Myers
August 18, 2008
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David Von Pein
August 18, 2008
