DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
NOTE --- The discussion that follows doesn't really qualify as a "JFK Assassination Argument", but I wanted to include it in my archives anyway.
Who said "coincidences" aren't possible? (Was it a conspiracy theorist?) The coincidence here being the rather remarkable "co-inky" of the weather/sunlight conditions in Dallas' Dealey Plaza changing so much within just a seven-minute time period so that a filthy dirty sixth-floor Depository window suddenly fooled this writer into believing the window was spotless and clean.
Here's how this little drama played out on October 4 and 5, 2015....
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Subject: Sixth Floor Museum / The Dealey Cam
Date: 10/4/2015 Approx. 5:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: David Von Pein
To: The Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza
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Hello Sixth Floor,
This is an "FYI" message....
The lens of the camera in the sixth-floor window is filthy dirty. It needs to be cleaned off.
Thanks.
Regards,
David Von Pein
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Subject: Sixth Floor Museum
Date: 10/4/2015 5:59:33 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: CharlieJ@jfk.org
To: David Von Pein
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Thanks for letting us know. We will have that taken care of.
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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
NOTE — The lens of the "Dealey Plaza Cam" was cleaned within 7 minutes of my getting the above e-mail from the Museum.
The view looks nice and clear now. That's certainly fast action.
Thank you, Sixth Floor.
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Subject: Sixth Floor Museum / The Dealey Cam
Date: 10/5/2015 12:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: David Von Pein
To: The Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza
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Hi again,
I wrote to you yesterday afternoon to inform you of the fact that your sixth-floor "Dealey Plaza Cam" lens was dirty. Somebody then cleaned it off very nicely at 6:00 PM EDT yesterday.
Well, just 18 hours later, it's back to being filthy again. [See image below.]
All I can do at this point is shrug my shoulders in bewilderment and suggest that your staff keep an eye out for the "Water Spot Poltergeist" who has evidently taken up residence in the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest window. ~grin~
Regards,
David R. Von Pein
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Subject: The Dealey Plaza Cam
Date: 10/5/2015 1:04:18 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: Megan Bryant
To: David Von Pein
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Dear David,
Thanks for your inquiry regarding our webcam. It actually is not the camera lens that is dirty, but the exterior of the window (the camera is inside, looking through a window). As you can imagine, the window exteriors are subject to the whims of the weather. In fact, the window was actually not cleaned yesterday afternoon. The differences you are seeing are due to the angle of the sun -- the rain and wind spots on the window are seen differently at different times of day based on the light and reflections hitting the window.
Note that the window is six stories up, so cleaning it is not a simple matter. We will do our best to get it cleaned as soon as feasible, but it will eventually be subject to the weather again. That, of course, we have no control over.
Thanks for your concern,
Megan P. Bryant | Director of Collections & Intellectual Property
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
411 Elm Street, Dallas, TX 75202-3308
Phone: 214.747.6660 ext. 5519 | Fax: 214.747.6662
meganb@jfk.org
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Subject: The Dealey Cam
Date: 10/5/2015 1:27:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: David Von Pein
To: Megan Bryant (Sixth Floor Museum)
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Hi Megan,
Thanks for the quick response concerning the mysterious dirty window.
But now I'm even more perplexed than before. You said this....
"The window was actually not cleaned yesterday afternoon. The differences you are seeing are due to the angle of the sun -- the rain and wind spots on the window are seen differently at different times of day based on the light and reflections hitting the window."
The above explanation seems like a reasonable one, but the camera view became crystal clear and clean just seven minutes after I wrote to the Museum yesterday. I made note of the times, in fact, because I couldn't believe how fast you cleaned it off after I wrote to you.
And there's no way that the sunlight and the reflections are going to change THAT much in just seven minutes.
So I'm back to ~shrugging~ big-time over this odd situation.
But it's nothing of earth-shattering importance, so we shouldn't lose any sleep over it. But it is weird. A very dirty window at 6:00 and a spotlessly clean and clear one at 6:07. And yet nobody cleaned the window? That's a head-scratcher. Unless somebody opened the window between 6:00 and 6:07. Could that be the answer?
Anyway, thanks for your time. (And watch for that poltergeist. It is the spooky month of October, after all.) :-)
Best regards,
David Von Pein
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Subject: The Dealey Plaza Cam
Date: 10/5/2015 1:36:37 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: Megan Bryant
To: David Von Pein
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David…
My guess is the sun went behind a cloud and that impacted the light on the window and thus the prominence of the water marks. Also, keep in mind it’s fast approaching sunset at that time of day. That window faces south on the southeastern corner of the building, and with the sun setting in the west, the building itself would block some of the light once the sun was low enough in the sky… which I imagine it is right around 6/6:15pm this time of year. And nope, no one opened the window!
Truly, no poltergeist at work here!
Megan
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Subject: The Dealey Cam
Date: 10/5/2015 2:23:09 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: David Von Pein
To: Megan Bryant
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Okay, Megan. Thank you.
I wish now that I had taken a screen capture of the Dealey Cam view at 6:05 yesterday. (I was thinking about doing that, but I didn't.)
I'm still scratching my head over this (just a little). But, oh well.
BTW, I love the work the Sixth Floor Museum has been doing all these years. I would often talk with Gary Mack by e-mail and we would exchange thoughts about many issues connected with JFK's death. I miss him terribly already. He helped me so many times over the last several years. And his correspondence to me (all of which I saved) has made my own JFK website a much better place to visit.
Thanks again.
Regards,
David Von Pein
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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Another follow-up (as if anyone reading this gives a damn by this time, but I have to see this "mystery" through to the end)....
I'm no longer perplexed or mystified by the "Magic Dirty-Then-Clean Window".
I captured the three "Dealey Cam" screen images seen below just a few hours apart on the same day (October 5, 2015), and Megan Bryant of the Sixth Floor Museum was 100% right about what she told me. The top two pictures below are still being taken through a very dirty window pane, but the view through that sixth-floor window looks much cleaner (and much less blurry too) in those top two pictures than it does in the third photo below. And it's all due to the amount of light being reflected off the window pane.
Mystery solved! It wasn't a conspiracy involving Jack Ruby, Jimmy Hoffa, the CIA, and the International Window Cleaning Association after all. It was just a dirty window that doesn't look nearly as dirty under certain lighting conditions. (How 'bout that?) :-)
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DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
As a side note to all this "Dealey Cam" talk, I took notice of the fact that the overhead signs on Elm Street were in the process of being taken down when I was capturing some of the images through the Dealey Plaza Earth Cam on October 5th, 2015 [see photos below].
The signs were removed in an effort to restore Dealey Plaza to the same condition it was in when President Kennedy was assassinated there on
November 22, 1963 (the overhead signs were not there in '63), with this restoration being done to accommodate the filming of scenes in the Plaza for the upcoming multi-part television mini-series, "11/22/63", which is based on Stephen King's best-selling novel. The filming took place in Dealey Plaza on October 6-8, 2015.
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DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Here are some additional images via the sixth-floor Dealey Plaza Cam that I captured during the period when Dealey Plaza was closed for the filming of Stephen King's film in early October of 2015 (click to enlarge):
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F. NICHOLAS CIACELLI POSTED
THE VIDEO BELOW AND SAID:
Kinda almost laughable if one knows the actual footage..... oh my....
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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Here are eight still images from the above video, which is a video that
depicts one of the re-enactments of President Kennedy's motorcade filmed
on October 8, 2015, in Dallas' Dealey Plaza (click to enlarge):
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DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Indeed it is laughable. I just love all the cops who suddenly appeared immediately in the street---even though there were really zero cops in those positions. And the actor portraying Secret Service agent Clint Hill jumps on the car way too soon in the re-enactments. And no Jackie on the trunk at all??
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F. NICHOLAS CIACELLI SAID:
I talked to one of the writers. It wasn't supposed to be accurate. It was supposed to be only similar, because this is taking place in a different timeframe, according to them.
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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, okay, Nicholas. Yes, the fact that King's film is fiction for the most part would explain it. And I'm guessing that those last two gunshots must have been fired by the police?? ~shrug~
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RANDY OWEN SAID:
Did they only do one take? I would have thought they would have done a few passes to get various angles, etc.
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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I watched every bit of the filming via the Dealey Plaza EarthCam on 10/8/15. They did 17 total run-throughs of the motorcade. In the first six, there were no shots fired in Dealey Plaza at all. In takes 7 through 17, there were shots fired, with the crowd reacting, screaming, etc.
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DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
Here are four more photos taken from various locations showing the motorcade re-enactments filmed in Dealey Plaza for the Stephen King mini-series on October 8th, 2015. Click for bigger views:
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IN NOVEMBER 2015, DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Less than a month after the filming that was done in Dallas for the Stephen King mini-series, another film crew invaded Dealey Plaza on November 2, 2015, to shoot scenes for director Rob Reiner's upcoming feature motion picture "LBJ", starring Woody Harrelson as Lyndon B. Johnson.
More information can be found HERE.
Excerpt from the above article:
“One thing’s clear: There’s a mighty big difference between a made-for-Hulu mini-series starring James Franco and a Major Motion Picture directed by Rob Reiner with an all-star cast. For one thing, Dealey Plaza’s been decorated with the old highway signs "11/22/63" opted to ignore.”
Here are three pictures taken during the filming of "LBJ" in Dallas (click to enlarge):
David Von Pein
October 4—November 4, 2015
