PATRICE MITSOS SAID:
When he [President Kennedy] was shot from the GRASSY KNOLL, his head went decidedly back and to the left.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But we know, of course, that a skull can and will travel BACKWARD (toward the gun) when hit from behind. Dr. John K. Lattimer's filmed tests prove that fact beyond all doubt. [See the video below.]
But, as usual, conspiracy theorists will invent new reasons to totally discount Lattimer's skull tests. (You see, the conspiracists seem to think that because Dr. Lattimer was a urologist, he couldn't possibly be capable of firing a gun at a skull resting on a ladder. Ergo, CTers deem his tests as invalid.)
~shrug~ and ~eyeroll~
Here are two quotes from Dr. John Lattimer's 1980 book, "Kennedy And Lincoln":
"I wish to re-emphasize that none of our test objects in these experiments with melons and skulls ever jumped or fell off the stand AWAY from the shooter." -- John K. Lattimer
"Our experiments verified that the backward movement of the President's head was compatible with his being struck from the rear, and that it was certainly not necessary to hit the head from the front in order to make the head move toward the gun." -- John K. Lattimer
GLENN NALL SAID:
This Jet Effect is a sham. Go shoot something, even something attached to something else, with a high velocity bullet. Then let's talk about this jet effect.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
OK, let's do that....
JFK-Archives.blogspot.com/2012/01/debunking-jfk-conspiracy-myths
Another "fake" video, Glenn? ....
PAT SPEER SAID:
Really? You fell for that?
From chapter 16 at patspeer.com --- CLICK HERE.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The Penn & Teller melon literally jumps backward off of the table. Yes, the table is a small table, but the melon definitely moved toward the gunman. And if a "jet effect" didn't cause that movement, what did?
The melon jumps off the table after being shot, moves BACKWARDS (toward the shooter), then (of course) falls off the table. But regardless of how small the table was, that hunk of fruit did move toward the gunman after it was struck with a Carcano rifle bullet. I see nothing phony or fraudulent about that melon test.
Plus, Dr. Lattimer filmed his skull tests too. And the skulls were propelled TOWARD the gunman as well. (And, no, the ladder did not cause the skulls to move backward, as many CTers like to use as a convenient excuse. That ladder doesn't even start to tip backward until well after the skulls have started their journey to the rear.)
PAT SPEER SAID:
You missed the point. The ladders tipped forwards. The forward momentum of the bullet slammed into the skulls, which then slammed into the ladders tipping them forward. The skulls then recoiled off the ladders and flew back toward the shooter. If the skulls were attached to the ladders, they would have fallen forward not back.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Absolute nonsense, Pat. Lattimer's test skulls were long gone off the ladder before there was any "recoil" (i.e., backward movement) of the ladder.
PAT SPEER SAID:
Let's try this again. The bullet never touches the ladders, and yet they tip forward. This proves that the forward momentum of the skull is being transferred into the ladders.
Think of it like shooting pool. The cue ball is the bullet. The cue ball strikes the 13 ball at an angle when it's an inch or so away from the 8 ball. The 13 ball then strikes the 8 ball. Upon striking the 8 ball, the 13 ball rolls backwards, but the 8 ball rolls forwards. Lattimer claimed that the backwards motion of the 13 ball replicated the movement of Kennedy, and proved the Jet Effect, but totally ignored that it had transferred its momentum into the 8 ball. It was a trick.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Like Glenn Nall [see this post], I'm a fairly decent pool player myself, and as far as I am aware, the only way to get a pool ball to move backwards (toward the pool player) is to utilize reverse english while striking the cue ball (which is something I became pretty good at doing in my younger days). The cue ball will then travel backwards (or a little left or right, depending on where the player strikes the cue ball).
But the OBJECT ball(s)--i.e., the balls the cue ball is hitting--will not travel backwards. Those balls always travel forward--away from the shooter/billiards player.
But, maybe Pat Speer thinks that John Lattimer had a special kind of Mannlicher-Carcano rifle---one that fired bullets with reverse english attached to them.
However, even if that scenario were possible, it's still not a good "pool" analogy. Because, as mentioned, from my experience as a pool player, it's only the CUE BALL--or in Pat's analogy, THE BULLET ITSELF--that would be subject to any REVERSAL of direction--not the "13 ball" or any of the "object" balls (or in Dr. Lattimer's experiments--the skulls).
What I'd really like to know is if Dr. Alfred Olivier's test skulls that he shot for his assassination tests at Edgewood Arsenal moved TOWARD the shooter after the skulls were shot with rifle bullets. I don't think that information ever came out in Olivier's Warren Commission testimony, mainly because the Commission wasn't concerned a single bit about the rear head snap exhibited by President Kennedy after he was shot. It was a complete non-issue to the Warren Commission (since they had conclusive proof via the autopsy report and the autopsy doctors that JFK had been hit in the head by just a single bullet, which entered from BEHIND). But it would still be nice to know which direction Dr. Olivier's test skulls traveled--forward or backward.
Prediction: Pat Speer will now change his "pool" analogy to this....
The bullet (in Dr. Lattimer's tests) becomes the cue stick.
The skull on the ladder becomes the cue ball.
And the ladder becomes the object ball which is being struck by the cue ball (skull).
But that's still a bit of a stretch for the conspiracy theorists, unless they can invent a way for the cue stick (the bullet) to impart reverse english onto the cue ball (the skull).
Let's chalk up and play a game or two.
David Von Pein
October 2015
April 2016
ADDENDUM....
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The video below contains a rarely-seen film which depicts some of the experiments that were conducted in May of 1970 by physicist Luis W. Alvarez. The film was taken by Don Olson and made available to me in September 2023 by long-time JFK assassination researcher Paul Hoch.
Note: The unseen gunman in each of these filmed tests, from the point-of-view of the camera, is located to the RIGHT of the target....
