The “grassy knoll” theory suggests that there were one or possibly two gunmen at Dealey Plaza during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Eyewitnesses claimed to have heard gunfire coming from the knoll, but no shells were ever recovered. There are various conspiracy theories, including the CIA Conspiracy, which suggests the involvement of rogue elements seeking retribution for Kennedy’s policies.
The grassy knoll has gained notoriety due to conspiracy-peddling critics of the Warren Commission who contend that an unidentified sniper on the knoll fired on Kennedy. The film used as evidence in the case against Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot Kennedy from a sixth-floor window at the Texas School Book. The Badge Man is a figure purportedly present within the Mary Moorman photograph of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The assassination of Kennedy on November 22, 1963, has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, alleging the involvement of the CIA. Critics argue that an unidentified sniper on the knoll fired on Kennedy. The Mary Moorman photograph was used as evidence in the case against Oswald, who shot Kennedy from a sixth-floor window at the Texas School Book.
The majority of Americans believe some conspiracy about the assassination and Oswald to anti-Castro groups who were angry at Kennedy for his decision to withhold US military support. The grassy knoll theory has been used as evidence in the case against Oswald, who shot Kennedy from a sixth-floor window at the Texas School Book.
📹 The JFK Assassination – Was There Really a Second Shooter on the Grassy Knoll?
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. While most believe Lee Harvey Oswald to …
📹 JFK Unsolved: The Real Conspiracies | Full Documentary
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains the greatest American murder mystery, decades after the official report …
Interestingly, Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas County Coroner, was not allowed to perform an autopsy on JFK in Dallas. Dr. Rose had performed many autopsies in his career, including victims of gunshot wounds, so he would have done a highly professional examination of the president’s wounds. leading to a much better understanding of the number and trajectory of the shots. Dr. Rose did perform the autopsies on Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, and his findings have never been disputed.
My grandparents drove from Shreveport to Dallas (3 hours) to see JFK. My grandparents waited all morning and right after the car turned onto elm they heard what they thought were firecrackers and then screams. They were about 30-40 feet from the car when it happened. The pictures make it look like they were closer though. Luckily my grandmother had bent down to pick up my mom’s shoe so she didn’t see it. My grandfather had seen it and his first instinct was to take my 1-year-old mom off his shoulders and lay on top of both of his wife and daughter and then pulled them out of the crowd. My mom has no memory of it since she was so young. Here’s a fun fact: My uncle was conceived the day JFK was assassinated. He was born on August 28th 1964.
Back in the 2000s there was a show of some guys testing shots on ballistics gel dummies where all the shots were taken from Oswald’s position. One of the shots they took threw the dummy head back and to the left just like with JFK. I’ve personally done some shooting on private property and we were shooting all kinds of things like paint cans, soda cans, golfballs, watermellons and whatnot. You’d be surprised what direction things fly when they’re shot. Many times it’s not the direction the bullet was flying in. The “back and to the left” argument is one of the weakest forms of evidence in my opinion.
54:16 Here’s the problem with this theory. The acoustic analysis is done assuming the recording position did NOT move. What are the chances that the man with the motorcycle didn’t jump off his bike and let it fall over OR wheel it around to escape the area once gunshots were heard? This means 3 shots could have been recorder from one acoustic point with a 4th being HEARD from a different location/orientation. I haven’t seen any evidence that they took this into account when analyzing the acoustic data. ALso, its possible there were three shots and the fourth “shot” was the dictabelt hitting the ground.
A man in my family developed explosives in world war 2 and all way through slurry to the nukes. He said when he saw the bomb hit Nagasaki in the newspaper, it was the first time he had any clue as to what he had been working on. Everything is compartmentalized, and these people are compensated well to focus on their one little piece of the puzzle.
The kid assassin is an Umbrella Academy reference. Dallas 1963 is a nonfiction book on the assassination. Steven King’s novel is 11/22/63 (which is being added to my booklist). And while making threats to the FBI / CIA / government officials will get you on a watch list, there are still plenty of warnings that get ignored.
Being the granddaughter of a Master Machinist, I have the utmost respect for my Grandpa, his meticulous attention to detail, and the ability to eyeball 0.125 inch (⅛ inch). Grandpa made his own tools, and he took his job seriously. He took pride in his work and got another Machinist job with Naval Ordnance after he retired From Dupont. I would say Oswald was lucky to get such a job.
In the Marine Corps there are three levels of marksmanship. From lowest to highest they are Marksman (meeting the bare minimum to qualify), Sharpshooter( an average shooter) and Expert (These are the shooters who could make the shot on Kennedy) I’ve always questioned if Oswald hit him at all, but even a blind squirrel can find a nut. However, he just wasn’t that good of a shot.
With regard to keeping secrets– telling someone involved with a project to “keep it secret or we’ll take out you and your entire family” is one thing… but actually taking out that person and their entire family is about the least secret and most public thing that could occur. In fact, you could probably start with a list of people whose entire families vanished all at once and pretty much work backwards to figure out who was involved.
I’ve never thought that Oswald worked alone but I’ve also never assumed there was a massive, huge conspiracy. When I finally went to Dallas and visited the Grassy Knoll and Book Depository, I was like “dude, I could make that shot. I’ve shot rabbits with my .22 at that distance.” I’m writing this at the beginning of the article. Let’s see how it goes.
If you take an Amtrak from the East Coast to West Coast via the southern route, you pass right through Dallas on the very tracks that run through the plaza. The Amtrak train makes a stop in Dallas. It was really interesting to look outside the window of the train and see a place that you had never been to, but that you recognized because of its historical importance. It was also interesting to know that you are on the tracks associated with the event and the trains the “Hobo”s were on.
The question to ask is WHY were they so intent on selling the lone gunman theory. Perhaps because the law says that if there was a ‘conspiracy ’ multiple shooters, then they could convene a grand jury. If that happened, some very important people would have had to answer a lot of very uncomfortable questions.
Citizenship – I was born in England (with English parents). Over time the family emigrated to Canada and then the USA. At the time of President Kennedy’s assassination I was in school in Denver. Time passed …. Eventually I was 18 and decided to enlist in the US Marines. Part of the process was starting the application for me to become a US Citizen. By asking around I found out that taking US citizenship did NOT mean I would automatically lose my UK citizenship. So I became, and still am, a person with dual citizenship. I have since found found out that it it depends on the laws of the countries. By US law, taking the Oath of Allegiance means renouncing any other citizenship. But under UK law, that did not matter. So I would say that “it depends” ………..
I think after perusal this whole article, the only thing i have to say is God bless Jackie Kennedy and may she rest in peace with her husband. The world does not give her enough admiration for her ability to not only witness the murder of her husband, but to publicly make a statement two days later. The Kennedy’s have a dark and complicated history, but no human being deserves this.
You did a fantastic job reprising something that has existed as part of the zeitgeist for more than either of our lives, as a writer, as a performer and narrator, and as an editor. Thank you for rescusitating this issue in an adroit, respectful, compassionate, intelligent way, and with such a curious and innocent tone.
Would love to see that part 2! Also, my favorite weird aspect of the JFK thing is that Woody Harrelson’s dad, who was a real life hitman (seriously, look it up), was allegedly trained by the CIA and admitted to killing Kennedy while in a police stand off. He most likely had nothing to do with it, but still interesting
Thank you for making all these websites. I subscribe to everything I find you create. Your articles helped me in some of the hardest moments in my life. Biographics saved me for the longest time. On the article: I have personally been to the Dallas Book Depository. Inside you’re ipso facto told it was a conspiracy create for nefarious purposes. Soooo. Yeah. My partner of the time brought me for my birthday during a hurricane evacuation. Life in Nola people. It was amazing. It was educational. It is authentic. There are a myriad of exhibits you can spend an easy half hour just reading about over and over again.
I just finished listening to the podcast “The sun of a Hitman”. It was about the life of Charles Harrison, Woody’s father, who was convicted of killing a Supreme Court Justice. At some point he claimed he was the one on the grassy knowl. He also said that the was running guns in Cuba with Jack Ruby in the late 50’s
One of the weirdest experiences I ever had in school was that, of all people, my Middle School PE teacher was the one who showed me (and my class) the Zapruder Film. To this day, I have never figured out why he was the one to show it to a bunch of 8th graders instead of a history teacher (or if he was supposed to show it to us at all).
I have been interested in the JFK Assassination for many years now and have read and watched multiple material regarding it and have written my own pieces on it. However, I think this is one of the best articles I’ve watched on this topic. Not just for someone interested in the assassination but for anyone wanting to learn about it. Regarding the discharge confusion, Oswald was discharged from the Marine Corps and put into the Marine Corps Reserve. It was during his time in the reserve that he was discharged fully and defected to the Soviet Union. Nonetheless the author done a great job explaining the who’s the what and when’s and was just a great article to watch. Well done!
Fascinating subject. And am really glad that Dorothy Kilgallen’s missing files were mentioned. I loved Mark Shaw’s Book: Denial of Justice, which did an excellent job on the subject. Once you read that book, you’ll be even more convinced that we don’t know what really happened, and there are legitimate reasons to doubt the government’s Oswald ‘s explanation.
What makes me so angry about this investigation is the fact that no one took Ed Hoffman seriously. He was the deaf man who was standing on the triple overpass and saw the shooter behind the fence, saw him disassemble his weapon and pass it off to another man, and saw them drive away. The FBI never took him seriously. He died in 2010.
I have followed this conspiracy theory closely for over 4 decades, and I used to be a believer. Over time, I’ve become a believer in the lone gunman. The more you know about the ballistics, the more you realize the single-bullet theory is not really a stretch, and LHO’s shot was a very easy one. If you visit Dallas, you’ll be shocked at how close everything is. A shooter couldn’t have shot from the knoll, because everyone would have noticed. The best indisputable evidence of a conspiracy is: LHO was handing out pro-Castro flyers with a phony stamped address, which was actually home to a severely right-wing anti-Castro group. As a teenager, LHO was in a boy scouts type of group with a pedophile group leader who worked closely with these anti-Castro people, and trained people for the Bay of Pigs invasion. No one ever heard Ruby utter a single word in favor of JFK prior to the assassination. The government never publicly identified the men who were helping LHO hand out literature in New Orleans, though they were photographed. The best evidence in favor of a lone gunman: LHO was deeply disturbed since childhood–his mother was an absolute narcissistic psychopath. He behaved dramatically just before the killing (ie: leaving his wife his wedding ring.) There is no evidence beyond LHO’s three bullets; surely a shooter from a different angle would have left fragments. LHO got the job, before the parade was planned, he got it purely by happenstance, and his boss assigning him to that building was also happenstance.
I actually have a family connection to this! My grandfather on my dad’s side. Clayton L. beard jr. was a dog handler in the Air Force from 1961 to 66. The day before Kennedy was assassinated he was off duty. But the base commander came in stating that Air Force One was going to be landing and then they needed a security detail. All the men would get an extra $5 per hour in a pack of cigarettes signed by the president. My grandfather obviously having the day off and volunteered because he wanted some extra spending money. He got off shift at around 6:00 in the morning. Went to sleep and when he woke up the president was dead. I wish you still had the cigarettes or at least the pack but he had to quit smoking over 40 years ago.
The secret service’s actions afterwards are super suspicious as well. All the events from getting the body out of Dallas to the autopsy are very questionable. I have heard the theory that the final shot was fired on accident by a secret service member riding behind Kennedy. Definitely worthy of a coverup.
I was a 8th grade student sitting in biology class when JFK was shot. I remember the school Principle using the intercom to call all the teachers to his office where he told them the news. The teachers returned to their classes and told the stunned students, then school was dismissed for the rest of the day. You would be hard pressed to find a dozen people who firmly believe Lee Oswald acted alone.
Wally Weston said that it was a sniper hired by the mafia. Ruby was on the outs with the mob and shot Oswald at their direction. Check it out, Wally worked for Ruby and essentially knew everything. Weston lived underground for many years coming out when he was told it was safe. He told a priest before he underwent a dangerous procedure in case he didn’t live. “Death bed confession.” He told others the same thing but never publicly .
The 60-year-old time traveling assassin trapped in a 10-year-old’s body is actually a reference to Gerard Way’s ‘Umbrella Academy’ comic. The second volume is called ‘Dallas.’ *SPOILERS SINCE UMBRELLA ACADEMY HAS BEEN MORE POPULAR NOW* One of the big plot points is that Number 5, the 60-year-old who is trapped in a 10-year-old’s body due to time shenanigans, has to return to the past with his family to prevent his older self from stopping the JFK assassination. If this at all intrigues you, I do recommend picking up the Umbrella Academy comics. They do differ from the Netflix series.
My physics teacher in high school had us to a physics problem where the result was the object receiving the force seemed to move backwards rather than forwards (we got a negative number rather than a positive number). After that problem about balls hitting each other he then made an off hand reference to the JFK assassination. Just because his head went backwards doesnt mean that the force came from the front but is a consequence of the conservation of momentum or something. I wish I paid more attention but that has always stuck with me. If anyone could explain this I would love to hear it.
The Warren commission was influenced if not lead by the cia. There was also a 75 year delay on the release of the (vax) test data . What was censored as misinformation in 2020 and 2021 has since been proven true. The past 3 years really confirmed that the mainstream media, social media and the government work closely together and they don’t apologize when the proof they have been lying is proven true and made public. Hunter’s laptop, mail in ballots with no identification, efficacy of shots and masks, the attempt on rf Kennedy’ life and still denied secret service protection, and that bullet that clearly impacted nothing among 100 other things. The booster Whoopi Goldberg got, Biden’s wife got and both were infected. The trust is gone by anyone who researches any of this. Scary times we live in. Might have been just as scary then, but information was harder to come by.
There is no physical possibility that Oswald fired three shots in the time recorded. Physically impossible. Yes there were others that day. LBJ and the CIA conspired to murder JFK. The real killer was on the grassy knoll. Oswald the patsy. Ruby the silencer. LBJ behind it. Typical set-up that the CIA has perfected.
Not quite sure how this is still a mystery to some people. Oswald didn’t fire a shot. He was the *patsy*. This is CIA SOP. Shooters on rooftops (inc roof of the building Oswald was in) behind the motorcade fired multiple shots, one or two of which hit Connolly. The killshot headshot on the President came from the shooter in the curb-set sewer inlet in front and to the right of the motorcade. Why do people still act like this wasn’t settled decades ago?
Halfway through the article: JFK reportedly wore some type of back brace? Corset device due to some injury he received. People have suggested the reason he doesn’t duck after the first shot is because he physically couldn’t due to the corset. He didn’t like people to know he had to wear it, so very few people actually knew about it’s existence. His doctor apparently, told him not to wear it that day but Kennedy wore it regardless because he didn’t want people to see him wincing from the pain.
Please make an episode about the death of Ms. Kilgallen as Kevin mentioned at the end of the article. I’m sort of surprised to hear Simon accept the possibility of two completely unrelated shooters both happening to open fire within seconds of each other, in the same time and place, randomly… given that I’ve heard Simon reference Occam’s razor on numerous occasions. The chances of that are so infinitesimally small that it’s absurd. Also, regarding the potential involvement of the CIA, remember that at the time president Kennedy was assassinated, anyone who wanted to investigate any aspect of the CIA’s then ongoing project MK Ultra would have been ridiculed and dismissed out of hand (in the same way that Simon seems to dismiss any possibility of government involvement in the JFK assassination). I think the possibility should be looked in to, it’s not like we’re talking about aliens building the pyramids or 9/11 conspiracy theories… I have no idea, and I’m not saying I believe it, but I don’t discount it, either.
The car President Kennedy was shot in is in a museum near Detroit, Michigan. In 2021 my nephew (12 yo at the time) and I went to the museum for a day out and because things were just starting to open up after lock down it was pretty empty throughout the entire building. As we walked, looking at the different presidential cars, my nephew was trying to peek into the back seat of this one and I asked him what he was looking for. And, in the yelling whisper that most pre-teen boys have, he replied “President Kennedy was shot in this car, I wanted to see if I could see brains”. A guard near by snort laughed, a Karen in her mid 40’s gasped and gave him a dirty look. I told him “I am thinking they cleaned it up back in the 60’s, but double check!!”. It was very cool to see the history they had there. They also had the bus that Rosa Parks sat down on, and the chair President Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot. Thanks for the info Simon and Kevin!!
Umbrella Academy. the whole 2nd season revolves around Number 5’s assignment to ensure Kennedy does indeed die that day. 13 year old Number 5 comes face to face with geriatric Number 5 & things become even more insane than they already get any time the Umbrella Academy is involved. love the series, love the graphic novels, & if you haven’t experienced them yet, at least give it a consideration 😊
Modern analysis of the bullets that were fired by Oswald has concluded shots fired from his location can account for all of the damage inflicted on Kennedy and where fragments of his brain and skull went. A trajectory from his location in the book depository also could have gone through Kennedy and the other man, it’s the only way for a bullet to go through both of them. Additionally, Kennedy jerking back and to the left wouldn’t have necessarily been caused by force from the bullet, it could have been caused by impulses sent from his brain in the immediate aftermath of the bullet hitting it. It is far more likely than a secondary shooter.
1:17:13 so glad to finally see someone actually mentioning the fact that the president was wearing a back brace. It’s the one fact everyone forgets to mention when discussing the motions his body made when shot. Conspiracy theorists always say his body should of moved differently than it did but always conveniently forget to mention that he also had metal rods holding his spine in place
“Do not attribute to malevolence what can be attributed to ineptitude.” That’s a famous saying, or at least a mostly accurate paraphrase of one. And this article brings that saying to the forefront of my mind once again. This and Wendigoon’s article are the long and short of my knowledge on the JFK assassination, and the myriad of conspiracies surrounding it. And, whilst I can definitively say there’s a lot of suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of JFK, I can’t as definitively say where that conspiracy begins or ends, nor what it entails. But, there’s enough ineptitude displayed that there’s little wonder just why it proves a popular area for conspiracies.
I’m at an hour and 7 minutes in and I feel I need to add something. In high school, 99-2003, I had a teacher in my 9th and 10th grade classes that had an obsession with this and used it as part of his physical science class. In it he used things like secondary force, hole sizes (entry wounds are always smaller than exit wounds), etc. But it went well beyond that, in fact the total amount of things could easily have been used to make a article like this and be comparable to some of Simon’s best “today I found out” articles. There was of course speculation on a second shooter, whether it was at the grassy knoll or the structure beyond at longer range. Umbrella man was brought up and similarly cleared. But it was the other events that actually make up the conspiracy. There was a person of interest in the investigation who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a bolt action rifle, multiple times. There was the fact the Oswald’s weapon from the depository isn’t the rifle the officer said he found, and that the 3 shells didn’t match either the rifle originally claimed to be found or in police custody. There were some conflicting accounts about the officer shooting. Some issues with the depiction of Oswald, where it wasn’t clear if they were trying to depict him as a moron or a clever mastermind, but according to my teacher’s looking into this (he was working on a non-fiction novel but 3 1/2 floppies in 1999 weren’t the most reliable thing to work with), Oswald was a reasonably average person that was disgusted by capitalism, but his pro-cuban stance made it seem rather odd he would want to shoot Kennedy, given that Kennedy was later expected to sign a ‘positive’ deal with Cuba to allow trade.
An army vet and his son “hit the deck” after her heard and felt shots coming from behind him “on the grassy knoll” a police officers and deputies, found footprints behind the fence over the knoll, people smelled cordite in the immediate area. A man in uniform, sunglasses, badge is photographed with a rifle near the fence.
Look at all the permutations: 1) Oswald was involved and had orders from a covert agency to shoot the president- at the same time they also gave orders to others to do the same (and then let Oswald be blamed). 2) Oswald was involved and he knew there were others that will also shoot the president. 3) He was not involved at all and he was simply blamed because he worked in the Depository building, had a gun and he was a USSR sympathizer. 4) He was involved and he was the only shooter. I think we can eliminate 4 easily because there are 2 many things that seem unlikely. In particular the autopsy, finding an extra bullet what was not damaged (see recent revelation by secret service agent that found this bullet in the back of the car seat), the fact that WWII gun he used was not very good at all and so on.
I appreciate that the episode can’t go into every single detail and the huge rabbit Warren of facts/theories of the assassination, but there is a lot of very relevant information and evidence missing from Kevin’s writing. The 2 biggest being that all of the doctors and staff who worked hard to try to save JFK, all noted that the throat wound was an entrance wound (made bigger by a tracheotomy), therefore it’s a second shooter. The other item of note is that nitrate tests taken from Oswald, show he had gunpowder on his hands, but none of his cheeks, indicating that he had fired/held a gun, but not a rifle. Honestly, I could go on and on, and even though I don’t agree with half of what Kevin wrote (based on my own research) I thoroughly enjoyed perusal this. I hope this sparks interest for younger generations.
Kevin, yes, please! I think I suggested a article about Dorothy Kilgallen back when Casual Criminalist started, actually. I got into a thing a few years ago where i was perusal old game shows on YouTube and began to really get into What’s My Line. Then, I came to the episode where it was announced that she died with little to no reaction from her co-stars. It just seemed weird and I looked up what happened and was kinda blown away… no pun intended there. So, ya. I would be very interested to see what you and Simon think!!!
I’ve been fascinated by the JFK assassination since I was a kid and always felt there was a second shooter. For the longest time I thought it could be from the grassy knoll but I’ve heard there was a storm drain to the right of the motorcade and someone could’ve been there. Could there have been a bigger conspiracy involving three shooters? You would definitely increase your odds of hitting your target.
I love at 1:12:00 Simon just basically defines what a conspiracy theory is while saying that not a conspiracy theory haha. It’s the statement someone makes when the idea is so clouded by the popular definition, that saying the real definition sounds weird. Then the realisation at 1:22:34 really got me
The “back and to the left” thing isn’t as conclusive as people think it is. I’ve seen reconstructions (including on MythBusters, I think?) where it’s possible to get a head to move back and to the left by shooting from behind. And if you look at the fatal shot (where his head explodes) his head goes *forward*.
Thank you for a fascinating article. I recall originally simply believing it was Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, to perusal the 1991 Oliver Stone film and thinking ‘there’s definitely something to this’ to then seeing that film being debunked in a subsequent documentary and thinking it was just Oswald again. Now I’ve seen this article and I’m back to thinking there is something more to it! There’s none so confused as a part time conspiracy theorist! Yes, please do part 2 regarding that journalist woman, I’d love to know more!
One piece of eyewitness evidence that can be easily be discounted are the reports of gun smoke from the Grassy knoll. Modern gunpowder is smokeless. If there were a grassy knoll shooter, nobody would have seen smoke from any distance unless the shooter was using a black powder rifle or musket. Also, I think a lot of the acoustic evidence of two shots close upon one another was probably due to the sound of an earlier shot echoing off the buildings in Dealey Plaza.
Running a metal lathe is actually alot of fun. Making anything from aerospace parts to basic maintenance parts for other machines. Taking a piece of raw stock metal and turning/threading/ boring it into a extremely precise finished part is extremely rewarding. They say the lathe is the only machine that can duplicate itself.
the book is 11/22/63 and there is a tv series that ended up with one of the best ratings of a tv series in all time. it was fantastic! close to a decade old id say but well worth the watch! solid cast and a decent protrail of the book. (especially since it had roughly 9 or 10 parts, thus allowing for more time than movies /most book adaptation tv series.)
I mainly think that “conspiracy” theories like this one should just be called theories. Adding conspiracy to it discredits its possible validity. For example hearing “the conspiracy theory that there was a second shooter” vs “the theory that there was a second shooter”. One seems a lot more “realistic” than the other.
When I was in high school many moons ago, one of my math teachers said that he went on a vacation and visited the site of the shooting. He stated that from the window that Oswald was allegedly at, and the fact that Oswald was a right-handed shooter, from that angle Oswald would have had to lean out the window in order to get a good shot at JFK.
I’ve watched numerous YouTube websites on this subject. One called ‘Altitude Films’ – named episode ‘Evidence that Oswald never fired a rifle’. It shows Mark Lane a New York Attorney, it’s very interesting, I’ve watched lots of articles on ML too,. I’m addicted to all the films/documentaries covering the various witnesses, many people had their film confiscated and was never returned. Thanks Simon.
Coming back out from years of the conspiracy bug about this one event (none other, please), I have come to be convinced that the one conspiracy that most likely occurred was the FBI and the Secret Service working very hard to conceal their incompetence preceding and on November 22nd. People seem to expect to find a signed memo in the classified documents that initiated the whole thing. That won’t happen, obviously The only thing that keeps me still somewhat dubious is the combination of odd characters and events that led to and followed that tragic moment, which seem too strange to make me accept they were all coincidental. So I am off the crazy train, but I guess i am still trotting behind it, just in case…
I’m a hunter, and I’ve personally seen an entry wound that is considerably larger than the exit wound, and I’ve never seen an animal “pushed” by a bullet. The direction they head has nothing to do with the direction the bullet came from. I’ve also seen full metal jacket bullets that traveled through a very great amount of tissue and bone with nothing to show for it but a squashed base. As far as the smoke from the grassy knoll is concerned, I fail to understand why the gun would have been visibly smoking. I’m not saying no one else was involved, but I don’t think this evidence is as strong as it otherwise sounds
Yes, it feels like the JFK assassination covers 4 or 5 days of the most twisted days of US history. Back in the 80s I went through quite a bit of the multi-volumn history that the Warren Commission put out. I tried to get others interested in it. No cigar. I think most people just didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. At this point, it is sort of like the damage has already been done in an unfixable way. It certainly does not inspire a lot of trust in the government.
When Khruschev learned of the assassination, he ordered the KGB to investigate because he was concerned that the Soviets would catch the blame, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khruschev wanted to be able to have evidence to present to prove their innocence in case the allegation was made. No one wanted another stand-off. The KGB concluded it was Oswald and there was no reason to believe there was another shooter.
Plenty of people believe that Oswald acted alone, but I would, without hesitation, bet $10,000 that he didn’t. Back in the day, they fully proved he could not have pumped the bolt as fast as the shots were heard, and even if he could have, to fire, through a tree, at a moving target 100 yards downrange and score at least 2 hits, would be like a double hole in one on a golf course. It’s not humanly possible to shoot a rifle like that.
I’m 57 and when I was about 7 or 8 I was in our small-town library and was just flipping through books, mostly looking at photos of things. I picked up one book and it must have been about the JFK assassination because there were three small pictures in it of Kennedy of frames 312, 313, 314. He was hit on frame 313 so as a small child I wasn’t repulsed but more confused and curious as I had no idea of the level of violence I was seeing. It led to a lifetime interest of this issue, just an interest mind you, … I’ve seen JFK only once … No tinfoil hat, (yet :), 😎
My mom’s Dad’s second wife’s brother (yeah I know how it sounds) was a motorcycle cop in Dallas that day . Family legend is he went to his grave swearing there was more than one shooter . He was apparently about a block away on traffic duty and a call came across the radio of multiple shooters but there’s no record of it or anything. Even I sometimes wonder if he’s remembering correctly or telling tales but everyone he knew him swear he was not a joking type of person . *Or maybe it wasn’t a radio maybe it was a police phone or something but there was a communication
I was a police officer for many years the concept that the bullet spray is the wrong way is a big flaw in this conspiracy theory, blood splatter does some major weird things especially when the head is hit, I have personally seen backwards spray, and all sorts of weird patterns it’s very difficult to understand and is always straight forward.
Good article. I was fortunate to have coffee with Dr. Robert McCelland. After speaking with him, I have no doubt that there were at least two shooters. One thing that I have not personally fact checked is that it is my understanding that the police officer who ran up the grassy knoll was turned away by someone waiving a secret service badge. It is my understanding that he signed a declaration to that effect. Since there was no secret service agents on the grassy knoll, that would prove a conspiracy, assuming the officer was not lying.
Back in 2017, my then boyfriend and I went to Dallas and went to the 6th floor museum. Not saying we are experts, but both of us served in the military (him- Army & Air Force, me- Marines) and we know how to shoot. He, a most definite skeptic, actually agreed with me that LHO was not the only shooter. Lots of interesting information is presented, and a lot of trying to disprove anyone other than LHO was a shooter. Which screamed, “We’re trying to cover it up!! Pay no attention to the other information.” 😂
Whenever there’s an attack or national tragedy, it’s always the FBI and CIA bad communication with each other. ‘63 and ‘01 are glaring examples of this. I cannot believe through all these years and all the technology that we have at our hands at this point that these agencies can’t get it right. Unless they have enough technology to make sure that the public gets it wrong. This case always keeps me perplexed. Thank you for your article.
We will probably never know the full truth, even if Oswald was the lone shooter( which i don’t think he was), there was a lot of people in the government who created that scenario/scene for it to be able to happen. Everything about the incident points to powerful people standing by and letting it happen.
Two additional pieces of evidence that shore up “conspiracy theories” or at the very least, a second shooter: 1. The emergency room doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital who were the first to examine JFK all agreed that the massive head wound came from the front and right, i.e. from the area of the grassy knoll and impossible from the Texas School Book Depository. These were experienced doctors who had performed numerous gunshot autopsies (see the recent Paramount+ release “JFK: What The Doctors Saw”). They were not allowed to conduct the autopsy as the Secret Service essentially “stole” JFK’s body and would not permit the autopsy to be performed in Dallas, which was against the law (at the time there was no federal criminal statute regarding Presidential murder, so the Secret Service had no jurisdiction over the body, whereas Dallas County most assuredly did). The two doctors at Bethesda Naval Hospital where the ‘official’ autopsy was performed had never performed a gunshot autopsy in their careers. There is compelling evidence that the Bethesda autopsy was at least incompetent or at worst, deliberately falsified at the behest of the government to accommodate the “Oswald acted alone” narrative. 2. Blood and tissue spatter evidence as well as recovered bullet fragments and photographs of projectile impacts to the Presidential limousine after the assassination undeniably indicate that Kennedy was struck in the head twice: once from the front and right (the devastating cranial explosion at Zapruder frame 313) and again from the rear less than a second later into the cranial wound cavity (frames 324-327).
So, Oswald had more than one ID, and a second man showed up at the soviet embassy in Mexico. I would assume that means he had an accomplice that couldve shot as well, either from the storm sewer, or on the knoll. It would also explain why a marine didnt start shooting as soon as the target was in range and frame, he was waiting for the car to get into the ambush zone.
Forensic science has advanced by quantum leaps since 1963, but BASIC PHYSICS has not. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back and to the left. Back, and to the left. PHYSICS. GET IT? I’ve been using firearms over 50 years, and not a single target I have hit has ever recoiled TOWARD me. BACK, AND TO THE LEFT.
THIS is the kind of stuff this website needs more of. More genuine mysteries and highly suspicious official accounts. Things that really need to be “decoded”, not just “oh a handful of people think aliens/ghosts/the illuminati are responsible for something the rest of us pretty much know regular people were actually responsible for”. And yes, allow me to join the others begging you to do the Kilgallen story.
There actually exists another “home movie” that hasn’t received hardly any attention, except by Kennedy Assassination buffs. I believe it is called the “Dix” film, for the person that shot it, and it was taken from a vantage point almost exactly opposite of Zapruder, with the frame basically centered on the Grassy Knoll. The renditions of it that are available online are very poor quality (the original, of course, has been locked away….imagine that), so it is impossible to decern any shot or muzzle smoke coming from the Stockade Fence area on the Knoll (it is speculated that the original film might actually hold that evidence), but what it DOES DEFINITELY SHOW (and what is not readily apparent from the Zapruder footage) is that, in the moment of the fatal “head shot,” the limousine had almost come to a complete stop. To reference it to the Zapruder film, just after the limo emerges from the Stemmons Freeway sign, the limo decelerated quickly enough that the two police motorcycle escorts following immediately behind the limo ALMOST come alongside the limo before their riders slammed on their brakes. The pause of the Presidential limo is just for a short moment (which allowed SSA Clint Hill to easily quickly climb aboard the rear of the limo, trying to reach Mrs. Kennedy, of whom she was his direct protection responsibility) before the limo quickly accelerates away towards the Triple Overpass and the entrance to the Stemmons Freeway. The next moments, after the limo has sped away, EVERYONE visible in the frame (and there were a LOT of people visible in the frame) runs TOWARDS THE GRASSY KNOLL, as if to either catch a glimpse of the person they ALL had perceived shot from there, or to try to get their hands on that person to apprehend them.
The discovery website did a really well done documentary(I thought so anyway) back in ‘04 called “beyond the magic bullet” which proves the one bullet could cause all 7 wounds I. Kennedy and Connelly’s bodies (exception being the headshot) and be nearly pristine. Definitely worth a look if you want to dig deeper into this.
I’ve always felt that it was highly likely that there was a second shooter but didn’t really believe it as such until I read Dr. Crenshaw’s book. He was one of the surgeons on the team that received JFK once he was rushed to hospital. He describes JFK’s head injuries very clearly in medical terms and it was VERY clear that the wound on the back of his head was an exit wound. Meaning he was shot from the front. That in itself was extremely compelling but only the tip of the iceberg as he covers some wild events in the hospital which make the whole incident seem outlandish. For example the entire surgical team knew that JFK was dead and not just expired and up for CPR, but irrevocably deceased with a massive head trauma, but he was still wheeled into surgery whereupon they did their best to revive him. This is not conspiratorial, but obviously theatre so that the medical team could say: “We did our best”. But really that was one of the least weird things that happened.
I’m in my 60’s and have been reading books and articles about the assassination since the early 70’s. Some concluded Oswald did it alone and when I’ve finished I thought “Well that proves it”. Others concluded Oswald acted with others and after finishing I’ve thought, “Well that proves it”. Others have proved Oswald was an innocent Patsy. And I’d decided afterwards “Well that proves it.” However many points brought up in this article I’ve never heard before. The wrist cutting for example. Also why did the police officer “pull Oswald aside to question him” on the day of the assassination? Why did the police send an army around to arrest a man who failed to pay for a movie ticket? On the same day the President has been shot. In the same town.
Dorothy Kilgallen’s exchanges with Ruby happened during his public trial where he could have come forward with any statement he wanted to make. Her reporting was only going to be part of a larger book on other trials she had covered she wasn’t planning on publishing for months, hardly an urgent expose. Her trademark boasting aside, if she possessed any info that was going to blow any plots and bring Kennedy’s “real killers” to justice she was sure in no hurry to do anything with it. Perhaps her gig on What’s My Line was more urgent. Killing a high-profile TV celebrity like her means another murder requiring its own subsequent cover-up, bringing on more witnesses, more investigation, more publicity, more suspicion. Let me get this straight: it was necessary to kill her but not Ruby, his attorneys, Jim Garrison, or any of those crackpot authors who spent years and years crowing loud and long about how they were going to blow the conspiracy wide open…? The image of sinister operatives breaking into Kilagallen’s house (while her family was at home) and forcing pills down her throat is laughable.
I have watched dozens of Biographics ever since I found this website, but this one has a different feel to it. Not because of subject matter, but because of Simon’s demeanor. I don’t ever remember listening to another one where he’s dropped so many f-bombs or said shit so many times. It seems that’s he may have imbibed a few G&Ts before recording this one. Not that I don’t drop my share, but especially because of the nature of the subject, I think there is a certain irreverent feel to this one. If this had been the first of the Biographics that I had found, I doubt that would have come back for more, and I would have missed out on a lot of excellent content. I’m glad that this one is the exception to the rule.
Im with Simon on the not knowing or really even believing the government had him shot but just the physical evidence alone makes it virtually impossible that all the shots came from the same place.. all shots from behind couldnt possibly have caused the movements and damage to Kennedy’s head that unquestionably happened.
Obviously I can’t prove anything, but in my opinion, I think Oswald’s real role was to fire several blanks and make noise in an attempt to scare the motorcade into turning around and thus cancelling the meeting that was supposed to take place. Unbeknown to Oswald, his relatively harmless role was to serve as a cover-up for the real assassin, who was shooting from a different location. Oswald was essentially a patsy in the entire assassination. Again, I obviously cannot prove any of this. It’s merely theory and nothing more.
I know I’m late to the game, hope you still pop in and read these. Kevin, Simon, fantastic work and a very thought provoking article. My area of expertise as a Naval Hospital Corpsman (stationed frequently with Marines as their first line of emergency medicine in combat situations) has blessed me with an intimate knowledge as to the ballistic response of high velocity metal to meeting flesh and bone. Even the introduction of just 6 inches of soft tissue causes such a rapid deceleration to rifle rounds, that they often mushroom. One caveat being that rifle rounds spin, not tumble, and may keep a much more consistent trajectory through soft tissue with no further impediment. Anything making contact with bone is almost guaranteed to fragment into several razor sharp pieces and play pinball with your insides until it runs out of kinetic energy, usually resulting in an explosive exit much larger than the entrance. Could it be possible that our breakdown of the timing of shots is inaccurate? The magic bullet theory is utter bullshit, but with a different understanding of whom fired, from where and when, could absolutely be worked out within a plausible margin by today’s top forensics and ballistics experts. Again, fantastic work, I’ll keep perusal for what comes next.
Oswald owned the rifle. Oswald smuggled the rifle. Oswald’s print was on the rifle. Oswald’s prints were on the sniper nest boxes in exactly the places they would have been had he assembled and used the nest to shoot from. No bullets or fragments were ever found that did not match to Oswald’s rifle. Autopsy showed the shots came from behind. Connally’s said the shots all came from behind. Witnesses under the sixth floor window said the shots all came from directly above. Anybody firing a rifle on the knoll would have been absurdly obvious to everybody in the area. Nobody would ever attempt to frame this on a lone shooter while firing from multiple directions. A man was seen firing in the window who could plausibly have been Oswald. No unidentified persons were ever seen in the TSBD, and they certainly never came down the stairs. Victims’ reactions in the Zapruder film clearly demonstrate 3 shots over 8-9 seconds. Victims’ wounds line up on a perfect trajectory. Bullet found at the hospital was matched to Oswald’s rifle. Nobody planting a bogus bullet at the hospital could possibly have known a bullet needed planting at all or that he wasn’t simply planting one bullet too many into evidence and blowing the whole plot. Oswald took evasive action to get to his other gun, ignoring his cab driver and landlady when they tried to speak to him. A long and steady chain of witnesses demonstrate Oswald shooting Tippit, fleeing, reloading, exchanging words with one of them, hiding out in the storefront, and ducking into the theater.
After perusal this I came to the conclusion that there were two shooters acting independently. The route was released to the media, the grassy knoll was a good spot and I doubt anyone would have picked oswald as a coconspirator and the government not wanting any loose ends tied it up with a nice neat little bow. Jack Ruby is the wild card, his story is very odd. Check “The Texas Monthly – Who was Jack Ruby?”
Thank you for this – great insights, with a nice touch or irony and humor about such a tragic horrific happening …. Just a quick note, Oswald never “bought a Coke”. He was seen 90 seconds after the 3rd shot on the 2nd floor near the lunchroom by the motorcycle Cop Baker and Building Manager Roy Truly. He was spotted in an adjacent room thru a window. He was seen BY THE COKE MACHINE. He did not have a Coke nor was he drinking one. Besides that, those who knew him well said he always drank Dr. Pepper. P.S. If you get a chance by all means go to Dealey Plaza yourself. Most likely you will notice 3 things immediately: 1) how small Dealey Plaza really is 2) how steep the slope of Elm Street really is and 3) the angle of a shot from the grassy knoll/from anywhere close to Zapruder was not possible (based on reaction of JFK’s head him being nearly at a 90 degree angle to Zapruder). And any shooter from there impossible NOT to have been easily seen and obvious to many. Also as painful as it is – it is crucial that Z-312 to Z-314 frames need to be studied individually and compared to each other to understand what happened. Just those 3.
Having some knowledge regarding the frangibility of various types of ammunition, I can tell you that the ‘bullet evidence’ is actually quite compelling. It’s safe to say it’s impossible for the bullet to have remained virtually pristine after hyving hit that many surfaces, including bone. I do agree that the idea of ‘conspiracy’ has no clothes in this story. If there was atrue conspiracy, it would be the part that includes the Dorothy Kilgallen business, which has always struck me as compelling, though there’s a lot I don’t know about it. In any case, this was an excellent episode, cheers!
the most interesting thing revealed here is that the police were inside the book repository within 2 minutes of the shots and found oswald relaxing in the caffeteria- initially one officer raised a gun towards him and reported he appeared genuinely shocked and surprized- but a co-worker said oswald was an employee- so the police disengaged and oswald then bought a coke and left the premises- NOBODY IN THE CAFFETERIA MENTIONED THE SMELL OF GUNPOWDER- yet- apparently 2 minutes earlier oswald had just fired three shots from a rifle?
It came out about 10 years ago that congress or some govt. entity agreed there was a 2nd shooter. Think it was based on our current technologies ability to analyze the acoustics way better than they could in 64. And when presented with this evidence they conceded there had to be a 2nd shooter. Yet to this day I cannot find that article again. It was buried on somewhere like page 12 of the Salt Lake Tribune. A small insignificant paragraph is all the space it received, which I considered odd. Anyone else read something to this effect?
Interesting fact, about 10+ years ago, the history website (sigh, yes, I know) had a show called JFK: inside the target car – (its on youtube now). This show had the initial premise of disproving the magic bullet theory. They meticulously set up all the proper heights and angles, and brought in their sharpshooter to take the shot and disprove the magic bullet. He took the shot, and his shot followed the “magic bullet” path almost exactly!!!! whoops!!! With that being said, if there were additional shooters, the grassy knoll or the railroad bridge would have been the perfect location. From that location it was a quick jog (south) down to a small wooded area right off the exit from the I-30 (West) to the I-35 (North) ramp. This wooded area was immediately adjactent to the freeway, so one could come out of the woods, pull onto the ramp, and be going north on 35 in seconds. They could be in Fort Worth in just over a half hour sitting at a bar, perusal it on TV. This wooded area was there until the mid 90’s but is now gone when they widened the freeways and reworked the intersection. This little wooded area was approxiately where the marker for “parking at reunion tower” off of sports street is today. (on Google Maps) Funny thing, there was a strange “railroad worker” seen on the bridge right after the shooting, wallking south on the tracks with a tool box. It could have been an actual worker, taking advantage of his job to get a good vantage point, or it might have been “someone else”.
There was a cold case investigation done by an Australian Detective (I think it was a 60 minutes thing) and is on YouTube. Their conclusion was that second shot was accidental and came from a member of the Sevret Service and then covered up, by the Secret Service. It even explained the “magic bullet”. Of every “theory” I have seen I thought this actualy made the most sense
Watched a documentary show years ago about the second shot, which was actually from the guy coming out of the back seat of the limo. The conspiracy was that his gun was discharged accidentally in the chaos, causing the fragments on the front of the windshield and hood. They documentary said the government was covering up because they couldn’t face that negligence killed Kennedy. When the investigators tried to talk to the man, he refused to talk and took it to his grave. Unfortunately, it’s been too many years ago, I watched it and can’t remember the name.
Years ago, Nova did test firing with fully jacketed bullets that confirm the single bullet and the head shot. These have been duplicated a few times. Nova also used lasers to map Dealy Plaza and couldn’t find a grassy knoll shot. Anyway. Zapruder could have seen a fence shooter down and to the right from wh eye he was standing. There was smoke on the knoll but a cop had dumped his motorcycle which he said caused the smoke. As far as Jack Ruby, his money gram was timestamped 4 minutes before he got to the police station to kill Oswald.