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[William Seger]

11. Baloney

That introduction starts off with a witness who says the shot came from "the hill" just as the limo was passing her. It was reports like that, of course, that started the whole "grassy knoll" thing.

Back in the 60s, the JFK conspiracy hucksters had me convinced that those reports were a "good reason" for believing there was a second shooter on the knoll. But when I went to Army basic training, one afternoon we went to some bleachers set down in a pit to learn how to identify where shots that were fired overhead were coming from. Now, why do you suppose that would require special training? Turns out, it's not nearly as simple as you might think because of a complication: Bullets from high-powered military and hunting rifles fly faster than sound, which means that the first thing you hear is their "sonic boom." It actually sounds like a whip cracking, because it's really the same phenomenon. But here's the thing which was the point of the class: Because it's a shock wave from the bullet as it passes you, that crack always sounds like it's coming from a direction perpendicular to the actual path of the bullet. What we were taught was to listen for the "thump" sound that followed the crack (hence the name "crack/thump method&quot , which is the actual sound coming from the muzzle.

If you apply that knowledge to this woman's testimony, it tells a rather different story than the one conspiracy hucksters would like to sell: The shooter was most likely 90 degrees away from where the woman thought he was. "Good reason," not so much, but trying to explain why to conspiracy zealots never seems to be very productive. Just like trying to explain why the Zapruder film irrefutably shows JFK getting hit from behind.

And on and on it goes, through EVERY "good reason" offered by the conspiracy hucksters, to the best of my knowledge -- there's ALWAYS some reason why it just isn't the "smoking gun" they claim it is, and far too often, it's far short of the known facts.

But I was giving you an opportunity to improve my knowledge, by giving me some reason that will stand up to scrutiny. Since it seems you can't even give me a good reason to watch more than the first minute of that video, thanks for nothing.