YouTube Pied Pipers

by DALE K. 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.