New Analysis of Oswald’s Backyard Photo – JFK Assassination

I think I discovered a new and possibly very important discrepancy in the backyard photos of Oswald. As many have before, I was going over the measurements trying to determine the height of the person in the photo to match it with Oswald's height. The newspaper width is known to be 11 inches. The rifle length is also known. Like others, I’ve found these measurements cannot be coordinated to all match known dimensions. This stuff has been looked at by others but here is what I found while trying to take measurements myself: A pretty significant discrepancy with the newspapers.

To explain the image below:

• I photoshopped in the papers with green borders which were taken from the actual papers from the Warren Commission. I sized and aligned these photos to match the papers Oswald is holding.
  
• The magenta/pink line was placed to highlight the barely visible separation between the two newspapers.
  
• The Blue lines are measurements of the border to compare the evidence papers with the original photo. The newspaper title of the original, The Militant, has a width of approx. 3.7 inches measured through the center to the down stroke in the last T making the same paper held by Oswald approx. 12.6 inches wide and not 11 inches!. Notice the extra border width shown with the blue lines. Especially the space between the last T in MILITANT to the edge of the paper and compare to the paper Oswald is holding
  
• The red lines compare the width of the evidence paper to the width of the same paper in the original photo. The original paper in the Warren Commission archives is 11 inches wide. The text and box around The Worker is sized to match the paper Oswald is holding which makes that paper approx 12.6 inches wide.
  

Out of curiosity after I discovered this, I grabbed a copy of our local paper to see what size it is and it measured 12.6 inches wide!

So what does this mean? Everything on the newspapers match up perfect with the print in the photo but the size of the paper in the Oswald photo is absolutely larger. I suspect it means Images of The Worker and The Militant were put in during the darkroom manipulation and he was holding other papers.


To show this another way:

1. You can't fit MILITANT perfectly spaced 3 times in the width of the original newspaper.



2. You can't fit the boxed area of The WORKER perfectly spaced 3 times in the width of the original paper



3. Here I've taken The Worker and Militant copied from the Oswald photo and spaced them exactly the same as the above two photos. As you can see they both fit 3 times in the width of the paper with room to spare.




Ok, so then I got curious and wanted to know what the size of The Dallas Morning News was during that time. I did not have an original copy so anyone who does, I would love to have this double checked. I’m going by a standard half inch margin to determine the scale so if the half inch is wrong, the paper could be a different size. Half inch is pretty standard so I’ll post my finding and hopefully someone can check their copy if they have one.

Here is an image of The Dallas Morning News. Adjusting the scale for a standard half inch margin it comes out to approx. 12.6 inches

cont…

Confirming the size of The Militant to be 11 inches.

1. From the Warren Archives, I found the measurement of the "exhibit sticker labels" by finding an exhibit where the sticker was on an 8.5 X 11" piece of paper. The stickers are shown to be 3.5 inches exactly which is a pretty standard sticker size so it makes sense but this confirms it:



2. Now with the known exhibit sticker size, I can apply the appropriate scale to The Militant with the same exhibit sticker shown below and confirming the size of the paper to be 11" I moved the sticker from the top down to the scale so it can be clearly seen as 3.5 inches wide in relation to the paper being 11 inches wide.



Now that I have a solid measurement by accidentally discovering the true size of the papers in Oswald's hand, the measurements can be applied to the whole photo and more revelations are made. The scales below were determined by the measurement of 12.6" paper's width.

1. Oswald's height as measured at autopsy was 5' - 9" tall. There are also military papers where his height was entered at 5' - 9" Click Here View Document With the scale adjusted in relation to the paper, you can see that the person in the photo is exactly 5' - 9" tall. Perfect ratio match between the paper size of 12.6, the height of Oswald in the photo and the height measured in the autopsy...

2. The longest measured length of the Carcano rifle is 40.2 inches, some have debated it's 39" or 38". What is so important in the correctly scaled image is that the rifle length in the photo is 43 inches!!!!!!!!!! IMPOSSIBLE!!!

3. CONCLUSION: Both the rifle and the newspaper were photo manipulated in a darkroom. Everyone who has previously examined this photo came up with heights for Oswald that is not even close to his height. That's because, like I was before, we were going by the size of the rifle 40.2", 39" or 38" OR the size of the paper, 11" Now that we see the true size of the paper, the only things that don't line up are the rifle and type superimposed on what is probably a copy of the Dallas Morning News. I think I just solved the Backyard photo controversy and this shows a conspiracy that was NOT LIMITED TO THE MAFIA!!!



To my knowledge I’m the first to look at this, but I know there are thousands of researchers so if by chance that is not true, I do apologize. looking forward to what you all think.


[edit on 13-11-2008 by Hugo Chavez]

in referance to the first post;
if an unstapled paper is read, in my experience, normally the pages end up misaligned. this tends to create a telescoping effect on the open ends, if you follow me. this would create an illusion of extra length if the pages could not be differentiated.

given that the extra length is evident on the unfolded edge i feel this telescoping is quite a good explanation.

what do you think?

i don't mean to suggest that the length you have come up with is accurate, i believe you are correct about the overall length, i mean to suggest that super imposition is not necessary for this measurement to be correct..

my 4th EDIT; the scale for the rifle should be slightly enlarged to compensate for perspective, the rifle is held forward of the papers by about 6-8" by my estimation. the rifle would be in an un-naturally close proximity for oswalds posture if it is much closer than that.

[edit on 13/11/08 by pieman]

[edit on 13/11/08 by pieman]

Wow, this is a really interesting read.

The previous poster was correct in mentioning the scaling of the rifle due to perspective, but this can be sorted by measuring the height or width of key points of the rifle. Once you have those figures, you should be able to confirm the length. Very interesting. Maybe you could approach the media with this info, or at least try to get some other researchers interested.

thanks for the reply!

Ok, I kinda figured that everything was close enough in the photo that I wouldn’t have to worry to much with perspective. I know there would be some change but I didn’t think it would be big enough.

But here’s what I did to make sure. I just went out and took some pictures holding a rifle. Camera on a tripod fixed and I stood about 12 feet from the camera with my toes on a marked spot for accuracy. Tripod height was set to a person taking a photo of Marina’s height. In the first photo I held the rifle against my body. In the second I held it a full six inches forward. I then calculated the change in rifle height for the 6 inch move. A factor of 1.0084579 was the result. If the scale of the paper is correct, the best that a 6 inch move back against the body would change the measurement is from 43inches to 42.566, less than half an inch. The largest official overall length I’ve seen given for the rifle is 40.2 inches.

On the newspapers, I don’t think those two papers were thick enough newspapers to allow that kind telescoping; they were very small papers, only 3 full sheets. I’ve included a close-up and they look pretty neatly folded. I’ve folded several of similar size papers and cannot get 3 sheets to extend remotely close to a gain of 1.6 inches in width. Unless I do in on purpose and then the type from the next page is visible. The margin for The Militant and The worker is only 1/4 inch. So for the margin shown in the Oswald photo to be that much with just a few sheets jogged out, you would see the type from the other sheets. It was odd trying to get one 3 sheet newspaper paper to spread that much, for the telescoping to be the factor I’m missing, it would mean both papers are telescoped the approx the same.



thoughts?


[edit on 13-11-2008 by Hugo Chavez]

What you are saying is that the margins of the copy of "The Militant" that he is holding are not the same as in the sample copy from the Warren Commission. That is a pretty critical find. Also, as far as folding of the paper is a factor, note that the nameplate, or masthead is two columns wide. You're right, Sparky..you're definately on to something.

That photo has always been figured to be worked up...but I've never seen that aspect. Nice work!

Also, check this out. This is on the folded edge, you can faintly see the column. Since this is on the folded edge telescoping shouldn't be an issue. The margin should be approx. 1/4 inch. In the Oswald photo it measures .623!!! you can visually see it's a bigger left margin even without measuring. and then the title side clearly looks bigger to me even if you account for a slight jog of the sheets.

thank you!!!!!

A star,flag and a thread-bump for presenting original research.

Keep it coming.

[edit on 13-11-2008 by Skyfloating]

good point. I'm going to play a little more

cool, thanks!

excellent work.

i agree with you, three sheets isn't enough to cause telescoping to that extent. the curvature grading on the folded edge the paper oswald is holding suggests a substantial volume so i assumed it was. interesting.

i'm happy enough with your adjustment of the scale as you outlined it above, but if you want to present this to the world at large, and i think you should, you should be 100% and then double check it.

in pursuit of this, is there a time recorded for the photo? the exact angle and distance from his body could probably be calculated based on the shadow.

actually, the butt looks misaligned in the shadow, in fact, the shadow looks all wrong, looks like oswald has two heads!!!


edit: another thought, how standardised were these papers?

[edit on 13/11/08 by pieman]

Very interesting work here.

It has always seemed to me that the photo represented the governments efforts at overkill in selling the "Oswald was a nutcase" idea to the public.

Considering the time the photo would have been doctored, early 60's, this would not have been a do-it-yourself type job by someone like the Dallas police. It would have been a "perfect" work of art requiring the skills of an agency like the FBI or the CIA, in my opinion. (They couldn't know the progress of photo research ability now, 4 1/2 decades later.)

I look forward to further analysis of your work, to see if it withstands the scrutiny of other researchers, but as it now stands, your work is impressive.

Nice work on the analysis! Superb scale comparisons.

Yeah, it was pretty much accepted long ago by serious researchers that the backyard photo in question is a black ops doctored collage.

It was part of the "sheep dipping" of Oswald to create a "legend". If not familiar with these terms, do a little googling for the black ops definitions.

Fake docs and more fake docs... that was the stock and trade of the Warren Commission (a total joke of a whitewash).

Thanks for original post. One more brick in the wall.

good idea. I just discovered this a couple days ago and got kind of excited about posting it. I've been into the research for about 10 years and looked at the photo quite a bit so finding this got me jazzed a bit. I do need to make sure. Go over all the numbers and come up with as much as possible. The shadow does look funny lol. I'm not sure what you mean by standardized, like all the same?

Thanks switching yard and NGC2736

yeah, were they all the same.

i assume it was a small run paper, so it was probably produced cheaply, would they producers have rejected papers with a print error that didn't affect readability, like margin width?

just eliminating the probable "logical" explanation's that will be used to try to place elements of doubt.

that I don't know. I think it would be hard to find out, maybe I'll call them up, they still publish the paper and maybe have some history to tell.

reply to post by Hugo Chavez

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sombody please look at his shadow,and the ground,,how can a shadow on uneven ground,stay perfectly strait,shoundnt it be brokren up by the blades of grass? being an artist and drawing many a shadow i know shadows dont stay stairt on the ground espetialy on grass or gravle!

reply to post by Hugo Chavez

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sombody please look at his shadow,and the ground,,how can a shadow on uneven ground,stay perfectly strait,shoundnt it be brokren up by the blades of grass? being an artist and drawing many a shadow i know shadows dont stay stairt on the ground espetialy on grass or gravle!