Impossible to refute evidence the BYPs are composites - this is a done deal

[Drew Phipps]

As I have pointed out repeatedly, at the scales at which you are conducting your analysis of the photographs, you could not measure, or observe, any deviation from perfectly parallel.

Your point about the shadows of Mars and Earth in different phases of their orbits is correct. You are talking about astronomical scales of distance, and that's what you need to consider the Sun as a point source of light get a measureable convergence/divergence. On any terrestrial scale of measurement, the Suns rays are parallel.

I don't want to quibble, but your description of the eclipse is inaccurate. The moon never "passes beyond the Sun."

This particular fact also may be of interest. The Moon is roughly 1/6 the size of the Earth, and yet, the umbra, the shadow of the moon where the eclipse is total, is a tiny fraction of the total size of the Earth. The leading edge of the umbra, and the trailing edge of the umbra, do, in fact, converge as they move farther away from the Sun and the Moon. When you understand why that is the case, you will understand why your treatment of the Sun as a point source of light and photographing diverging shadows from a lightbulb is misleading to your analysis.

[David Josephs]

I don't want to quibble, but your description of the eclipse is inaccurate. The moon never "passes beyond the Sun."

Obviously this was supposed to be beyond the Earth... my bad.

As for your other observations... I ask you to so the same thing... take the huge image of the BYP I posted and draw in the post's shadow where you think it should be given Oswald's shadow.

That it faces back towards his shadow at such a steep angle suggests to me the shadow of the post was caused by a different light source.
Same with the3 stairs and everything else to the left of the post in that image.


Simple question... the shadow of the garage on his left casts a shadow in exactly the same line as Oswald... yet appears to converge with the post shadow very quickly.

In your explanation of astronomical distances, should we see two objects so close to gether producing shadows which converge so quickly? a 50mm lens at a distance of 10 feet or so?

What I would like you to do, is please use the large BYP I posted earlier and draw in the post's shadow as you think it SHOULD be... in this image it appears to converge with Oswald just beyond the picket fence which is not possible given the distances unless a portion of the image was added at a different time.

These objects are less than 5 feet apart Drew. It the arc difference at that distance is indistinguishable from parallel, why do they converge so quickly?

The "Post Shadow" with the black line if indicating the direction of the shadow while the grey arrow points to the shadow itself. You can also see the shadow of the post even further to the left being more in line iwth the post than with Oswald.. everything to the left of the post... that post may have been the suture point.




This image is now even more important to me than before... look at the "cut line" of the image and where they are.The post and the side of the garage...

Look at how skewed Oswald is when put back into the image. The image with the cut-out and the image with Oswald in the same position also helps prove that Oswald was added to a blank BYP photo.

Notice too there is no shadow on the ground behind the cutout of Oswald. The EXACT BYP background image (as I showed in one of the gifs) was used.

That gif where Oswald disappears and nothing in the background moves... coupled with these images of 1) foreknowledge of an aimage which is unknown to the public for 14 years,
2) the shadows falling outside these two white parallel lines do not match the shadows within these lines and 3) when pasting the cutout back in - it doesn't work.

So how about you and Ray taking a step back and focusing on the prize here. If you can prove that a 50mm camera from that distance would cast those differently angled shadows, please prove it.

"Almost" parallel is the same as "almost" pregnant. there is no such thing. It's an "on or off" state of being. RR tracks are parallel, beams of sunlight are "almost" parallel...
which in turn create shadows on a flat surface that are "almost" parallel.. and will converge back at the source of light... .00004 of an arc minute or a light year, the distance only amplifies the "almost" part of parallel

You are not trying to argue the images are authentic are you?

[Ray Mitcham]

David, I am not arguing that the shadows are wrong in the photos. (Indeed, I think they are very suspicious.) What I have been arguing all along, even in the PMs I sent you, that your opening photo, showing your shadows diverging rather than converging, is wrong. Shadows with the sun behind never diverge. If you believe that then perhaps you could post a photo or two to show me where I am wrong.

What you say about the shadows converging too quickly could be right. I am not arguing that. (It may well be due to the camera angle and perspective.) As I said earlier, I think the photos are fake. Just that you think you have solved the mystery when you haven't.

I have posted a number of photos showing how shadows converge, but you seem to be in denial, even saying (in the opening post that one of the photos "cannot be correct" when it obviously is.)

[David Josephs]

David, I am not arguing that the shadows are wrong in the photos. (Indeed, I think they are very suspicious.) What I have been arguing all along, even in the PMs I sent you, that your opening photo, showing your shadows diverging rather than converging, is wrong. Shadows with the sun behind never diverge. If you believe that then perhaps you could post a photo or two to show me where I am wrong.

What you say about the shadows converging too quickly could be right. I am not arguing that. (It may well be due to the camera angle and perspective.) As I said earlier, I think the photos are fake. Just that you think you have solved the mystery when you haven't.

I have posted a number of photos showing how shadows converge, but you seem to be in denial, even saying (in the opening post that one of the photos "cannot be correct" when it obviously is.)

Ray, I don't challenge that photo...PHOTOS of shadows can play tricks with the properties of light.

Postin a photo of RR tracks going off into the horizon and then claiming they converge in reality is the mistake. You can argue forever that the photo of the RR tracks PROVES they coverge... again, they do not.

So please, for a second separate PHOTOS where the engles are strange or the ditance/focal length is unknown, where the lens type is unknown... etc... Let's just stay talking about the image at hand.

Do the shadows in that image behave as they should? Do they fall in nearly parallel lines, as they SHOULD?

No Ray, they do not. The lines I've drawn on that image have all been for illustration purposes. That you call me out for claiming the shadows converge slightly behind the camera due to an "example by way of illustration" insults my intelligence.

If all you need me to say is that "In some photos shadows will appear as if they converge in the direction the shadow is falling" - there you go.

In the real world of physics though, that cannot happen - the RR tracks NEVER meet.

When the light source is behind the camera, the shadows, like RR tracks, may appear to converge towards the horizon... but they don't.

Let's try it this way Ray...

Here are converging shadows with the subject directly in front of the camera. The shadows arew behaving as we'd expect... they converge towards the sun and diverge away from it.

When we flip it and put the sun behind the camera, the same thing is true... If one side of that fence had shadows falling in line with the red line, we'd know there was something wrong.

It seems you're mixing a photo's vanishing point physics with the properties of light and shadow. They are simply not the same thing. A PHOTO can make light appear to do things it does not do.

[Drew Phipps]

I'm with Ray.

Observable "convergence" of shadows is a trick of perspective, just like railroad tracks, straight roads receding, etc. Divergence is impossible with the Sun as a light source; if you get divergence, you get a forgery.

Edit: to use your photos above, the shadows of the bars behind the boy do not converge. If you went and measured the separation of each shadow, they would be exactly the same distance apart as the bars are, regardless how far from the bar you measure the distance between the shadows. You are tricked into the optical illusion that they converge, because the bars are farther away from the camera than the boy is, and therefore take up a smaller arc thru the camera lens (or the eye) and on the film.

As to whether or not the BYP are complete fakes or not, I'm personally agnostic. I think its far more likely that the images are real but the provenance of those images has been fabricated; however, the existence of the DPD "cutout photo" leaves me with serious doubts.

I think that, if real, the image of Oswald in the backyard holding a different gun than the one recovered from the TSBD, is far more probative of something relevant to the actual assassination, than it would if the image were a complete hoax, which, to me, only reaches a post-assassination cover-up or frame-up.

[Drew Phipps]

Here, I think, is a much more interesting shadow question: You can clearly see the horizontal shadows of the stair steps on the ground. But from where are those shadows thrown? The stairs directly above Oswald appear to already be in shade themselves, so you'd have to cast that bright shadow/light/ shadow pattern from either lower on the stairs, or higher on the stairs. Either possibility might be inconsistent with the shadow Oswald casts.



How is there shade in the red circle and no shade in the yellow circle?

[Ray Mitcham]

Drew, I agree that some of the steps are in shade, but if you look at the second photo 133B you will see that the top steps are in sunlight and that's the sunlight you can see showing in the shadows. I still think there is something strange about the shadows.

[Ray Mitcham]

David, I am not arguing that the shadows are wrong in the photos. (Indeed, I think they are very suspicious.) What I have been arguing all along, even in the PMs I sent you, that your opening photo, showing your shadows diverging rather than converging, is wrong. Shadows with the sun behind never diverge. If you believe that then perhaps you could post a photo or two to show me where I am wrong.

What you say about the shadows converging too quickly could be right. I am not arguing that. (It may well be due to the camera angle and perspective.) As I said earlier, I think the photos are fake. Just that you think you have solved the mystery when you haven't.

I have posted a number of photos showing how shadows converge, but you seem to be in denial, even saying (in the opening post that one of the photos "cannot be correct" when it obviously is.)

Ray, I don't challenge that photo...PHOTOS of shadows can play tricks with the properties of light.

Postin a photo of RR tracks going off into the horizon and then claiming they converge in reality is the mistake. You can argue forever that the photo of the RR tracks PROVES they coverge... again, they do not.

My earlier quote "David, we are talking about shadows in a photograph, not physics. Obviously shadows do not [B]actually converge on a vanishing point. They only appear to due to perspective"[/B]

In the real world of physics though, that cannot happen - the RR tracks NEVER meet.

No shit, Sherlock. I'm sure Amtrak will be relieved to know that.

When the light source is behind the camera, the shadows, like RR tracks, may appear to converge towards the horizon... but they don't.

That's what I said.

Let's try it this way Ray...

Here are converging shadows with the subject directly in front of the camera. The shadows arew behaving as we'd expect... they converge towards the sun and diverge away from it.

When we flip it and put the sun behind the camera, the same thing is true... If one side of that fence had shadows falling in line with the red line, we'd know there was something wrong.

It seems you're mixing a photo's vanishing point physics with the properties of light and shadow. They are simply not the same thing. A PHOTO can make light appear to do things it does not do.

Like looking at rail tracks, vertical shadows will always appear to converge to a vanishing point, whether in a photo or not.

Imagine two poles 100 feet tall, with the sun between you and the poles. Do you think the shadows will appear to converge or not? (Not in a photo but if you were looking at the in real life.)

[Drew Phipps]

Drew, I agree that some of the steps are in shade, but if you look at the second photo 133B you will see that the top steps are in sunlight and that's the sunlight you can see showing in the shadows. I still think there is something strange about the shadows.

Ok, but if the sun is shining straight down enough (i.e. noon-ish) so that steps above Oswald's head cast shadows at the ground near his feet, how come his own head casts a shadow that lands no where near his feet?

I think those step shadows on the ground come from steps that are chest high to Oswald (and out of the shot), but if so, is that consistent with Oswald's shadow?

[Ray Mitcham]

I don't think that the steps in the red circle are producing the shadows in the yellow circle. They are too low.

The steps casting the shadows we can see, with sunlight between them, are higher up above Oswald's head. IMO.