What is James Chaney Looking Back at?

[Bob Prudhomme]

Kennedy's pretty much like he's supposed to be. Posturing with his arms raised in the Thorburn position or putting his hands to his throat.

In my opinion Chaney is either looking to the Secret Service men for their response or the other motorcycle cops on the other side.


Altgens said the shot happened just a fraction of a second before he snapped the picture, meaning the crowd didn't have time to react. To suggest otherwise is to drift into the Fetzer mobile photo alteration laboratory theory.

Hello Albert

Perhaps I did not explain the point I was trying to make with enough detail for you.

It has long been contended that the Altgens 6 photo corresponds directly to frame z255 of the Zapruder film. It has also been established that Abraham Zapruder's camera ran at the speed of 18.3 frames per second meaning, of course, that every 18.3 frames of that film equates to one second of recorded history.

While no one can say with any certainty when the first shot was fired, JFK can be seen reacting to a bullet wound as the limo emerges from behind the Stemmons Freeway sign and it is believed by many researchers that the latest the first shot can be fired is z210. However, many Warren Commission supporters believe there was a missed shot at z190, and some even believe there was a missed shot as early as z160.

Let's see how these various frames work out for time.

255 - 210 = 45 frames, divided by 18.3 = 2.46 seconds
255 - 190 = 65 frames, divided by 18.3 = 3.55 seconds
255 - 160 = 95 frames, divided by 18.3 = 5.19 seconds

While many witnesses described the first shot as a "firecracker" like sound, this is not the sound one would expect to hear from a 6.5mm Carcano M91/38 short rifle. This rifle had a 21 inch barrel and shot ammunition that was designed to be fired from the original M91 long rifle which had a 31 inch barrel; a difference of 10 inches or, in other words, the short rifle barrel was only 2/3 as long as the long rifle barrel. While the effects of this were not quite as pronounced as shooting the Carcano rounds from the Carcano carbines with their 17 inch barrels, there were still pronounced changes that occurred.


The first effect was a very noticeable drop of around 10% in muzzle velocity, from around 2560 feet/second in the M91 long rifle to 2200 fps in the M91/38 short rifle. This was because the gunpowder did not have a chance to fully combust before the bullet left the short rifle barrel.

The second effect was, because gunpowder was still burning as it left the barrel, there was a greater muzzle flash and the sound of the muzzle blast was far greater than one would hear from a M91 long rifle shooting the same ammunition.

Considering that the bystanders we are looking at in this photo are also in a position that places them ahead of the muzzle of a rifle on the 6th floor, the sound of the first shot should have been deafening. While there is no official time for such things as startle reactions, many researchers, in attempting to explain pronounced camera jiggles seen in the Zapruder film, assign 6 frames or about 1/3 second as normal reaction time in humans to loud, startling noises.

If we look again at Altgens 6 and consider the possibility that a very loud rifle has been fired only 20 yards over the heads of these bystanders within 2.5-5 seconds prior to this photo being taken, where is the startle reaction? In my experience with rifles, an unexpected shot going off this close produces instantaneous and very obvious startle reactions.