Scientists cast (pretty damned serious) doubt on JFK bullet analysis

Scientists cast doubt on Kennedy bullet analysis

Multiple shooters possible, study says

In a collision of 21st-century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

The researchers' re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of bullets from the same batch Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination 44 years ago.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be re-analyzed," the researchers said.

Tobin was the FBI lab's chief metallurgy expert for more than two decades. He analyzed metal evidence in major cases that included the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island.

After retiring, he attracted national attention by questioning the FBI science used in prosecutions for decades to match bullets to crime suspects through their lead content. The questions he and others raised prompted a National Academy of Sciences review that in 2003 concluded that the FBI's bullet lead analysis was flawed. The FBI agreed and generally ended the use of that type of analysis.

Using new guidelines set forth by the National Academy of Sciences for proper bullet analysis, Tobin and his colleagues at Texas A&M re-analyzed the bullet evidence used by the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded that only one shooter, Oswald, fired the shots that killed Kennedy in Dallas.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18709539/

Interesting. Emphasis added to point out the credentials of the main investigator. They appear pretty damned solid to me.

:)

"As usual, I am completely innocent. Smirk, smirk, smirk."

- Poppy "Skull & Boner Bush, Son-of-Even More Infamous Nazi Banker, Prescott Skull & Boner Bush

water is wet. ;)

there'll be a report where scientists, using the newly discovered technique of acceleration analysis, will discover that it's impossible for tall buildings to collapse at free fall speeds without lower support members being removed by explosives or some other means.

We'll all be shocked.

were a unique construction, right?

There's been a few....

:shrug:

building on ideas that have been tried before plus some new stuff. WTC was a signifigant departure from that. I was under the impression that the top floors fell due to weakened steel connections to the outer supports and that the lower floors fell from the weight of the pancaking floors coming down from above. How fast that was supposed to occur, I can't say. Also since the quality of the fireproofing went down as the floors went up, it wouldn't surprise me if the quality of the construction on the higher floors was less sound than the lower ones.

after a fire that is cool enough for firemen to walk up to the wreckage of the planes billowing black smoke because the fires didn't even have all the oxygen they wanted to burn REALLY hot. That kind of unique construction? lol!

I suspect we'll see some folks who also believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman, acting alone.

that the architect said that they wouldn't fall over but would collapse straight down. This was in response to fears that if they would ever fell over, they would take a large swath of the surrounding neighborhood out with them.

Or have they sufficiently eliminated all witnesses already and know they've gotten away with it.