Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Dr. Cinque dismantles the new Backyard photos study

by Ralph C. Cinque DC

Just in time for the 52nd anniversary, a new, rather technical study of the Backyard photos has emerged. Sponsored by Dartmouth College, it is entitled:

A 3-D STABILITY ANALYSIS OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD IN THE BACKYARD PHOTO 

by Srivamshi Pittala, Emily Whiting, Hany Farid Department of Computer Science Dartmouth College 

This study was published in the Journal of Digital Forensics, but it is being widely written up in many lay publications.   

It concerns the Backyard photos, which, if you recall: Oswald said were faked. He denied ever posing for them. He said that his face was moved to the body of another man and that he knew how to do it himself from having worked at a photo lab.  

And, Oswald is holding the alleged murder weapon in that photo- taken, allegedly, six months before the crime. So, it is extremely damning to Oswald's case if the Backyard photo is authentic.  

The Dartmouth team concerned themselves mainly with two questions: the first being whether the light and shadows in the photo are authentic, and the second being whether Oswald's stance is "stable and plausible."

Here is a concise statement of what they did and what they claim:

Farid teamed with Assistant Professor Emily Whiting, who specializes in architectural geometry, computer-aided design and 3-D fabrication. With the help of graduate student Srivamshi Pittala, they built a physiologically plausible 3-D model of Oswald and posed this model to match his appearance in the Backyard photo. By adding the appropriate mass to each part of the 3-D model, they were able to perform a balance analysis on the 3-D model. This analysis revealed that although Oswald appears off-balance, his pose is stable. The analysis also revealed that the lighting and shadows are physically plausible and the length of the rifle is consistent with the length of the rifle used to kill the president.

"Our analysis refutes purported evidence of manipulation in the Oswald photo, but more generally we believe that the type of detailed 3-D modeling performed here can be a powerful forensic tool in reasoning about the physical plausibility of an image," Farid says. "With a simple adjustment to the height and weight, the 3-D human model that we created can be used to forensically analyze the pose, stability and shadows in any image of people."

Hmmm. Well, obviously, the synopsis didn't demonstrate a thing. There is nothing in there that is the least bit demonstrative. It contains no evidence. So, anyone who reads the synoptic versions of this study is not going to have a chance to evaluate it. You just have to take their word for it. 

But, I quoted it to show you that they ignored all the real, major contentious issues concerning the Backyard photos. If they did any research at all into the controversy about these photos, they would know that the most frequently cited thing is the huge anvil-like chin on the man in the Backyard photos.

You see how broad that chin is, right? Well, look:

Can you see that his chin is about twice as wide on the left as it is on the right? The new Dartmouth study did not say a word about that. And that is unforgivable because it is something of great controversy and dispute. 

The theory is that that anvil-like chin is that of Dallas policeman Roscoe White.  

You see? Now, that's a guy who had a real anvil-like chin- just like the one we see in the Backyard photos. 

Moving on, notice below that they both seem to be facing the camera squarely. So, it makes me wonder: why is there so much imbalance in his neck on the left?  Look how much more visible neck there is on the left side of his neck than the right (from our perspective).

The implication of that is that, on the left, he had some left lateral bending going on, at least, that's what his neck is saying. 

What about the bump on the wrist? Oswald didn't have it, but Roscoe White did.

None of these important issues were looked at by the Dartmouth researchers. And since their work wasn't shown in the synopsis, I am going to have to go into their technical report, which you can find here:

http://ojs.jdfsl.org/index.php/jdfsl/article/view/321/253

OK, I am going to examine it now. It's quite long, with quite a lot of technical jargon, as it is meant to be scientific. But, we are just going to cut to the essentials. 

Basically, they started by making a 3D model of Oswald from the Backyard photo. And then, they took a photo of it using a camera similar to Oswald's and from the same distance. This is it:

Next, they decided to assign different mass distributions to different parts of his body according to an "anatomically based model" which assigned 6.94% of his mass for his head, 43.46% for his trunk, 2.71% for each of his upper arms, 1.62% for each of his forearms, etc. etc. What? They can't do that. Those are just averages. They have nothing to do with Oswald. We know that Oswald was lean. He was much leaner than the average person, and it changes those proportions. For instance, the mass of Oswald's head had to be a higher percentage than average because of how thin and light he was overall. So, that was a mistake. They should not have applied those percentages to Oswald. 

Next, they sought to assign gravitational force vectors at the center of mass of different segments of the body, and assigning them a percentage of Oswald's weight, which they assumed to be 64.4 kilos which is equivalent to 141.68 pounds. WRONG! Oswald was 131 pounds- at the most. 

You don't believe me? Well, here are his two mug shots. The New Orleans Police weighed him in August and found him to be 61.7 kg which is 135.75 pounds, and you can see how he lost quite a lot of weight between August and November. Look how full and round his face looks on the left and how gaunt and angular on the right. 

Dr. Gerald McKnight found an obscure Dallas PD record which showed 131 pounds, which would be 5 pounds less than New Orleans.  But frankly, by looking, I'd say the weight difference had to be at least 5 pounds. So that is it; tops. 131 was the most he could have weighed. So, they were way off on his weight.

Here are the busts of the Backyard photo with the 3D model:

I already mentioned that Oswald, on the left, is in slight left lateral bending of his neck, and that is why he has more visible neck on the left (his right) than on the right (his left). Remember this?

OK, so we'll go back to the other:

They were very pleased with their duplication here, but I, not so much. They certainly didn't duplicate the left lateral bending. Yet, they do show the unbalanced neck exposure, with the long exposure on the our left, and the short exposure on our right. But, the way they did it was artificial and contrived- they elevated his shoulder on the short side and lowered his shoulder on the long side. It's like they gave him a higher trapezius muscle on the short side and less of one on the long side.

 In other words, THEY CHEATED. They wanted to duplicate the asymmetry in the neck because they knew that people might notice it- at least, people like me would notice it. But, they wanted to keep the model's head neutral. So, they decided to have their cake and eat it too: a neutral head atop an asymmetrical neck. And they did it by unbalancing his shoulders. 

OK, so having charged them with cheating, let's go back to their collage:

They're claiming that by applying a light source, they were able to move it around until they duplicated the shadows we see on Oswald. But wait: on that day- the day the Backyard photo was taken- there was only one light source: the sun. And it had a particular location in the sky at the moment the picture was taken. That was the light source. That's what they had to duplicate. Instead, they gave themselves permission to place the light anywhere that would duplicate the shadows. 

"We manually positioned the light until the shadows best matched our photograph." 

That's what they said. No attempt was made to determine what the solar conditions were at the time and duplicate them. And that is quite incredible. It seems like a small child would know they had to do that. 

Then, the last thing was this:

So, the yellow dot represents his center of mass, and the broken yellow line represents the pull of gravity. The polygon at the bottom represents his base of support. And since the line falls within the base of support, they're saying that it means that he's stable. 

So, what it comes down to, if I understand them correctly, is that they were testing to see whether Oswald's feet are positioned properly underneath him to support his weight without him toppling.  

I will say, first, that that is something that I never questioned from looking at it. I, personally, as a former chiropractor, have no reason to think that that man couldn't be standing there like that without toppling. 

But, I still think their test is completely ineffective and invalid, and it's because they haven't begun to consider all the variables that are involved. For instance, they're assuming that feet are a "base of support" like blocks would be. A foot is not a block. It is a very complicated structure, and more like a tripod than a block: the points of the tripod being: the first metatarsophalangeal joint, the fifth metatarsophalangeal joint, and the heel. But, you can't even compare it to a regular tripod because with a regular tripod, the weight gets distributed evenly automatically. But, it's not so with the feet. And people vary- a lot- in how they do it. Some people carry more weight through the front of their feet; other people carry more weight through their heel. And it depends on what they're doing with the rest of their body, how they are going about balancing themselves. 

But, one thing is for absolute certain: the human body is NOT a gravitational system. By that I mean that it is not like a pile of blocks that are piled on top of each other. We're not like a human Jenga game.

That is not how the balance is attained in the human body. It is a complex, neuro-musculo-skeletal system that involves suspension and counterbalance. If these researchers really want to learn about human biomechanics, I suggest they start by reading The Body Movable by David Gorman.   

But again, I do not dispute the man in the Backyard photo's ability to remain standing without toppling. But, I consider their whole study to be mostly noise. They avoided all the major issues concerning the Backyard photos- the real issues.

And those real issues are: the anvil-like chin which wasn't Oswald's, the bump on the wrist which Oswald didn't have, and the overall height of the man which appears to be shorter than Oswald was. Here is reference about that from Sylvia Meagher from her book Accessories after the Fact:

https://books.google.com/books?id=9XEhAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT214&lpg=PT214&dq=Oswald+was+taller+than+the+man+in+the+Backyard+photos&source=bl&ots=yIlhsMzXdG&sig=gdSW9AdSfuL2r35OYrNPPpp0Ggk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEoQ6AEwB2oVChMI-oSWqKPQyAIVB5yACh0z5QO7#v=onepage&q=Oswald%20was%20taller%20than%20the%20man%20in%20the%20Backyard%20photos&f=false 

Sylvia used the length of the rifle as a yardstick, but I have also seen it done using the length of the newspaper. 

And lastly, I point to the pasted-on look of his face, and it's necessary to go back to early renditions of the Backyard photos. Here's the one from LIFE magazine. 

It's important to look at an early rendition because we live in a digital age, and it is extremely easy for people to touch up these images.  But, do you, or do you not see the mask-like quality of his face, how there seems to be an unnatural junction between his face and his neck on the left side (our left). It looks quite artificial.

So, these others are obviously three natural people, where their faces are definitely integral to their bodies. You see the thick neck on OJ, but remember: he was a football player, while Oswald was not. That jutting tubular neck we see on Oswald wasn't his. And notice that the other three have balanced necks; they don't have the inequality we see on Oswald. There is just too much neck showing on Oswald, on our left side. And on Oswald, there really is a very suspicious looking junction between the face and the neck. 

His face looks pasted on to me.

In closing, I want to point out that this new study of the Backyard photos is an example of a biased study. The researchers knew, before they started, what they were seeking, what they wanted to establish, and they set about doing it. And unfortunately, this kind of things happens all too often in science. It's a pity. 

I mean, honestly: do you think there was any chance they were going to report the opposite result, that the Backyard photos were faked????  And, do you think if they did the Journal of Digital Forensics would have published their paper? 

So, the bias is system-wide; it's systemic. 

I would suggest that Mr. Farid, Mr. Pittala, and Ms. Whiting try again. Start over. And really try to be objective this time. And start by answering the crucial questions about the Backyard photos that I have raised here.