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

 I am now going to begin a multi-post series on the feat that Clint Hill supposedly did, which was jump off a moving car, without tumbling. And then accelerating to where he was running faster than a moving car in front of him in order to catch up with it. And then when he got to it, transitioning from merely running to climbing, and doing all that without mishap. It starts with just the action of getting off the moving car and landing on stationary ground without falling.

Hill was standing on the running board. According to the Secret Service, the Queen Mary was moving forward at 11 mph, which is approximately 16.1 feet per second. So, when he steps off laterally, his landing foot has to establish stationary support while his body is moving forward at 16.1 feet per second.

He must somehow accommodate that mismatch without falling.

It isn't simply a matter of being able to run fast. It is a question of controlling the transition from a moving platform to stationary ground, with the initial movement of his body being perpendicular to the direction of travel of the car and himself.

When Hill steps off laterally, the moment his foot contacts the pavement, he must begin transferring his body weight onto that foot if it is to support him.

But consider what happens:

1. His body is moving forward at 16.1 feet per second.
2. His foot contacts stationary pavement.
3. He begins transferring his weight onto that foot.
4. The foot encounters friction that resists its forward movement.
5. His upper body continues moving forward under its existing momentum, that it inherited from the car.
6. His center of gravity continues moving forward while his supporting foot is being restrained.
7. This creates a forward-rotating tendency around the planted foot.

This is the reason why people tumble and roll when they jump off moving trains. Most of us have never seen that in life, but we have seen it many times in movies.

Now granted, there are speeds that are so slow, that the adjustment is trivial. Say, the SS car was only going 1 mph. At that speed, the forward momentum of his upper body is only 1.47 feet per second, and it would be easy to absorb that and maintain balance. But, at 11 mph? No way.

Again, this is the first in a series, and the point that I will be driving at is that the vehicles involved, the Presidential limo and the Queen Mary, must have been stopped or nearly stopped in order for Clint Hill to do what he did. Both the Secret Service, and the Zapruder film, are lying to us about the speeds that were happening.

Note that no film shows Clint Hill dismounting from the Queen Mary. I'll close with this image of Clint Hill at the time. I want you to see that he was a Secret Service agent, but there was nothing particularly athletic about him.