Miscellaneous desk
< November 25	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	November 27 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 26

Photo after the JFK assassination

I saw a program on CNN about the conspiracy theories after the Warren Commission report. One clip was from the mid-1960's of Mark Lane on TV promoting his book Rush to Judgement. He showed two versions of a photo I've seen before, that was taken 5 minutes after the JFK assassination in front of the School Book Depository. On the right edge is someone who resembles Jack Ruby. Lane said that the Warren Commission cropped out this person when they published the photo. I checked the main volume of the Warren Commission report and the photo is not in there. Was that photo published in the other volumes of their report? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have you been able to find that picture anywhere on the internet? Do you have access to the Lane book? One thing the conspiracists do is to pick someone out in a crowd that looks kind of like someone and then claim it is that someone. There's a photo taken at the moment of the shooting that shows a guy standing in the doorway of the Depository, who is a little blurry but looks kind of like Oswald. The guy who that actually was, came forward years ago, but some conspiracy sites continue to insist it's Oswald. Just like they take his statement "I'm just a patsy" out of context and don't look at the complete quote. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:22, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen the picture in question before, but I don't know where. I've seen discussion of whether or not it was actually Ruby in the photo, and the conclusion was that it was not Ruby, but I don't remember where I saw that either. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Conspiracy theorists are notoriously bad at preserving the original evidence for their narratives - they frequently tweak and "enhance" photos in an effort to make their pet theory "clearer" - thereby introducing things that were never originally there. Back in 2009, I discovered a secret map of an alien city, hidden by someone inside a question posted to this very reference desk! - this was after I'd seen a photo that in which JPEG compression artifacts from a single white pixel had been "enhanced" by a conspiracy theorist to the point of there being claims of a flying saucer.

This kind of ridiculous over-enhancement is responsible for the "photograph" of Badge Man on the grassy knoll for example. They took an area of a couple of square millimeters out of a really under-exposed and super-grainy polaroid photograph - and with suitable "enhancements" wound up with what is claimed to be a photograph of a uniformed Dallas police officer firing at Kennedy. It turns out that the photographer probably caught a glint from an empty coke bottle.

Unless you have the original photograph to view and work from, it's really dangerous to take anything like this at face value.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This photo is not a few random pixels blown up - it is a clear photo of the front of the building. It is sharp and looks like it was probably taken by a news photographer rather than a bystander. However, the person that resembles Ruby is not close to the camera. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:11, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Many people think George HW Bush was in front of the School Book Depository. I never heard anyone say Ruby was. Some say E Howard Hunt & Frank Sturgis were marched in front of TSBD and photographed by newsmen see: Three tramps -- Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:26, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a transcript of where I saw it, from this CNN program:

"LANE: Let me show you something just in case we have a chance. That is a picture of Jack Ruby. This was taken five minutes after the assassination in front of the Texas School Book Depository building.

The commission said Ruby was not there. This is a picture showing how the commission published it. He wasn't there when they published the picture because they cropped him out. " Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:32, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]