The Backyard Photos: Ring Transposition and and LHO stance

I’ve been interested in the Oswald backyard photos off and on for many years. Recently due to having too much time on my hands I decided to take another squizz at these iconic fakes.
 
I had read somewhere that in one of the photos Oswald (or at least the supposed Oswald) is shown wearing a ring. So I’ve always known that 133C shows the figure wearing a ring on his left hand. You can imagine my consternation therefore while taking a squizz at 133B, I discover that Oswald is shown wearing a ring on his right hand. WTF?
 
Well its been several days now I and no matter which way I look at the photos and scratch my head, 133C always shows the ring on the left hand and 133B always shows the ring on the right hand. I therefore thought that I had better run this past the bright fellows on this forum for another opinion.
 
It seems to me as if the compositing artist has flipped the negative of the body thereby placing the ring on the right hand side. Then perhaps he had to finish up 133B in a hurry for some reason and left a few items outstanding.
 
Additionally, if you look at an enlargement of the truncated fingers in 133A there is a visible ring mark on the ring finger. It looks as if the person posing for the camera has now removed his ring and the negative of the body has then been flipped over leaving the ring mark on the right hand. So in summary we have:
 
133C ring on left hand
133B ring on right hand
133A no ring on either hand, but ring mark on right hand
 
In my opinion this ring transposition is pretty much fatal to any chance for authenticity the photos may have. The question is therefore: why hasn’t this rather obvious problem been discussed before? I spent a long time looking up what exists of the backyard photo literature and came up with nothing.
 
Surely for example the late great Jack White would have seen this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Jack never looked at 133C in any detail. I found this quote in Jim Marr’s book Crossfire (2013):
 
“Furthermore, in recent years White discovered other problems with the backyard photos. In one picture, the tips of Oswald’s fingers appear to be missing as does one end of the rifle’s telescopic sight. White claimed this was due to sloppy airbrushing on the part of whoever faked the picture. In one photo, the figure can be seen wearing a large ring on his right hand, yet the ring is missing in the other photos.”
 
In his 1990 video “Fake”, White describes how he is able to discern a watch on the left arm in 133B, apparently oblivious to the fact the watch is completely visible in 133C.

I'm afraid that I cannot get this site's image posting feature to work however these photos are readily available on the web.

Welcome aboard, Mr. Scam.

The reason you can't post images is due to a hard-wired feature of this website that requires a person to be a member for a week or so before image-posting capability is enabled. We all have gone through this; it's a one-time thing.

Looking forward to seeing more of your analysis.

Stan

Thank you Mr Stan, 

I will wait patiently for a week until I can post the images I had prepared. In the meantime I should explain that I prefer anonymity because, unlike your fortunate goodself in the picture above, my plastic surgery went horribly wrong and I prefer not to be seen in public anymore.

I should mention that I did find one previous reference to this apparent anomaly. This was in a comment from ziggystar60 in a thread on the Above Top Secret forum. See the thread
 
"New Analysis of Oswald’s Backyard Photo – JFK Assassination"
at page 4 down the bottom of the page. ziggystar60 I think did not really comprehend what he was seeing, the photos he uploaded were of very poor resolution and the discussion on the thread did not take up the issue. It was not until I saw ziggystar60's comment that I could feel sure that I was not seeing things.

I have made a slight error in the post as I have provided 2013 as the publication date for Jim Marr's Crossfire. Somehow I got this number from Google Books. In fact Crossfire was one of the books used as the basis for the film JFK and was originally published in 1989.

Welcome to ROKC. A updated version of Crossfire was released in 2013.

Thanks for clearing up the Crossfire confusion.

The Jake White "Fake" video is available in full on Youtube under the title "Lee Harvey Oswald Photo Analysis". At 23:24 in the video Jack shows an enlargement of 133B with a watch drawn on the left wrist with the dial showing on the inside of the wrist. 

Clearly he seems to have never seen 133C in any detail at that point since the watch is clearly seen in that photo with the dial on the outside of the wrist.

White states in his HSCA testimony:

"Mr. WHITE. The heads in A and B are identical to one another
with the exception of the lip area, which shows strong signs of
retouching. I was not able to adequately compare the head on C to A and B because I did not have an adequate quality print at the
time I made my comparisons."
 
"Mr. WHITE. I studied 133-A and 133-B, because up until 1975 I
did not have 133-C, and when I did, it was only a magazine
reproduction so I did not have a very good quality print to work
with."

Pat Speer addressed ring anomalies in 2004:

EXCERPT BEGINS

4. Yet another interesting tidbit in the HSCA report is its analysis on p. 172 of shadows on the Neely backyard, which led to the determination that 133-c was the first photo taken, then B, then A. Some time back, after reading the story that Oswald left his wedding ring at home on the day of the assassination, I became intrigued by the possibility it was planted after the fact by police. The early photos of Oswald after his arrest all reflect, however, that he was wearing his Marine ring and bracelet on that fateful day, which is intriguing in its own right. When one looks at the backyard photos in order, something even more intriguing is apparent.




On the first photo, 133 c, Oswald's right hand is blurred and his left reveals he's wearing what is almost undoubtedly his Marine ring. He is also wearing what looks to be a large wrist-watch on this hand. (Is there any other picture of him wearing a wristwatch?) On the second photo, 133-B, moments later, the Marine ring appears to be on his right hand, while the left hand is facing away from the camera. On the third photo, 133-A, both hands are visible, and neither hand appears to bear the ring, certainly not the right, and probably not the left. (If someone has a good copy of this and can tell otherwise, please pipe up.)




Why this is important is that Oswald supposedly always wore his wedding ring, and here he is on a Sunday clowning around and it's nowhere to be seen. Still, the resolution may not be sufficient to say for sure. But what's even more intriguing to me is the possibility of someone else's wedding ring being in the photos. For why else was Oswald's hand blurred out on the copies of 133-C? What else could be so damaging about a hand that someone would need to blur it out and make the negative disappear? Or was it just a coincidence? The fact that this photo was taken first and then disappeared, and then re-appeared with a blurry spot on the right hand makes me suspicious that Oswald's face was super-imposed on someone else's body, and that the photography forgers decided not to use it due to the fact their model left his wedding ring on.

EXCERPT ENDS

Linked forum post: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/2452-the-backyard-photographs/

Congratulations Mr Dragoo. First post 9 years after joining.
Let's hope you become just as prolific at Der Forum....where it's needed.

---

Thanks for further information Mr Dragoo.  I cannot seem to get it to insert more than one picture per comment so here goes.

The above image was 133B. Here is the enlargement of the right hand.

Here is 133C showing ring on left hand.

Here is enlargement of 133C left hand.

Finally here is an enlargement of 133A right hand showing what appears to be a ring mark on the third finger.

In retrospect it seems clear why 133C was originally binned by the DPD as someone must have seen the anomaly. As there is what appears to be a ring mark on the right hand in 133A, perhaps they decided that 133B was the better choice.

You can see in 133B that the right arm is very amorphous like the neck area. In my opinion the composite artist has painted out the watch with a wash of some sort but was not able to finish the job properly.

I agree regarding the fuzzy arm.  

Marina Oswald is the only person on earth to ever look through a reflex camera.  Her inability to place the date or set the number of photos leads me to consider her Backyard Photo Testimony to be a performance written and directed by an interested party.

She notes he broke his watch and replaced it with an identification bracelet during his Jaggars Chiles Stovall employment (October 12, 1962-April 6, 1963).  This together with her tenuous dating of March 31, 1963 places the matter of the watch versus the bracelet within the margin of doubt.

The appearance of the ring in 133B appears a bit more metal than the wedding ring--and throws an enormous shadow on the finger which in Belarus fits quite flat to the digit.

Jack White had fifteen points regarding the Backyard Photos which in my view Dartmouth's FBI expert Hany Farid failed to address in a straightforward manner, preferring to continue the Warren Report methodology of testing the irrelevant and answering the unasked.

The Watch List,
Watch out, keep time or become a bracelet.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/18172-the-watch-list/

Odd looking Marine Corp ring, Semper Figaro?



Of course only Terry at ROKC found the powerline shadows do not move with the other shadows.
This in the mother of all BYP threads,
Back Yard Photography:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1159-back-yard-photography
Cheers,
Ed

Jack White was aware of the two rings, or rather the magical One Ring on two hands. In this Education Forum thread, the issue is discussed:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/7995-oswalds-marine-corp-ring/

Here Jack White says the following:

In 133A, there is clearly a ring on the deformed right hand,
and perhaps a ring on the left hand also. I studied this issue
many years ago. I also tried to match the hands with the
hands of Roscoe White, who posed for the BY photos in my
opinion.
Jack
 
I am surprised that nobody has commented on the giant
enlargement of the backyard hands/rings. Is there no
interest?
Jack


It seems that what I interpret as a 'ring mark' in 133A, ie shiny mark left on skin from the constant wearing of a ring, Jack interprets as an actual ring itself. The mark, in my opinion, is not three dimensional as there does not seem to be any element of the ring sticking out past the finger.

Here is photo of Oswald in USSR wearing wedding ring Russian style on right hand.

Here is a picture of Oswald's Marine Corps ring on his left hand at the time of his arrest:



Here is a closeup of the Marine Corps ring:



It seems clear that the ring on the left hand in 133C is not the same as the ring on the right hand in 133B. Whether its Oswald's Marine Corps ring or not depends on whether the figure in 133C is Oswald or somebody else I guess. It certainly has a squarish look and could be another Marine Corps ring being used for the purpose. 

This means that the Ring Transposition is effectively debunked, since in theory Oswald could be wearing a ring on both his left and right hands and the ring types would also appear to match.

The only fly in this ointment is that Oswald does not appear to be wearing a ring on his right hand in 133C. Here is an enlargement of this hand.



According to David Lifton in the Education Forum thread quoted above, 

"But I believe the Marine Corps ring is almost certainly the ring visible in the backyard photos. Intriguingly the first photo taken, and the one that disappeared for 15 years, has a blur on Oswald's ring finger. If the photos do indeed depict a body double, it seems reasonable to assume they forget to have the double wear Oswald's ring for the first photo. "

As can be seen in the enlargement of the right hand in 133C above, there is possibly a blur, smudge or whatever you might want to call it conveniently located over the area where any lack of ring might have been seen. Or you can ignore this artifact, waterspot or whatever and say that there is no ring there.

So that's the story of the Ring Transposition from A-Z, and that's why we customers keep coming back to ROKC. I'd like to thank the commenters here who have put me on the right track and of course to Stan the Dan for his wonderful efforts in hosting this marvellous forum.

A very thorough examination and discussion of anomalies--where there should be none.

I would add a thoughtful article by Jim Fetzer and Jim Marrs in rebuttal to Hany Farid:

JFK Assassination. False Flag Attacks: How “Patsies” are Framed The Case of Lee Harvey Oswald

While Allen Dulles claimed, "No one reads," on the topic of the assassination of the 35th president, more do all the time.

Vincent Salandria discussed the case with his brother-in-law the day of the assassination:

When Oswald was killed both of us decided that this was a matter which could not be entrusted to the government. That the investigation of it would have to be undertaken by private individuals and that perhaps we would, on this matter, have to do work ourselves.


Vincent Salandria Interview by David Starks 1994


In the view of Jack White and Richard Groden--and David Mantik--the official visual aids are obsecenely false.

In The Adventure of the Three Garridebs Sherlock Holmes commented to Dr. Watson regarding a recent visitor to 221B Baker Street:

"Touch him where you would he is false."

I agree with Jack White's suggestion that Roscoe White is the stand-in.  The details of rings, watch, bracelet were juggled and bobbled and finally left in the pot with Hoover's "clerical error", LIFE's alleged airbrushing, and Marina's inability to identify the black clothing.

This forum lives up to the piercing of poseurs seen in José Ferrer's Cyrano de Bergerac.

quote
"If the photos do indeed depict a body double, it seems reasonable to assume they forget to have the double wear Oswald's ring for the first photo."

So did they stop the photo shoot and go get a Marine Corp ring at the Marine ring store, then shoot two more photos?

Please explain logistics, TIA
Ed

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005853875