The HSCA Acoustics Issue

The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) did some fine work in the late seventies regarding the JFK assassination. They confirmed that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed the President. They also authored scientific studies that validated the so-called backyard photos of Oswald taken by his wife Marina. The Committee also authenticated the autopsy photos and xrays of JFK which proved that the memories of Dallas doctors and others who said JFK's wounds were different than what was depicted in those materials were simply mistaken. The HSCA even debunked the two-Oswald theory of John Armstrong years before it was published.

But one area where the panel fell down was the issue of the acoustics evidence. The committee had been fully prepared to endorse the 1964 findings of the Warren Commission. A first draft of their report dated December 13, 1978, stated:

The committee finds that the available scientific evidence is insufficient to find that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.

Indeed, Committee member Robert W. Edgar noted:

Up to that moment in the life of the committee, we were prepared to go to the American people with that conclusion. Only after the report of Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, in the 11th hour of our investigation, was the majority persuaded to vote for two gunman and a conspiracy. I respectfully dissented.

The report referred to by Edgar led the committee to conclude that even though Oswald fired the fatal shots from the Texas School Book Depository, "President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." The committee came to this conclusion on the basis of the acoustics evidence which they maintained "establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy."

But the acoustics evidence came under fire almost immediately and most students of the assassination now consider it to be invalid. This page at the still active website of the late Professor John McAdams effectively explains the issues.

Additionally, three recent comprehensive articles are among the best that seek to debunk the acoustics:

Dale K. Myers-JFK Assassination Acoustics and the Photographic Record: Why the HSCA’s Acoustic Evidence of Conspiracy is Invalid

Nicholas Nalli-The Ghost of the Grassy Knoll Gunman

Louis T. Girdler-Your Lying Eyes: Josiah Thompson's Lonely Labyrinth