[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

In fact, the Committee appeared headed to concluding there was no conspiracy
until a last minute reversal as a result of acoustical evidence -- the purported recording of
the assassination by a policeman with his microphone stuck on the “on” position. The
Dallas police department had recorded the transmissions. The Committee initially asked
Dr. James E. Barger, the chief scientist of the acoustical analysis firm Bolt Beranek and
Newman, to analyze the recording. The analysis compared impulses on the recording
with reconstructions of shots fired from various locations in Dealey Plaza. There were at
least four impulses that may have been shots, and the first, second, and fourth were
apparently from the Texas School Book Depository., but the third shot may have come
from the notorious grassy knoll. Barger testified in September 1978 that “The probability
of there having been a shot from the grassy knoll was about 50 percent.” 414
The Committee was thrown into turmoil, however, in the final weeks of its
investigation in December 1977 after a re-analysis of the recording from two other
acoustical experts, Dr. Mark Weiss and his research associate Ernest Aschkenasy. They
concluded mathematically that “with a certainty factor of 95 percent or better, there was a
shot fired at the Presidential limousine from the grassy knoll.” 415 The Committee was
forced to conclude that the existence of two gunmen equaled a conspiracy. The
Committee wrote "the scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that
two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy." 416 The committee theorized that
Oswald’s first shot missed, his second so-called “magic bullet” wounded both Kennedy
414 House Report, 73.
415 House Report, 76.
416 House Report, 103.
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