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" So you admit that the theory describes something that *can* happen! They used tape covered melons which obviously aren't perfect models of the human head. I don't know how many tests were done but I've seen the film of the melon falling backwards. Alvarez discusses the melon test and the physics behind it in the link I posted in #110.

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I'm not ADMITTING anything. I'm just saying what I had seen on a documentary. I saw it many years before I knew what a VCR was if it even existed on the consumer level, so I can't go back and watch it again. You describe it as "falling" backwards. Maybe you didn't mean it to sound as if gravity simply acted upon it after the shot, but it did make me think that after so many unsuccessful tries, maybe they sort-of gave it a little tilt backwards so it would "fall" backward...OH there I go again (slaps himself.) Sorry I try to control the conspiracy kook in me, but it's tough. He's a pesky little bugger.

I just find it hard to believe that a person's head shot from the back would recoil backwards. Physics degree or no...Nuclear Expert or no, I think the radiation has gotten to his brain to come up with such a bogus scheme. I give him credit. He's baffled a lot of people with that BS. What was the reason they covered the melons with tape? Why not use coconuts...something hard like the skull? That Emperer (sp?) is as naked as a jaybird.

What was the reason they covered the melons with tape? Why not use coconuts...something hard like the skull?

If you have ever cracked open a coconut you know that there is a lot of air inside along with the relatively hard coconut and a small amount of watery coconut milk. Alvarez and his assistants wanted to examine the possible effect of a jet of soft fluid-like matter. Brains are very soft. In fact they must be treated with chemicals just to harden them enough to permit examination if they are removed during an autopsy. Alvarez says that they wrapped the melons in Scotch filament tape to "mock up the tensile strength of the cranium". Undoubtedly a taped covered melon is not a perfect model of the human skull. But it is impressive the the first crude model of a skull that Alvarez made proved the theory correct. What really counts is the physics of the situation which you can read about in the link in #110.

Alvarez was not such a sleaze as to fake the test. In contrast to your previous assertion he says that 6 out of 7 tests resulted in backwards recoil of the melon. In the seventh test the melon "just rolled around". The reason I said "fell backwards" is that the film showed the melon on top of a step ladder, so that the direction of recoil would be the direction of fall.