JFK Assassination Film Is Missing

The famous Zapruder film of the assassination has a lesser-known but just as important counterpart—and nobody knows where it is. Orville Nix had his camera directed at the infamous grassy knoll, and his six seconds of footage captured the final bullet striking the president. The original film hasn't been seen in decades, but some JFK researchers consider it the "Holy Grail," his granddaughter tells WFAA. Copies still exist, but the original may include more detail. "If it shows a second gunman, then we'll put an end to all these conspiracy theories, because we'll know," the granddaughter says. "If it doesn't, we'll put an end to it that way, too."

The FBI borrowed the film in 1963, then returned it to the Nix family. The United Press International agency then bought it for $5,000 but when it returned copyright and all its copies to the family in 1992, the original reel was missing. "The reason why it's so important is because it's almost the mirror image of the famous Zapruder film," explains a former FBI analyst, who believes the original film was either discarded accidentally or ended up in the hands of a private collector. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, meanwhile, launched a new Twitter feed this week to display quotes still relevant to current events, the New York Daily News reports. "What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war," said the inaugural post at @JFKsaid, quoting a Kennedy speech from June 10, 1963. (More JFK assassination stories.)