Research the JFK killing, Reddit-style

By Alex Beam

Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

Speaking at a recent conference on the Warren Commission report, author Jefferson Morley “said he believed the Internet would usher in a new era of Kennedy assassination research,” the Boston Globe reported last month.

“Research”? Really?

Here is an imagined chat-room colloquy among JFK assassination buffs. I’ve flagged actual conspiracy theories culled from the Internet with a double asterisk (**).

JFKTruther109: You saw that Reddit.com eliminated the Three Tramps sub-thread?

GrassyNoel1963: You mean the so-called “hobos” that the police arrested the day Kennedy was shot? Everyone knew they were CIA agents.** Vagrants my eye!

JFKTruther109: You know one of them was the Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt,** right?

GrassyNoel1963: Nah, that guy turned out to be Woody Harrelson’s father.**

SixteenYearOldVirgin: Woody Harrelson the actor?

JFKTruther109: No, Woody Harrelson the rare book collector. Skiddoo, newbie.

ImActuallyWoodyHarrelson: My Dad had his issues, but he didn’t kill President Kennedy!

GrassyNoel1963: Your Mom’s maiden name was Oswald.

ImActuallyWoodyHarrelson: What of it?

GrassyNoel1963: Just saying ...

DaFunkyDebunker: I don’t think that’s the real Woody Harrelson.

GrassyNoel1963: He’s gone now.

DaFunkyDebunker: I think his Dad knew the Monkey Virus Lady** ...

JFKTruther109: You mean Dr. Mary Sherman, the woman who was cooking up exotic cancers for the CIA?**

DaFunkyDebunker: Right. Who was mysteriously-conveniently murdered in 1964.

GrassyNoel1963: But they wanted to use the SV-40 virus to assassinate Castro, not JFK.**

DaFunkyDebunker: Just saying ...

GrassyNoel1963: “60 Minutes” was going to do a show on her.**

JFKTruther109: They killed it.

DaFunkyDebunker: Who “they”?

JFKTruther109: The Rockefellers, duh. Because of Executive Order 11110. Kennedy’s plan to eliminate silver certificates and put the central banks out of business.** He had to go.

JFKTruther109: Were they the ones who hired the fake Secret Service agents who showed up on Dealey Plaza**? Or was that CIA director Allen Dulles?

DaFunkyDebunker: Dulles had his own army of ex-Nazis.** No one knows if he deployed them to Dallas or not.

GrassyNoel1963: What about Loy Factor, the brain-damaged Chickasaw Indian who was on the sixth floor of the Book Depository with Oswald?** Was he a Nazi?

JFKTruther109: He was just a pawn in the game ... but he’s the guy who made off with the missing Carcano rifle clip. Took it home with him the afternoon of the assassination.** He and the other killer, Mac Wallace, were working for Billie Sol Estes.** Who was working for his boss Lyndon Johnson, of course.**

DaFunkyDebunker: Who was a Freemason.** Just saying ...

GrassyNoel1963: Was it Estes who hired the Umbrella Man?

JFKTruther109: Nah, he just showed up on his own accord, with the shooting dart-flechette weapon built into his “umbrella.”** On a perfectly sunny day. Just saying ...

DaFunkyDebunker: He talked his way out of it. They always do.

Area51Experiencer: You know about the Nov. 12 memo, right?

JFKTruther109: Where Kennedy asks the CIA about UFOs?** Everyone knows about that. “(Kennedy) has made some inquiries regarding our activities, which we cannot allow.”** It must be true — the Daily Mail reported it.

Area51Experiencer: You can believe what you read in a newspaper.

GrassyNoel1963: Except that it’s a British newspaper.

DaFunkyDebunker: A newspaper called The Independent mentioned the theory that “Joe DiMaggio was behind the killing.”**

GrassyNoel1963: That’s a British newspaper, too. Just saying ...

JFKTruther109: Newspapers are so unreliable, they never print the truth.

GrassyNoel1963: Unlike the internets.

JFKTruther109: Amen to that, brother. The truth is out there.

Alex Beam is a columnist for the Boston Globe.