Today, the National Archive announced its plans to make detailed 3D computer models of the bullets that killed John F. Kennedy available to the general public in 2020.
The 3D models will include the two bullets that pierced Kennedy, a third that hit both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, who was seated in front of Kennedy.
The Connally bullet is sometimes called the ‘stretcher bullet’ because it wasn’t found until Connally had been transported to the hospital.
The collection will also include two bullets that were fired from the gun recovered from the crime scene to test its general handling and ballistic properties.
The final bullet included will be one retrieved from Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination attempt on Major General Edwin Walker with the same weapon used in the Kennedy killing seven months later.
'This is one of the most significant events of the 20th century for Americans, and it is something that just continues to have interest for the public,’ the National Archive’s Martha Murphy said in a prepared video announcement.
‘Over the years, researchers have asked for access to these materials but they are somewhat fragile, and we do have preservation concerns,’
The National Archive began investigating the idea after receiving numerous requests for access to the physical collection of bullets from historians and independent researchers.
The requests prompted Murphy to reach out to the National Institute of Standards and Technology to see if they might be able to help digitize the bullets.
The NIST created highly detailed 3D renders of each bullet, which Murphy says are even more useful than the actual bullets because they can be rotated and magnified to a high degree without special microscopes or other equipment.
The bullet models were rendered with a lateral resolution of four micrometers, and a vertical resolution of 0.5 micrometers, with surface features digitally mapped in 3D.
‘You’re going to see every groove in the bullet, every nick. It’s going to be a very true representation of the original.’ Murphy said.
The National Archive has an entire archive dedicated to the JFK assassination, which includes more than 5 million pages of documents as well as photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings, and physical artifacts.
The 3D bullet renders will be available as part of the online archive in early 2020, though the exact date hasn’t been finalized.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
