This analysis has been previously posted. But for those who have not seen it, here goes....
Take the tinfoil hats off, put your thinking caps on..
This is an analysis to compute the probability of at least 15 witnesses dying UNNATURAL deaths within one year (1963-64) of the JFK assassination. The deaths were a combination of homicides, suicides, accidents and undetermined origin.
Assuming there were 1000 witnesses, the probability that at least 15 would die UNNATURAL deaths in the year following the assassination is: 1 out of 21,230,606,601,227,800.
(or 1 out of 21,230 trillion, 606 billion, 601 million, 227 thousand, 800)
This result is the same order of magnitude of a famous prior, though slightly different, study: An actuary engaged by the London Times in 1963 computed the probability that 18 material witnesses would die (of any cause) within 3 years of the assassination as:
1 out of one hundred thousand trillion.
For the mystery deaths, I used this table:
http://www.noage.com/jfknetwork/death.htm For the odds of death in each category, I used this table of 1999 mortality data:
http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm From the 1999 data:
........................1 year...Lifetime
Probability of:
suicide.................0.000107 0.008197
homicide................0.000062 0.004739
accidental death........0.000359 0.027778
undetermined death......0.000014 0.001101
Therefore, the probability of an unnatural death is the sum of the probabilties of the four categories:
........................0.000542 0.041815
The Poisson Distribution
Although the Normal (Gaussian) probability distribution is by far the most important, there is another which has proven to be particularly useful - the Poisson Distribution, which is derived from, and is a special case of the Normal Distribution.
The Poisson Distribution applies when the probability "P" for success in any one trial is very small, but the number of trials N is so large that the expected number of successes, pN, is a moderate sized quantity. The formula is: P(m) =a**m*exp(-a)/m!
In words, the Probability of EXACTLY m successes = a to the m'th power times the exponential function of (-a), all divided by m factorial.
If m= 15, m factorial = m! = 15*14*13*12*11*10*9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1
Now lets use Poisson to determine the probability of a given number of witnesses meeting unnatural deaths within a year of the JFK assassination.
The only assumption we are making here is the number of witnesses.
Assume N= total witnesses = 1000
Let p= Probability of any individual dying from UNNATURAL causes within a given year = 0.000542
Let a= Expected Number of deaths = pN= 0.542
Let m= Actual Number of UNNATURAL deaths = 15
The probability of exactly m=15 UNNATURAL deaths within a given year out of a predefined group of N = 1000 witnesses is:
P(m) =a**m*exp(-a)/m! or p(15)= 0.542**15*exp(-.542)/15!
Here are the probabilities for m=1 through m=15 deaths.
Note:
Prob(X=m) = probability of EXACTLY m DEATHS
Prob(X>=m) = probability of at AT LEAST m DEATHS (the one we want)
m.......Prob(X=m)........Prob(X>=m)
1 3.15E-01 4.18E-01
Thus, for 1 or more deaths, Prob (X>=1)= 0.418
2 8.54E-02 1.03E-01
3 1.54E-02 1.78E-02
4 2.09E-03 2.34E-03
5 2.27E-04 2.49E-04
6 2.05E-05 2.22E-05
7 1.59E-06 1.70E-06
8 1.07E-07 1.14E-07
9 6.47E-09 6.84E-09
10 3.51E-10 3.69E-10
11 1.73E-11 1.81E-11
12 7.80E-13 8.14E-13
13 3.25E-14 3.38E-14
14 1.26E-15 1.31E-15
15 4.55E-17 4.71E-17
For 15 or more deaths,
Prob (X>=15) = 0.000000000000000047101810079330
or 1 out of 21,230,606,601,227,800
Now here is the kicker: 15 UNTIMELY WITNESS DEATHS OCCURRED TWICE - IN 1964 AND 1977. THESE JUST HAPPEN TO BE THE YEARS THAT THE WARREN COMMISSION (1964) AND THE HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS INVESTIGATIONS (1977) TOOK PLACE. OF COURSE, NOT ALL THE WITNESSES COULD TESTIFY. WE KNOW WHY. THE PROBABILITY OF THESE EVENTS HAPPENNING TWICE CAN BE DETERMINED BY MULTIPLYING THE PROBABILITIES:
1 OUT OF 21,230 TRILLION * 21,230 TRILLION.........
What is a trillion times a trillion?
Anyone here who would now call these deaths mere coincidences?