top of page
Just the FAQs
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Juan Roa Sierra (Nov 4, 1921 - Apr 9, 1948) was born into the Catholic faith and raised in the poorer barrios of Bogata, Colombia. It was a fatherless household with many children. Colombia throughout his formative years, was riven by political violence and foreign interference. Evidence shows him to have been a dreamer, drifting from job to job before being drawn into the occult which by all accounts, resulted in odd behavior and the belief that he was meant for something higher. He is the accused assassin of Colombian presidential hopeful, Jorge Gaitan on April 9, 1948 in Bogota. He was himself butally murdered soon after by an angry mob.
Sirhan Sirhan (Mar 19, 1944 - ) was born in Palestine with Jordanian citizenship and raised as a Christian. Growing up on the West Bank, Sirhan witnessed the violence of the Arab - Israeli conflinct. When Sirhan was 12 the family emigrated to the American West Coast. but was soon abandoned by the father who returned to Jordan. Evidence shows him to have been a dreamer, drifting from job to job and from one religious denomination to another, finally being drawn to the occult which by all accounts, resulted in odd behavior and the belief that he was meant for something higher. He is the convicted assassin of presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles. Kennedy died the folllowing day. Sirhan is serving a life sentence in the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
As far as can be ascertained, the first discussion of the figure seen in the Darnell and Weigman films came in correspondence between Dick Sprague, Dick Bernabei and Harold Weisberg during 1968. Their investigation ground to a halt due to their inability to obtain the original films from CBS, leaving them to work with an inaquate 7th generation copy.
There are no known further discussions on it until Charles Wallace raised the issue of the possibility it was Oswald in a google forum in 2005.
It was another couple of years before the issue was raised again - this time by Sean Murphy on the now defunct Lancer forum. It was Murphy who at this time, dubbed the figure "Prayer Man".
The issue however, did not get widespread attention iuntil Murphy entered a discussion at the Education Forum itled OSWALD LEAVING TSBD?" commenced by Bill Kelly. in August, 2013. That thread, dominated by Murphy's incicive observations and research, became a behemoth in terms of impact and llength.
After Murphy ceased posting on the 50 anniversary of the assassination, the ongoing research was taken up by the ROKC forum, with Stan Dane condensing the OSWALD LEAVING THE TSBD? thread into the book, "Prayer Man: the Exoneration of Lee Harvey Oswald"(https://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Man-Shadows-Into-Light/dp/1944205012), Ed LeDoux and Bart Kamp working behind the scenes to obtain the original films and Terry Martin making trips to the achives in search of further evdence. Additionally both Dane and Kamp have contributed numerous video presentations, as well as Kamp's Prayer Man site (http://www.prayer-man.com)which is a repository for all of the research in this area.
Juan Roa Sierra was said to be a Gaitanista - a devoted follower of Gaitan, and had possibly helped in his 1946 presidential campaign based on the election material found in his room. He is also said to have been employed by the German Embassy during WWII distributing propaganda. There is no evidence however, that this was more than just another job, though it may have exposed him to certain elements who might have found him to be an ideal unwitting tool.
Sirhan Sirhan - Had been a big fan of JFK and this carried over to Robert Kennedy until he allegedly perceived that RFK was pro-Israel and was going to allow the sale of bomber jets to that nation state.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
With regard to the assassination of JFK, many photos and film frames have been blown up, copied, contrasted and contorted in futile attempts to find police snipers, CIA agents and officers, mafia hit men and so on. "Badge Man" is a good example of this type of film study and is akin to seeing the shape of an elephant in a cloud, or a butterfly in an inkblot. Bigfoot is less elusive and just as real. "Prayer Man" needs no imagination to discern what is there. It is unmisakeably a human being - mores specifically, a young white male dressed in workman's clothes. Despite this, some disingenuously try to suggest that "Prayer Man" is just another Rorschach Test using pixels. It is no such thing. It is part of a larger study of Oswald's alibi.
Yes! Users can add video from YouTube or Vimeo with ease:
1. Enter App Settings
2. Click the "Manage Questions" button
3. Click on the question you would like to attach a video to
4. When editing your answer, click on the video icon and then paste the YouTube or Vimeo video URL
5. That's it! A thumbnail of your video will appear in answer text box
Juan Roa Sierra had been seeing a German palmist for 18 months prior to the assassination of Gaitan. It was apparently at the suggestion of the palmist that Roa joined the Rosicrusian cult known as AMORC based in San Jose, California. At that time, AMORC adevertzed extensively around the world via magazine coupons. Some indications of an interest in Theosophy, as well.
Sirhan Sirhan was born into the Christian faith. In the US, he is known to have "church hopped" until drifting toward the occult. Became a member of AMORC and had an interest also in Theosophy and Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). These interests may have resulted from mixing with certain individuals met through the race tracks he habituated, and/or through college.
Yes. But it is not very likely. You probably have a better chance of being stampeded by a herd of wilderbeest in Central Park, NY than of this being a female. The posture, clothing and physical features that can be discerned, all point to it being a male. The push to suggest it was female started out as a now admitted joke. Unfortunatey some took it seriously, refuse to give up the notion and still use the same manipulated images to support the claim.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Yes! Users can add video from YouTube or Vimeo with ease:
1. Enter App Settings
2. Click the "Manage Questions" button
3. Click on the question you would like to attach a video to
4. When editing your answer, click on the video icon and then paste the YouTube or Vimeo video URL
5. That's it! A thumbnail of your video will appear in answer text box
Yes! Users can add video from YouTube or Vimeo with ease:
1. Enter App Settings
2. Click the "Manage Questions" button
3. Click on the question you would like to attach a video to
4. When editing your answer, click on the video icon and then paste the YouTube or Vimeo video URL
5. That's it! A thumbnail of your video will appear in answer text box
AMORC is an acronym which stands for the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
This is a typical AMORC ad from the 1950s and 1960s. The ad promises that "the human mind can truly exert an influence over things and conditions" and that "telepathy, projection of thought, the materializing of ideas into helpful realities are no longer thought by intelligent persons to be impossible practices, but instead, demonstrable sciences..." AMORC borrowed substantially from Theosophy and Crowley's OTO and uses progression via 9 degrees of initiation culminating in being able to master such things as telepathy, telekenisis and dowsing while also gaining an ability to tune in with "Cosmic Conciousness". Getting through all 9 degress takes 52 months.
Today, it is easy to scoff at the claims made in the advertizing, but in the middle of the last century such beliefs were pervasive and fed by popular culture through movies, magazines, literature and TV, where nearly any series you could name had at some point, an occult theme, or themes on mind control or related subjects. These practices were also taken seriously by the military and intelligence agencies on both sides of the Cold War. The ads were aimed at and attracted youth, particularly those, because of personal circumstances of tragedy or poverty, were looking for a better life; a better world. Two such young men were Juan Roa Sierra and Sirhan Sirhan.
Although AMORC claims to be apolitical, the founder. Harvey Spencer Lewis became s secret advisor and silent partner (http://www.iapsop.com/ssoc/1929__lewis___rosicrucian_principles.pdf)to some of the most pwerful figures in the business world, including railway magnate James Stillwell. Money and political power go hand in hand. Since AMORC is a registered charity, the arrangement was that these business tycoons would make "donations" in return for Lewis' counsel. The son, Ralph Maxwell Lewis took over the organization when Harvey died in 1939.
THEOSOPHY
The Theosophical Society was started in America, mainly as a result of Russian Emigre, Helena Blavatsky, and her claims of being taught the secrets of the universe by an ancient order of mystics centered in Tibet. It would grow to have a great impact on the New Age movement in the latter half of the twentieth century. But preceding that, it also had an influence on the revival of Germanic occult practices, some of which seeped into Nazi ideology. The extent and ultimate meaning of this influence remains hotly debated today.
One of the tenets of the society is reincarnation.
Both AMORC and Theosophy underpin the "Self-Help" movement with it's message of the "power of positive thinking". In fact, one founder of this movement, James Allen, was a Theospohist.
Again, it is theoretically possible, but not supported by any of the known evidence. A person from the street would have to push past the crowd on the steps in order to take up a position in a darkened corner with limited viewing opportunities. In any case, the FBI ascertained that no one from the building recalled seeing any strangers during the relevant time-frame,
As for being any male manual laborer from the building... all white manual laborers are accountered for elsewhere - with the singular exception of Lee Oswald - unless you accept the conclusion of the Warren Commission that he was on the 6th floor firing an out of alignment WWII Italian surplus carbine.
Juan Roa Sierra - Sierra was instructed to get some candles, light them, and sit in front of a mirror and stare at it until he saw someone emerge from it. As a result of this ritual, he came to believe he saw Franseco de Paula Santander come from the mirror. Santander had been a compatriot of Simon Bolivar and was Vice President of Gran Granada (modern day Colombia) under Bolivar. Eventually they fell out and Santander was arrested and charged as having been involved in an assassination attempt. This is a prescient occurence for someone who would later be identified as the assassin of presidential hopeful, Jorge Gaitan.
The ritual and its result would become misinterpreted in looking back on Roa's life as part of the Gaitan investigation. It was said that Roa was claiming to be the reincarnation of Santander, but he is not recorded as saying that himself. He is recorded only as claiming that he saw a person "like" Santander emerge. This ritual has all the hall-marks of a set up. Staring at the mirror was also meant to induce a state of self-hypnosis which would then make the emergence of "someone" possible. Since Roa was fixated on the mirror and in a stuperous/hypnotic condition, all that needed to be done was to have someone who resembled Santander enter the room so that Roa would see the reflection in the mirror. To Roa, it would seem like this person came out of the mirror because he had been conditioned to believe this would happen. This ritual is supposed to support the ability of the practitioner to use autosuggestion to absorb the teachings of AMORC. Autosuggestion itself, is a pschological technique developed by apothecary Emile Coue prior to the establishment of AMORC It is self-induced suggestion often used during self-hypnosis.
It would then only be a matter of this person who "emerged from the mirror" planting post-hypnotic suggestions in Roa's by now, addled mind, creating the perfect patsy for the Gaitan hit. A person matching the description of the "Santander" figure given by Roa, would be seen in company with Roa on at least three occasions in the office building occupied by Gaitan for his law practice. The last of those three times encompassed the periods immediately before, during and after the assassination, which happened as Gaitan left his office for lunch.
What we have left is a loner who has supposedly planted the seeds of assasination in his own mind, when in reality, it was post-hypnotic suggestion masquerading as autosuggestion.
Sirhan Sirhan - Sirhan's case is a bit less straight forward. What he wanted more than anything was the attention and affection of a girl named Peggy Osterkamp. Peggy is mentioned even more than RFK in Sirhan's notebook. It is evident from the notebook that Sirhan attempted at least two OTO rituals, The Star Sapphire and the Mass of the Phoenix. Both could be used as Sex Magick rituals to obtain what one desires and to "transcend" one's reality. Was Sirhan hoping these rituals would help him win Peggy's love?
Also among Sirhan's notes: "I shall begin realizing the sum of $100 as per the instructions of the Bible and Thomas Troward within the next 5 days or before the termination of this month." Troward was part of the Free Thought Movement which posits the power of positive thinking and the power of attraction. It seems Sirhan did not understand, or was being misled. Troward advised not to wish for money, but for opulance. This, he advised, may come in the form of money, or in some other fashion. Troward and the Free Thought Movement provided yet more inspiration for the teachings of AMORC.
As with Roa, Sirhan practiced the candles and mirror ritual as well as a ritual using a home-made pemdalum hung from the ceiling. In these riturals, he claimed to be able to move the clandle flames about and change the color of them using only his mind. He would also swing the pendalum using only his mind.
Yet another occult pracrice used by Sirhan was automatic writing.
The person who finally appeared during his candles and mirror ritual was RFK.
The difference between Sirhan and Roa however is that there is some indication that Sirhan took part in groups practicing self-hypnosis and self-realization. It was more likely that he had post-hypnotic suggestions placed in his mind during one of these sessions rather than at home.
The story pertaining to Sirhan's motive which has him becoming increasingly angry at his former hero over bomber jets to Israel was, according to Philip Melanson, not given sponaneously. It was instead, a product which evolved over numerous sessions with his defense team .
Was Peggy Osterkamp, or a lookalike for her, the mysterious Girl in the Polka Dot Dress? Was Peggy or a lookl-alike, the lure and the trigger?
Sirhan had what might be described as a panic attack when he saw that a list of potential defense witnesses included Peggy and another girl he had had a crush on at some stage, Gwen Gumm. He made it clear he would rather confess and end the trial, than have those two girls appear on the stand.
Yes. This evidence consists of interrogation reports, early news reports, Warren Commission testimony, FBI reports of interviews with witnesses, the Report of the Texas Attorney General, and HSCA interviews of fellow workers. - this material includes Oswald giving informaton he could not have known unless he was on the first floor at the relevant time, a witness sighting of Oswald near the front entrance at 12:15 - which does not leave sufficient time for Oswald to go to the 6th floor, assemble the weapon and be ready to fire,
Some, first day stories in the press placed Oswald on the 1st floor immeiately after the shots, while others describe him leaving through the front door after being cleared by the building Superintendant and a Police Officer. This event would later be claimed to have happened in the second floor lunch room.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Juan Roa Sierra -Roa had obtained a revolver two days prior to the assassination. According to his palmist, Umland Gerat (who had almost certainly been a double agent of the US during WWII), Roa had told him of a vision of buried treasure in an Indian tomb in a nearby town. However four other witnesses told investigators that Roa had talked of being hired by two foreigners to protect them on a trip into "wild country" and that he expected to be "much better off" on his return.
It may be of no small interest here to mention that Umland Gerat translates as "tool of the Hinterland" and that the Hinterland in Colombia was the epicenter of anti-Liberal forces.
in the weeks leading up to the assassination, Roa was seen at least twice in the office of Gaitain in the company of a thin man with wild
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
hair and crazy eyes. As stated earlier in the FAQ, this was the same description Roa had given for the Santander figure from his mirror and candles ritual.
The two were seen a third time in and around the office building during the lunch hour in which the assassination occured. The thin man was noted to have a coat wrapped around his right forearm and hand. In total, four shots were fired at Gaitan as he emerged from the building. The first was believed to have been a miss, with the next three all hitting their target. Did Roa fire the first shot only (he is not known to have had any previous firearm experience), with the other three shots being fired by the thin man from a weapon concealed by the coat?
Famed author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was at a nearby outdoor cafe at the time. He witnessed the thin man urge the gathering mob to sieze Roa from police custody. As soon as this happened, the thin man left the scene by car. Roa was then brutally beaten and hacked to death. Months of violence, known as the Bogotazo, followed.
Sirhan Sirhan - According to Shane O'Sullivan in his book, Who Killed Bobby? Sirhan rejoined AMORC in February 1968 and, with the help of his brother, Munir, purchased a revolver at around the same time. Sirhan has never given any concrete reason for wanting a gun at that point in his life (at one stage, he claimed it may have been influenced by cowboy movies), or why he would be asking Munir about where to get one. The following month, the senator entered the Democratic Primary race. Analysis of Sirhan's noebook by Philip Melanson shows that nowhere in the book does Sirhan mention emnity toward RFK because of the existing deal to sell 50 bomber jets to Israel. Moreover, the automatic writing associated with killing RFK takes up but two pages - far less than the number of pages devoted to other topics such as social conditions, obtaining money, and on the (unrequited) love of his life, Peggy Osterkamp.
On June 4, Sithan found himself at the Ambassador after an afternoon of shooting at a pistol range, leaving his still loaded weapon on the back seat of his car. But it was not the RFK crowd he found himself among. Instead it was a party for ultra conservative, Max Rafferty who was to win the Republican Senatorial nomination. It was here he started drinking, though his own claim of becoming "shit-faced" after just 4 Tom Collins cocktails is difficult to believe, unless one of them was spiked. According to his own reckoning, realizing how drunk he was, he went to his car to drive home because there was no one at the hotel to look after him. Once at the car, he decided he did not want to risk driving in the state he was in, so went back to the hotel to drink coffee and try and sober up. He has no memory of grabbing his gun before going back. From here, there are a number of accounts of Sirhan being seen drinking coffee and talking to the Girl in the Polka Dot Dress - who in turn had been seen entering with two males - one identified as Sirhan - and then leaving about a half an hour later with just the taller of the two males and telling witness, Sandra Serrano, that they had shot Kennedy.
Intriguingly, Lisa Pease in her book, A lie Too Big to Fail, tells of other witnesses seeing a male running from the scene with what looked like a partially concealed gun from having something draped over it. This is just another in the long long list of coincidences between the Gaitan and RFK assassinations, with the thin man at the Gaitan hit having a coat wrapped around his forearm, fleeing the scene only after he had successfuly ensured the mob seized the doomed patsy, Roa.
"Prayer Man" was captured on film by Weigman and Darnell - both employed by NBC . The original efforts to obtain the films in 1968 from NBC were unsuccessful. More recent requests to the network have also been rejected.
Expert opinion is that if scans could be obtained from the originals or 1st generation copies, the clarity would be sufficient for identification of the individual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7p1ntLF--s
Sean Murphy dubbed the firgure Prayer Man based on a poor quality image which appeared to show the figure with clasped hands held up as if in prayer.
Better quality images have since shown that this is an optical illusion created by his reflection in the glass behind him and that he really has his arms folded and is leaning against the wall.
The name "Prayer Man" however has stuck.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Illustration by Jake Sykes
Though the assassinations were 20 years apart and on two different continents - the answer is a qualified "yes".
AMORC leaders were, behind the scenes, close friends and advisors to some of the biggest magnates in the US. In return, these magnates made generous donations to the coffers of the "charity". Amassing more and more power and wealth was the name of the game on both sides of these arrangements.
Put as simply as possible, Jorge Gaitan had made an almighty enemy of the United Fruit Company - which had close ties to US intelligence. Twenty years llater, RFK was generally despised and distrusted in the business world. Did Big Business turn to individuals within AMORC to identify and prepare patsies to get rid of two big headaches? Influencing people, actions and outcomes after all, is the very core of the AMORC promise! But somewhere in the mix, at its favored arms length, was also. no doubt, the protector of Big Business - the CIA.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
As far as can be ascertained, the first discussion of the figure seen in the Darnell and Weigman films came in correspondence between Dick Sprague, Dick Bernabei and Harold Weisberg during 1968. Their investigation ground to a halt due to their inability to obtain the original films from CBS, leaving them to work with an inadequate 7th generation copy.
There are no known further discussions on it until Charles Wallace raised the issue of the possibility it was Oswald in a google forum in 2005.
It was another couple of years before the issue was raised again - this time by Sean Murphy on the now defunct Lancer forum. It was Murphy who at this time, dubbed the figure "Prayer Man".
The issue however, did not get widespread attention until Murphy entered a discussion at the Education Forum titled OSWALD LEAVING TSBD?" commenced by Bill Kelly. in August, 2013. That thread, dominated by Murphy's incisive observations and research, became a behemoth in terms of impact and length.
After Murphy ceased posting on the 50 anniversary of the assassination, the ongoing research was taken up by the ReOpenKennedyCase (ROKC) forum, with Stan Dane condensing the OSWALD LEAVING THE TSBD? thread into the book, "Prayer Man: the Exoneration of Lee Harvey Oswald",(https://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Man-Shadows-Into-Light/dp/1944205012) Ed LeDoux and Bart Kamp working behind the scenes to obtain the original films and Terry Martin making trips to the archives in search of further evidence. Additionally both Dane and Kamp have contributed numerous video presentations, as well as Kamp's Prayer Man (http://www.prayer-man.com)site which is a repository for all of the research in this area.
As far as can be ascertained, the first discussion of the figure seen in the Darnell and Weigman films came in correspondence between Dick Sprague, Dick Bernabei and Harold Weisberg during 1968. Their investigation ground to a halt due to their inability to obtain the original films from CBS, leaving them to work with an inadequate 7th generation copy.
With regard to the assassination of JFK, many photos and film frames have been blown up,
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
copied, contrasted and contorted in futile attempts to find police snipers, CIA agents and officers, mafia hit men and so on. "Badge Man" is a good example of this type of film study and is akin to seeing the shape of an elephant in a cloud, or a butterfly in an inkblot. Bigfoot is less elusive and just as real. "Prayer Man" needs no imagination to discern what is there. It is unmistakably a human being - mores specifically, a young white male dressed in workman's clothes. Despite this, some disingenuously try to suggest that "Prayer Man" is just another Rorschach Test using pixels. It is no such thing. It is part of a larger study of Oswald's alibi.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Yes. But it is not very likely. You probably have a better chance of being stampeded by a herd of wildebeest in Central Park, NY than of this being a female. The posture, clothing and physical features that can be discerned, all point to it being a male. The push to suggest it was female started out as a now admitted joke.
Unfortunately, some took it seriously, refuse to give up the notion and still use the same manipulated images to support the claim.
Again, it is theoretically possible, but not supported by any of the known evidence. A person from the street would have to push past the crowd on the steps in order to take up a position in a darkened corner with limited viewing opportunities. In any case, the FBI ascertained that no one from the building recalled seeing any strangers during the relevant time-frame,
As for being any male manual laborer from the building... all white manual laborers are accounted for elsewhere - with the singular exception of Lee Oswald - unless you accept the conclusion of the Warren Commission that he was on the 6th floor firing an out of alignment WWII Italian surplus carbine.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Yes. This evidence consists of interrogation reports, early news reports, Warren Commission testimony, FBI reports of interviews with witnesses, the Report of the Texas Attorney General, and HSCA interviews of fellow workers. - this material includes Oswald giving information he could not have known unless he was on the first floor at the relevant time, a witness sighting of Oswald near the front entrance at 12:15 - which does not leave sufficient time for Oswald to go to the 6th floor, assemble the weapon and be ready to fire,
Some, first day stories in the press placed Oswald on the 1st floor immediately after the shots, while others describe him leaving through the front door after being cleared by the building Superintendent and a Police Officer. This event would later be claimed to have happened in the second-floor lunch room.
"Prayer Man" was captured on film by Weigman and Darnell - both employed by NBC . The original efforts to obtain the films in 1968 from NBC were unsuccessful. More recent requests to the network have also been rejected.
Expert opinion is that if scans could be obtained from the originals or 1st generation copies, the clarity would be sufficient for identification of the individual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7p1ntLF--s
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/undefined
Sean Murphy dubbed the figure Prayer Man based on a poor quality image which appeared to show the figure with clasped hands held up as if in prayer.
Better quality images have since shown that this is an optical illusion created by his reflection in the glass behind him and that he really has his arms folded and is leaning against the wall. as shown in this artists impression by Jake Sykes.
The name "Prayer Man" however has stuck.
bottom of page