John Ball: Air Photo Expert?

Among Holocaust-deniers, John Ball is acclaimed for having proven with aerial photographs that the Holocaust could not have occurred. In particular, photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau are purported to show that no gassing or cremation could have taken place.

Ball is frequently cited as an "Air Photo Expert," lending credibility to his claims - but no measure of his expertise has ever been adduced. It is not the field for which he was trained (geology). At most, he took some undergraduate classes which included photo analysis. An expert in such analysis at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has refuted his chief findings, and Ball has not addressed the refutation. After his offer of a reward to anyone able to prove him wrong was accepted, it was quietly retracted. And a judge has pronounced him unfit to render expert opinion.

The purpose here is not directly to address Ball's findings (other essays on this site will do so later). The intent is only to examine Ball's claims of expertise.

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