NewsNation

Previously unseen footage from JFK assassination up for auction

(NewsNation) — A previously unseen color silent film capturing former President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade racing through Dallas after he was fatally shot is going up for auction this month. 

Although it’s been decades since Kennedy was assassinated, experts say the footage isn’t necessarily a surprising find. 


“These images, these films and photographs, a lot of times they are still out there. They are still being discovered or rediscovered in attics or garages,” Stephen Fagin, curator for The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, said, according to the Associated Press.

The 8 mm film taken by Dale Carpenter Sr. will be offered up by RR Auction on Sept. 28. The live auction begins at 1 p.m. ET in Boston. 

While Carpenter initially missed the limousine carrying the president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, he captured other vehicles in the motorcade as it made its way downtown. The film picks up again after Kennedy was shot, with Carpenter still taking video as the motorcade rushed down the interstate on its way to Parkland Hospital, according to RR Auction.

Later, four Dallas Police Department motorcycles, followed by one police car, can be seen flying up the Stemmons corridor. The presidential limousine then “whizzes into frame,” RR Auction said, “with large flags of the United States and Presidential Seal fluttering at speed.”

In the footage, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill hovers over the Kennedys. Jacqueline Kennedy, “slumping over her stricken husband,” can be identified by her bright pink suit, RR Auctions wrote. 

Bidding is now at $12,100, with the next bid set to go up to $13,310.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.