Real-Life X-Files

by Joe Nickell

  The Historical Record

  To begin at the beginning, the Shroud of Turin contradicts the Gospel of John, which describes multiple cloths for Jesus’ burial, including a separate “napkin” over the face, as well as “an hundred pound weight” of spices—not a trace of which appears on the Turin cloth. And nowhere in the New Testament is there mention of a remarkable portrait of Jesus having been left on his burial garment. In addition, no examples of the Shroud’s particular herringbone twill weave date from the first century.

  Although Jesus’ body would have been ritually washed, as mandated by the Jewish Mishnah, the “body” imaged on the shroud was not cleansed (as shown by the “blood” on the arms). Some sindonologists attempt to circumvent the problem by citing a passage from the Code of Jewish law, but the supposed exception dates from some fifteen centuries after Christ and poorly applies to one who was buried “as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:40). And even though there have been over forty Holy Shrouds—along with other “relics” of Jesus, including vials of his tears and countless pieces of the True Cross—there is no record of the Turin cloth until the mid-1350s. At that time a French bishop, Henri de Poitiers, was suspicious of its utter lack of provenance, questioning why the early evangelists had failed to mention such a marvel or why it had remained hidden for thirteen centuries. The shroud’s owner, a soldier of fortune named Geoffroy de Charny, never explained how he, a man of modest means, had acquired the most holy relic in all of Christendom (Nickell, 1988). According to a later bishop’s report to Pope Clement VII, dated 1389, Henri discovered that the shroud originated as part of a phony faith-healing scheme. “Pretended miracles” were staged, said the report’s author, Bishop Pierre D’Arcis, “so that money might cunningly be wrung” from unsuspecting pilgrims. “Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination,” he stated, Bishop Henri “discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed” (emphasis added).

  That the shroud is indeed the work of a medieval artist would explain numerous image flaws. For example, the physique is unnaturally elongated (like figures in Gothic art!). Also, the hair hangs as for a standing rather than recumbent figure, and the imprint of a bloody foot is incompatible with the outstretched leg to which it belongs. Everywhere, the ”blood” flows are unrealistically neat. Instead of matting the hair, for instance, they run in rivulets on the outside of the locks. And even dried blood (as on the arms) has implausibly transferred. In addition, real blood soaks into cloth and spreads in all directions, rather than leaving picturelike images. As the noted pathologist Dr. Michael Baden observes of the overall shroud image, “Human beings don’t produce this kind of pattern” (Baden, 1980).

  The shroud exhibits many features that point specifically to artistry. For example, while St. Augustine lamented in the early fifth century that nothing whatsoever was known of Jesus’ appearance, the shroud image portrays the traditional, evolved artistic likeness. Also, by the eleventh century, artists were representing Jesus’ burial with a double-length linen cloth and the hands crossed over the groin (unlike Jewish burial practice in which they were typically folded on the chest). And from the thirteenth century we find ceremonial or symbolic shrouds bearing full-length embroidered images of Christ’s body in this crossed-hands pose.

  Scientific Analyses

  The question of artistry versus authenticity is especially addressed by scientific examination of the “blood.“ In 1973, as part of a special commission of scientists and scholars, internationally known forensic serologists subjected the bloodstains to a battery of scientific tests, all of which proved negative: these included chemical analyses, thin-layer chromatography, and neutron activation analysis, as well as attempts to identify blood group and species. In fact, the scientists discovered reddish granules that would not even dissolve in reagents that dissolve blood. Subsequently, the distinguished microanalyst Walter McCrone identified the blood as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint, which explained why it was bright red after at least seven centuries. McCrone (who was, he says, “drummed out” of STURP for his efforts) also discovered that on the image—but not on the background—were significant amounts of the red ocher pigment. He first thought this was applied as a dry powder but later concluded it was a component of dilute paint applied in the medieval grisaille (monochromatic) technique. (McCrone believes the artist worked freehand; another possibility is shown in figure 22.2.) (McCrone, 1996)

  Figure 22.2. Negative photograph of an image produced by making a rubbing from a bas relief. Such a technique (using pigment or paint) automatically converts the usual lights and darks into a quasi-negative, shroudlike picture.

  In 1988, the shroud cloth was finally carbon dated. Using accelerator mass spectrometry, laboratories at Zurich, Oxford, and the University of Arizona obtained dates in very close agreement. These were given added credibility by correct radiocarbon dates from a variety of control swatches, including a piece from Cleopatra’s mummy cloth. The resulting age span was circa 1260-1390 C.E., or about the time Bishop Henri de Poitiers found the artist who admitted it was his creation.

  Rationalizations

  Recently, shroud scientists have claimed that microbial contamination may have altered the radiocarbon date; however, for there to be an error of thirteen centuries there would have to be twice as much contamination by weight as the shroud cloth itself! (Pickett, 1996) Another recent claim concerns reported evidence of human DNA in a shroud “blood” sample. Actually, the scientist cited, Victor Tryon of the University of Texas, insists that “Everyone who has ever touched the shroud or cried over the shroud has left a potential DNA signal there.” Tryon resigned from the new shroud project due to what he disparaged as “zealotry in science” (Van Biema, 1998,61).

  Still other claims concerned floral evidence. It was alleged that pollen on the shroud proved it came from Palestine, but the source for the pollen was a freelance criminologist, Max Frei, who once pronounced the forged “Hitler Diaries” genuine. Frei’s tape-lifted samples from the Shroud were controversial from the outset since similar samples taken by the Shroud of Turin Research Project in 1978 had comparatively little pollen. As it turned out, after Frei’s tapes were examined following his death in 1983, they also had very little pollen—although one bore a suspicious cluster on the ”lead” (or end), rather than on the portion that had been applied to the shroud. (See Skeptical Inquirer, summer 1994, 379-85.) Accompanying the unscientific pollen evidence were claims that faint plant images have been “tentatively” identified on the shroud. These follow previous “discoveries” of “Roman coins” over the eyes and even Latin and Greek words, such as “Jesus” and “Nazareth,” that some researchers see—Rorschachlike—in the shroud’s mottled stains. The floral images were reported by a psychiatrist who has taken up image analysis and made other discredited claims about the shroud image. Even pro shroud author Ian Wilson, in his 1998 book The Blood and the Shroud, felt compelled to state: “While there can be absolutely no doubting the sincerity of those who make these claims, the great danger of such arguments is that researchers may see’ merely what their minds trick them into thinking is there.”

  By such rationalizations and questionable evidence sindonologists promote their agenda. They offer one explanation for the contrary gospel evidence (maybe certain passages require clarification), another for the lack of historical record (maybe the cloth was hidden away), still another for the artist’s admission (maybe the reporting bishop misstated the case), yet another for the paint pigments (maybe an artist who copied the shroud ritualistically pressed it to the image), and so on. This should be called the “maybe” defense. It is all too characteristic of sindonology, which has failed to produce any scientifically viable hypothesis for the image formation.

  Corroborative Evidence

  The scientific approach, in contrast, is to a
llow the preponderance of prima facie evidence to lead to a conclusion: the shroud is the handiwork of a medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively interlock and corroborate each other. For example, the artist’s admission is supported by the lack of prior record, as well as by the revealingly red and picturelike “blood” that in turn has been identified as tempera paint. And the radio- carbon date is consistent with the time the artist was discovered.

  Given this powerful, convincing evidence, it is unfortunate that we must now once again recall the words of Canon Ulysse Chevalier, the Catholic historian who brought to light the documentary evidence of the shroud’s medieval origin. As he lamented, “The history of the shroud constitutes a protracted violation of the two virtues so often commended by our holy books: justice and truth.”

  References

  Baden, Michael. 1980. Quoted in Reginald W. Rhein Jr., The shroud of Turin:

  Medical examiners disagree, Medical World News, Dec. 22, 50.

  McCrone, Walter. 1996. Judgement Day for the Turin “Shroud.” Chicago: Micro- scope.

  Nickell, Joe. 1988. Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, 2nd updated ed. Buffalo:Prometheus. Except as otherwise noted, information for this article is taken from this text.

  Pickett, Thomas J. 1996. Can contamination save the shroud of Turin? Skeptical Briefs, June, 3.

  Van Biema, David. 1998. Science and the shroud. Time, April 20, 53-61.

  Chapter 23

  The Giant Frog

  Like the Lake Utopia Monster (see chapter 19), another reputed New Brunswick lake leviathan is the giant amphibian now displayed at the York Sunbury Historical Society Museum in Fredericton (figure 23.1). Dating to the 1880s, the huge bullfrog reportedly lived in Killarney Lake, some eight miles from Fredericton, where Fred B. Coleman operated a lodge. Coleman claimed he had made a pet of the great croaker and that his guests fed it June bugs, whiskey, and buttermilk. It thus grew to a whopping forty-two pounds, Coleman recalled, and was used to tow canoes and race against tomcats. It was killed, he said, when poachers dynamited the lake to harvest fish, whereupon the distraught raconteur had it stuffed and placed on display in the lobby of his Fredericton hotel. His son s widow donated it to the museum in 1959 (“Coleman” n.d.).

  Some local doubters insist Coleman had simply bought a display item that had been used to advertise a cough medicine guaranteed to relieve “the frog in your throat” (Phillips 1982). A former historical society president called it a “patent fake” and said it should have been thrown out years ago, while other officials coyly declined suggestions that it be examined scientifically (Colombo 1988, 50-51; “Coleman” n.d.). Maclean’s magazine concluded, “The argument about whether it is a stuffed frog or an imitation may never be settled, but as a topic of conversation and a tourist curiosity it has had as long a career as any frog, dead or alive” (McKinney n.d.).

  . Following my expedition to the museum’s third floor, however, I determined that the exhibit was probably not a Rana catesbeiana. Did I penetrate the sealed display case to obtain a DNA sample? No, I simply sweet-talked my way into the museum’s files, which were revealing. A 1988 condition report by the Canadian Conservation Institute referred to the sixty-eight-centimeter (almost twenty-seven-inch) artifact as a “Large, possibly stuffed frog,” but went on to observe that—in addition to many wrinkles having formed in the “skin”—there was actually a “fabric impression underneath,” and indeed “a yellowed canvas” visible through some cracks. There was an overall layer of dark green paint, to which had been added other colors, the report noted. Wax appeared to be “present below the paint layer” and the feet were described as being “a translucent colour, possibly consisting in part of wax.” While a taxidermist of the 1880s might possibly have used some of these materials (“Taxidermy” 1910; 1960), the overall effect is of a fabricated item, especially considering the canvas. Its impression showing through the paint suggests the lack of an intervening layer of true skin, for which the fabric was probably used as a substitute.

  Figure 23.1.Coleman Frog. Since the 1880s, folk have debated which is the greatest whopper: this giant amphibian or the claim that it is authentic.

  It should be noted that the largest frog actually known, according to The Guinness Book of Records (1999), is the African goliath frog (Conraua goliath), a record specimen of which measured a comparatively small 14 1/2 inches (sitting) and weighed just eight pounds, one ounce. At almost twice the length and five times the weight, Coleman’s pet froggie is no more credible than his other whoppers (his outrageous yarns about the imagined creature).

  In the museum file, I also came across a letter stating the policy of the historical society regarding the Coleman Frog. To a man who had objected to exhibition of the artifact, President E.W. Sansom (1961) wrote: “It was agreed… that the stuffed frog was of historical interest only as an artificial duplication used for publicity purposes by F.B. Coleman years ago in Fredericton. As such, the majority of those present felt the frog should be retained but only as an amusing example of a colossal fake and deception.” And so it remains on display, according to one journalist (Brewer 1973), “as big as life—yea, bigger.”

  References

  Brewer, Jacqueline. 1973. Famous Fredericton frog dates back to city’s founding. Daily Gleaner (Fredericton, N.B.), March 30.

  Coleman frog. n.d. Vertical files, York Sunbury Historical Society Museum and Fredericton Public Library (undated clippings, correspondence, etc.)

  Colombo, John Robert. 1988. Mysterious Canada: Strange Sights, Extraordinary Events, and Peculiar Places. Toronto: Doubleday Canada.

  The Guinness Book of Records. 1999, n.p.: Guinness Publishing, 122.

  McKinney, Mary. n.d. Canadianecdote, undated clipping from Macleans in Coleman n.d.

  Phillips, Fred H. 1982. Coleman frog a fake? Daily Gleaner (Fredericton, N.B.), April 22.

  Sansom, E.W. 1961. Letter to J. Winslow, Nov. 20 (in Coleman n.d.).

  “Taxidermy.” 1910; I960. Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  Chapter 24

  The Alien Likeness

  In a manner similar to the evolution of Jesus’ features in art (Nickell 1988,41-48), or of the popular likeness of Santa Claus (Flynn 1993) the concept of what alien creatures look like has undergone change over time. In the course of graduate work I did in folklore in 1982 and subsequently published (Nickell 1984), I noted (citing Stringfield 1980) that the descriptions of UFO occupants were tending to become standardized, a process that continues at present.

  Consider, for example, the development beginning with the origin of the modern UFO era in 1947. (Although many alien encounters were also reported for the pre-1947 period, most of the reports were actually made public after that year, typically with great lapses in time between the alleged date of the encounter and the date of reporting. [Vallee 1969, 179-90] Therefore, there is reason to distrust the accuracy of such reports.) Several sources show the great variety of aliens described in the post-1947 era. (Clark 1993; Cohen 1982; Hendry 1979; Huyghe 1996; Lorenzen and Lorenzen 1977; McCampbell 1976; Sachs 1980; Stringfield 1977, 1980; Story 1980; Vallee 1969) One notes the “little green men” reported in Italy in 1947 (Cohen 1982, 203-05); the beautiful, humanlike beings who appeared to the “contactees” of the 1950s (Story 1980, 89); the hairy dwarfs that were common in 1954 (Clark 1993,177); and the many other varieties of humanoids, monsters, robots, and other alien beings reported in encounters down to the present. The accompanying illustration (figure 24.1) depicts a selection of such beings reportedly encountered from 1947 to the present. (Science fiction examples have not been included.) Prepared for a Discovery channel documentary on alien abductions, this illustration also appeared April 4, 1997, on ABC’s 20/20 in a documentary on the “Alien Autopsy” hoax. There I used it to demonstrate that the aliens allegedly retrieved from the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash (actually the crash of a spy balloon) were of a type not popularly imagined until many years later.

  Figure 24.1.Alien Tim
e Line illustrates evolution of popular extraterrestrial likeness.

  Figure 24.2. Author s collection of alien toys and novelties shows the standardization of the depiction in popular culture.

  That type begins to appear in 1961, the date of the first widely reported alien abduction—the Betty and Barney Hill case. It is the little, big-headed humanoid with large, wraparound eyes. The mythological implication of this type seems to be that the aliens are “time travelers”—in effect, us as it is assumed we will be in our distant evolutionary future (Nickell 1984). Therefore they have dwindling bodies (because of our inactivity) and large brains (due to increased intelligence). However, some critics are skeptical of all such human/humanoid models. States one early commentator: “While it seems incredible that life does not exist elsewhere in the universe, it is equally incredible that it should resemble man” (Palmer 1951, 64). Nevertheless, due to media influence, this is the type that eventually became standardized. It is the alien image now seen everywhere—on T-shirts, caps, ties, necklaces, posters and books, even the coffee mug on my desk. (See figure 24.2).

  References

  Clark, Jerome. 1993. Unexplained. Detroit: Visible Ink.

  Cohen, Daniel. 1982. The Encyclopedia of Monsters.New York: Dorsett.

  Flynn, Tom. 1993. The Trouble With Christmas. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus.

  Hendry, Allan. 1979. The UFO Handbook. New York: Doubleday.

  Huyghe, Patrick. 1996. The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials. New York: Avon. (I relied heavily on this source, as well as Vallee 1969.)

  Lorenzen, Coral, and Jim Lorenzen. 1977. Abducted: Confrontations With Beings From Outer Space. New York: Berkeley Medallion.

  Mack, John. 1994. Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens.s New York: Ballantine.