April Fools Day: For Immediate Release
The following is from a reader in Chicago:
For Immediate Release
Margaritaville, Bimini – April 1, 2012 – Conspiracy theorists Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince (yes, that really is a picture of them) announced the release of their latest book, “Okay, So Leonardo Didn’t Do It.”
“Our main thesis has been that the shroud was a self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci,” said Clive. “Then I realized how much I looked like Leonardo. That meant we needed a new theory.”
Capitalizing on the work of ENEA in Italy, the couple concluded that the shroud was painted by the American artist Jackson Pollock (1912 – 1956).
At first, believing that the Italian scientist Paolo de Lazzaro was right, we tried a gazillion-volt laser. The results, as you can see, were promising.
Later, with the help of a graphics artist from the Granada College of Surfing Technology, we discovered an improved method, pictured here, that comes very close to corona discharge. The photograph even shows how Pollock was able to add travertine aragonite from the soul of his shoe.
Picknett and Prince recently published an article in Fortean about another of their books, “The Stargate Conspiracy.”
Yes, this is the cover line: Pyramid Scheme Revealed: The CIA’s Drug Fuelled Plot to Bring Back Egypt’s Ancient Gods.
This last part about the article in Fortean is not part of the April Fools day joke. Here is the cover shot, for real:
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Is the Shroud real? Probably.
The Shroud of Turin may be the real burial cloth of Jesus. The carbon dating, once seemingly proving it was a medieval fake, is now widely thought of as suspect and meaningless. Even the famous Atheist Richard Dawkins admits it is controversial. Christopher Ramsey, the director of the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, thinks more testing is needed. So do many other scientists and archeologists. This is because there are significant scientific and non-religious reasons to doubt the validity of the tests. Chemical analysis, all nicely peer-reviewed in scientific journals and subsequently confirmed by numerous chemists, shows that samples tested are chemically unlike the whole cloth. It was probably a mixture of older threads and newer threads woven into the cloth as part of a medieval repair. Recent robust statistical studies add weight to this theory. Philip Ball, the former physical science editor for Nature when the carbon dating results were published, recently wrote: “It’s fair to say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests in 1988, the status of the Shroud of Turin is murkier than ever.” If we wish to be scientific we must admit we do not know how old the cloth is. But if the newer thread is about half of what was tested – and some evidence suggests that – it is possible that the cloth is from the time of Christ.
No one has a good idea how front and back images of a crucified man came to be on the cloth. Yes, it is possible to create images that look similar. But no one has created images that match the chemistry, peculiar superficiality and profoundly mysterious three-dimensional information content of the images on the Shroud. Again, this is all published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We simply do not have enough reliable information to arrive at a scientifically rigorous conclusion. Years ago, as a skeptic of the Shroud, I came to realize that while I might believe it was a fake, I could not know so from the facts. Now, as someone who believes it is the real burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth, I similarly realize that a leap of faith over unanswered questions is essential.
My name is Dan Porter. Please email me at DanielRobertPorter@gmail.com
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