Leina wrote that headline in a comment. Others liked the simple words of Mark Shea: “If it’s a fraud, make another one.”
Only problem is some people think they can do that. How many now? Nicholas Allen, Luigi Garlaschelli, Nathan Wilson, Joe Nickell, Emily Craig, and so forth. How many hypotheses? Photography, dust painting, acid laden paint, scorching with hot statues, etc.
Here is a new one from ColinB, aka sciencebod, aka newsjunkie at Science Buzz. Forget that fact that it has been shown over and over, with reason after reason, that the image cannot be heat produced. What makes this one fun is that the face is Tom Chivers of The Telegraph.
From the website:
Here is a series of pictures that should tell the story without needing a lot of words.
Photograph, "shroud cloth", charcoal
Place photograph under fabric, place on glass sheet, illuminate from beneath
Completed charcoal tracing
After radiating from a 60W spot light for about 5-10 mins, viewed from reverse side before washing – selective scorching apparent.
After washing out the charcoal and drying. OK, so the image is faint (but then so is the Turin Shroud’s!)
Hiya Tom. You’re not looking your usual self today… Feeling a bit browned off?
I take your point that the image cannot be reproduced with heat alone, at least on cellulosic plant fibre fabrics, if it fails the simple but crucial adhesive-tape strippability test.
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/science.htm
(Yup. plain old Sellotape has amazing pulling power – being the Nobel Prize-winning means by which graphene was first separated from graphite one layer at a time.)
I’m doing an experiment later today with starch-impregnated cotton.