Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Robert Villarreal from the Los Alamos National Laboratory

In a presentation The Ohio State University’s Blackwell Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) chemist, Robert Villarreal, disclosed new findings showing that the sample of material used in 1988 to Carbon dating could not have been from the original linen cloth because it was cotton. According to Villarreal, who lead the LANL team working on the project, thread samples they examined from directly adjacent to the sampling area were “definitely not linen” and, instead, matched cotton. Villarreal pointed out: 

the [1988] age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry, that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three thread samples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case.

Villarreal also revealed that, during testing, one of the threads came apart in the middle forming two separate pieces. A surface resin, that may have been holding the two pieces together, fell off and was analyzed. Surprisingly, the two ends of the thread had different chemical compositions, lending credence to Rogers’ finding in Thermochimica Acta. 

After conducting analysis at high vacuum with the ToF-SIMS, the “spliced thread” broke into three distinct pieces; a fuzzy end (Region 1), a tight woven end (Region 2), and a micro-sized circular cocoon-shaped brown crust that seemed to be connecting the two end pieces.  The ToF-SIMS results were the first to show that the spectra from the two ends were similar to cotton rather than linen (flax) and the Spectroscopist recommended that the next analysis should be with the FTIR instrument.  After several scans of individual fibers or strands, the FTIR data showed that the two ends (Region 1 and 2) were definitely cotton and not linen (flax).  The crust appeared to be an organic-based resin, perhaps a terpene species, with cotton as a main sub-component.  After showing  the FTIR data to Barrie Schwortz and Sue Benford, they were quite surprised at the results and decided to send me two other pieces of thread (No. 7 and 14) that were from the same sampling area and that had been in John Brown’s Lab in Marrietta, Georgia.

The results of the FTIR analysis on all three threads taken from the Raes sampling area (adjacent to the C-14 sampling corner) led to identification of the fibers as cotton and definitely not linen (flax).  Note, that all age dating analyses were conducted on samples taken from this same area.  Apparently, the age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three thread samples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case. What was true for the part was most certainly not true for the whole.  This finding is supported by the spectroscopic data provided in this presentation.

The recommendations that stem from the above analytical study is that a new age dating should be conducted but assuring that the sample analyzed represents the original main shroud image area, i.e. the fibers must be linen (flax) and not cotton or some other material.  It is only then that the age dating will be scientifically correct.