What do you think about this?
Kept in a cathedral in Turin, Italy, is a strip of linen about fourteen feet long that millions believe once wrapped the body of Jesus. The Shroud of Turin bears the faint, full length image of a man, front and back, marked with wounds that match a crucifixion. What makes it extraordinary is the image itself. It behaves like a photographic negative, its details becoming clearer and more lifelike when reversed, a quality no one noticed until the shroud was first photographed in 1898.
For centuries it has been argued over. In 1988, three separate laboratories radiocarbon dated small samples of the cloth and concluded it came from between roughly 1260 and 1390, the Middle Ages, seeming to settle the matter as a medieval creation.
But the debate never died. Critics of the test argue the sample was cut from a corner that had been repaired and rewoven after fire damage, throwing off the result. Researchers still cannot fully explain how the image was formed, since it is not painted, scorched, or dyed in any ordinary way, and lies only on the very topmost fibers of the cloth.
Is it possible that a piece of cloth could carry a genuine mystery science has not cracked, whatever one believes about whose image it holds?
A masterful medieval artwork, or a genuine relic whose making we still cannot explain? What do you think the Shroud of Turin really is?
What do you think about this? In 1579 Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind somewhere on the northern California coast and claimed the land for England. Nobody can say which beach. A brass plate found in 1936 was celebrated for decades, then proved a hoax. Point Reyes, or somewhere else?
What do you think about this? Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one is engraved on copper instead of parchment, and it is a treasure map. It lists 64 hiding places holding tons of gold and silver. Not one has ever been found. Real temple gold, or an ancient legend set in metal?
What do you think about this? On August 15, 1977, an Ohio telescope caught a 72 second burst from Sagittarius, 30 times stronger than background, right on the hydrogen frequency. The astronomer circled it and wrote Wow. It never came back. Fluke, or one word of a conversation?
What do you think about this? The Shroud of Turin carries a full length image of a man that behaves like a photographic negative, which nobody noticed until it was first photographed in 1898. Carbon dating said medieval. Nobody can explain how the image formed. Artwork, or something else?
What do you think about this? In December 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished from a rock off Scotland. Door shut, meal uneaten, clocks stopped, one oilskin still on its hook, so a man walked into a storm without it. No bodies found. Rogue wave, or something stranger on that island?
What do you think about this? In 1977 a police constable signed a statement saying she watched a chair lift and slide four feet across a room in Enfield, London, with nobody near it. The girls were later caught faking some of it. Hoax, or something real that two bored children embellished?
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