The cloth being referred to is commonly known as the  Shroud of Turin, and it has been a
subject of much debate and controversy for centuries. The image on the cloth is
believed by some to be the imprint of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion, while
others are more skeptical.

In 1978, a team of scientists examined the shroud to
try and determine how the image was formed. The team used a variety of
scientific methods, including radiocarbon dating, to analyze the cloth. The
results of these tests were inconclusive, with some suggesting that the cloth
could date back to the time of Jesus, while others argued that it was a
medieval forgery.

The final report of the team of scientists who examined the shroud in 1978. The report
acknowledges that the image on the cloth appears to be that of a real human
form of a scourged, crucified man, and that the blood stains on the cloth are
consistent with human blood. However, the report does not definitively conclude
that the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

Despite the inconclusive findings of the 1978 investigation, the Shroud of Turin remains a
subject of interest and debate among scholars and the general public alike.
While some believe that the shroud is an authentic relic of Jesus Christ,
others are more skeptical, pointing to the lack of definitive proof and the
possibility that the shroud may be a medieval forgery.

What gave me complete belief that this is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ is the
results found by examining the image with the VP-8 Image Analyzer.

The VP-8 Image Analyzer is an analog device that converts image density (lights and darks) into
vertical relief (shadows and highlights). When applied to normal photographs,
the result was a distorted and inaccurate image. However, when it was applied
to the Shroud, the result was an accurate, topographic image showing the
correct, natural relief characteristics of a human form. These results are
often referred to as “three-dimensional.”

In 1976, a group of scientists who were using a VP-8 at Sandia Laboratories to
evaluate x-rays, put a 1931 Enrie photograph of the Shroud of Turin into the
device and were able to visualize the three-dimensional properties that exist
in the Shroud image. This particularly intrigued two of the researchers present
at the test, Dr. Eric Jumper and Dr. John Jackson. Stimulated by their startling discovery, they
decided to form a research team to investigate what might have formed the image
on the cloth and within a few months, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP)
was born. Two years later, that same team would perform the first ever, in-depth scientific examination of the

Shroud of Turin.

When input to a VP-8, a normal photograph does not result in a properly formed
dimensional image but in a rather distorted jumble of light and dark
“shapes.” That is because the lights and darks of a normal photograph
result solely from the amount of light reflected by the subject onto the film.
The image densities do not depend on the distance the subject was from the
film. Yet the image on the Shroud of Turin yields a very accurate dimensional
relief of a human form. One must conclude from this that the image density on
the cloth is directly proportionate to the distance it was from the body it
covered. In essence, the closer the cloth was to the body (tip of nose,
cheekbone, etc.), the darker the image, and the further away (eye sockets,
neck, etc.), the fainter the image. This spatial data encoded into the image
actually eliminates photography and painting as the possible mechanism for its creation
and allows us to conclude that the image was formed while the cloth was draped
over an actual human body. So the VP-8 Image Analyzer not only revealed a very
important characteristic of the Shroud image, but historically it also provided
the actual motivation to form the team that would ultimately go and investigate
it. Interestingly, only sixty VP-8 Image Analyzers were ever constructed and
only two remain functional today.