Artificial Intelligence Analysis of Images of the Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is a linen relic containing an image of a crucified man and this cloth has been studied extensively. To date the physical cause of the image has not been determined by science. Many researchers hypothesize that radiation was involved in causing the image. This paper discusses the application of a pattern recognition and an image processing technique to the Shroud of Turin, with the objective to elucidate information about the image’s cause. Both visible light and induced fluorescence Shroud images are discussed. These images are converted to the CIELab color space where the L dimension gives the image intensity. For both the visible light and induced fluorescence images, it is found that image intensity contains the vast amount of information in the images. Differentiation of image intensity also demonstrates the three-dimensional properties of the Shroud image. The results in this paper support the radiation hypothesis for the Shroud’s image formation. Several potential types of radiation are presented as candidates for causing the image. In order to explain the image scientifically additional research on the Shroud itself should be carried out to determine whether radiation was involved and if so which type of radiation caused the image to form.