Shroud of Turin
McCrone's most famous analytical work began with his participation in the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen cloth, claimed by some to be the burial shroud of Jesus and dismissed by others as a medieval fake. Its advocates include the Holy Shroud Guild, established by the Roman Catholic Church in the United States in 1951.
In 1977, a team of scientists selected by the Holy Shroud Guild developed a program of tests that they proposed to conduct on the Shroud. The Archbishop of Turin granted permission. The STURP scientists conducted their testing over five days in 1978. McCrone, upon analyzing the samples he had, concluded that the red stains that had been pointed to as blood were actually pigment—specifically, red ochre and vermilion tempera paint.
Two later additions to the STURP team, John Heller and Alan Adler, published their own peer-reviewed analysis concluding that the stains were blood. (Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "Blood on the Shroud of Turin", Applied Optics, 19:2742-4, 1980; Heller, J.H. and A.D. Adler, "A Chemical Investigation on the Shroud of Turin", Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal 81-103, 1981) According to Shroud skeptic Joe Nickell, neither Heller nor Adler was a forensic serologist or a pigment expert. Nickell adds that, "at the 1983 conference of the International Association for Identification, forensic analyst John E Fischer explained how results similar to theirs could be obtained from tempera paint." McCrone adhered to his opinion that comparison of microscopic images showed that the stain on the Shroud was not blood.
STURP members also disputed McCrone's similar conclusion that the Shroud image was painted. They contended (also in peer-reviewed papers) that physical analyses excluded the presence of pigments in sufficient quantities to be accountable for the image. (For a summary of STURP studies see L.A. Schwalbe, R.N. Rogers, Analytica Chimica Acta 135, 3-49, 1982.)
McCrone resigned from the STURP team in June 1980. In McCrone's words, he was "drummed out" of STURP. Heller, however, stated that McCrone resigned after being "insulted" by the STURP's reviewers' conclusion that the papers McCrone submitted to be vetted for publication contained data that were "misrepresented", observations that were "highly questionable", and conclusions that were "pontifications" rather than "scientific logic" (Heller, Report on the Shroud of Turin, p. 184).
Until McCrone's death in 2002, he continued to comment on and explain the analysis he had performed, and he became a prominent figure in the ongoing Shroud of Turin controversy. His book on the subject, Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (ISBN 1-57392-679-5), was published in 1999.
Read more about this topic: Walter McCrone
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