The Shroud of Turin, long considered by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus, has inconsistent bloodstain patterns that suggest it is a fake, a new forensic investigation has found. Held in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, the shroud shows the image of a crucified man and has been analyzed and scrutinized for many, many years. It has been analyzed for decades, to some controversy, with radiocarbon dating determining its origin to be between 1260 and 1390. The Vatican regards it as an icon, rather than a religious relic—and the church has never weighed in on its authenticity nor officially rejected it. In 2015, more than 2 million people saw the Shroud of Turin, which is 14-feet-long, 3.5-feet-wide and kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case. The bloodstain pattern investigation reported on Tuesday by the Journal of Forensic Sciences is the first such analysis of the cloth, looking at its purported blood splatters and their alignment to each other in a kind of crime scene analysis. Researchers concluded that the linen seems to be patched with bloodstains from a standing model, not a crucified man or a facedown corpse, reports BuzzFeed News, adding evidence to claims that it is a fraud. This is where forensic anthropologist Matteo Borrini of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK and organic chemist Luigi Garlaschelli of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences enter the picture. “Even a crucified or hanging person should leave a distinct blood pattern on the cloth, which would be fascinating information to have.” 
 
 Borrini conducted the analysis with chemist Luigi Garlaschelli of the University of Pavia in Italy, using real and synthetic blood samples on cloth to test the orientation of stains on the better-defined left side of the cloth (they also compared the two liquids to see if they flowed the same way). Instead, they found that the bloodstains are inconsistent with any one pose, suggesting that a standing model was used to imprint the patterns at different angles for the hands, chest, and back. By pumping blood onto a model at wound points shown on the shroud, researchers could compare the angle that gravity pulled the liquid against the direction depicted on the linen. 11-MILLION-TON ICEBERG THREATENS TO INUNDATE TINY GREENLAND VILLAGE WITH TSUNAMI 
 
 If it was truly the death shroud of someone hung on a cross, or pulled down from one for burial, Borrini said, “the bloodstains shouldn’t be so inconsistent.” 
 
 BuzzFeed reports that researchers found forearm rivulets matched an arm held straight out around 90 degrees to the side, for example, while the hand marks matched an arm held out at about 45 degrees. Some hand bloodstains traced angles at odds with each other as well, off by as much as 10 degrees. A simulated spear wound in the chest ran in completely different patterns than the one on the shroud, whether standing or prone. “This is just not what happens to a person on a cross,” Borrini said.
– The Shroud of Turin is supposedly the burial cloth that was wrapped around Jesus after his crucifixion; bloodstains on the linen shroud, which are said to have been transferred to it during the three days Jesus was in the tomb, form the image of a crucified man. But a new study reported in the Journal of Forensic Sciences finds the bloodstain image was likely faked. Researchers looking at the blood spatter found that the stains appeared to come from someone standing up, rather than someone who was flat on the fabric, Science Alert reports. As the researchers put it, the stains are "totally unrealistic" when compared to what they should look like. The shroud, which is held in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Italy, is considered an icon, as opposed to a genuine religious relic, by the Vatican; Fox News notes "the church has never weighed in on its authenticity." "This is the kind of forensic work done all the time in police investigations," the forensic scientist who conducted the analysis tells BuzzFeed News. "Even a crucified or hanging person should leave a distinct blood pattern on the cloth, which would be fascinating information to have." The study found inconsistent staining, with researchers concluding multiple poses were used to create the bloodstains—a standing model was likely used to imprint patterns on the cloth at various angles for various body parts. Another bloodstain pattern expert notes that more research could be done to see whether cleaning a body or preparing it for burial might account for the inconsistent staining, though he notes that the stains do appear to have come from flowing blood, meaning a heart that was beating at the time the stains were made. (See previous stories in the real-or-fake debate here.)