Shroud Interview with Pam McCue
Guy: [00:00:00] Hey, I'm Guy Powell and welcome to the next episode of the Backstory on the Shroud of Turin. If you haven't already done so, please visit guypowell. com and sign up for more episodes. I am the author of the book, The Only Witness. It's a Christian historical fiction tracing a possible history of the Shroud over the last two millennia.
Today I'm speaking with Pam McHugh and she is a wonderful Long time, fabulous researcher and speaker on the Shroud. And but, so let me tell you a little bit about her. So Pam is focused on the science and wonder of the Shroud of Turin. She began researching the Shroud intensely in 2014, after she retired as a senior executive in the U.
S. Department of Defense. She's an experienced speaker who has presented the Shroud to groups at churches, schools, retreats, and public venues. She developed a mobile display that has been popular and is now [00:01:00] also displaying the high impact Othonia exhibit from the 2024 Catholic National Eucharistic Congress.
Her goal is for as many people as possible to be exposed to the wonder of the Shroud, the most studied object in history, and to ponder for themselves the question, Who is the man of the Shroud? She works closely with Othonia to keep the exhibit current and supports the National Shroud of Turin exhibit as they develop a permanent exhibit in Washington, D.
C. Wow, it's what a background and what a great thing to have that exhibit. Pam, thank you so much for being here.
Pam: Thanks, Guy. It is an honor to be here with you.
Guy: Oh, absolutely. No problem. Tell us your backstory and how you got involved in studying the Shroud.
Pam: I think my back story is actually begins very similarly to yours in that I heard about the shroud [00:02:00] in the 1980s and thought, oh, that sounds very intriguing.
And then shortly after that was the carbon 14 testing, which came out and pretty confidently said that science, Said that it wasn't authentic so it was off my radar screen for a long time after that. And about 10 years ago only I went to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and Othonia, which Othonia is a word that means linen.
Othonia is a research and education arm. Of a pontifical university in Rome, and they have shroud exhibits really all around the world. And so they had this exhibit set up in Jerusalem, and I went into this exhibit and was just blown away by the amount [00:03:00] of research and the amount of information on the shroud.
Of course, I know now. It's the most studied object in the world. And there's the strange photographic negative, all the medical analysis on the wounds and the blood and the history and there was a beautiful statue by Luigi Mattei. That was built using the 3 dimensional information that you can get from the shroud.
So it mimics the man in the shroud and I could not believe it. I'm an engineer by training and I could not believe that all this was out there. And I didn't know about it. So the 1st thing I went through the exhibit 3 or 4 times when I was in Jerusalem, which there's a lot more to see in Jerusalem.
But I was going to the shroud exhibit and when I came back, I [00:04:00] think, by divine providence, I 1st. Connected with John Jackson's book. Dr. Jackson is 1 of the preeminent scientists on the shroud and I connected with a draft copy of his latest book and started pouring over it. And spent at least a year it didn't take long to convince myself that it was the real deal, but it took me a long time to feel like I had at least a working grasp of the analysis that goes along with the shroud and I got every book I could get and read books and then I started talking to friends.
And then I started talking to groups and then I started going to conferences and exhibits and then I thought I think I need my own exhibit. So I made my own and then in 2020, I connected with Nora, who [00:05:00] was with a Thonia, but in the United States, and she was working to update. Their exhibits and so I connected with her and now I have one of those Athonia exhibits myself to share with other people.
Guy: Yeah, it's interesting. You read the John Jackson book and and my book was Ian Wilson's book and it's amazing how it just captivates you and you go, I just have to learn more. There's just so much here. And then and then that also, as or might know as that inspired me to to write my book and it inspired you to to really dig deeper and then once you get into it, you can't get out because there's so many little things.
That big things and little things that, you could learn about and study and analyze and then, and turn into new knowledge about the shroud. It's really amazing. What is the, what's the 1 thing you really think that, that speaks the loudest to you about the [00:06:00] shroud?
Pam: To me, it's the mystery of the image, it's that image that when you look at it.
On the shroud itself, the natural view, it's very vague. And it's hard to figure out what my, what made it you see the image, you see the blood around it, but then you take a photograph of it and the photographic negative pops that detail out to you and I think that just the mysterious nature of it.
But also, because it has been studied so much, there's so much science that helps you understand that. John Jackson has a quote about it that I won't get exactly right, but I'll get it close. And that is that you can explain the shroud according to the science. But only if you assume it [00:07:00] wrapped a crucified body to which something supernatural happened and I think that pretty much sums it up.
So the nature, the nature of that image, that vague image. It's very superficial. It's only in the top fibers of the cloth, not, it doesn't penetrate the thread. Chemists say it's a consistent yellow brown color. Chemists say that color came from the plant cell. So it was the linen itself that created the color.
It's got it gives you 3 dimensional information because where the body was closer to the cloth, there's more fibers that are colored and where it's further away. There's fewer fibers that are colored, but actually there's. Fibers that are colored for the cloth could not have been touching the [00:08:00] body, but it was near and that is just the weirdest of all things.
But when you follow the science of it, it tells you that it was energy or radiation from the body. That had to make that image, which is why John Jackson has the quote about, you've got to assume that it was the glorified body of Jesus who made that image. If you want to follow the science trail.
Yeah, so that
Pam: is my thing and I love it and I probably should not start out with that all the time when I'm talking about the trial because it is.
It's just the hardest thing to get your head around.
Guy: Yeah, definitely. And it has been perplexing so many scientists for so long on both sides, on the authenticist side and even on the non authenticist side as to, how to try and explain it. And, and you [00:09:00] mentioned the two different incredible properties, which I mean, modern science can't even figure out how to do it.
And that's the 3D qualities, which you mentioned, and then also the negative, the black and white, or the negative properties of the image. And those two things, they absolutely didn't exist. 2, 000 years ago, nor did they exist 600 years ago when the non authenticists think that the shroud was was made by hand.
And if that's the case, then it certainly wasn't made by hand, but also It had to have been miraculously made, which then absolutely ties in with the, with Jesus and the Gospels and his divine and human nature and everything that we, associate with him as we, as a Christian that we associate with him.
Pam: Yes, and I am very grateful to David Roth, the UK filmmaker who who [00:10:00] has the. Offer of a 1, 000, 000 dollars or a 1, 000, 000 pounds to anyone who could faithfully reproduce the shroud because before he made that offer, you would often see articles that someone had reproduced the shroud when they might have reproduced.
Some character of it, but not the whole thing. Not that photographic negative. Not the strangeness of the character of the image on the cloth. But since he has that reward out, you don't really see claims that they've reproduced it anymore. They've got to follow through.
Guy: Yeah, exactly. And that's a, that was such a unique.
Way to, to really counter the non authenticists to say yeah, we could produce that, reproduce that in the lab. And if they could, if it were that easy, then, have at it. Where is it? Absolutely. Now, unfortunately, there has been other testing on the Shroud, and [00:11:00] 99 percent of the Shroud testing that's been done really points to a an age of the Shroud of about 2, 000 years from the 1st century.
Coincident with Christ, and so then it, all of those tests, lead us to believe that the Shroud is authentic, and then, unfortunately, 1988, The radiocarbon testing, the carbon 14 testing, whatever you want to call it, came out. Tell us a little bit about that.
Pam: Yes, so I, I have a personal grudge against it because that really is what kind of turns me away from the shroud in the 80s.
I would have been working on this thing for 30 something more years, but so I think, and as a scientist, it is the worst of science. The carbon 14 testing, when it came out, and it was confidently proclaimed. This was a mediaeval article with [00:12:00] 95 percent confidence. It turns so many people just away, like me.
And I think the best of science is you continue to look for things. You're open your test results are open, you share. This was the worst of science because they knew that they were violating. Their protocol, there were a number of testers. All of them may not have known, but clearly the guys who were the lead knew that they were violating their test protocol and that they should not have claimed it.
A valid test because they had samples that were statistically bad, there was a systemic bias. Instead of saying they didn't have a valid test, I'm sure they had a lot of public pressure to come through with a date and instead of just proclaiming they, they didn't have a valid test. They hid data.[00:13:00]
And they manipulated it to do this 95 percent confidence and it's a real, it really had a very bad impact on the shroud. Fortunately, people continue to work on it. As you mentioned, there were a lot of other tests, a lot of other aging tests on the linen that showed that it was older. Then 13th, 14th century that it was consistent with 1st century and just the examination of the linen itself would tell you that.
And so after, people who really knew that it was off continued. Working and fighting it there were several people that really pushed to get the data from the carbon 14 test released. Tristan Casa Bianca from France was the 1 who finally broke it loose and with a freedom of [00:14:00] information act and showed that the data was there that the data.
Said that they did not have a valid test, that it was a systemic bias and it should not have been called.
Guy: Yeah, it's, it's amazing when you think about what that test did and because it's the same with me. I had heard about the STIRP. I remember reading about that in 1978 and then, I wasn't really not interested in it, but it was a very interesting, but.
Kind of something that you think about, but didn't really react to it. And then in 1988, when the carbon 14 test results were announced, then it was oh how's, that's weird. Here it is. It's now been disproven, so to speak. And to your point, there goes 30 years of research.
The good news is, though, that right now, There are so many people working on the Shroud and doing different pieces of it, studying the history, studying the image, studying the blood, studying the, every little piece of about it, the chemistry and [00:15:00] everything like that. And it really has And there's, this, it's hard to keep up.
I can't keep up. I wish I had, more time on it. But, what's really interesting, though, is when you look at that image and you see the whole shroud image about 14 feet long by about 3 feet high, and you look at the man in the image his front and back, You really start to come contemplate and reflect on Jesus.
So when you do that, what stands out most for you?
Pam: Yeah, so I, I think you cannot look at it, especially with all the work that's been done and not look at how well it matches the gospel description of Jesus and, but it goes beyond that. It matches the gospel description and it adds a richness to it that just opened your eyes.
On every part of the gospel description, so you have [00:16:00] the scourging of Jesus and you see the research on the shroud says by one count 372 scourge wounds. Which is unbelievable and those scourge wounds aren't just minor little scratches, you can look at it with ultraviolet light and see the serum rings and the uniqueness of those wounds and medical analysis says they would have been, it would have critically injured the man of the shroud.
So that's the scourging. You have the crown of thorns. You see the blood that's coming from the head. Area on the from the crown of thorns. There's not another reference to crown of thorns anywhere, but Jesus and what you saw most often in art was the circlet crown, but this shows that it would have been a cap.
Over the whole head, so it gives you [00:17:00] that richness. There's the nail holes that if you took a, if you take a Roman nail and or a replica of a Roman nail and hold it up, it's the perfect match to the wound in the shroud. And yet it's not in the middle of the palm, like most of the art at the time showed it, it's toward the wrist.
And you find out later it needed to be toward the wrist because otherwise the body would pull through the hand and similarly the spirit in the side. So the spirit, the spear wound is in the right side of the body. I've heard a lot of people say, but. Why would it be in the right side? It should be in the left side if they were going to spear the heart.
That is that is documented the way that Romans would spear someone. It would be in their right side. They were trained to use the spear that way, and that's documented in a Julius Caesar [00:18:00] book, Tales of a Gaelic, or. The Gaelic war book by Julius Caesar. There's so much, there's so much that not only is it superficially match the gospel, it gives you more of an understanding of exactly what that meant, but my personal favorite thing is the face.
So when you look at that holy face, especially when you look at the photographic negative, where you can really see the detail. You see the wounds in the face, but to me, it's not tortured. It's not tortured in death. It's like peaceful waiting for the resurrection. While you can see all of these, you're not looking at a tortured, broken person.
You're looking at the face that is near the resurrection.
Guy: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. And, the first time that I [00:19:00] saw the the shroud laid out in, and this was now in the original color was up at the Museum of the Bible. I guess that was what, maybe 2, 3 years ago now, 2020, 2020.
Yeah, COVID. That's right. And I remember sitting in front of that and it was such a. Yeah. It's a very serene feeling that comes over you as you contemplate that image and then what he represents for all of us. And what he then of course, from as a body, as a human, suffered. And the the pain that he went through what that The thorns being rammed into his skull, with the pieces of his beard being torn out, being punched in the face, and those are the simple ones.
Then you have, like you said, the hundreds of scourge marks, and then the nails in the arms and the feet, and and just the way then you're positioned on the crucifix so that you end up, [00:20:00] not only, your muscles then just it gets so exhausted and you can barely breathe and then you die of asphyxiation and yet In his death, in that image, that serene look of his face, absolutely just pops right out.
And you can see that, exactly the feeling that you're talking about there. Yeah now as you've studied the shroud who have you seen as being, the biggest influence on you? Other than me, of course. You are a big one.
Pam: So we met so we were both at the Museum of the Bible event.
In 2020, that's when I met Nora, but we didn't really meet to really connect until. Yeah, but I love what you do. I love what you and Nora Creech are the 2 best for just pulling people together. So all of us, go our different way but there's a few people who just help connect people and you were 1 of those.
And I really thank you. I appreciate [00:21:00] that. So John Jacks. Captain has been a huge influence on me. I've, I had a chance to do a couple of hours session with him one time, but I think his work is, it was just inspired, as a young Air Force captain. He was like, instrumental to getting these people together and getting a US team to turn.
And that has made a huge difference in our knowledge of the shroud and I love his book because it's science based and that's how I think. So I love him very shorts. Sadly, Barry passed away this year. And I am just so sad because Barry was such a wonderful person. He had the. Foresight to put together that shroud dot com data base repository for us, and he was so generous with his sharing of his knowledge and his time.[00:22:00]
And he was a very significant influence to me and really, I think Joe Marino, who is who is a great, Analyst in his own right and has picked up. shroud.com also is a huge influence. And then just a lot of people, you've got Cheryl White, Dr. Cheryl White, who's a. Who's a art historian who is a wonderful spokesperson for the Shroud father Spitzer, who is a educator, brilliant educator and advocate for the Shroud.
Do I have time to tell you a little trick?
Absolutely.
Pam: Let's see how I'll try to do this pretty succinctly. Another I mentioned Nora is a dear friend and I think is huge influence in all of us in the shroud community. But 1 person I want to call out is Jason Pearson. Do you know Jason?
Guy: No,
Pam: he's from Southern [00:23:00] California.
He is a low key super cool documentary. Producer, and he was with us in Indianapolis at the big conference that we were at, and he showed me a trick that has made so much difference on people as I've been talking to him on the shroud. I want to quickly tell you this trick. The photographic negative is hard to explain to people.
So there is a mode on your phone. I know where it is on my phone and I could figure out where it was on other phones that's in your phone settings. Do you know about this?
Yes. Yeah.
Pam: Okay. So you go to your phone settings, you go to accessibility, you go to display and text and there's a mode called classic invert and that makes your whole phone.
Photographic negative mode, and if you take that mode and look at a picture of the shroud, it [00:24:00] doesn't have to be the real shroud, a picture of the shroud, the detailed face, or whatever pops out at you, and I found that to be such a wonderful thing in communicating it to people because they see the photographic negative, but, somehow it's separate from the shroud.
But if you show them, if you look at the shroud in this mode, it pops out at you and look at everybody else in this mode. They just look weird. And so I had to give a call out to Jason because he shares his knowledge and he's so low key and he does wonderful things.
Guy: Yeah. Thank you for that. It was actually Pete Schumacher that showed me that that trick and and it is fascinating because when you do it to a real human it's different than the face that you have on the shroud.
And that in and of itself is another kind of a proof that there's something unusual about this image. And how is [00:25:00] it that we, even in the modern era, how can we even. Try to reproduce that, to get that same kind of an effect.
Yeah, it
Pam: shows you how very strange it is on your iPhone.
Guy: Yeah, that is so true. That is so true. So those were some of the people what are some of the best websites? If you were going to point someone in the direction to learn more, what what websites would you point them to?
Pam: You got to say shroud. com 1st, because it really has the repository.
So you can find stuff there and they do a great job of kind of pushing new stuff. So you can see what the new developments are. That 1st, number 1, Norah Creech has a great site shrouded educator. com and for me with my exhibit, I'll see you there. Nora covers exhibits and where you could find an exhibit in the U.
S. And she's got lots of great [00:26:00] information on her site in general at the Shroud Center of Southern California also has a really great website. I think with a lot of video material and book recommendations and things like that.
Guy: And then what about other people or other books that you might recommend?
Pam: Yeah, so I can't say enough. John Jackson's book. I love Jack Marquardt's
Guy: book.
Jack
Pam: Marquardt has a book on the ancient history. I think he calls it the hidden history of the Shroud. And I think the history, and you do a lot with this too, Guy. I think that the history. Has more to pull together than we have done yet.
I think there's a lot of people who aren't comfortable who think there's too many gaps in the history when actually there's quite a bit if you start [00:27:00] really pulling it together. So I really applaud you. And I think Jack did a great job at putting some of the applying logic. And building this story, which both of you have done and trying to pull more of the history in there.
And it's really fascinating. That is a book that I would recommend there's a lot of good basic ones.
Guy: Yeah, he's done such a good job on history and I've been he's been mentoring me on some of the stuff that I've been doing around the images and of Christ and the these Christ Pantocrator images that you see in a lot of the ancient churches and and his, just his ability to look at each of these historical periods and say from here to here This is these are the things that reference either directly or indirectly to the shroud and I can't say enough about how well he's done.
Pam: Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. I think there's a lot of potential for us to [00:28:00] get closer just because it is work
Guy: well. And 2, that's 1 of the. The arguments of the the non authenticists that say there's no history prior to the 1350s or so, and yet there is a ton of history, but, unfortunately, they want to ignore all that, and they just think it was originally started to be exhibited in Lire, France in the 1350s, and prior to that, nobody knew anything about it.
And yet that's, that's just just not true. It's always great to to talk about the shroud and and itself. What do you have in front of you? What's going on in the next couple of weeks, couple of months for you.
Pam: I am all about my exhibit right now.
So I, after so this Athonia exhibit debuted in July in Indianapolis, and we got about 10, 000 people through it, and we're just limited by space and time. I'm going to be carrying that around at least the eastern [00:29:00] part of the country. I'm going to Minnesota twice, Ohio, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2 places, Nashville, Tennessee, Ohio, Sunbury, Ohio, Pittsburgh, maybe Pennsylvania.
So I'm. I'm going to be carrying this exhibit to places, leaving it up about a week at a time and and letting people absorb it the same way that I was able to in Jerusalem when I saw the first exhibit. And I'm hoping, I hope out of that, that there will be some people who say, hey, I want to get one of these exhibits for my area.
And I would love to propagate these around the country so that we could expose more people to the story of the Shroud.
Guy: Yeah, and that exhibit it, and when you did it in Indianapolis, that was at the National Eucharistic Conference.
Pam: It was.
Guy: And or and I [00:30:00] think you said, or I read as well, Jonathan Rumi of Chosen was there, and he got a chance to be introduced to it, and I think he learned a lot about, How possibly Jesus was positioned on the cross because he was in the process of also getting ready for his the resurrection story in his in his series.
Pam: That was a thrill for me. I got to show him the photographic negative trick. So that was the thrill for me. And he is really now to me. He's the face of Jesus. And honestly, he looked a lot like the face of Jesus on the shroud.
Guy: I think God
Pam: touched him for that.
Guy: Yes. Yeah, exactly. He really does. I will admit.
He definitely looks like that. So you have this exhibit. And as I understand it, it's been totally vetted. All of the statements are as best as we know, 100 percent correct. There's nothing on there that might be, shaded one way or the other. When they see that [00:31:00] exhibit, what do you want people to come away with?
What is it that you'd like them to be able to experience and feel as they as after they've experienced the exhibit?
Pam: I think the best thing would be for them. To get that same curiosity and that same drive to look further that I got when I looked at the exhibit the 1st time, but it's all, to me, it's all that personal it's that personal connection with it.
What is it? How does it speak to you? And it really does it on different levels. There's the intellectual part and I hope that we have present. I think we have. Presented this exhibit so that it's, they can absorb that well enough and see the confidence in the pieces of it well enough.
But then that the looking at the face, the absorbing what it means. To you, I think that happens on a really personal [00:32:00] level and I hope in the exhibit that people have time to do it that way to spend time with it to go back to the places that really speak to them and think about it.
If that's what I hope happens that they get a connection with it.
Guy: Yeah, absolutely. And for me as well, and not only that, but and not only for Christians, but for non Christians to hopefully bring them over to Christ and see that, that Jesus was he was alive. He existed here on earth.
He was, he was human and divine. He then resurrected, which is totally unique. There is no other religion that has a the, a resurrection story, and to me the shroud as proof of that resurrection. And and then to use that as a way to, evangelize and come away with, yes, I want to learn more about Christ and How can I become more more like him
Pam: and he left us a [00:33:00] picture for us after 1898.
He left us a picture. I think that's just so awesome.
Guy: Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Pam this has been wonderful it's been a while, I've been meaning to interview you and reach out to you, and it's so good that we were able to finally connect, and and it's funny, you're not that far away, you're only, I'm in Georgia, you're in Alabama, so we're pretty close, and look forward to meeting you hopefully here in Georgia, or in Alabama But definitely also at the upcoming conference, the Shroud the the Shroud conference that we're going to have out in St.
Louis.
Pam: Yeah, definitely. I'm so looking forward to that, and we will have the exhibit there. I'm very excited about that.
Guy: Yeah, me too. I want to see it firsthand. I've seen, pictures of it, and now to see it, and experience it firsthand, I'm really excited about that. Pam, where can people find out more about you, and where [00:34:00] can they connect with you?
Pam: Unfortunately, right now, I do not have a website. I will eventually have a website. Right now, I don't have a website, but I am on Nora Creech's website. My contact information, Nora is a great place to look for exhibits and my contact information is on her shroudeducator. com website under the exhibits.
Guy: Okay, so shroudeducator. com, shroudeducator. com, fantastic. Yes. Yep. Pam, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been wonderful chatting with you and learning more about your perspectives and your experiences with the Shroud, and of course with Jesus and and then how we can take that forward to many other people.
Thank you again. And for the audience, please stay tuned for many other videos in the series of the backstory on the Shroud of Turin. Please tell your friends about it. Please come out to the to the Shroud Conference coming up in July [00:35:00] 2025 in St. Louis. Go to shroud2025conference. com and sign up for the email list and then hopefully we'll see you there.
And of course, if you like this episode, please rate it with five stars. Thank you so much, Pam.
Pam: See you. Wonderful guy.
Guy: Thank you.