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  • 2017-08-11 (xsd:date)
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  • Has NASA Called the Image of the Virgin of Guadalupe 'Living'? (en)
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  • In August 2017, two links circulated on social media that suggested that NASA had announced it had deemed Mexico City's Our Lady of Guadalupe tilma (a cloak or mantle made of cactus fiber upon which her face is said to be imprinted) to be living, in that the image reacts to outside stimuli. Social media users shared links from RCatholics.com and Matrix Drops, the former dated 7 August 2017 and the latter with no easily discernible date. Together, the viral items suggested that indeed a discovery of some sort had taken place in early August 2017: The Matrix Drops link was not published in 2017, but instead dates back to at least 2015. It may have been shared in lieu of RCatholics.com's iteration (complete with a breaking news graphic) which didn't even mention NASA, but had a passage claiming that it has qualities that are humanly impossible to replicate: Callahan's original analysis is not readily available, but reviews of the decades-old infrared photography examination of the piece carried out by him did not conclude that the material was metaphysical in origin. A 2010 Skeptoid item summarized Callahan's findings less sensationally (transposing the date of the research in 1979 [PDF] with its publication in 1981), adding that subsequent analysis did not support any supernatural elements: Until the claim was picked up by RCatholics.com on 7 August 2017, no one attributed details like the tilma's purported temperature to Dr. Callahan or his 1979 research. Matrix Drops cited a 20 December 2011 story for its claims that NASA scientists had determined the Virgen de Guadalupe to be alive. That material cited an unlinked source and appeared to form the basis of both circulating claims (translated) The claim that NASA scientists had affirmed the supernatural nature of the sacred image dates back as far as a 2001 column penned by Peggy Noonan, but the 2011 iteration appears to have been a complete fabrication with no supporting evidence for its extraordinary claims. Research carried out by Callahan for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA, a religious organization) in 1979 in no way amounts to evidence in 2017 that the piece is living, has a heartbeat, or maintains a temperature identical to that of the human body. NASA released no research in 1979 or at any other time about the artifact, and even Callahan's believer's lens of interpretation made no claims that the materials from which it was created were of no known origin. But in 2002, Skeptical Inquirer noted that subsequent study had unraveled some of the tilma's mysteries: We contacted NASA to ask about the rumor, but have not yet received a response. However, the legend's trajectory over the years indicated that its origins lay not with NASA, but with an unreliable and unsupported item published in 2011, three decades after Callahan's analysis appeared in print). (en)
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