End Times

‘Tag And Track’ RFID MicroChip Tracking Invading America’s School System

The RFID tag system popularly known as “Tag and Track” is being sold to schools system across the country by a variety of vendors, including AIM Truancy Solutions, ID Card Group and DataCard.

Published

12 years ago

October 11, 2012

Geoffrey Grider

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The digital tracking and surveillance of school-aged kids has been growing out of control

RELATED STORY: The Mark of the Beast archives

“In the initial phase of the AimTruancy program, students carry a hand-held GPS device to help them develop a structured routine and experience consistent accountability.” – AIM Truancy Solutions

Much attention has been given to the phenomenon of corporate tracking of kids’ online activities, activities that violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The law, originally adopted in 1998, requires Web sites aimed at kids to get parental consent before gathering information about those users who are under 13 years.

Many companies, including a Disney subsidiary, have violated it. Corporate marketing interests, most notably Facebook, are fighting proposed revisions to COPPA.

A second front in the tracking of young people has gotten far less attention. Schools across the country are adopting a variety of different tools to monitor students both in school and outside school.

Among these tools are RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags embedded in school ID cards, GPS tracking software in computers, and even CCTV video camera systems. According to school authorities, these tools are being adopted not to simply increase security, but to prevent truancy, cut down on theft and even improve students’ eating habits.

The RFID tag system popularly known as “Tag and Track” is being sold to schools system across the country by a variety of vendors, including AIM Truancy Solutions, ID Card Group and DataCard.

In general, these systems consist of a school photo ID card affixed to a lanyard that is worn around the student’s neck. The ID has a RFID chip embedded in it. The tag includes a digit number assigned to each student. As a student enters the school or pass beneath a doorway equipped with an RFID reader, the tag ID is read, recorded and sent to a server in the school’s administrative office. The captured data not only provides an attendance list (sent to the teacher’s PDA), but tracks the student’s movement throughout the day.

Students and parents in San Antonio, TX, are up in arms over a decision by the Northside Independent School District to require students at two local schools to wear RFID-equipped nametags as part of the Student Locator Project. The two schools, John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School, plan to use the nametags to pinpoint student locations both at the school and outside its premises. In addition, students are required to use the microchip ID when checking out school library books, registering for classes and paying for school lunches.

Pascual Gonzalez, a school district spokesman, said, “We want to harness the power of technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenues.” One student, Andrea Hernandez, said the badge “makes me uncomfortable. It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

Local San Antonio news media make clear that something other than school security is at stake. The local school district loses $175,000 a day because of late or absent students and RFID tracking provides a means to improve attendance reporting.

San Antonio is taking its cue from the Houston, TX, school district. It began using RFID chips to monitor students on 13 campuses in 2004. Houston’s Spring Independent School District gave 28,000 students RFID badges to record when they get on and off school buses. The police and school administrators provided the badges to ostensibly prevent truancy and child abductions. In 2010, the school reported, “RFID readers situated throughout each campus are used to identify where students are located in the building, which can be used to verify the student’s attendance for ADA funding and course credit purposes.” Student tracking has reportedly brought them hundreds of thousands of extra dollars.

In Austin, TX, some 1,700 students in eight high schools, with parent permission, are being outfitted with GPS devices to help cut truancy rates. According to local news reports, the program is being run by Dallas-based AIM Truancy Solutions that boasts that its system increases student attendance by around 12 percent.

The increasing use of student monitoring is not limited to Texas. The AIM Truancy Solutions’ GPS tracking program has been adopted in Baltimore, MD, and is now being tested by the Anaheim (CA) Union High School District.

In Anaheim, about 75 seventh- and eighth-graders from Dale and South Junior High Schools are taking part in the pilot program. Students with four or more unexcused absences have “volunteered” to carry a handheld GPS device. Participation in the program will enable the students to avoid being prosecuted and a potential stay in juvenile hall.

Each school day, the delinquent students get an automated “wake-up” phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time. In addition, five times a day they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations: as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8pm. These students are also assigned an adult “coach” who calls them at least three times a week to see how they are doing and help them find effective ways to make sure they get to school.

Like San Antonio, Anaheim schools lose about $35 per day for each absent student. Local school officials believe the program can pay for itself as more students attend classes.

The Palos Heights School District in Illinois is attaching GPS locators to students’ backpacks in order to “locate kids in seconds” both in and out of school. The electronic reader registers date, time and location of kids. Administrators justify the tracking and surveillance of students outside of the classroom as for their safety.

A very different monitoring effort is underway on Long Island, NY, in an effort to fight obesity. Selected Bay Shore students designated overweight or obese are being equipped with a wristwatch-like devices that count heartbeats, detect motion and even track students’ sleeping habits. Similar programs are underway in schools in St. Louis, MO, and South Orange, NJ.

In 2010, the Contra Costa County School District received a $50,000 grant to put RFID tags into basketball jerseys that students are supposed to wear while at school. The bulk of the grant went toward setting up sensors around the school to read the tags and computer systems to actually monitor where each student is. The program tracks preschool children.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation warns “… an RFID chip allows for far more than that minimal record-keeping. Instead, it provides the potential for nearly constant monitoring of a child’s physical location.” The consequences of such tracking are serious: “If RFID records show a child moving around a lot, could she be tagged as hyperactive? If he doesn’t move around a lot, could he get a reputation for laziness?”

Not all student-tracking programs work out as planned. In 2005, the Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, CA, abandoned an experimental Tag and Track program. Like similar programs, this RFID tracking used mandatory ID badges to track children’s movements in and around the school. Promoted by a local vendor, InCom, the schools board pulled the plug after the EFF and ACLU raised concerns that the program breached children’s right to privacy.

In 2010, however, a far graver incident of illegal monitoring was revealed in Pennsylvania’s Lower Merion School District. Blake Robbins, a Harriton High School sophomore, reported that a school official confronted him for engaging in “improper behavior” at his home. As the story unraveled, it was revealed that the laptops the school issued to high-school students came equipped with special software that enabled school administrators to spy on students and even their families in their homes.

School administrators argued that the software was installed to find lost or stolen computers. More telling, they admitted that they never told students or their parents about the remote access feature.

Cameras are gaining an increasing presence in schools as part of student surveillance efforts. Popularly known as closed-circuit television (CCTV), digital video camera systems are being placed throughout schools as well as outside the buildings and even on school buses. In the school, cameras are located in cafeterias, hallways, gymnasiums and other interior spaces, including classrooms.

The rationale for camera surveillance is the ostensible need for an increase in security whether involving a Columbine-like threat, fist fights and/or property theft. These systems are intended to monitor the theft of an iPad from a locker, a fight in the parking lot after school dismissal or an argument between a student and a staff member. Two school CCTV system providers are CameraWatch and Axis Communications.

The data on school violence is confusing. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1993 there were 42 homicides by students and 13 “serious violent crimes” — rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault — per 1,000 students at primary and secondary schools. By 2010, the latest figures available, those numbers had decreased to two homicides and four violent crimes per 1,000 students.

However, the U.S. Department of Education found that during the 2005–2006 school year, 86 percent of public schools nationwide reported that one or more serious violent incidents, thefts or other crimes had occurred at their school, for a total of roughly 2.2 million crimes. That works out to about one crime reported for every 20 students. In addition, nearly 100,000 incidents of vandalism are reported in the U.S. public school system per year.

Nevertheless, the federal government has take up the issue of school-based surveillance in a big way. The Safe Schools/Healthy Students program was established in 1999 and has pumped more than $2 billion into some 365 urban, rural, suburban and tribal school districts.

One of the beneficiaries of this federal largess is the San Antonio, TX, school system. Like its embrace of RFID tracking, the school system has welcomed CCTV student surveillance. It received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to install a CCTV system in school cafeterias and embed bar codes on food trays.

In a pilot program at five schools, the camera systems are intended to curb high rates of childhood obesity by monitoring student eating practices.

Dr. Roberto Trevino of the San Antonio-based Social and Health Research Center acknowledged, “We’re going to snap a picture of the food tray at the cashier and we will know what has been served.” San Antonio’s Pascual Gonzalez reported that John Jay High has 200 surveillance cameras and Anson Jones Middle School has about 90.

School officials in Lake County, FL, turned to this trash-monitoring program to deal with a growing financial problem. They estimate that students tossed $75,000 worth of food in the garbage.

Cafeteria surveillance systems are operating in Virginia school districts in Montgomery, Prince George’s, Prince William and Loudoun counties.

Nevertheless, it’s the ostensible threat from social violence that is driving more and more school districts to adopt CCTV surveillance systems.

In Biloxi, MS, 11 public schools have placed cameras not only in corridors and other common areas, but in all 500 classrooms as well. The principal of North Bay Elementary says she frequently peeks in on her classrooms from a computer monitor in her office. School administrators claim that surveillance has improved classroom discipline and raised test scores.

Comparable systems have been installed in the Clifton High School in New Jersey, Garnet Valley High School in Pennsylvania, Ottumwa High School in Iowa, the Novato Unified School District in Novato, California, Chippewa Valley Schools in Detroit and Wyoming’s Cody High School. The Milwaukee (WI) Public School system has installed them in over 30 schools.

Utica Community Schools, Michigan’s second largest district, has pushed surveillance one step further. It puts real-time surveillance footage on hallway screens so that students can see they are being monitored. According to school officials, it serves as a deterrent to questionable behavior.

In 2010, the Connetquot Central School District in Islip, LI, NY, deployed a district-wide surveillance system to centrally monitor all 11 schools. School administrators claim that the system cut vandalism by 60 percent. More troubling, the school system allows the Suffolk County Police Department to access the cameras.

In Overton County, TN, things got a bit out of hand. Parents of students at the Livingston Middle School filed a federal lawsuit claiming that school administrators in 2003 violated their children’s privacy. The suit claims that the school illegally recorded 10- to 14-year-old girls undressing in adjacent changing areas in preparation for basketball practice. The school stored the images on a computer accessible through the Internet. In 2008, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a school may not install security cameras inside locker rooms, where students have an expectation of privacy.

American school-age children face an unprecedented assault on their privacy both as 21st-century digital kids and as students. All their online activities are being aggressively tracked by commercial marketing interests, including major brands like Disney, online social media sites like Facebook and large data aggregators. Equally troubling, their in-school lives, including out-of-school activities like riding on a school bus, are being captured through aggressive surveillance programs using RFID, CCTV and other techniques.

Since COPPA was adopted 13 years ago, the digital world has profoundly changed. The Internet has become ubiquitous and the mobile app market for smartphone has exploded. Throughout this process, privacy protections have suffered.

Under COPPA, Web sites aimed at underage children are required to get parental consent before gathering information about users under 13 years. The FTC has brought suits against companies both big and small for violating children’s privacy. For example, a Disney subsidiary, Playdom, Inc., that runs 20 virtual world websites for multi-player games targeted to kids like 2 Moons, 9 Dragons and My Diva Doll, was fined $3 million. Broken Thumbs Apps, a company offering mobile apps targeted to young girls for the iPhone and iPod including Emily’s Girl World, Emily’s Dress Up, Emily’s Dress Up & Shop and Emily’s Runway High Fashion, settled for $50,000.

Few parents or children are fully aware of the scope of the tracking and surveillance now going on in American schools. Three simple questions need to be addressed: What is happening to all the personal data captured about the students? How long it is being retained? And are school administrators providing it to law enforcement authorities or commercial vendors?

Now that the FTC is moving to update COPPA, it would an opportune time for it and the Congress to investigate how the high-tech surveillance state is being imposed on students throughout the country. The last thing America needs is for its schools to be turned into prisons. source – Salon

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End Times

MAD MAX: Los Angeles Erupts Into Dystopian Violence And End Times Chaos After Dodgers Win The World Series Over Yankees In Kamala’s America

Published

3 weeks ago

October 31, 2024

Geoffrey Grider

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Los Angeles descended into chaos Wednesday night as belligerent baseball fans set a bus on fire while others clashed with cops and looters ran amuck following the Dodgers’ World Series victory. This is Kamala’s America.

Last night the LA Dodgers won the World Series, and it should have been cause for good, old-fashioned celebration and cheering amongst their fans, but it wasn’t. Instead, hundreds of angry and violent rioters spread out on the downtown streets of Los Angeles, breaking into stores, looting, rioting, and then setting an MTA passenger bus on fire. The police stood by and watched as it all unfolded, with none attempting to stop the thefts from taking place. This is Kamala Harris’ America, and it is a scary and dangerous place. If she is elected, this is what she will bring with her.

“And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” Revelation 6:4 (KJB)

The America you grew up in is gone, and it’s not coming back. In its place is a bleak and ruinous landscape whose streets are filled with violence, and whose people are waiting for Antichrist. In 2020, when Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA wreaked havoc across our country, murdering dozens and causing $2 billion in damage, Kamala Harris said that those riots were good, were necessary, and that Americans had no right to expect them to stop. In Los Angeles last night, we were given another reminder of what’s coming. If you live in the cities, it’s time to move.

LA erupts into chaos following Dodgers’ World Series victory with looters raiding Nike store, ‘hostile’ mob burning down bus

FROM THE NY POST: The Los Angeles Police Department shared footage of a mob of looters running in and out of a boarded-up Nike store carrying merchandise and throwing it into cars parked outside the store about four miles from Dodger Stadium just after 11 p.m.

The LAPD said they are “aware of the looting” and have made arrests but did not disclose how many suspects were taken into custody. The department also shared that “several businesses” were looted, and multiple properties were “vandalized” during the “violent celebrations” across the city.

Aerial footage from ABC 7 Los Angeles shows dozens of looters calmly walking into and leaving a Nike store with boxes of goods without police interference. As looters ransacked businesses, other areas of downtown Los Angeles were plunged into madness.

This is how they celebrated in Los Angeles last night after the Dodgers won the World Series over the Yankees. Looting, rioting and setting a bus on fire. This is the spirit of Antichrist, get out of the cities while you still can. #DodgersWin pic.twitter.com/95hgdF3V1i

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) October 31, 2024

The LAPD said a “hostile crowd” — estimated to be between 200 and 300 people — lit an MTA bus on fire about a mile away from Dodger Stadium around 12:35 a.m. local time. Footage posted to Citizen captured the moment a massive crowd — the majority of which were wearing Dodgers jerseys and apparel — surrounded and sat atop the graffiti-laced bus.

Members of the crowd were caught on video entering the bus, while others were seen holding up Dodgers flags and taking pictures. Emergency responders quickly arrived on the scene at about 12:45 a.m. local time, monitored the bus fire, and protected nearby structures from potential spread.

WARNING: Kamala Harris in 2020 telling you that the riots that killed two dozen people and caused $2 billion in damage were good, necessary, and that the American people had no right to expect them to stop. This is the America we will get if she becomes president. pic.twitter.com/rjy9fux3g6

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) October 31, 2024

A video posted by @FilmThePoliceLA shows fireworks being set off inside the bus as the crowd shouts in excitement. Another showed the bus fully engulfed in flames and spewing out thick black smoke while police in riot gear set up a parameter to keep back the crowd.

“Let’s go Dodgers!” the crowd shouted over the sounds of helicopters and police sirens.

The bus then appeared to explode and shot flames up into the air. Firefighters were seen extinguishing the charred remains of the bus, the frame of which was the only part of the transport vehicle that appeared to remain intact. The Los Angeles Fire Department said it remains “in a normal operating mode, handling routine emergencies citywide” and has directed the public to the LAPD for information regarding all the “unlawful gatherings.”

The LAPD also reported that officers trying to disperse the rowdy crowd were being pelted with “rocks,” “bottles,” and “fireworks” from a malicious crowd around where the looting was taking place.

“Extra resources are responding to that area to assist. If you are on the street, at or adjacent to that intersection, leave the area immediately & follow officers orders,” police said. “If you are in the area, please use caution.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned citizens that “violence will not be tolerated” as the city celebrates the Dodgers besting the Yankees during game 5 in New York, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles. READ MORE

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

End Times

We Need Your Help To Put Up An NTEB Gospel Witness Billboard In Sugarland Texas Across From The Massive 90ft Hindu Idol Of The False God Lord Hanuman

Published

3 months ago

August 26, 2024

Geoffrey Grider

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Astonishing photographs of a 90-foot statue of Hindu god Lord Hanuman show massive end times idolatry rising up in Sugarland, Texas. Sugarland needs the gospel, let’s give it to them

America is under spiritual attack as never before, and the perfect symbol of that can be seen today in the town of Sugarland, Texas. What you’ll find there is a massive 90ft tall idol of the Hindu god Lord Hanuman, and as you can see from the photo, it looks every bit as demonic as it sounds. Today on our Monday Prophecy News Podcast, the idea was floated to raise up an NTEB Gospel Witness Billboard across the street, to let the people of Sugarland Texas know that there is a God in Heaven, and they are to serve Him and Him alone. Man, that’s a great idea!

“And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.” Deuteronomy 8:19 (KJB)

Started during the Pandemic in 2021, the NTEB Gospel Witness Billboard Program has put up dozens of billboards in multiple states proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour. These billboards have been seen tens of millions of times over the past 3 years by millions of drivers. We asked listeners in the chat room today how they felt about raising money for a ‘Lord Hanuman’ billboard, and the response was overwhelmingly in favor of doing that, and donations have already started coming in. Now we turn to you.

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

If you think a Gospel billboard across from this demonic monstrosity would be a good idea, please visit our WayGiver funding page and make a donation. One month for a vinyl billboard is approximately $1,250, and a full year just under $15,000. We will keep this billboard up for as long as there is funding to support it, hopefully we can keep it up at least until the end of the year. Christian, this is a great way to stand against the gathering end times darkness, while at the same time standing for the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel of the kingdom of God. If God has prospered you, please join us in this effort. Thank you as always…TO THE FIGHT!!!

The 90ft tall idol of the Hindu god ‘Lord Hunumam’ rises above Sugarland, Texas

FROM NEWSWEEK: The monument, known as the Statue of Union, stands at the Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple in Sugar Land. Lord Hanuman is depicted as human, but with the head and tail of a monkey, as is customary. The statue is holding both hands palm forward and the end of the tail is twisted above the head, creating a halo effect.

Hanuman is a Hindu god known for his power, courage, and selfless service. He is also a symbol of power and celibacy.

The statue’s unveiling on Sunday marks rapidly changing religious demographics in the U.S., with surveys showing a decline in the proportion of Americans who identify as Christian and a rise in those who say they are “nothing in particular” or belong to religions which are followed by a minority in the U.S.

This is a Hindu idol built to worship the god Lord Hanuman, only this is not outside of a temple in India. This 90ft. monstrosity is in Sugarland, Texas. Where are all the Christians??? #LordHanuman pic.twitter.com/0slhDjZrFY

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) August 26, 2024

Speaking to Newsweek Ranganath Kandala, joint secretary of the Ashtalakshmi Temple, confirmed the statue is 90-foot-tall and said it was inaugurated in a Pran Pratishtha ceremony on August 18, celebrating it as a living embodiment of the deity. READ MORE

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Artificial Intelligence

Social Media Explodes Over Claims Saying That AI Reveals The ‘Face Of Jesus’ Using The Shroud Of Turin, But It’s All Part Of The Rising End Times Deception

Published

3 months ago

August 22, 2024

Geoffrey Grider

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Artificial intelligence has recreated the ‘face of Jesus Christ’ from the Shroud of Turin that some believe was used to wrap him after his Crucifixion. AI is lying to you.

We live in an age of great deception that is combined with great tools with which to disseminate that deception on a global level never before seen in human history. The Shroud of Turin is an obvious fake based on John 20:7 in your King James Bible, but that doesn’t stop Roman Catholics who have made an idol out of it. Now with AI being applied to the Shroud, images of ‘what Jesus actually looked like!!’ are being published, and it’s all a deception, every bit of it. Deception is the first and greatest sign of the end times according to Jesus.

“And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” Matthew 24:4,5 (KJB)

In our lukewarm Laodicean end-of-the-Church Age period in which we live, Christians are operating on feelings and emotions, doctrine is out the window exactly as Paul says it will be in 2 Timothy 4:-15. It is the preaching and teaching of Bible doctrine that keeps the Church on the straight and narrow path, remove that (and it has been removed), and you’ve destroyed the foundation on which the Church sits. Back in 2021, we told you about how you just might expect to see people claiming to have found the bones of Jesus, and you just might. You will never find on this Earth the Ark of the Covenant, the ‘holy grail’, the nails that pierced Jesus, or any of the wood from the cross they hung Him on. The Shroud of Turin? An obvious fake if you believe the Bible. Christian, you better climb inside your King James Bible and stay there for the duration, it’s the only safe space there is.

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NO, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH DID NOT GIVE YOU THE KING JAMES BIBLE, BUT THEY GAVE YOU ALL THE MODERN VERSIONS. THIS BOOK EXPLAINS ALL, CLICK TO ORDER!!

‘Face of Jesus’ unveiled by AI using Shroud of Turin after astonishing discovery

FROM THE DAILY EXPRESS UK: The Shroud of Turin has divided opinion for centuries, with some claiming an outline of Christ’s face can even be seen in the material. Others routinely dismiss it as a forgery but new technology used by Italian scientists suggests that the 14ft linen sheet may indeed date back to the time of Christ. And now, AI has been used to reinterpret the enigmatic holy relic to reveal the “true face of Jesus”. The Daily Express used cutting-edge AI imager Midjourney to create a simulation of the face behind the shroud.

The images appear to show Christ with long flowing hair and a beard – much like many classical depictions of him. There appears to be cuts and grazes around his face and body, pointing to the fact he had just been killed.

While sceptics believe an unknown 14th-Century artist faked the “shroud of the Messiah” using powdered paint on either a sculpture or the body of a model, many Catholics are convinced that the bolt of cloth was somehow imprinted with Christ’s image at the moment of resurrection.

In the 1980s, radiocarbon analysis determined that the cloth used to create the shroud dated from the mid-1300s, shortly before its documented history began.

But Dr. Liberato de Caro from Italy’s Institute of Crystallography, using a new method known as Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering, has sensationally claimed that the fabric is a good match for a similar sample that is confirmed to have come from the siege of Masada, Israel, in 55-74 AD. Dr de Caro has cast doubt on the accuracy of carbon dating. He wrote: “Moulds and bacteria, colonising textile fibres, and dirt or carbon-containing minerals, such as limestone, adhering to them in the empty spaces between the fibres that at a microscopic level represent about 50% of the volume, can be so difficult to completely eliminate in the sample cleaning phase, which can distort the dating.”

He added that, because the X-ray scattering technique is non-destructive, the same sample could be tested by labs around the world, helping to confirm his findings.

In additional support for his claims, Dr de Caro pointed out that tiny particles of pollen from the Middle East had been lodged between the fibres of the linen, ruling out the common belief that the shroud is a European forgery. While there is no hard evidence of the Shroud existing before the mid-1300s, a similar relic – which supporters believe was the same object – was reportedly stolen from a church in Constantinople a century before.

It bears the ghostly image of a man around six feet in height who bears wounds consistent with whipping and crucifixion. With the invention of photography at the end of the 19th Century, the shroud was photographed – revealing that the negative image was much more vivid than the faded “scorch mark” visible to the naked eye.

Over the years, a number of sceptics have attempted to recreate the centuries-old image, with mixed results. While the balance of probabilities lies with the object having been produced by an unidentified faker in the mid-1300s, whoever created it would have had remarkable, almost supernatural skill. READ MORE