Barrie Schwortz held the DNA report in his trembling hands and felt his stomach drop.
After forty years of studying the Shroud of Turin, he thought nothing could surprise him anymore.
He was dead wrong.
The genetic sequences extracted from the ancient fibers didn’t match any expected population.
Not medieval European handlers.
Not Italian restorers.
Not Roman-era Palestinians.
The lab had found DNA markers from regions that made absolutely no sense, sequences so anomalous that three separate geneticists refused to sign off on the official results.
When Schwortz asked the lead researcher what exactly they were dealing with, she gave him an answer that still haunts him to this day.
"Barrie, I honestly don't know. Nobody does. And truthfully? Some of my colleagues don't even want to know."
That's when Schwortz realized something chilling.
The scientific establishment wasn't just confused by this evidence.
They were genuinely afraid of it.
