Miraculous rose petals? - Investigative Files

It has long been common, especially within the Catholic tradition, to discover faces of holy personages in random patterns and to suggest these are miraculous. In my book Looking for a Miracle (Nickell 1993), and in a recent article in Free Inquiry magazine (Nickell 1997), I recounted several of these including the famous image of Jesus discovered in the skillet burns on a New Mexico tortilla in 1978. Usually, these simulacra are the result of the ink-blot or picture-in-the-clouds effect: the mind's tendency to create order out of chaos. On occasion, however, they are faked.

On Good Friday, 1995, when I appeared on a special live episode of Oprah to discuss miracles, I met a daughter of Maria Rubio, the woman who had discovered the tortilla Jesus. Afterward, as we were waiting in a limousine for a ride to the airport, I also talked with a self-styled visionary who had been on the show. She showed me a "miraculous" rose petal that bore a likeness of Jesus, one of several such items that supposedly came from the Philippines. Examining the petal with my illuminated Coddington magnifier (a penlighted loupe), I was suspicious and asked to borrow the object for further study [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED].

I subsequently examined the rose petal by viewing it with transmitted light, using a fluorescent light box and a stereomicroscope [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED]. I noted that everywhere there were markings there was damage to the rose petal, resembling hatch marks made with a blunt tool [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED]. In contrast, ordinary rose petals had no such markings ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED], top right).

However, I found that faces could easily be drawn with a blunt stylus ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED], top left). I obtained dried rose petals, rejuvenating them with boiling water, then smoothing out the wrinkles on the surface of a light box and drawing the requisite pictures. They have characteristics similar to the "miraculous" one ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED], bottom).

As this case shows, paranormal claims are not solved by assumptions (e.g., that rose petals have mottled patterns that could yield a facial image) but rather by investigation on a case-by-case basis.

Reference

Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions and Healing Cures. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

-----. 1997. In the Eye of the Beholder. Free Inquiry 17 (2): 5.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
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