In 1979, a Peruvian engineer, Dr. José Aste Tonsmann, PhD, arrived in Mexico. He had an excellent scientific background. In Lima, where he was born, he had studied at the Colegio San Luis, always coming top of his class. He then graduated in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Universidad National de Ingenieria of Peru, once again, finishing top out of all the students. He then obtained a second degree in Philosophy and moved to Cornell University in the States. where he specialised in computer science. He had worked with large companies and taught courses in some of the most prestigious American universities. He was, all in all, one of the most qualified modern researchers.
‘I knew nothing about the Virgin of Guadalupe,’Dr. Tonsmann recounts. ‘Right from the very first day of my arrival in Mexico, I had always wanted to digitize a characteristic emblem of Mexico’s culture but I didn’t know what yet. I thought about the famous Aztec calendar or something similar. I happened upon an American magazine which spoke of the studies carried out by José Carlos Salinas Chavez on the Virgin of Guadalupe and contained details of the research carried out on the image’s right eye. This aroused my interest and my curiosity. It appeared to be an interesting investigative field and so I contacted the Shrine’s directors and began my research.’
The work carried out by Dr. José Aste Tonsmann in the last 23 years is incredible. Using the most up to date equipment, the like of which is used by Nasa to decipher photographs taken by satellites in space, he has thoroughly studied the Virgin of Guadalupe’s eyes. He has been able to enlarge them up to 2,500 times their original size, using 25000 illuminated points per millimetre square.
After filtering and processing the digitised images of the eyes to eliminate ‘noise’ and enhance them, he made some astonishing discoveries: not only one person was clearly present in both eyes, but an entire scene, in which there were about ten people. Clearly pictured there is a native Mexican seated naked, with his legs crossed, long hair tied back in a pony tail, an earring and a ring on one finger. Next to him, there is an old man who is quite bald, with a white beard, straight nose, bushy eyebrows and a tear rolling down his right cheek: this character has been identified as the Bishop Juan de Zumarraga. On his left, there is a young man who we imagine is Juan Gonzales, a translator for the bishop. Further along, there is the profile of an old man with a beard and moustache, large roman nose, prominent cheekbones, sunken eyes and half closed lips, who seems to be wearing a pointed hood: he is a native Indian and he is opening his shawl as he turns to face the old bald man.
The scene described thus appears to be Juan Diego bringing the roses to the bishop. The Virgin was present, her eyes took a picture of the scene and its images in the moment she appeared on the native Indian’s shawl, remaining preserved forever.