What happened
From May 1917, three shepherd children from Fátima – Lúcia, Jacinta, and Francisco – spoke of apparitions of the Virgin Mary and announced a sign for everyone on October 13. On that day a crowd estimated at 30,000–100,000 people gathered in the Cova da Iria field; it had been raining since morning. When the clouds parted, many of those present saw that the sun, pale as a silver disk, could be looked at without hurting their eyes, and that it was spinning, casting colored light, and approaching the earth. Others noticed nothing unusual. The event was described by, among others, the anticlerical Lisbon newspaper “O Século,” whose reporter was on the scene. In 1930 the Catholic Church declared the apparitions worthy of belief, and Fátima became one of the largest shrines in the world.
Witnesses
A crowd of pilgrims and onlookers, including journalists from the secular press and a professor from the University of Coimbra; witness accounts differ in detail.
Explanations and hypotheses
The Catholic Church regards the phenomenon as a miracle. Secular researchers propose natural explanations: optical effects in clouds and water droplets after the rain, a sundog, and visual effects caused by staring at the sun for a long time, which can create an impression of spinning and changing colors. The role of the crowd’s expectations has also been noted. Observatories recorded nothing unusual on the Sun at the time, which some see as an argument for a local optical phenomenon and others as evidence of the sign’s supernatural character.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
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