Let me begin with a confession: I honestly don’t know what to make of the “miracle of the sun” that occurred in Fatima, Portugal, on October 13, 1917, and that was witnessed by a crowd of 70,000 people (although a few people in the crowd saw nothing) and also by people who were more than 10 kilometers away from Fatima at the time, as well as by sailors on a British ship off the coast of Portugal. On the other hand, no astronomical observatory recorded anything unusual at the time.
Rather than endorsing a particular point of view, I have decided to lay the facts before my readers, and let them draw their own conclusions.
Here are some good links, to get you started.
Neutral accounts of the visions and the “solar miracle” at Fatima:
Our Lady of Fatima (Wikipedia article: describes the visions leading up to the solar miracle). Generally balanced.
Miracle of the Sun (Wikipedia article). Discusses critical explanations of the miracle, and points out that people both in Fatima and the nearby town of Alburitel were expecting some kind of solar phenomenon to occur on October 13, 1917: some had even brought along special viewing glasses. Also, the solar miracle on October 13 was preceded by some bizarre celestial phenomena witnessed by bystanders at the preceding vision on September 13, including “a dimming of the sun to the point where the stars could be seen, and a rain resembling iridescent petals or snowflakes that disappeared before touching the ground.” In short: the “solar miracle” of October 13, 1917 didn’t come entirely as a bolt from the blue.
The Fatima Prophecies by Stephen Wagner, Paranormal Phenomena Expert. Updated April 10, 2016.
Catholic, pro-miracle accounts:
Meet the Witnesses of the Miracle of the Sun by John Haffert. Spring Grove, Pennsylvania: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, 1961. John M. Haffert is a co-founder of the Blue Army of Fatima. He interviewed dozens of witnesses of the solar miracle at Fatima, and carefully records their testimonies in his book.
The True Story of Fatima by Fr. John de Marchi. St. Paul, Minnesota: Catechetical Guild Educational Society, 1956. Fr. de Marchi is an acknowledged expert on Fatima, whose account is based on the testimony of the seers, members of their families, and other acquaintances.
The Sixth Apparition of Our Lady. A short article containing eyewitness recollections, from the EWTN Website Celebrating 100 years of Fatima. (Very well-produced and easy to navigate.)
The Apparitions at Fatima. A short account of the visions and the solar miracle.
Catholic attempts to rebut skeptical debunkings of the solar miracle at Fatima:
Debunking the Sun Miracle Skeptics by Mark Mallett, a Canadian Catholic evangelist and former TV reporter. The author’s tone is irenic, and he evaluates the evidence fairly. His blog is well worth having a look at.
Ten Greatest (And Hilarious) Scientific Explanations for Miracle at Fatima by Matthew Archbold. National Catholic Register. Blog article. March 27, 2011. Rather polemical and sarcastic in tone.
Why the solar miracle couldn’t have been a hallucination:
Richard Dawkins And The Miracle Of Sun by Donal Anthony Foley. The Wanderer, Saturday, November 5, 2016. Makes the telling point that it was seen by sailors on a passing ship, who knew nothing about the visions.
A Catholic account by a scientist-priest who thinks that the “miracle” was a natural meteorological phenomenon, but that the coincidence between the timing of this natural event and the vision can only have a supernatural explanation:
Miracle of the Sun and an Air Lens (Theory of Father Jaki) by Dr. Taylor Marshall. Blog article. “Fr Jaki suggests that an ‘air lens’ of ice crystals formed above the Cova in Portugual. This lens would explain how the sun ‘danced’ at Fatima, but not over the whole earth. Thus, it was a local phenomenon that was seen at the Cova, and by others who were not present with the three children of Fatima within a 40 mile radius.” An air lens would also explain how the muddy and wet ground at the site of the apparitions suddenly dried up, after the miracle.
God and the Sun at Fatima by Fr. Stanley Jaki. Real View Books, 1999. Reviewed by Martin Kottmeyer. See also the attached footnote by Joaquim Fernandes, Center for Transdisciplinary Study on Consciousness, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal, who argues that on the contrary, it was a UFO.
A Catholic, “anti-miracle” account by a scientist who thinks it was an optical illusion:
Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun by Professor Auguste Meessen, Institute of Physics, Catholic Univeristy of Louvain, Belgium. Paper given at the International Forum in Porto, “Science, Religion and Conscience,” October 23-25, 2003. Excerpt:
“So-called “miracles of the sun” were observed, for instance, in Tilly-sur-Seuilles (France, 1901), Fatima (Portugal, 1917), Onkerzeele (Belgium, 1933), Bonate (Italy, 1944), Espis (France, 1946), Acquaviva Platani (Italy, 1950), Heroldsbach (Germany, 1949), Fehrbach (Germany, 1950), Kerezinen (France, 1953), San Damiano (Italy, 1965), Tre Fontane (Italy, 1982) and Kibeho (Rwanda, 1983). They have been described by many witnesses and from their reports we can extract the following characteristic features, appearing successively.
“· A grey disc seems to be placed between the sun and the observer, but a brilliant rim of the solar disc is still apparent…
· Beautiful colours appear after a few minutes on the whole surface of the solar disc, at its rim and in the surrounding sky. These colours are different, however, and they change in the course of time…
· The sun begins to ‘dance’. First, the solar disk rotates about its centre at a uniform and rather high velocity (about 1 turn/s). Then the rotation stops and starts again, but now it is opposite to the initial one. Suddenly, the solar disk seems to detach itself from the sky. It comes rapidly closer, with increasing size and brilliancy. This causes great panic, since people think that the end of the world has come, but the sun retreats. It moves backwards until it has again its initial appearance…
· Finally, after 10 or 15 minutes, the sun is ‘normal’ again: its luminosity is too strong to continue gazing at it. But after about another quarter of an hour, the prodigy can be repeated in the same way…
“…It is shown that the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial intervention is not sufficient to explain all observed facts, while this is possible in terms of natural, but very peculiar physiological processes. The proof results from personal experiments and reasoning, based on relevant scientific literature.
“…Dr. J.B. Walz, a university professor of theology, collected over 70 eye-witness reports of the ‘miracle of the sun’ that occurred in Heroldsbach [an ecclesiastically condemned apparition – VJT] on December 8, 1949. These documents disclose some individual differences in perception, including the fact that one person saw the sun approaching and receding three times, while most witnesses saw this only two times! The ‘coloured spheres’ that were usually perceived after the breathtaking ‘dance of the sun’ are simply after-images, but they were not recognized as such, since the context of these observations suggested a prodigious interpretation.
“…The general conclusion is that apparitions and miracles of the sun cannot be taken at face value. There are natural mechanisms that can explain them, but they are so unusual that we were not aware of them. Miracles of the sun result from neurophysiological processes in our eyes and visual cortex, while apparitions involve more complex processes in our mind’s brain. The seers are honest, but unconsciously, they put themselves in an altered state of consciousness. This is possible, since our brain allows for ‘dissociation’ and for ‘switching’ from one type of behaviour to another.”
Meessen’s own explanation of the miracle as an optical illusion is based on experiments which he performed on himself, while looking at the sun under carefully controlled conditions (so as not to damage his eyes). However, I should point out that Meessen’s exposure to the sun’s optical effects was fairly short in duration (30 seconds), whereas the solar miracle at Fatima lasted far longer (over 10 minutes) and didn’t damage any of the spectators’ eyes.
Catholic blogger Mark Mallett also points out: “Professor Meesen’s logic further falls apart by stating that the dancing effects of the sun were merely the result of retinal after-images. If that were the case, then the miracle of the sun witnessed at Fatima should be easily duplicated in your own backyard.”
However, Meessen does a good job of debunking the “UFO hypothesis”: he points out that had it been a UFO covering the sun, it could not have been seen 40 kilometers away. Also, at least some witnesses would have reported seeing a “partial eclipse,” but none ever did.
A paranormal explanation of the solar miracle at Fatima:
The First Alien Contact And UFO Sighting Of The 20th Century by Tob Williams. Blog article. April 10, 2011. Updated June 18, 2016.
The Fatima UFO hypothesis by Lon Strickler. February 11, 2012.
https://www.paranormalnews.com/article.aspx?id=1562
“Live Science” debunking of the solar miracle:
The Lady of Fátima & the Miracle of the Sun by Benjamin Radford. May 2, 2013. Ascribes the miracle to “an optical illusion caused by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God,” which, “if you do it long enough, can give the illusion of the sun moving as the eye muscles tire.” Also suggests that mass hysteria and pareidolia can explain some features of the visions.
Skeptic Benjamin Radford on the Fátima Miracle by Dr. Stacy Trasancos. A response to Radford’s debunking. Points out that plenty of dispassionate observers at Fatima also reported seeing the sun move. Promotes Fr. Stanley L. Jaki’s carefully researched book on Fatima. Acknowledges that there may be a scientific explanation for what happened with the sun that day, but argues that this doesn’t explain the timing of the event, and why it coincided with the visions.
Virulently anti-Fatima accounts:
Solar Miracle of Fatima and
Fraud at Fatima. The author places too much reliance on discredited sources, such as Celestial Secrets: The Hidden History of the Fatima Incident by Portuguese UFOlogist Joachim Fernandes (critically reviewed here by Edmund Grant). The author also tries to argue, unconvincingly, that only half the people at Fatima actually witnessed the miracle, whereas in fact there were only a few people who saw nothing. See Jaki, Stanley L. (1999). God and the Sun at Fátima, Real View Books, pp. 170–171, 232, 272. The author is right in pointing out, however, that Lucia’s own published account of her visions at Fatima is highly retrospective (being written over 20 years after the event) and contains a lot of added material. Also, the seers didn’t all see the same thing: Lucia, for instance, saw Our Lady’s lips move while she was speaking, while Francisco (who saw Our Lady but never heard her speak), didn’t see Our Lady’s lips moving – a point acknowledged by Fr. de Marchi (see above). Finally, some of the prophecies associated with Fatima turned out to be false.
My own take:
Given the evidence that the solar miracle was witnessed by passing sailors and also seen at several different locations within a 40-kilometer radius of Fatima, I cannot simply dismiss it as a hallucination. Professor Meessen’s arguments (discussed above) appear to rule out the possibility that it was a UFO. The theory that it was an optical illusion founders on the fact that nobody reported any damage to their eyes, subsequent to the miracle. The hypothesis that it was a natural, local meteorological phenomenon sounds promising, but the fortuitous timing of the “miracle” (which coincided with the seers’ visions) would still point to supernatural intervention of some sort. Finally, if it was really a miracle, then one has to ask: what, exactly, was the miracle? After all, no law of Nature was broken: no-one seriously suggests that the Sun actually hurtled towards the Earth, as witnesses reported. The notion of God messing with people’s senses sounds pretty strange, too: why would He do that? On the other hand, the testimony of 70,000 witnesses is very impressive, and the event clearly meant something … but what? Beats me.
Over to you.
fifthmonarchyman,
The circularity of using quotes from the Bible to support the One-True-Wordness of the Bible …
So God told you that those who would listen would listen, and that those who wouldn’t listen wouldn’t listen.
This revelation is amazing!
Glen Davidson
Hence, sheep.
Glen Davidson
Mung,
No – he appeared to me to be saying: if we are made in God’s image, does God therefore have an X? That’s not in opposition to the text.
That is not a property of Christianity but of humanity. We all believe what we want to believe
peace
It’s only circular if you assume that God’s word is like our words in that it requires something outside itself to verify it’s truth.
On the contrary by definition God’s word is true
quote:
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
(Joh 17:17)
end quote:
peace
The latter half of your statement is somewhat agreeable, but you have no grounds for the “explanation” you provide in the first half at all. Presumably by “endowed” you mean something like given via intelligent intervention from a deity or otherwise?
That this is untrue can easily be demonstrated by examining our nearest relatives, and indeed others not so closely related to us. Unless, of course, they have also been so endowed.
Many animals exhibit self awareness very similar to ours. I have no doubt at all that if we had not risen to the level we had then eventually another species would have.
Well in the phrase which was the subject of my reply to we can ask the author – newton.
I would say that it was being used in a metaphorical sense and the bullshit in the sentence did not refer to actual physical bullshit.
Not Quite,
It told me that those who hate God and mock him while denying his existence would not listen and that those who were seeking after truth would.
peace
More than I can count.
All gods are made in our image. Sheesh. Humans invented them. They look like humans. Humans drew the pictures. Humans made up the nonsense. They’ve looked like humans since Venus of Willendorf, 28,000 BCE or before! This is a coincidence I’m sure.
Sometimes I feel like I’m telling a child that Santa does not exist.
fifthmonarchyman,
Why do you need the Bible quotes then? Here are some words, but they aren’t like our words …
If there were any means of working out what God’s word actually was, I’m sure that would be a great help. Unfortunately theres just this book that says it’s true ‘cos … ‘cos it says so.
What happens if I push this button here? Oh, you say ‘revelation’. What fun.
Oh, that changes
everythingnothing.Glen Davidson
It’s odd how god never seems to communicate anything of practical value, things that humans cannot think of themselves. How can we travel faster then light fmm? Can you ask next time you are having a revelation? What language will the aliens speak? Can you teach it to us?
Because I’m not God and my words are not self-authenticating
There is a means.
It’s the exactly same means you use to work out what grandma actually meant when she asked for an album for her birthday
Like I said revelation is not mysterious but it is special.
That goes for grandma as well as God
peace
How do you know we humans can think of anything ourselves?
You certainly have not demonstrated that that is the case.
Why do you assume it?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
‘Self-authenticating’ sounds awfully close to ‘circular’. There seems, at least, no way it could not be true for you, once you have made the decision. Yet the words are intended for communication to others. They certainly are not self-authenticating. To me.
Given that grandma is long in the grave, I believe you.
But there’s no anti-Christianity here. Right Neil?
It almost sounds Godelian 😉
I thought we covered that already. That says more about you that it does about the words.
Oh sorry to hear that
Feel free to substitute any living person that you like the point is the same
peace
I think it’s the smell, actually.
fifthmonarchyman,
Cripes, I get chastised for repetition by fifthmonarchyman! My Christmas is complete.
Mung,
Cheers!
Let me make this simple for you, simple enough that even keiths could understand it.
Pedant has a penis.
Pedant is made in the image of God
Therefore, God has a penis.
OR
Pedant has a penis.
God is made in the image of Pedant
Therefore, God has a penis.
Or perhaps we just have atheists being irrational, again. That’s a definite possibility.
Mung,
OK, having made it simple for me, which is the interpretation I should favour? Both seem possible to my feeble mind.
No coconut for you. Try again.
CharlieM,
Go on, there are more than 10 million species on earth. You’ll have to give me a clue (… I couldn’t possibly vote for my own … ).
I know how I interpret it, and I believe my interpretation is the right one or else I wouldn’t believe it.
You said, “So everybody is right and nobody is right.”
I don’t see how you can come to this conclusion from what I said. Either Christ is real or a human fiction, either Jesus lived or he did not. Some must be right and some wrong about these things. My interpretation satisfies me at this time regardless of whether or not it turns out I am right.
For some things it does not matter whether or not they are literal, it is the message they convey that is their most important feature. Does it really matter that David actually slew Goliath.
It does not matter who is best at what, running is not a unique feature.
But being the best is.
God is best. Therefore God is unique!
You’re the uniquerest here, Mung.
It matters to me. That’s a disgusting story if the Jews are supposed to be th good guys. Nobody told the Philistines that ‘God gave that land to Moses.’ When they came, nobody had lived there for years. (What were the Jews doing–holding it for speculative purposes?)
Anyhow, the philistines move in, and I guess the Jews change their minds, come back, and–with no written contract or any other proof–just start killing people with slings. Slaughtered becvause they had the audacity to settle on some vacant land that some people thought had been given to them a generation before by a voice in the sky.The land market hasn’t changed much around the world since then–maybe partly because people have believed this disgusting story.
So, yeah, I hope it’s false, and I’d think anybody sympathetic to Jews would too, since the story makes them look rapacious.
Oho.
No, we actually don’t. If that was really the case, nobody would ever change their mind on anything, and they certaintly wouldn’t start believing something they felt was depressing or otherwise emotionally unsettling or unwanted. Yet people do do that.
It might be true as a matter of generalization that people have an easier time accepting things they want to believe, and they have a harder time changing their minds towards beliefs they don’t like, yet that really does still happen. People do start to believe things they don’t want to believe.
No, that’s still circular. Simply defining it to be true is thus the act of making it circular. LOL. Welcome to logic 101.
I’m not anti-Christian.
I am anti-hypocrisy.
Many conservative Christians attack relativism, but are themselves relativist. The huge Evangelical vote for Trump at the last election was morally relativist.
You mean like in a race between Hillary and Satan some Christians would vote for Satan?
Don’t some of them think she IS satan?
I think all here, on every side of this discussion can agree that one of God’s personalities, Jesus, had a penis. And as far as anyone knows, he still has it, and since he’s eternal, it figures that he always had it.
Another of those personalities, the Holy Ghost, the one that impregnated Miriam, used something for that job. Some kind of tool bearing a spermatazoan containing haploid set of chromosomes with a Y among them . At some point, biology had to enter in, n’est ce pas? Otherwise, no zygote, no baby Jesus.
I guess Christians aren’t allowed to even think about, let alone ask such questions.
And don’t get me started on transubstantiation
Better the devil you know . . . .
I’m not defining it like that. That is the definition.
Saying that “God’s word is truth” It’s only circular if saying “scarlet is red” is circular. If words have any meaning scarlet is indeed red and God’s word is truth.
What would be actually circular is me claiming something like “Whatever is less dense than water will float, because such objects won’t sink in water”. And then not offering any support or explanation for the claim.
Do you see the difference?
Peace
Why?
IOW How do you know that?
Since we are speculating Why not something like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
It was a miracle after all.
In other words a extremely unlikely event with theological implications.
Parthenogenesis with any necessary accompanying mutations in a human would certainly be extremely unlikely but it has not been demonstrated to be impossible. Correct?
Heck, given enough time and the way evolution works it was bound to happen sometime.
peace
I’d go much further and say that “revelation” as a response to Agrippa’s Trilemma, which is how it’s being presented here, is sheer idiocy.
Those are desiderata of explanations, sure, but categories are something else. Categories are the most general sorts of concepts in a conceptual framework: concepts like “space,” “time,” “thing”, “property”, “cause”, “objective,” “physical”, “mental”.
Sure, I think there’s something like the intellectual love of God — the third kind of knowledge which intuits how each and every particular mode are rationally related to all other particular modes. At least at the emotional level, this is shat gets me out of bed and enthused about philosophy.
I just don’t think that this affective impulse to philosophize should be conflated with a rationally defensible account about the structure of reality. In that regard I’m actually rather something of a Carnapian — I prefer the metaphysical impulse expressed in its honest form, as music and art.
So until you afford a full mysticotomy, take two logical positivisms and call me in the morning.
Is simply calling something a “crock” and “idiocy” with out any support or argument a valid philosophical response in your worldview?
At the very least I would expect a short explanation of why this is the case along with an account of how you know you are correct.
This is especially true since everyone involved has conceded that God can reveal so that we can know.
But perhaps that is just me and argument by grammatical interjection is how it’s done in these parts. That would certainly explain the penis talk 😉
peace
TSZ is finally starting to go through puberty.
I’m not sure if I should bother but for the presuppositionialist each of the horns of the Trilemma are specifically and comprehensively and I think in the end convincingly addressed by three different but ultimately integrated perspectives on the part of the knower.
check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiperspectivalism
and
and perhaps
But perhaps it’s much better to simply label it all a crock
peace
Cool, then I welcome you to Rumraketism. I command you to buy and eat more chocolate.
The more I know about Rumraket the more (s)he sounds like just another name for the Christian God.
I’d like to know more about this fellow to make sure (s)he is the real thing and not a counterfeit but that would of course require revelation.
Until that revelation presents it’s self I will have to pass on any controversial commands (s)he might give.
peace
PS see how easy that was
I gave you the revelation, it’s right there on paper.