On the 108th anniversary of the “miracle” of the sun at Fatima and its documentation by anticlerical witnesses. A phenomenon that challenges all skeptical explanations.

---

 

Today marks the 108th anniversary of the “miracle” of the sun of Fatima.

First, a clarification: the Church recognizes the truthfulness of the visions of the three young seers of Fatima but there has never been an official recognition of the solar phenomenon that was observed at the Cova da Iria.

 

The miracle of the sun challenges skeptical explanations

An event that nonetheless surprises greatly and that puts in crisis any attempt at a skeptical explanation. We in fact find some important elements:

1. The phenomenon was predicted several days in advance;
2. The phenomenon was observed by thousands of people;
3. The phenomenon was observed and described by sceptics and anticlericals of the time;
4. The phenomenon was not observed by everyone present;

A contemporary skeptic should therefore try to explain the “miracle” of the sun in a natural and alternative way taking into account at least these four indisputable truths.

Yet, predictably, all the naturalistic theories proposed are forced to remove one of the elements in order to remain standing.

We have, for example, the thesis of the paranormal investigator Joe Nickell, who dismissed the event as a temporary distortion of the image on the retina, caused by prolonged exposure to sunlight, which can produce the illusion of motion.

An explanation that however fails to explain why many of those who gathered that day, largely believers, testified that they saw absolutely nothing despite straining to stare at the sun conditioned by the enthusiasm around them (among them the photographer accompanying the reporter of O’Seculo).

Moving to naturalistic explanations from believers, Father Szaniszló Jaki hypothesized that the cause was the sudden meteorological change (from clouds to sun) that created an “air lens” of ice crystals which, moved by currents, would have simulated a “dance” of the sun.

This version also conflicts with point 4) and makes even more unusual the ability of the three young seers to predict in advance an unusual meteorological phenomenon, so much so that it gathered an immense crowd waiting for a prodigious event. Unusual yes, but it occurred other times, both before and after that day without generating particular astonishment.

Finally, there are those who take refuge in the standard explanation of collective hallucination.

Even in this case the thesis is forced to avoid that not all witnesses were believers and that not everyone saw it. Moreover, the scientific literature, in the very few confirmed cases of collective hallucination, has always linked them to hysteria, a clear psychopathological disorder impossible to diagnose in the thousands of people present at the site.

 

The anticlerical journalist documented the event

But let the facts speak.

On May 13, 1917 three shepherd children of Fatima, Francisco and Jacinta Marto (9 and 7 years old) and their cousin Lúcia dos Santos (10 years old), had the first of six Marian apparitions, reporting that the Virgin had promised them a prodigious event for October 13, 1917, on the occasion of the last apparition.

Thus on that date an estimated crowd of between 30,000 and 100,000 people (discordant accounts) went to the Cova de Iria and witnessed the “miracle of the sun” of Fatima.

According to contemporary reports, collected by Catholic newspapers and by secular and even anticlerical outlets such as O Século and Diário de Notícias, the sun seemed to oscillate in the sky, change color and approach the Earth, without spectators reporting eye damage.

The magnitude of the phenomenon was such as to convince even critical observers from the press to document the event, confirming its extraordinariness.

Among them Avelino de Almeida, editor-in-chief of “O Sèculo”, a socialist Lisbon daily of positivist and anticlerical orientation, who had previously ridiculed the events of Fatima several times. He went to the site precisely to document the lies of the three children and put an end to that story.

And yet, two days later, he published a front-page article entitled: “Phenomenal things! How the sun danced at noon in Fatima”.

The anticlerical journalist notes that «one witnesses a unique and incredible spectacle for those who were not witnesses of it». At a precise moment in the morning, he saw the whole «immense multitude turn toward the sun, which reveals itself free from the clouds, at the zenith».

He himself became an eyewitness: «The star looks like a disc of dark silver and it is possible to stare at it without the slightest effort. It does not burn, it does not blind. One might say an eclipse is taking place». Shortly thereafter, he adds, «the sun trembled and had sudden movements never seen before outside all cosmic laws, the sun “danced”»¹A. de Almeida, “O Século”, 15 Oct. 1917.

 

The secret testimony of Pius XII

Few also know that on October 30, 1950, shortly before the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, Pope Pius XII personally testified to a similar phenomenon in the Vatican gardens.

In a handwritten note, emerged from the archives of the Pacelli family, the sun is described as an opaque yellowish globe surrounded by a luminous halo, which moved with rotations and displacements similar to those observed at Fatima. The secret note, terse and almost notarial, reveals that the Pontiff did not seek any sensationalism, but recorded with rigor what he had seen.

Pius XII attested that he had witnessed the same phenomenon the following day, October 31, and also on November 1, on the day of the definition of the dogma of the Assumption. And then again on November 8. Then no more, although he had tried «several times» on other days, at the same hour and in similar atmospheric conditions, «to look at the sun to see if the same phenomenon appeared, but in vain; I could not fix it even for an instant, my sight was immediately dazzled».

 

Returning to October 13, 1917, the convergence of such heterogeneous testimonies makes the case of the “miracle” of the sun of Fatima a unicum in the history of twentieth-century reporting.

An extraordinary event that was predicted days in advance, witnessed by thousands of people and documented by observers with opposing ideological motivations.