On October 13, 1917, an estimated 70,000 people gathered in the Cova da Iria, a field near Fátima, Portugal, to witness a promised miracle. The event, which became known as the "Miracle of the Sun," was the culmination of a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported by three shepherd children: Lúcia dos Santos, age 10, and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages nine and seven.
The Apparitions and the Promise
Beginning in May 1917, the children claimed to have been visited by a luminous lady on the 13th of each month. During these apparitions, the lady, who identified herself as "the Lady of the Rosary," delivered messages of prayer, penance, and prophecies, which came to be known as the Three Secrets of Fátima. She promised that in October, she would perform a great miracle so that all would believe.
News of the apparitions spread, drawing increasingly larger crowds to the Cova da Iria. The children's claims were met with both belief and skepticism, and they faced scrutiny from secular and religious authorities. In August, the provincial administrator briefly took the children into custody, attempting to force them to recant their stories.
The Day of the Miracle
On the morning of October 13th, a heavy rain fell over the Cova da Iria, soaking the crowd and turning the field to mud. At solar noon, the time of the expected apparition, Lúcia called out for everyone to look at the sun.
According to numerous eyewitness accounts, the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and a strange, silvery disc, less brilliant than the sun, appeared in the sky. It was possible to look directly at this "sun" without discomfort.
What followed was a series of extraordinary phenomena that lasted for about ten minutes. Eyewitnesses, including journalists and skeptics who had come to debunk the children's claims, described the "sun" as "dancing" or "trembling." It reportedly spun rapidly on its axis, casting multicolored rays of light—yellow, green, red, blue, and purple—across the landscape and the crowd.
The most dramatic moment occurred when the sun appeared to detach from the sky and plummet toward the earth in a zigzagging motion. Many in the crowd believed it was the end of the world and fell to their knees in terror, confessing their sins. Then, just as suddenly as it had fallen, the sun returned to its normal position in the sky.
After the event, many people in the crowd, who had been drenched by the earlier rain, found that their clothes and the ground around them were completely dry.
Eyewitness Accounts
The Miracle of the Sun was documented by Avelino de Almeida, the chief editor of the anti-clerical Lisbon newspaper O Século, who had come to report on what he expected to be a failure. He wrote: "Before the astonished eyes of the people...the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws—the sun 'danced' according to the typical expression of the people."
Another witness, José Maria de Almeida Garrett, a professor at the Faculty of Sciences of Coimbra, described the event in detail, noting the sun's "giddy motion" and the changing colors of the atmosphere. He emphasized that he observed the phenomena in a "calm and serene state of mind without any emotional disturbance."
The Message of Fátima
The Miracle of the Sun served as a powerful confirmation of the children's apparitions for believers. The core of the Fátima message, as conveyed by the "Lady of the Rosary," was a call to prayer, particularly the Rosary, for the conversion of sinners and for world peace. The messages also included a vision of hell, a prophecy of the end of World War I and the beginning of a worse war, and a request for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Skeptical explanations.
Psychological and Sociological Factors
The most common skeptical explanation centers on mass suggestion and collective hysteria.
Expectation: The crowd of ~70,000 people's expectation of seeing a divinely-sent miracle, a promise that had been building for months.
Emotional Priming: The event took place in a highly charged religious atmosphere. People were praying, singing, and emotionally invested.
Trigger and Reinforcement: When Lúcia, a figure of authority in that context, pointed to the sky and shouted to look at the sun, it acted as a trigger.
Optical and Physiological Effects
This explanation focuses on what happens to the human eye when it stares at the sun. ☀️
Retinal Distortion: Staring directly at the sun, even through clouds, can cause temporary retinal damage and distortion. The afterimages, phosphenes (seeing light without light entering the eye), and fatigue of the retinal muscles can create the illusion that the sun is "dancing," "spinning," or changing color.
Chromatic Aberration: As the retina becomes overstimulated and bleached by the bright light, a person's color perception can be temporarily altered, potentially explaining the multicolored light that many witnesses reported.
Natural Meteorological Phenomena
Some investigators have proposed that a specific, rare atmospheric event occurred, which the crowd then interpreted as a miracle.
Sun Dog (Parhelion): This is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun. Sun dogs are caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere and can display various colors. A particularly vivid or unusual parhelic display could have been misinterpreted.
Dust or Ice Crystals: A cloud of stratospheric dust (perhaps from a volcano) or ice crystals could have refracted the sunlight in an unusual way, making it appear to dim, change color, and be surrounded by a corona.
Lenticular Clouds: These stationary, lens-shaped clouds can form at high altitudes and have an unusual, sometimes luminous appearance that could have contributed to the strange visual effects.
The Drying Clothes
The claim that the crowd's wet clothes and the muddy ground dried instantly is one of the most difficult elements to explain from a scientific perspective. Skeptics often attribute this to:
Exaggeration: A detail that was embellished and grew in the telling and retelling of the story.
Misperception: The warmth of the sun breaking through the clouds after a long rain, combined with the body heat of 70,000 people packed together, could have produced a significant amount of warmth and steam, giving the sensation of rapid drying that was later remembered as instantaneous.
The "Miracle of the Sun" aligns more closely with a modern UFO sighting than with a supernatural or meteorological phenomenon.
This explanation posits that the "Lady" seen by the children was an extraterrestrial being and the "Miracle of the Sun" was a demonstration of advanced aerial technology.
Core Arguments for a UFO Explanation
Proponents of this theory dissect the eyewitness accounts and highlight elements that resonate with 20th and 21st-century UFO reports.
Description of the Object: Many witnesses did not describe the actual sun misbehaving, but rather a "silvery disc" or a "dull silver disc" that was "less brilliant than the sun" and could be looked at directly. This is frequently interpreted as a classic description of a metallic, disc-shaped UFO, or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP), that positioned itself between the crowd and the sun.
"Intelligent" and "Controlled" Movement: The object's reported behavior—"dancing," "trembling," spinning rapidly, and making "sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws"—is seen as evidence of controlled, intelligent flight rather than a natural occurrence. The final "plummeting" or "zigzagging" motion towards the earth is compared to the falling leaf or pendulum-like movements described in many UFO encounters.
Physical Effects and Energy Emission:
Multicolored Lights: The casting of multicolored rays (blue, yellow, purple) over the crowd is interpreted as a light display from a technological craft, possibly as a byproduct of its propulsion system.
Heat and Drying Effect: The sudden drying of the rain-soaked ground and clothing is attributed to the emission of a powerful wave of energy, possibly thermal or microwave radiation, from the craft. This is considered evidence of a physical, technological process beyond simple sunlight.
The "Apparitions" as Alien Contact: The "Lady" is reinterpreted as a humanoid alien. Proponents note that she appeared luminous, did not touch the ground (hovering above a small tree), and delivered complex messages and prophecies (the "Three Secrets") to the children, which is framed as a form of contact or communication. The children were essentially treated as "contactees."
Key Proponents and Publications
Jacques Vallée: A prominent astrophysicist and UFO researcher, Vallée explored the Fátima event in his books, notably Dimensions and Wonders in the Sky. He argued that the phenomenon was a "demonstration" meant to influence human belief systems, fitting a pattern of UFO encounters throughout history that seem to manipulate witnesses psychologically and culturally. He famously classified it as a "religious UFO" event.
Fernand and Julien Mendès: In their book The Fatima Apparitions and the UFO Phenomenon, they analyze the witness testimonies in detail, concluding that the event was a carefully staged demonstration by extraterrestrials.
In essence, the UFO explanation reframes the entire sequence of events at Fátima: the apparitions were a form of alien contact, the prophecies were imparted information, and the final miracle was a public display of advanced technology, likely intended to be interpreted in a religious context by the 1917 populace to embed a lasting message within human culture.