The Lady from Heaven
Friday March 7, 2008 8:26 AM
The sky was clear near the Cova da Iria on the afternoon of May 13, 1917. The Portugeuse countryside was idyllic. Then there was a flash in the sky and a figure appeared. The figure was a woman robed in white and, in the words of one witness, she was "radiating a light more clear and intense than a crystal cup filled with sparkling water, lit by burning sunlight." Over the next six months, the figure would appear, often just after the sky flashed as if with lightning. She would depart by rising into the sky. That was where she was from, after all.
The lady, witnessed first by three children ranging between the ages of seven and ten, was identified as none other than the Virgin Mary. The apparitions, which took place on the thirteenth day of the month from May to October, were eventually witnessed by thousands. Beyond the rural village of Fatima in Portugal, Europe was torn asunder by the violence and bloodshed of the First World War. And according to the children, the Virgin had appeared to help the world repair its ways and seek peace.
When the Lady of Fatima first appeared to young Lucia dos Santos and her two younger cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, they already knew that she must be from Heaven. In the spring of the previous year, an angel had appeared to them three times. Like the benevolent Lady, he, too, had been clothed in shining robes and he possessed a dazzling beauty that words could not easily express.
Given the youth of the first three witnesses, villagers and local authorities were skeptical of their claims. When the appearances of the Virgin at Fatima had gained national attention, secular newspapers like O Seculo wrote satirically of the visions, strongly criticizing the whole phenomenon. Reporter Avelino de Almedia, one of the authors of the critical articles that had appeared in O Seculo would later change his tune. Along with thousands of others, he had traveled to the site of the appearances on the date of the final appearance, October 13, 1917. The day was beset by a terrible storm, and by the time that the crowd had gathered near the old holmoak tree where the Virgin typically appeared, everyone was bedraggled and soaked. The children were undaunted and prayed for their Lady to appear. The appearance of the Lady before so many witnesses was not the greatest miracle of that day. Mary had promised to show the spectators something amazing that would earn their faith, and, from the accounts of hundreds of people, she delivered on that promise.
The event is known as the Miracle of the Sun. According to witnesses, the leaden clouds suddenly parted, and the sun seemed to appear like a dull gray disc in the sky. This disc began the shift and dance, throwing colors and whirling like a Catherine's wheel. The crowd panicked as the very sun seemed to descend from the heavens, and its heat dried their wet and muddy clothes in the space of 10 minutes. When this whirling disc of colored light that witnesses identified with the sun was finished with its display, it returned to the heavens, as did the Lady of Fatima herself. Witnesses at a distance saw something in the sky as the clouds parted, and their testimonies have been said to argue against the notion of mass delusion.
Only a very few researchers have dared to suggest the other alternative explanation to the Fatima appearances: alien contact. In a flash of light, a figure appears, and she herself glows with unearthly light. She bathes the children in rays of light from her hands, and they are overcome with feelings of peace. And the mysterious disc in the sky, so immense that it could only be mistaken for the sun, is unaccountably the dull gray of metal, bright, but certainly not brilliant like the sun. It further behaves in a manner very unlike any true heavenly body — but a flying saucer could certainly dip down close enough to the crowd to dry them with its radiant heat.
Were the appearances at Fatima truly miraculous visions of the Virgin? Or could the appearances be explained through contact with an advanced race, as race that understood enough of our human limitations to allow spectators to interpret such advanced beings as connected with God? Whatever the true nature of the visions, many of the prophecies handed down at Fatima later came true. Some were considered so earth-shattering that they were only revealed to the public as recently as 2000. True to the Virgin's word, the siblings Jacinta and Francisco died young, only after much suffering. Lucia lived to a ripe old age, keeping the secret prophecies and devoting her life to the service of the being who had singled her out for such revelations in her youth.
