THE MIRACLE OF THE SUN AT FATIMA IS CLAIMED TO BE AN ILLUSION
At Fatima 1917, three children reported a series of visions of Mary. Of course nobody else could see her. At the end of the last apparition, Lucia shouted for the crowd of thousands to look at the sun. The most exaggerated miracle of all time was then reported. The sun was supposed to have moved and changed colours. Science of course noted nothing out of the ordinary. Only a handful of accounts exist which is too strange. A lot of people reported seeing nothing at all.
An illusion?
Fr Manuel Pereira da Silva wrote that the sun seemed to have come down to the height of the clouds and began to whirl. The people looked yellow. But if you look up at the sun and pretend you don’t know how high it is it looks as if it is as high as the clouds. And looking at the sun would make it seem to whirl especially when it is a scary thing to look at for we all know what harm it can do to your eyes. The people looked jaundiced because you cannot see colours right if you have just been looking at an excessively bright light.
An account in a newspaper, Ordem, mentioned the sun changing colours and whirling. That can be explained by looking at something too bright for you. It would do strange things to the eyes. The heat mentioned at the time of the miracle was caused by excitement.
Dr Almeida Garret who witnessed the miracle did not agree with the people who said the sun turned a dull silver. He remarked how the sun could be looked at without pain but sometimes that can be done. It is easy when you are excited and anxious to see the paranormal before your very eyes. If you want to fire walk, you won't even feel the heat when the desire takes over and you parade across the coals. Same effect.
Because some people reported seeing something happening over Fatima miles away that day, researches sometimes conclude that mass hysteria cannot account for the miracle of the Sun. Were these witnesses telling the truth? It is curious that they didn’t report anything happening to the sun but strange occurrences in the clouds and sky above Fatima. What they saw doesn’t match what the witnesses at Fatima saw that day.
The people at the Cova knew that the children stared into space with few blinks to see their vision which was the traditional practice. When two or more people stare at a strong light source they will be subjected to illusions and different colours and the light changing shape and seeming to come towards them or go away from them. Try it and see. You can make a room seem to fill up with light and colour and things seem to move simply by staring fixedly at the one spot. Many of the people in the crowd wanted to see a vision and they would have stared deliberately and perhaps in eagerness to see something and the illusion started.
Garret said that the clouds seemed to pass behind the sun. But then the miracle of the sun was deceptive for there is no evidence that the sun moved that day except in the eyes of the people. Science can prove that it did not move. Would God do such a dishonest miracle? When the best ever miracle implies that God is a trickster the rest can’t be reliable at all. Some of the people thought the sun was coming at them which scared them witless and could have prevented them from thinking straight. If there had been no miracle they would have imagined there had been. If a layer of clouds obscures the sun the sun can look pearly. Clouds look pearly. The light could be bright enough to make it look like the clouds are moving behind it and not in front. People do not normally look at the sun so don’t be surprised if these explanations seem too simple to be true.
When one analyzes many of the alleged miracles that accompany Marian apparitions, they seem to be of a different kind than those found in Scripture. This is true of biblical miracles as a whole, as well as the miracles in Jesus' public ministry. When did Jesus ever make the sun dance or crosses spin? All of His miracles were done in the context of ministry. Biblical miracles had a strong practical aspect. Many of the miracles associated with Marian apparitions seem dramatic and sensational; attention-getting if you will -- the kind of miracles that Jesus consistently refused to perform (Matt. 12:38-39). This is a good reason to at least suspect the source of these miracles.