Fátima 'Miracle of the Sun'
A crowd at Fátima, Portugal reported the sun 'dancing' during a predicted Marian apparition.
1917 CE · 39.63, -8.67 · status: disputed
The account
Tens of thousands gathered after three shepherd children foretold a miracle. Many described the sun spinning and hurtling toward earth; others present saw nothing unusual.
The sceptical view
Proposed explanations include optical effects of staring at the sun, mass suggestion and meteorological phenomena.
The researched reading
A mass event with real witnesses and something real in the sky, most likely sun seen through thin cloud and the known effects of staring at it, amplified by expectation. The sun itself did nothing, as observatories elsewhere show.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 42% | Tens of thousands had come expecting a sign and many stared at the sun; physicist Auguste Meessen showed that staring at the sun produces afterimages, apparent spinning and colour changes as retinal cells bleach, and similar “sun miracles” are reported at many pilgrimage sites. Accounts vary widely and some present saw nothing, as suggestion predicts. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 24% | Rain had just stopped and thin cloud or mist made the sun a dull disc people could look at; drifting cloud, dust or ice crystals can make the disc seem to move and change colour, and witnesses up to 18 km away reported effects, which favours something in the sky over pure suggestion. |
| A cultural story | 18% | The event was framed by the children’s prediction and by the Church’s later approval (1930); later accounts were shaped by devotion and by anticlerical politics in 1917 Portugal. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 14% | The number of witnesses, including sceptical journalists, and the reported drying of wet clothes are not fully explained; but no observatory recorded any change in the sun, which rules out the sun itself moving. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 2% | The crowd’s reports were spontaneous and the anticlerical press (O Século) reported them too; no sign of staging. |
Official position: The Catholic Church declared the apparitions worthy of belief in 1930; no scientific body investigated at the time.
How the account grew
Three shepherd children's 1917 reports of a radiant Lady and the crowd's 'dancing sun' were approved by the Church in 1930. The angel visions, the vision of Hell, the predicted deaths and the three secrets entered the story only through Lúcia's memoirs written from 1935, and the third secret was published only in 2000.
| Year | Who | Added |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | Lúcia dos Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto | From 13 May a Lady 'brighter than the sun' appears monthly at the Cova da Iria, asks for the rosary and promises a miracle in October; the children also report a prophecy that the war would end on 13 October. |
| 1917 | Avelino de Almeida, O Século; Domingos Pinto Coelho | Tens of thousands see the sun whirl and seem to fall on 13 October; Coelho writes days later that he saw the same effects in Lisbon. No authentic photograph of the sun exists. |
| 1930 | Bishop José da Silva of Leiria | After a canonical inquiry the apparitions are declared 'worthy of belief'; two million pilgrims had visited in the decade since. |
| 1935 | Sister Lúcia, first memoirs (to 1941) | Angel visions in 1916, Mary's prediction that Francisco and Jacinta would die soon, and in 1941 three secrets including a vision of Hell and a request to consecrate Russia. (dropped: The early focus on the rosary and the end of the war gives way to secrets and prophecy.) |
| 1942 | The Vatican | Publishes the 'Message and Secret of Fátima' on the 25th anniversary; Pius XII consecrates the world, and Russia in 1952. |
| 1951 | Cardinal Federico Tedeschini | Tells a million pilgrims that Pius XII saw the sun miracle repeat in the Vatican gardens in 1950. |
| 1960 | The Vatican press office | Says it is 'most probable' the third secret will remain under absolute seal, though Lúcia was said to want it released by then; speculation ranges from nuclear war to rifts in the Church. |
| 1989 | Steuart Campbell, Journal of Meteorology; Sister Lúcia's letters (1989–90) | Campbell proposes stratospheric dust dimming the sun; Lúcia writes that the 1984 consecration fulfilled Mary's request, after a 1985 interview had said it did not. |
| 2000 | The Holy See | Publishes the four-page third secret on 26 June, linked to the 1981 attempt on John Paul II; in 2010 Benedict XVI says its meaning is broader. |
Connections in the atlas
- Apparitions at Ghiaie di Bonate
- Avelino de Almeida’s report in O Século
- ? What happened in the sky at Fátima?
- ▶ When the Virgin appeared
- Christianity
- Pius XII sees the sun spin
- Vatican publishes the Third Secret of Fátima
- Conyers apparitions
- Virgen del Pozo apparitions, Sabana Grande
- The Angel of Peace at Fátima
- The Miracle of Agoo
- Garabandal apparitions