Case file · Apparition / miracle
'Light from the Holy Mother' at Sheshan
In October 1979 Catholics flocked to the Sheshan Basilica near Shanghai to see a glow they called the 'light radiating from the Holy Mother'.
1979 CE · 31.10, 121.19 · status: explained
The account
Sheshan has been China's main Marian shrine since French Jesuits built the first church in the 1860s; China was consecrated to Mary there in 1924. The 1979 crowds came just as religious life began to reopen after the Cultural Revolution.
The sceptical view
Investigators traced the glow to reflections from the windows of the nearby observatory and the basilica's glazed roof tiles. A January 1980 article debunking it only drew more pilgrims.