Fátima and the Miracle of the Sun
The account
Before a vast crowd, the sun reportedly spun, changed color and seemed to plunge toward the earth.
What investigators found
No observatory recorded any change in the sun; scholars point to the optical effects of staring at the sun and collective suggestion.
The story
Between May and October 1917, three young shepherd children, Lúcia, Francisco and Jacinta, said they had seen the Virgin Mary at the Cova da Iria, near Fátima. They announced that a sign would come on October 13. On that day, tens of thousands of people gathered in the rain reported seeing the sun tremble, spin and change color. The Catholic Church recognized the apparitions in 1930, and Fátima became one of the largest shrines in the world.
Decades later, Portuguese UFO researchers began rereading the testimonies as a possible unidentified aerial phenomenon, an interpretation the Church does not accept. For science, there is no astronomical record of any change in the sun. The proposed explanations include effects on the vision of people staring directly at the sun, atmospheric phenomena and the intense expectation of the crowd. For the faithful, it remains a sign of faith.