The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima

A Field Full of People, Looking Up

The morning of 13 October 1917 was wet. Pilgrims stood in mud and standing water at Cova da Iria, a field outside the Portuguese village of Fatima, in a crowd that later estimates put anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000 people^3,4,5. They were there because three shepherd children had said, months earlier, that a woman they called the Lady had promised a sign on this date, one so plain that "all may believe"^1,2. Umbrellas, rosaries, and religious images filled the field, and newspapers in Lisbon had carried word of the promise far beyond the village^3,8.

Something happened around midday, after the children said the Lady appeared to them one last time. Lucia dos Santos, ten years old, exclaimed and pointed at the sun, and the crowd turned its eyes upward together⁶. What came next is reported in dozens of accounts, and almost none of them agree on the details.

To understand how a muddy field ended up full of tens of thousands of people staring at the sky, it helps to go back further. In the spring of 1916, the children, Lucia and her younger cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, said an angel had appeared to them three times near Aljustrel, where they tended sheep^1,9. The following spring, on 13 May 1917, they said a woman "more brilliant than the sun" appeared to them at Cova da Iria and told them to return on the 13th of each month for six months^1,9.

The apparitions that followed built toward October. In June, Lucia later said, the Lady told her she would live longer than her cousins to spread devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary¹. In July, the children reported a vision of hell and a set of messages that became known as the Secret of Fatima, along with the Lady's promise that in October she would reveal her identity and perform a miracle^2,10. Word of the prediction spread through Portuguese newspapers, and pilgrims began arriving at Fatima and the nearby hamlet of Aljustrel well before the appointed date^9,8.

That spread of attention did not sit well with everyone. On 13 August, Artur de Oliveira Santos, the civil administrator of the municipality that included Fatima, detained the three children before they could reach Cova da Iria, reportedly pressing them to reveal the July secret^1,2. No apparition occurred at the usual site that day. Lucia later said the Lady appeared instead six days later, on 19 August, at a nearby spot called Valinhos, after the children's release^1,2. By September, the roads to Cova da Iria were, in Lucia's words, "packed with people"¹.

Back in the field on 13 October, the Lady reportedly identified herself to the children as Our Lady of the Rosary and asked that a chapel be built at the site^1,2,11. Then came the moment witnesses describe in such different terms. Some said the sun spun like a wheel of fire; one witness, Francisco Ferreira Rosa, told BBC Newsnight in 1992 that "the Sun started spinning faster and faster like a wheel of fire," and described what looked like flowers falling from the sky³. Others reported the sun changing color, zigzagging, or appearing to plunge toward the earth before swinging back into place, and some said clothing and ground that had been soaked by rain turned suddenly dry^4,3,5. Journalist Avelino de Almeida, writing for the Lisbon paper O Século, published an account headlined "Terrifying event! How the Sun danced at midday in the sky at Fatima," a notable report because it came from a secular, non-clerical newspaper rather than a religious one^3,12.

Not everyone saw the same thing, and some saw nothing at all. Contemporary and later collections of testimony, including interviews gathered by the priest John De Marchi between 1943 and 1950, found witnesses who reported only unusual colors, witnesses who said they saw the Virgin Mary herself, and witnesses who insisted nothing out of the ordinary happened^4,5. No scientific instrument recorded the sun moving, and no observer anywhere else on earth, where the same sun was visible, reported anything unusual that day⁶. A photograph long circulated as an image of the event was later determined to have been taken roughly eight years afterward, in a different Portuguese town, of a different phenomenon⁴. Even among the three children, the experience was not uniform: Francisco later said he could see the Lady but could not hear her, while only Lucia conversed with her directly^13,14.

The crowd that had come to Cova da Iria for a promised miracle left having witnessed, by most accounts, something, though no two tellings of that something quite match. In the years after, the Catholic Church took up the question formally. The Bishop of Leiria opened an investigation and in 1930 declared the apparitions "worthy of belief," permitting official devotion to Our Lady of Fatima^1,4. Francisco and Jacinta Marto died of influenza in 1919 and 1920, within a few years of the event; Lucia lived until 2005, becoming the principal keeper of the Fatima story for the rest of her life, and in 2017 Francisco and Jacinta were canonized by Pope Francis^4,7.

Who Was There

• Lucia dos Santos: the eldest of the three children, age 10 in 1917; the only one who said she spoke directly with the Lady, and later the principal narrator of the apparitions through her written memoirs^13,9.
• Francisco Marto: Lucia's cousin, age 9; said he could see the Lady but not hear her speak; died of influenza in 1919^13,7.
• Jacinta Marto: Francisco's younger sister, age 7; died of influenza in 1920^9,7.
• Artur de Oliveira Santos: civil administrator who detained the children on 13 August 1917, reportedly to pressure them into revealing their secret^1,2.
• Avelino de Almeida: journalist for the secular Lisbon newspaper O Século, whose contemporary account of the 13 October crowd and its reactions became a key historical source^3,12.
• Jose Alves Correia da Silva: Bishop of Leiria, who opened the Church's investigation and declared the apparitions "worthy of belief" in 1930^1,9.

By the Numbers

• 1916: year the children first reported appearances of an angel, before any apparitions of the Lady¹.
• 13 May 1917: date of the first reported apparition at Cova da Iria^1,9.
• 13 August 1917: date the children were detained, preventing that month's apparition at the usual site^1,2.
• 30,000 to 100,000: range of crowd estimates for 13 October 1917, with no reliable census taken^3,4,5.
• ~10 minutes: commonly cited duration of the reported solar phenomenon^4,6.
• 1930: year the Catholic Church declared the apparitions "worthy of belief"^1,4.
• 2017: year Francisco and Jacinta Marto were canonized by Pope Francis^4,7.

What's Disputed

The crowd size is one of the most unsettled points. Almeida estimated roughly 30,000 to 40,000 at the time, while Coimbra science professor Jose Maria de Almeida Garrett put the figure closer to 100,000, and later retellings commonly settle on a rounded 70,000^3,4,5.

What people actually saw also varies by account. Descriptions range from a spinning, color-changing disk to a sun that appeared to zigzag or fall toward earth, while other witnesses reported only unusual colors, and some reported seeing nothing unusual at all^4,5,6.

Skeptical explanations include retinal fatigue from sun-gazing, afterimage and stroboscopic effects studied by physicist Auguste Meessen, and the possibility of a parhelion, or sun dog, though critics note that parhelia do not typically appear to move or plunge the way witnesses described^15,6. A photograph long presented as documenting the event was later identified as taken years later, elsewhere, of an unrelated phenomenon⁴. No evidence of a volcanic eruption or stratospheric dust event in 1917 has surfaced to support an atmospheric explanation, and no instrument or observer outside Fatima recorded the sun itself moving^15,6.

Timeline

1. 1916The three children report seeing an angel three times near Fatima.
2. 13 May 1917First reported apparition of the Lady at Cova da Iria.
3. 13 July 1917Children report the Lady's promise of a sign in October and the content later called the Secret of Fatima.
4. 13 August 1917Children detained by civil administrator Artur de Oliveira Santos; no apparition occurs at Cova da Iria.
5. 19 August 1917Children report an apparition at Valinhos after their release.
6. 13 September 1917Growing crowds gather at Cova da Iria ahead of the promised October sign.
7. 13 October 1917Large crowd gathers at Cova da Iria; witnesses report the sun appearing to spin, change color, or fall toward earth.
8. 1930Bishop of Leiria declares the apparitions 'worthy of belief.'
9. 1919-1920Francisco and Jacinta Marto die of influenza.
10. 2017Pope Francis canonizes Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

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