In FT205, I reviewed Heavenly Lights, the first volume of the authors’ projected series of three about the famous visions of angels and the Virgin Mary at Fátima, in Portugal, in 1917. It is their thesis (based on considerable academic hindsight and research) that the apparition events and the ripples of paranormal phenomena that preceded them and spread out from them should be viewed more as a profound contact with a truly alien phenomenon in a ufological context, rather than with hypothetical Christian entities in a religious context.

	The apparition series seems to have been predicted by two different psychic groups

As I noted earlier, the five main apparition events – on the 13th of each month between May and October 1917 – had far-reaching consequences for the Catholic community. They established a kind of template for many of the great vision events since then (including the ‘essential’ phenomenon of the “sun dancing in the sky”). They inspired popular followings world-wide, entrenched in a belief of miracles, prophecy and conspiracy theories. They played a significant part in the thoughts and acts of Pope John Paul II, who made several pilgrimages to the Fátima shrine, and in the work of his successor, Pope Benedict, who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, presided over aspects of the canonisation of the child-visionaries of Fátima and the ‘official’ reactions to the so-called prophetic ‘Third Secret’. Lastly, they held an abiding fascination for ufologists and folklorists who saw it as a remarkable ‘cross-over’ event between the veneration of the Virgin Mary, contemporary belief, and contactee ufology.

It is all the more surprising, then, that such a formative event in the psychological and cultural history of the modern world has gone relatively unstudied… until now. Dr Fernandes and Ms D’Armada – Portuguese historians who spent six years examining original depositions and interviews with the principal seers and witnesses – have expanded their earlier work in the subject. Translated from the Portuguese by Alexandra Bruce and edited by Andrew Basiago, with a foreword by Jim Marrs, these volumes are the first direct and detailed history of the Fátima events.

During the initial vision – on 13 May, 1917 – the three young visionaries were tending sheep on a hillside when they saw a flash of light over an oak tree. Fearing the onset of a storm, they gathered the sheep and then became aware of a lady by the tree. She was “shining white, brighter than the sun”. According to the children, the ‘shining lady’ made many predictions, including the early deaths of Jacinta and Francisco. She also promised to reveal her identity and a final miracle (the so-called ‘solar miracle’ of 13 October) and the authors deliver much more detail on all of these aspects Much of it is fresh information, genuinely surprising, and far-reaching in its implications for our studies.

While the first volume concentrated on the phenomenology surrounding the apparition events and established their parallels to major UFO-contact cases, this volume focuses on the evidence of conspiracy within the Catholic hierarchy – and the Jesuits in particular – to suppress the extensive archive of original investigations, eye-witness testimony and interviews. Why should the Catholic authorities do this? The authors are clear on the answer, which has to do with the great difficulty the Jesuits had in accepting the distinctly non-religious context of the original visions, not of the Virgin Mary, nor even of angels, but of curious, diminutive, glowing humanoids. When the earliest accounts are studied, even the details in everyday village conversations are noticeably devoid of religious baggage. For example, when Joaquina Vieira, a grocer in Leiria, the town nearest the vision site, met Lúcia (the main seer) shortly after the first vision, she called out: “Hey, Lúcia, what did you see?” “I saw a lady,” came the reply. “What did you ask her?” “I asked her who she was.” “And what did she reply?” asked Vieira. “She pointed to the sky,” said Lúcia. Under the Jesuit influence, that became a reference to Heaven, reinforcing the notion that the “shining lady” could only be the Virgin Mary. The first big surprise comes in the first chapter, devoted to the evidence that the apparition series seems to have been predicted – twice, the first by three months and the second by two days – by two different psychic groups. Both of these were published in the Portuguese press and both correctly announced the date. The authors found no evidence of collusion between the groups and no evidence of hoaxing – in fact, they also disprove the suggestion that the Catholic Church would have benefited from such an imposture. In both cases the “sensational revelations” about a great event “of great transcendence and great consequences” (as the latter prediction had it) were thought to have come from ‘somewhere else’, possibly beings on an ‘Astral Plane’.

Needless to say, the Jesuits shaped later ‘official’ accounts so that their great event would not be tainted by such spiritualism. The chapter goes on to evaluate this in the light of other alleged prophecies in the context of UFO and Marian contactee experiences.

The second chapter is a fascinating geomantic exploration of the landscape and history of the region around Fátima. It reminds me of Paul Devereux’s 1975 survey of Leicestershire in FT11 and FT12, as both included tectonic faults and earth lights along with a good range of fortean material.

Chapter three concentrates on the ‘pre-apparitional’ experiences of the four young visionaries and other percipients. It seems that when the original statements are examined, no two saw exactly the same thing; for instance, Lúcia apparently conversed easily with the Lady in Portuguese, while Francisco saw the Lady’s lips move but did not hear a thing. In November 1917, Lúcia was interviewed by Canon Formigão, one of her earliest contacts with a senior member of the Church, who was interested in Lúcia’s claim to have seen, while in the company of others, an apparition in the Cova da Iria area three times in the previous year (1915–16). The figure – “like a person shrouded by a sheet” – hovered in the air above a tree each time. It did not say anything and Lúcia was adamant it was not the Virgin or an angel. The Canon closed his account with: “Faced with statements that were so vague that they might compromise the admirable work, which had already been undertaken with regard to the Apparitions of the Most Holy Virgin, I counselled Lúcia to be silent about this matter and did not seek any more information about the circumstances.”

In other words: “Hush, girl! Don’t rock the boat!”

In a later account, Lúcia describes the figure as nearly translucent, “like a statue made of snow”. Describing the second apparition, Lúcia likens it to a young boy of “incredible beauty” and it’s clear that she, by this time, has succumbed to using the phrases of her inquisitors, calling him an “Angel of Peace”. Official accounts inflated that to ‘Angel of Portugal’. Here, too, the authors detail the strange effects accompanying these visions – the unusual wind, the strangely subdued and silent sheep, the sense of suspended time, a shining light, their exultant feelings, and their ‘paralysis’ after their rapture.

Oddest of all was a private form of Communion as the ‘angel’ offered to Lúcia a host dripping with blood, and to Jacinta and Francisco a chalice of blood. The authors point out that, doctrinally, Communion “is forbidden for anyone, even an angel, to give [..] to children who [have not been] prepared to receive it.” Another topic worthy of suppression as the cult of Fátima rapidly snowballed.

Chapter four concerns the ‘fourth’ visionary – Carolina Carreira, who was 12 at the time – who lived in relative anonymity until she gave a statement to our authors in 1978. In the company of a younger girl, she too saw a small, shining figure hovering over the oak tree in Cova da Iria in 1917, and heard a voice inside her, compelling her to pray. Her angel had blonde hair and was about the size of a 10-year-old child. She refers to it as an “image”, seemingly meaning like a statue or painting. The authors compare the accounts with others of “telepathic little humanoids” from ufological literature.

The two chapters that comprise part two deal in greater detail with the unusual physical and other phenomena, including the ‘cures’ and ‘unknown energies’ at Fátima and other vision and UFO encounters. Part three contains three chapters exploring the so-called prophetic ‘secrets’, and how Lúcia was censored and her accounts manipulated over the years. In particular, the closing three chapters dissect the role, methods and influence of the Jesuits in disseminating the cult of Fátima, the legend of the BVM apparitions and the suppression of disagreeable testimony.

I feel this is such an important archive that I would be remiss if I did not draw your attention to it. Read it with an open mind and apply its data and analysis to all you already know about claimed contact with aliens, fairies, demons, angels and gods and I’d be surprised if you didn’t find it all more mysterious than before.

I wonder what the sceptics’ reaction will be. A different point of view will surely be welcome, especially if it can be as considered as the patient work of Dr Fernandes and Ms D’Armada.